They come from a land of lakes, pine-forested highlands and miserable winters and their story is woven into their tartan. They are the Polish, the new Scottish clan, and their tartan is Polish too.

The pattern combines the red and white of the Polish flag with dark blue threads to symbolise their adopted home.

“I want to buy a kilt because I am living in Scotland,” said Sebastian Flasza, 33, the proprietor of Rock and Roll Tattoo and Piercing in Edinburgh. “But I am a Polish Scot. I feel this represents me.” Then he added: “Oh, aye.”

Polish tartan has been produced by the Edinburgh company International Tartans after a request from a local baker with Polish grandparents. About 20,000 Polish serviceman remained in Scotland after the Second World War, raising Scottish families with Polish surnames, so it seemed that there would be a ready-made market.

In 2003 Mr Flasza would have been pushed to find any personal ties to Scotland. He was a heavy-metal musician in an award-winning Polish group. The next year, however, the work dried up, Poland joined the EU and Mr Flasza made for Scotland, drawn by its “rich history and its historical connections with Poland”.

As any Pole worth his tartan will tell you, Bonnie Prince Charlie was half-Polish. There is also a rumour, largely unsubstantiated, that Lech Walesa, leader of the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s, was the descendant of William Wallace.

It was with this in mind that, last summer, Jakub Swidzinski, 24, a housekeeping manager in Edinburgh, bought five kilts and returned to southern Poland on a brief holiday to hold a “kilt party”.

“I found them very comfortable,” he said. Wearing one while shopping in Zlotoria he found that he attracted quite a lot of attention. “I’m Polish, but I am living in Scotland now,” he said. “I want to be seen as a Scottish person. Polish tartan seems like a good idea.”

Ewelina Wroubel, 25, a student at Napier University in Edinburgh, bought a kilt for her boyfriend in Poland. “I think he likes it,” she said. “Although so far he refuses to wear it outside the house.”

According to Mark Sutherland-Fisher, founder of Czech Match, a recruitment agency, businesses across the Highlands “would have collapsed without the Poles”. He says that many employers “would rather have a Polish migrant than someone from England”.

Aleksander Dietkow, the Polish Consul, who has a Polish tartan tie, describes it as “a nice recognition of our contribution here”.

But there are drawbacks to this Polish plunge into all things Scottish. David Olejnic, 7, visited his relatives in Poland last year. “The Polish doctor said there was something wrong with his mouth,” said his mother, Ela.

“He couldn’t seem to elocute properly. Then we realised the problem: he had an Edinburgh accent.”

Chequered past

Source: Scottish Tartans Authority

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