Those of you who know me and follow my blog know that I am no stranger to scrapes and dancing with danger and yet, despite all of these moments that including an encounter with a venomous snake and escaping an oncoming train at literally the last second thanks to a friend, I have managed to get through my adulthood relatively unscathed. You may recall me blogging about how I dealt with some bullies by tracking them and dealing with them non-violently (even I was impressed with myself on that occasion).

Yet as an adult, there has only been once when I was physically attacked... and no it wasn't in Kosovo, nor Albania, nor a seedy dark part of a UK city. It was in Poland, one of the safest countries in Europe and furthermore it was right in the heart of the religious centre of Poland. As Lourdes is to France, Czestochowa is to Poland and I was almost literally in the shadow of Jasna Gora, a monastery and a potent national and religious symbol rolled into one. See the header image to see how imposing it is on the Czestochowa cityscape.

And yet (again!) without raising a fist, I was the one who emerged victorious, because sometimes when getting into an altercation it is about playing it smart.

Ok, enough preamble, get on with it...

At the time I was living in a smaller Polish city called Radomsko that was about 30 miles / 40 km north of Czestochowa, but Czestochowa, being a bigger city was the centre of my social life. A weekly event, every Thursday, was English Club. Starting relatively late, typically 8.30-9.00 we would meet in a local club. Organised by native speaker tutors, we would invite our students to join us. Sometimes there would be activities like discussions or poetry recitals, but to be honest it was more transactional than that. English language students in Poland are (were) predominantly girls (and Polish girls are very pretty) and we were the centre of attention. They got free English and we got to spend an evening with a lot of lovely ladies. To give you some idea, there may have been no more than eight tutors and probably 100 students of which three might have been guys. It was nice, but never more than that in my book because of the ethics of it. Not every tutor was as principled as me as you will see as you read on. Besides, at that time none of my students were coming as I was teaching at much more elementary levels. Either way, it didn't really matter because when the music was pumped up the language became irrelevant and it was about dancing, drinking and having a great time.

So one cold November evening, probably in 2004, I went along as oft was the case knowing full well that I had a business tutorial to run at 7am the following morning for a company in Radomsko. The night started very well, but I needed to start thinking about train options, it wasn't so much the early morning start, as after the company class I had nothing else on until the late afternoon so I could rest in the middle of the day. Rather it was a case of me not wanting to be "Billy no mates!" with me being left alone at the end of the night waiting for a train on my own.

22.40 came and went, the party was still going strong, 23.10 came and went and still the same. 0.20 came and went but now i had to be sure others were staying because my last option before 5am was at 1.05. Some of my friends and the students had begun to drift off but there were still a fair few left. So I asked if anybody was staying right through. Back in those days such clubs closed when the last client left (or so the theory went). A few said they would stay and fewer actually did.

So at the end of the night I was left with just two girls, Kasia and Ania, who stayed with me. Elsewhere there were three guys sitting at the bar. I do remember one of them tried to talk to Kasia who wasn't interested. In Kasia's case, her American (tutor) boyfriend had just a few days previously informed her he was going back to America and dropped her just like that after two years of dating. That's what I meant when I said some of the tutors were unethical and in my opinion what Andrew did was just nasty. The poor girl was heartbroken and not looking for any kind of intimate company. In Ania's case she had a boyfriend called Kuba, who was a good guy and not only that but he had muscles on his muscles. What I am getting at is that we were just mates and there was no desire or wish on anybody's part to try to find something that frankly wasn't there or something that nobody was interested in trying to find.

Then, rather than telling us they wanted to shut, the staff started giving blatant looks and cleaning around us before turning the lights on. The hint was less than subtle. So we started to move.

To leave, we had to go by the bar area where the three guys were and when we neared they started, 'F**king English guy stealing our Polish girls" etc, etc. There were d**ks what kind of Neanderthal thinking made them consider Kasia and Ania to be their possessions? They didn't even know the two girls (not that that makes any difference).

I was more than aware of the three of them and conscious the situation could soon become dangerous, but I carried on. Just outside the club was a taxi rank so I made sure Kasia and Ania were safely inside a cab before carrying on towards the train station. My instincts were screaming at me to get in the taxi with the girls and go with them until I was safely around the corner, but I didn't want to come across as a creep who was inviting myself in "for coffee" (and more) and so I suppressed my unease for the sake of their comfort.

As I walked along there was the gentle crunch of the dusting of snow under my feet, but I soon became aware of a more urgent crunching as footsteps were closing in. I had got more or less to the place I have indicated in red on the header image (so you can see how close Jasna Gora was) by the time I turned around to see... and suddenly crack! A pummeling punch hit me on the side of my head and my glasses went flying as I went down. I quickly rolled over and sat up. There they were, the same three guys, although two of them were holding the particularly aggressive one back. This is where smarts played the role. If I had gone for the aggressive one - and believe me I was tempted - they would have backed their friend (as would I have). One of them asked me if I was ok and I said tartly "no".

One of them helped me to my feet and was almost apologising and I said that was no good. I needed my glasses and then the most unbelievable of all things happened. All three of them started crawling around in the snow until, surprisingly quickly one of them passed my glasses to me. I put them on and immediately realised that there was something wrong. The frame was bent and one of the lenses was missing and so I said to them that they must search further. Again they did. 

Somehow one of them found it and I have no idea how! They then walked off and I carried on to the train station while trying to bend my glasses back into some kind of shape and pop the lens back in. I got my train and got home. 

I went to my early lesson, but my eye was so swollen that I could barely wear my glasses straight.

Kasia and Ania were horrified when they found out what happened and told me I should have got in the taxi. In one of life's ironies, when I moved to Czestochowa a couple of years later I moved into the same building as they had been living in at the time, although they had finished their studies and were gone by then.

One final thing that the experience taught me was how subjective an ordeal is. About ten years previously my biological father had suffered a beating and after that he became afraid of his own shadow, getting up at 4am and going to bed by 7pm. He rarely stepped out of the house and he never worked again. On the other hand, when it came to me, I vividly recall a friend of mine a week or so later coming to me.

"I have just heard what happened. Are you alright?' he asked.

"I am fine,' I answered.

Then he asked again in that specifically English way just to make sure and my answer was, "I am fine, it's not the first time it's happened and it probably won't be the last"

Maybe it was because in the end I imposed my will on them, which actually gave me the win (and it is not the only time this has happened in my life) This was something my biological father wasn't able to do in his situation. What was an ordeal to him, that left him devastated, was nothing but an irritation to me. My eye soon healed and I had yet another story to tell :)

If there is a next time though, I will definitely get in the taxi at least to get out of the way. Avoidance is the best way forward if at all possible.

As always stay safe and well my friends.