ARRIVING in Glasgow as an immigrant in 1947, the Polish tailor Mateusz Zajac wasn’t quite sure where he was. "I never know such a thing as Scotland," he said decades later in his idiosyncratic English. "It was all England and that was that." Geographical peripheries are often mysterious, hidden or unknown to the outsider, especially ones with larger neighbours. Zajac had to learn quickly about the cultural specifics of the British Isles.
Just as Mateusz knew nothing about Scotland, however, his new home knew nothing about the young tailor. Save what he chose to tell. In the BBC documentary, Circling a Fox, his son, the actor Matthew Zajac tells a quite astonishing story of how over two decades he uncovered the artfully constructed duplicity of his father. The revelations have at first devastating consequences on Matthew and his family and then deeply moving ones.