Day: July 7, 2022

VoicesontheBridge…What a great night, a great reading and a great venue!

Many thanks to all the poets reading Stephanie McNicholas, Des Mannay, Pete Akinwunmi, Ben Wildsmith, Nicholas McGaughey, Susie Wild – Exceptional!

Many thanks to the audience!

And lastly many thanks to Jeff and Storyville Books

We shall start planning for a VoicesontheBridge in September –

Many thanks again all!

Rob Cullen

…

I walked past the bench today on the old pathway

a place we’d sit surrounded by woodland’s stretches

Where I’d listened to you talk of Poland before the war

…

Of the Germans, Auschwitz and you as a teenage boy

delivering bread from your father’s bakery

to the Waffen SS barracks I remembered in sepia tones

…

Photographs only. And you’d lose some loaves behind

the wire fences – no more words, no more details.

you did what was needed to be done. No questions.

…

What else could you do. Nothing more to say

The old bench is falling away now, the pathway a mire

of boot marks washed in black mud by the rains

…

constant falling and your days my dear Stanislaus

are getting forgotten too. Are you listening to the way the rain

is falling again today. And so with thoughts of you  I walk through

…

the heavy leafed trees weighed by the gathering rain

I’m lucky I’ve been surrounded by people like you

who through their actions mattered, your words of kindness too

…

Remembering you  I often wonder how your fathers bread tasted,

how it smelled in that place where burning flesh consumed the air

where burning human flesh and the violence could not be ignored.

…

And as you told me once silence kills – imagine a life with that?

Stanislaus Pipkin was originally from Poland. His father a baker

was forced to supply bread to the SS Barracks in Auschwitz

…

Concentration Extermination camp. Stanislaus as a teenager

helped his father by delivering bread to the barracks.

He also gave bread to the inmates although to do so

…

meant certain execution if discovered. Stanislaus

didn’t talk much about his activities.

After the war Poland was overran by Soviet forces

…

 and Stanislaus was eventually forced to escape to Britain.

He came to live in Wales where he worked in the mines.

He married, raised a family in Pontypridd.

…

When the communists were ousted from Poland

Stanislaus was able to return free from the fear

of reprisal for his activities.

…

Stanislaus Pipkin was honoured by Poland as a National Hero.

©robcullen30062020