Poles in Scotland now have their own plaid

EDINBURGH, Scotland, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- The latest Scottish clan now has its own tartan with colors that include the red and white of the Polish flag and dark blue representing Scotland.

"I want to buy a kilt because I am living in Scotland," Sebastian Flasza, owner of Rock and Roll Tattoo and Piercing in Edinburgh, told The Times of London. "But I am a Polish Scot. I feel this represents me. Oh, aye."

Poland and Scotland have a long common history. Bonnie Prince Charlie, the ill-fated Stuart heir, was half-Polish, and there is also a myth in Poland that Lech Walesa, leader of the Solidarity movement, is descended from Sir William Wallace, the Scottish nationalist executed by the English in 1305.

More recently, 20,000 Poles remained in Scotland after World War II. But the huge influx came after Poland joined the European Union.

International Tartans produced the Polish plaid at the request of an Edinburgh man whose grandparents settled in Scotland.

Polish tartans are popular both for wearing in Scotland and as gifts for friends back home. But Ewelina Wroubel, a student from Poland, said her boyfriend back home refuses to wear his kilt outside the house, although she thinks he likes it.