Day 13 - Solidarity in Gdańsk

Woke up with a raging sore throat and when I went down to breakfast at 9.00am, I discovered that everyone else had a bad throat. The consensus was that someone had picked up a mosh pit cold & passed it to us all in the Magic Bus.

After breakfast I rang Josef, my saviour in Germany. I was hoping that he was going to tell me that my bike was all fixed and ready for me to collect. Alas no, but it wasn’t all bad news. He told me that they were expecting the part to arrive later today and it would be fixed by Wednesday. Fingers crossed.

About 10.15am, Priscilla, Lex and Ramon headed out in the pouring rain to the European Solidarity Centre (Solidarity Museum) just 0.4 miles away. Whilst taking photos of the crosses outside the museum, we were accosted by a couple of Dutch New Model Fans, Marian and Boij who joined us for the audio tour.

The museum cost about £6 entrance fee, which included a 1.5 or 2.5 hour audio guided tour (we chose the 1.5) & free cloakroom facilities to hang up our damp coats. The audio tour told the story that due to the popular support of the citizens and other striking groups, the Gdańsk workers held out until the Communist Government gave in to their demands. The successful strikers formed the Gdańsk Agreement on August 31, 1980, as an authentic social contract with the government.

Lech Wałęsa co-founded and headed the Solidarity movement which toppled the communist government. He later became the President of Poland. The 1980 Gdańsk Shipyard Strike and subsequent Summer 1981 Hunger Demonstrations were instrumental in strengthening the Solidarity movement's influence.

The museum was fantastic with lots of exhibits, photos and video footage presented in large display rooms all in a huge metal box of a building. We were all in the museum for at least 2 hours as were another bunch of our Magic Bus Tour group and other NMA fans that were also following European Tour. It was like an unofficial NMA convention.

It was still raining when we finished the audio tour. Priscilla and I were the only ones prepared to return to the Old Town to see the parts that we hadn’t seen the previous day. Despite the rain it was definitely worth it as Old Town Gdańsk is very pretty.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Pierogarnia Stary Mlyn, a recommended Pierogi restaurant. I chose 7 different meat pierogies and 2 sweet pierogies. They came with a sour cream sauce and were very delicious. After, we returned to the hotel for just a couple of hours before tonight’s gig.

We all met up at 7.00pm and faffed about for nearly 45 minutes before we caught Ubers to the venue, Klub B90. We missed the support band, Mulk. apart from their last song so it was hard to decide whether I liked them or not.

For the first time on the tour the tickets hadn’t completely sold out, so I found myself near to the front, but in space. Justin’s voice had come back and the lighting for the show was far superior to previous shows. Before the encore I headed to front and was asked to assist holding Jack if Fate or High were played. As it happens, the encore consisted of ‘1984’, ‘51st State’ and ‘Get Me Out’, so my services weren’t required.

After the gig we had a beer and whilst chatting to a married couple, Michael and Tracy Stanners, it transpired that they were also camping this year at Stone Valley South Festival. They were going primarily to see Ferocious Dog. Such a small world!

Lee (eventually) got us an Uber back to the hotel, where we only had one beer, but still didn’t got to bed until 1.20am.

Song of the Day - Solidarity by Angelic Upstarts

NMA Song of the Day - Courage by New Model Army.Read more