Gdynia Way

Plymouth enjoys twinning status with a number of differend continental places and all of them are commemorated in local place-names. Gdynia though is twice honoured, once in the naming of the fountain in the middle of St Andrew's Cross Roundabout and again in the naming of the relief road that initially served principally to by-pass the Embankment Road shopping area. Recently though it has been extended frther along the line of the old railway on which is sits, to meet Sutton Road by the Thistle Park Tavern.

Gdynia itself lies 12 miles north west of Danzig in Gdansk inPoland. Under Prussian rule for 148 yeras, it was no more than a fishing village with a population of just 1,300 when recovered by Poland in 1920. But it soon became the base of the Polish Navy - and her fishing fleet - and from 1924 it developed rapidly as the only large commercial port on Polish territory. By 1960 its population had grown to around 150,000.

Twinning moves began with Plymouth in 1976.

EH 20 August 1994