We felt outraged." So they took up the role of a government and army in-waiting, refusing to accept what had happened to their country. Some died before democracy finally came to Poland.But they coped, they tell me, as we emerge from that dark tunnel of recollection. They kissed the backside of Mr Stalin".So do they have mixed feelings about the Allies? Not really, says Hampel: "We have very definite feelings. We drink coffee, eat delectable doughnuts with rose-petal jam filling, and they regale me with history which is wet-blood fresh.

They were never to share in the joy of victory because, as they see it, Poland was betrayed by "that Roosevelt and his communist wife, Eleanor. They fought with the Allies and were invited to come here in 1949. Their grandchildren were born here, but the Polish centre in Hammersmith is still thriving. Here, Marak, the chef, serves up authentic Polish food to all those who cannot forget where they came from. He laughs: "They love the food and try to believe that they are not going to put on weight if they eat Polish cakes or potato dumplings."I sit with four effusive, retired men: Boleslaw, Zbyszek, Janusz and Hampel. "I look at those pictures of Isfahan, I read Hafez, an old poet, and the ghost that lives inside me stirs. I don't know why I love it so much." The Moroccan writer Fatima Mernissi describes this as a drift of the hopeless towards the only area where "phantasms can flourish, toward the past."Ba Ba Iranian Cafe, 222 Uxbridge Road, London W13Poles apartThey've been here for over half a century.

Nargis describes village hospitality, but adds: "They're also naive; they can be fooled by anyone too nice, a bit like my father." Nargis and her brother Sayid have turned to Sufism to find inner peace and sense of identity For Reza and others it comes through art. They don't want to be part of the (British) in-crowd, says Nargis, Hassan's teenage daughter: "There is too much pressure in the club scene, to smoke, do dope." The parents, too, are happier that their children mix with their own.They still miss the fruit, the air and even the water. That's the culture I want to follow."So they come here, to drink tea from the lovely brass samovars, to look at the books, dance to Iranian music. Sometimes, they come for the excellent belly dancer, there mainly to attract rich businessmen - even belly-dancing is not Persian and the dancer is English. They are Persians, says Reza, who is 19, confident and clever: "If you say Iranian, they all think terrorists, or those women dressed like they are in mourning, or that stupid fatwa You have to explain yourself If we say we are Persian, the images are different It is One Thousand and One Nights, Omar Khayyam. Besides the fragrant rice and meat platters, there are exquisite paintings and statues of villagers, books with poetry and pictures of old Iranian cities, and a hand-painted tiled oven.It is a place that draws many young Iranians Most were toddlers when their parents fled They don't feel British; nor Iranian either. Everything else smells, looks and tastes like Iran, I am told by the Iranian customers who fill the place on a Sunday afternoon.

Little black fish swim and bump frequently into watermelons lying in the water I presume that they are some poetic cultural symbol. Hassan laughs: "It is to keep them cool, like we did in Iran, in the rivers." In another fish tank, curiously, an enormous green-haired plastic troll keeps guard. And so this place represents the stuff of his fantasies.At the front of the cafe is a DIY plastic pond (money is not freely available even to dreamers) and a fountain. His heart is still there, but safely nestled in a time and place before the megalomaniac Shah and the cruel Imams caused such devastation. Roberto tells them with passion: "You politicos don't understand - we also suffer for Colombia."And it is that pain which they say makes them turn to strong food and drink, the sleepless nights when they dance salsa till they drop - usually at Bilongos in North London, in a beautiful ballroom where formality helps to rein in the sensuality of the dancers, turning the plainest of them into the most intensely desirable creatures on earth.La Piragua Colombian Cafe, 176, Upper St, Islington London N1; Bilongos Latin Club, 6-9 Salisbury Promenade, Green Lanes, London N8Persians, poets, plastic pondsHassan, who runs this extraordinary cafe in downbeat West Ealing, spills over with natural warmth He came after the Iranian Revolution in 1980. "It is even better now," says Hernando, because some men have become less macho - they even change nappies - "but I used to be frightened when Englishwomen came after me in a pub" The refugees go silent and look disapproving.