Labas
What you will see here is a the story of,and a series of photo's that illustrate what young Lithuanian men played when they came to the UK after the war post 1945.
My father was a displaced person he was in various Red Cross camps in Germany after the end of the second world war. He came to the UK with his compatriots as part of a UK government scheme named Westward Ho. He would not have been aware of this initiative. The DP's were part of an programme under the European Voluntary Workers (EVW) scheme.

These people were given shelter and were found work but not much else. They were provided with no support network such as counselling, advice,or housing . As 'Alien workers' they provided much needed labour at a time when the UK population was recovering from the ravages of war. They made their own way into paid labour afterwards, but were discriminated against initially as they posed a threat to local labour. Any men with special skills or professions were given the same work, farm, mining or cotton mills. This scheme followed on from Balt Cygnets where 1000 young single Baltic women were brought over from DP camps to work in hospitals and mills by the UK government. It followed that where young women where the men would follow, and Stasys met Stase (mum) who was a Baltic Cygnet. What a strange hand Stalin. Hitler and Churchill had in my being here.

Stasys was born in Mariampole, Lietuva on December 26th in 1924. He is player no 10 in the photo. He was probably drafted into the Plechavičius Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force , as many young men were. As a teenager he worked with his comrades to defend a very weak Lithuania. Because of this he could not return home after the war, especially as the management had changed to being Russian. Whatever his movements during the war years, his memories of these went to his grave with him.

After the war many baltic men went to work in work camps. My father went to one in Tadcaster. Yorkshire, he also went to one in Wetherby (It looks like a young offenders institution off the A1 near the racecourse) also in Yorkshire. Tadcaster is a brewery town, what a place to end up in . I am sure the profits in local pubs increased.

During the day these men worked on the land, my father was a town boy and I know that this was not something he liked. In the evening they would recreate by playing sport and socialising (drinking probably). The sport of choice was Basketball as the pictures demonstate, boxing, some football and table tennis.
At this time in the UK the only people playing krepsinis would have been American ex pats, PE teachers and YMCA members. Facilities such as indoor courts were very rare and you will see that some of the games (in Manchester at least) were played on grass or an other outdoor courts. The scene in this phot is the same today but the grass is now a car park.

I am reliably informed (by Mum) that there was a series of friendly game played between the different camps and social clubs. The social clubs sprung up as the people settled into jobs and houses in areas were there was a Lithuanian population. The Clubs in Bradford an Manchester are still around though many of the original members are now passed away, the new Lithuanians who came after 2001 are making them vibrant again. http://www.manchesteris.org/.

The Tadcaster team was named Vilnius, The Manchester Team were Kovas, the team Lituanica were either from Bradford or were an all star team.

This picture above is of the Kovas team on a trip to france in 1953 note the old car and the very sharp suits. As my father was stateless ( so were his mates presumably) they had to travel on special documents isued by the Home office

Hey and watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijAGXFCXvqs

A really thoughtful and interesting Blog Written a Lithuanian girl living in the UK and in english is:http://www.labas.co.uk/jotter/

A Lithuanian version by the same person : http://www.labas.co.uk/