The project to build the Cztery Refy's web pages should really have been completed two years earlier. Unfortunately, they could not be created by willpower alone, and that was my first excuse for the delay in their appearance. We probably would be waiting for them if not a chance conversation with Jan Kapala during a concert where we were both playing. Jan Kapala suggested that he could help. Unlike many other potential collaborators, I knew that Jan practices the stout principle that "nothing is impossible", so I accepted his offer without any hesitation.
So there was nothing left for me to do except to:
- transform the material that I wished to include into a form that could be digested by a computer; (OK, so that took me about 6 months.)
- resist all (well nearly all) tempting proposals that would have diverted my efforts; (I'm sure that this saved me more than 12 months!)
- politely, and sometimes not so politely, await the professional re-work of my material; (That lasted several months, but meanwhile I was preparing more material.)
- learn a new language (HTML).
I would prefer not to think about how all these pages would have looked without the assistance of Ula Kapala with the graphics. Ula used deep magic, known only to herself, to give them a professional appearance.
The Refy's repertoire includes quite a few numbers written by our Friends and Acquaintances. There are also a few Authors Who We Have Yet To Meet In Person. Their kindness in allowing us to use some of their own material has considerably enriched our recorded material.
Exploring various Polish web pages I soon discovered that the method most frequently used to translate the text into English was to use the universal caption under construction. However, this trick did not seem to be completely satisfactory. Happily, here I was able to rely upon the help of my wife, Krystyna, and my friend Andrew Goltz. Thanks to them these English pages (currently in a simplified form) are now on-line.
I hope that in the not-too-distant future many more visits to overseas festivals will give me the opportunity to improve my English and that in the future I will not need to exploit their kindness so much.
The last link in the chain of good-will, patience and determination are a group of people passionately interested in sailing, shanties and information technology whose home is "szanty.art.pl". Their regional representative in Lodz is Marcin Wilk. His many interventions have ensured that the address of these pages starts with "www" and not my postcode!
As projected deadlines came and went and the actual completion date of these pages moved towards infinity we were all forced to adopt certain compromises the responsibility for which is mine alone. Without this expedient these pages would have remained "home" pages in the literal meaning of the word.
