Open Writing

At the far end of Witley churchyard lies buried a man I never knew, but of whom I now know a great deal. His place is marked by a slim obelisk, pale unpolished stone. There is no chance of broken pots of flowers or dying plants desecrating his tiny space; his family have planted little bushes that are always green.

I walk up the narrow path, drawn by the tip of the obelisk, curious, and needing to know. The path has offshoots here and there, and people linger, bring sad little dogs, and hide their eyes. They smile at me, I smile at them; in the village school I taught their kids so many years ago. Some of them lie here, I know. Paul rode his motorbike - too fast, and when he was buried the whole Chapter rode with the cortege, before and behind, dozens and dozens of silent, black-clad young men on their keening, grieving motorcycles. It was a memorable sight in the village. And Mandy? What was it that took Mandy away at just over twenty? I remember her as a giggling six-year old. Her sister is still around, and her mother too. Perhaps they wonder why I am not here, silent at last under the grass.

At the top of the path I stand to read the first inscription on the obelisk. It is topped by a cross, and says:

Stefan Knapp
Artist
Bilgoraj - 1921
Sandhills - 1996
Loving husband, father and friend

A memory comes up to the surface; Sandhills is only thirty minutes walk away, and I have often stood in the road bedside a cottage with an artist’s barn-cum-studio opposite. Standing about outside were huge enamelled shapes, brilliant kaleidoscopes of colour. One, I remember, was an obelisk, brilliant and striking with blues and greens on white. I couldn’t imagine at the time what it could be for. Could this be the artist, the creator?

So I move to the next side: now I am truly amazed.

Siberia 1937 - 1942

How can this be? What unexpected metamorphosis could bring a Pole from the South East of Poland, via Siberia, to this Surrey village? On the third side was yet another surprise:

Fighter pilot 1942 - 1945

And of the fourth:

He brought colour into our lives

Who is this man, I thought. He has been lying here for ten years and I have lived here for forty. Why do I know nothing? I begin to make connexions; this obelisk, the one in the garden of the cottage, and in the wall inside our local medical centre hangs a sheet of enamelled steel: a brilliant blue sky pierced by a jet engine or a fantasy missile, an obelisk shape again, suspended horizontally in space.

At home, with access to the Internet, I was able to discover what an extraordinary life this man had led. Born in South-east Poland, he was arrested at eighteen as he was returning to college, and deported to Siberia in 1937: released in 1942, he made his way on foot, by road, train and boat through Russia, Persia, India and South Africa. Finally, he reached Scotland where he, and many other Poles, volunteered for the air force.

After Peace was declared in 1945 he came to London to enrol at both the Central School of Arts and Crafts and the Slade, and he studied the full curriculum of both simultaneously. By 1950 he had his Diplomas, and was set upon the road to survival. He also began the search for his own voice in the world of painting: in the Russian labour camps he had made playing cards and chess pieces out of chewed bread, and the same spirit of inventiveness led him to experiment in all kinds of painting, printing and plastic mediums. He painted, he sculpted, he invented, and by chance he had to repair a beautiful Limoges enamel brooch belonging to an acquaintance. This encounter with the beauty of enamel was the catalyst that led on to his passion for the medium. First, enamel on copper, then steel: huge murals were commissioned, exhibitions arranged in Europe and the Americas - and Boston Museum of Fine Art acquired a thirty-foot pyramid for their inner courtyard. Could that be the one, I wonder, that I saw standing among the trees in a garden in Surrey?

I have been carried away. Perhaps I enthuse too much, but there is so much more to tell: I read that Stefan’s enamel “The Battle of Britain” was chosen as the commemorative artwork for the 60th anniversary of the Enigma code breakers at Bletchley Park. And next time I pass through Heathrow Airport, I shall try to find our where they have put his seventeen murals, commissioned almost fifty years ago.

I walked through Sandhills the other day. It’s a quiet, unspoilt little place with neither shop nor Post Office, just the Donkey Sanctuary, taken over for the time being by the RSPCA because the founder and benefactor has died. Quite a few artists and writers have lived in the grand houses along these lanes: George Eliot lived just down the road, and Lord Tennyson used to visit his friends the Allinghams, when they lived in Sandhills.

The cottage where Stefan Knapp lived looks much the same, though the barn-cum-studio over the road is derelict now. The windows are broken, and inside an everlasting still-life of spiders’ webs catches the light, dusted with age, no spider in sight.

Outside, a stranger might wonder at the single sheet of steel, lying in the grass, with blobs of green and blue enamel, and streaks of grey on white. Another spring, another year and it will be hidden by moon daisies and buttercups. It’s such a long way from Bilgoraj, an even longer way from Siberia, and making little sculptures out of chewed bread: a game of chess could ease a frozen life.

I’m glad there is an obelisk in the churchyard. I didn’t know the man, but all the same, I’m glad.