Jan Stojko comes from Ljublin, Poland. “My British name is John Willows,” he says as Jan has a double citizenship. He works as a tax accountant. “And I’m a retired DJ,” Jan laughs.
Jan lives in the UK from 2005. “I haven’t left this place not more than 3 months, only for a vocation, so yeah, I’ve lived here now almost a third of my life.”
When Jan left Poland for UK, he bought the cheapest bus ticket, took 40 packs of cigarettes and 2 kilos of tobacco to make extra cash with selling them. And a bottle of vodka. His father and mother were very upset for him to leave, as Jan quit his studies in law for this. He decided to start from Birmingham. “I wanted to prove to my father that I can do it and in London I had too many friends who could’ve hook me up with a flat or a job, so I needed to prove that I can make it myself.”
Jan felt the need to move away from Poland to support his passion for DJing and he knew that the environment in the UK is more suitable for his dreams to come true. He found a job in a factory and Jan recalls that it was really easy on that time. “You could basically get a job straight away and I got like 7 pounds an hour, which was incredibly a lot of money for me.” After the factory closed for the season, he worked as a waiter and in a clothing store. As the life in Birmingham was quite lonely for him, he decided to move to London and started working as a bartender in Hilton. “At one point I realised I need to get out of behind the bar and be the man in front of it, ordering the 15 quid cocktail, not the guy serving it.” And from that time he’s working as a tax accountant.
“I think there’s a certain level that I will never fit in. There are cultural references that I’ll never understand and I make cultural references that others will not understand.” Jan now feels that London is tiring him with it’s business, amount of people and the low quality of life. So now he and his wife are planning to move somewhere outside of London.
Jan talks in the video how he realised the worth of money.
