David Walser remembers Jan Pienkowski
I first met David Walser and Jan Pienkowski more than fifty years ago when I designed some pantomime-themed Christmas cards that I wanted them to distribute through their Gallery Five greetings card company.. We met up again in the 1980s when I moved to Barnes in West London and we became near-neighbours. Jan was the more famous of the two, as the genius illustrator of the Meg, Mog and Owl story book. They were life-time partners and a life-enhancing couple to know. Jan Michał Pieńkowski was born 8 August 1936 and died two years ago, on 19 February 2022, after suffering several years of dementia. He was a Polish-born British author and illustrator, and as designer of movable books. He also designed for the theatre. David Walser, a year his junior, is a painter, potter and poet - and a verty lovely human being. Today he spoke at a Mass in Jan’s memory at St Michael & All Angels Church in West Barnes. What he said I found very moving - I particularly love his poetry - which is why I asked him if I could share it with you here. This is what David said:
Father Stephen has kindly allowed me to say a few words about Jan.
Jan and I started coming to services here when Father Paul was the Vicar. At first, since Jan was Catholic, we would alternate each week between an Anglican and a Catholic Church, but then, as the Alzheimer’s took hold, it became a strain for him and one day he said “let’s just go to St. Michael’s. It’s all the same religion.”
One day Jan decided to design a triptych which he gave Fr. Paul and the church; here it is. You may have noticed that in the background are the war torn ruins of Warsaw. It’s because He was there as it was being systematically raised to the ground in 1944. When the destruction was almost upon them, they left making their way through the rubble in a long line of refugees, each carrying,I suppose, food, or what they treasured most. At one point, they were separated, when his dad was made to move to one side of a barrier, leaving Jan and his mother on the other; able men were being shipped to labour camps. They had only gone a short way, when Jan’s mother shouted ‘jump,Jerzy!’ and as any well trained husband would,he did. Jan watched as a soldier raised his rifle and fired. He missed, and Jerzy disappeared into the crowd on their side of the barrier: he soon found them again and a woman gave Wanda flour “rub it in his hair. It will make him look older” she said.
This is one of the abiding memories that Jan had of the war, and I think the triptych finally helped him to put it to rest.
As any of you will know who has lived with a partner suffering a slow but terminal decline one also has to put that to rest, both at the time it’s taking place and when it’s over. I was blessed with the support of wonderful friends, this church, and I also had my painting and writing poetry, if that’s not too grand a term. From the time Jan was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s he spent much of the day looking out at our lovely garden and the wildlife. Some of his first friends were a pair of Dunnocks, a kind of sparrow, playing on the wisteria branches outside the window.
Sit in the window
What can you see?
Two baby Dunnocks
Discussing us
Eying us
One pecks the window
One looks at me
And tells his companion
‘Don’t! Those giants
might come for us
I don’t want to die’
‘Don’t be a ninny ‘
Says the first
‘They can’t even fly!’
As the illness advanced, he became increasingly confused but I tried to go on involving him in day to day events.
“For lunch, Jan, we’ll need two knives and two forks“
Jan chooses two spoons
“No! No! This and that”, I say,
Pointing to the right ones
“How many people?”
“You and me. Just two”
“What about them?”
“There are no them. Just you and me, my love.”
Someone said to me the other day isn’t it lucky people with Alzheimer’s don’t know what’s happening to them? Well, Jan certainly did.
‘What shall I do? what shall I do?
There’s nothing left. It’s all gone’
The mournful call rose through the blue
And reached the ears of you know who.
The good Lord and his côterie
Are busy sipping Earl Grey tea
When from afar they hear the call,
‘What shall I do? What shall I do?’
The Good Lord opens wide the door And says ‘you’ll do your best my son. Many folk have less than you.’
‘Thank you Lord! I beg of you,
Please stay by me and help me through!’
‘I shall, don’t fret!’ the Lord replies
‘Remember this: I love you too!’
And finally the end came
Three storms swept past
In seven days
Dudley, Eunice and Franklin
We watched them
When they had passed
We turned around
And Jan had gone
Gathered by one of them
Taken from us
In fact, his death was more prosaic. The doctor convinced me that he had to go to hospital because he was swallowing down his windpipe and in great discomfort. “Where, with morphine , assiduously applied, he soon gave up and died“
The hospital kindly left me alone with him for 3 hours; I was able to close his mouth and remove his ring. Years ago, We had bought 2 identical ones to celebrate our Civil Union. Mine was a tad too large and had finally come off and got lost just one week before. Jan’s was smaller and now fits me perfectly. We were only interrupted once, by a Floor Assistant who swept in bearing a tray
“Is he eatin’?
“I’m sorry?"
"Is he EATIN’?
„No, he’s dead!”
„Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said
Retreatin’
Flowers come. They bloom and go
We loved them and we miss them so
The same with friends. They come
They grow and then one day they up and go
Oh! How We loved them and we miss them so
Rain drops fall from vine leaf
To vine leaf. The leaves tremble
Then they’re still.
Thank you!