The Soldier Bear

Dear friends,

Last week over a hundred Polish war veteran families and their descendants, Polish dignitaries and Checkendon parish notables gathered for a stirring commemoration outside the Black Horse pub, where a blue plaque was unveiled to honour the 80th anniversary of the first arrival of Polish service personnel to Checkendon Camp in 1946. These were mostly soldiers from 2 Corps, now unable to return to their homeland, which had been swallowed up by the Soviet Union. Over the next few years many of their families would join them, and the Checkendon Camp would become their “temporary” home for the next twenty years, with births, marriages, and deaths. Fragments of the camp in the woods beyond the Black Horse may still be seen – crumbling Nissan huts, concrete bases, tumbling brick. The post box by the main gate was still in operation until just a few years ago, only recently ripped away by some bureaucrat with no sense of history. There remains in the parish churchyard a “Polish section”, where one of my predecessors “looked the other way” to permit a number of Roman Catholic burials for those who had passed away in the camp.

Many of those first soldier-refugees at Checkendon would have been among those who fought with honour in Italy at Monte Cassino, and of those, most would have been very familiar with their solider-bear, possibly the most curious, and touching, refugee story I have ever come across. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the Russians freed the thousands of Poles they themselves had deported and imprisoned in Siberia, and these men and their families began to move back from the Gulag, down through Iran, to Palestine, from where they were able, under General Anders, to present themselves as a new Army to fight alongside the Allied forces. While they were outside Tehran in 1942, a young Lieutenant came across an orphaned bear cub, which he purchased. The cub was adopted by the 22nd Artillery Company, and was named “Wojtek” (joyful warrior) by the troops. With them the young cub moved, and grew, as they journeyed through Iran, Iraq, and Syria. He enjoyed fruit, and beer, and eating cigarettes. When the British military refused him access on board the transport ship taking the troops to Italy (“no mascots permitted”) the Poles simply issued the bear cub with enlistment papers, and presented him as a member of their company, with the rank of private. In recognition of his service in the battle for Monte Cassino he was promoted to the rank of corporal. The bear stayed with the 22nd Artillery Company throughout the Italian campaign, and with them was transported to Scotland in 1945 at the war’s end. When the unit was demobilised in 1947, Wojtek was re-homed in Edinburgh Zoo, where he spent the rest of his life as a minor celebrity, still responding with joy when spoken to in Polish, and even appearing on Blue Peter. He died of natural causes in 1963 aged 21, weighing nearly 500kg, and being almost 6 ft tall.

Born and orphaned in Iran, adopted and raised by  then stateless Poles amidst the chaos of the second world war, given a reluctant berth by the Brits, cared for in retirement by probably puzzled Scots, who nevertheless afforded this motherless creature a place in the world, Wojtek the soldier-bear resonates with the world as we find it today, with millions of people moving, some driven by war, others by poverty or ideology or climate change, others by fear, in search of a place to call home. All through his life Wojtek was given a place with no expectations of permanence or stability, (because the world itself could not be regarded as either permanent or stable) by people who loved him.  From this I conclude that love is more important than home. Why else should an orphaned Syrian Brown Bear have no fewer than eighteen sculptures or memorials dedicated to him across Europe? To my mind the best of these is the earliest, by David Harding in 1954, now on display at the Polish Institute in London.

Worship Services for Sunday 11th October

9.30am Morning Prayer at St John’s Stoke Row with Mr Peter Ferguson

11am Holy Communion at St Peter and Paul, Checkendon with Canon Kevin Davies.

Come and See

…the Harvest flowers at Checkendon Church. There are some wonderful displays to enjoy, with rich autumn colours and textures. The church is open every day. Do drop in, sit for a while, and offer your own thanks to God for those who love you, and those you have loved, and love still. The flowers will be there for the rest of this week. Looking ahead, do come to our “crafting special” Family Service on October 18th, when we’ll be “all hands on deck” to help create a special memorial for our own Remembrance Service on November 8th.

To see the remains of the Checkendon Camp, which you can do from the road without having to trespass, drive past the Black Horse heading uphill, and at the cross roads in the woods turn right. There are some camp huts near the road a hundred yards along on the left hand side. One of these I am told was the camp chapel. At the next junction turn left, then left again to double back on yourself. The site of Cox’s wood yard now occupies some of more of the camp area, and further along on the right the old brick water store can still be seen. You’ll arrive back at the crossroads, which if you cross over will take you back to the Black Horse. It is hard to imagine this peaceful patch of woodland filled with people, firstly Italian POWs, then US service personnel, and then Poles from 1946 but these are the voices which echo through the years. No bears in the woods here, however, at least, not in the 20th Century.

with every blessing

Revd Canon Kevin.