Association of Polish Knights of Malta UK
Obituary
Dr Andrew Meeson
Wartime Polish émigré who became a London GP and who was honoured by his native land.
Dr Andrew Meeson, who died aged 76, escaped Nazi-occupied Poland and Soviet occupied Hungary as a child to find refuge in Britain, where he became a general practitioner of the old school. As an émigré he remained involved with the Polish wartime refugees and successfully campaigned for the erection of a memorial to Polish forces who fought with the Allies during the war.
Andrzej Jankowski was born in Warsaw in 1935 preceded by his identical twin brother, Bohdan. The boys were brought up in very comfortable circumstances looked after by a nanny.
The invasion of Poland by Germany on September 1st 1939 brought an end to this comfortable childhood. Their father, Stanislaw, had been called up and their mother, Zofia, caught between advancing fronts when the Soviet Union invaded from the east on September 17th, found refuge in Hungary. The young twins were sent to stay with their grandparents in Rowno, Poland.
Zofia had fled alone to Hungary where she made contact with the government of Admiral Horthy. In 1942, Zofia’s connections enabled her to be reunited with her sons in Budapest, where the family lived incognito in a large villa with a secret radio transmitter hidden in the house. Admiral Horthy had by then sided with the Axis powers. Zofia had become involved with British Intelligence, liaising with those in Horthy’s administration negotiating with the Allies. Horthy steered a nervous course between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In March 1944 German troops occupied Hungary, forestalling any such allegiance. Zofia was on the wanted list. The boys, when out, would often be disguised as girls because the Nazis were looking for a woman with two sons. Occasionally she would dress as a nun.
After the war Zofia was awarded the British Empire Medal for her courage. When the Red Army entered Budapest in early 1945 Zofia was warned by a Russian officer that she was in danger of being imprisoned as a foreign agent. The family made its getaway in a Belgian Red Cross convoy disguised as Belgian civilians who were being repatriated. They were posing as two Belgian boys, Andre and Jacques Mearon; to appear genuine they learned some basic French. Fortunately their forged identity documents passed muster. The family made its way to Italy where the Polish 2nd Corps, commanded by General Anders, was stationed. It had as part of the British 8th Army fought with distinction in the Italian campaign.
In May 1946 Zofia with her sons arrived in England. Penniless, they spoke Polish, Italian and Hungarian, but not a word of English. Zofia initially found work in Hove as a housekeeper but also dressmaker, making enough money to send her children to Emsworth House prep school in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, where they became Andrew and Bob Meeson. The boys went on to school at the Oratory, Woodcote, near Reading where Andrew excelled in both cricket and rugby. Later when their mother married Leopold Kielanowski, an émigré theatrical producer and historian, Andrew took his name too.
Both twins read medicine at Trinity College Dublin, qualifying in 1960. Both returned to London to pursue their careers as junior doctors. After spells in hospital medicine, from 1967 they shared a general practice in Hampstead, where Andrew continued serving his patients with devotion, until a short time before his death.
As time went by, Andrew became increasingly involved in London’s Polish community. As a committee member of The Antokol Care Home in Kent, for the Polish Citizens Committee for Refugees he took an active role in the rebuilding of the home and in particular the provision of a new chapel. He became Honorary Secretary of Kolbe House, a care home for elderly Polish emigres in London, a GP to the Polish Embassy as well as Honorary Physician to President Count Edward Raczynski, President of the government-in-exile formed in 1940 after the fall of France and only wound itself up once it had symbolically returned the reins of office to President Lech Walesa in 1990. Andrew was also committee member of the Polish Hearth Club (Ognisko) in Exhibition Road, South Kensington, which had been opened in 1940 as a base for Polish soldiers on leave. With its faded charm and elegance it attracts a multinational clientele. It was here at a ball that Andrew met his wife Anita Illakowicz.
The work and wellbeing of the UK branch of the Association of the Polish Knights of Malta was especially important to him and as a Knight of Grace and Devotion and Representative of the Polish Order in the UK, he resuscitated its activity, raising funds to build a centre for handicapped children in Krakow as well as an oncological clinic in Poznan. His daughter is continuing with this work.
In 2008 he began a campaign for a memorial to be built to Polish Armed Forces at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, commemorating the Polish contribution to the common cause during the war. With Dr Mark Stella-Sawicki, he began raising funds convincing many parties, from architects to builders to give their time and money free. He initiated the memorial on a 2 penny coin and some of his grandson’s soldiers. They quickly raised £300,000, and the memorial, featuring four large bronze figures, surmounted by an eagle, was unveiled in September 2009 by the Duke of Kent. More than 4,000 people attended the ceremony which culminated in a fly-past by a Spitfire and Hurricane.
Andrew felt it important that the historic ties of Britain with Poland be recorded and preserved and was a founder member of the Polish Heritage Society which has recently erected the statue of Chopin on the South Bank by the Festival Hall, on the bicentenary of the composer’s birth, commemorating his visits to Britain.
Andrew Meeson was recently decorated by the Republic of Poland with the Polonia Restituta in recognition of his work for Polish causes.
He is survived by his wife Anita and by a daughter and son.
Andrew Meeson, Polish émigré and GP, was born on January 22 1935. He died on January 7 2012, aged 76.
The Telegraph obituaries: Dr-Andrew-Meeson
In Memoriam
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