For the duration of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain, Poles in the UK were engaged in a massive effort of helping economically their relatives and friends in Poland. Initially they sent food parcels and medicines as Poland recovered from the ravages of war then the assistance changed to money transfers, sometimes from their own meagre pensions, in the belief that they were still better off living in freedom. "Tazab" and "Haskoba" were the earliest UK-based parcel operations, while Grabowski was a mail order pharmacy. When Poland raised import tariffs, they turned their focus in the mid 1950s to travel, like "Fregata Travel", the latter being a brand that had migrated to London from pre-war Lwow. With banking agreements with Poland in place, the travel companies acted as transfer bureaux via the Polish bank PKO.