FirstPoland

Sylwester Soltys has never been to Britain but reckons Chelmsford looks like a good place to live. The Polish forklift truck driver has taken a look at the Essex town on the internet. Chelmsford is close to London but still small enough to feel manageable. He also points out that it is not too far from Basildon, the home town of his favourite band, Depeche Mode. “I am their greatest fan,” he says. Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

Classes are held in a low-rise block that once would have been a mid-­century modern gem, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over a tree-lined road and a large lobby area with a 1950s patchwork marble floor. Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

Radzikow offers a residential two-week English course, the second part of a three-step process. The emphasis is on the practical: six men in their 20s and 30s are learning to read out mobile phone numbers, telling the time and how to give directions. Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

Trainee driver Dariusz Ciesielski, 28, who is about to be deployed to Edinburgh, says he earned about £200 a month as a driver in Poland and was forced to live with his parents. The salary in Britain is about £8.50 an hour. “I like a lot the smiles on the streets,” he says. “You go into a store in Edinburgh and everybody ask ‘how are you?’ In Poland it is ‘what do you want, what do you want?’ Is terrible for me.” Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

A driver using the internet during a break between English lessons. The applicants are sent on a weekend course where they are given a driving assessment and judged on their aptitude for learning English. If they pass, they are sent to Radzikow, where they are further immersed in British culture by watching DVDs of EastEnders, Billy Connolly, and Only Fools and Horses. Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

Drivers are also given experience driving on the left in a FirstGroup bus. When they arrive in Britain, they are given help opening bank accounts, ­finding somewhere to live, getting national insurance numbers and dealing with the colloquialisms of where they settle. They are not allowed on the road until being signed off by an instructor. Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

Neil Foames, the European recruitment manager for FirstGroup, says they also have a more realistic view now of what life in Britain is like. “It used to be seen as a bit of a promised land. “These days, guys invariably have family or friends that live there already or they know somebody who has been there and come back and told them stories. Of course, there are still elements who think they will live a palatial life, but there is generally a much better understanding now.” Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian