ABOUT THE AUTHOR
About the Author – Piotr M Kalinowski
As you can probably tell from my name, I come from Polish heritage. My father came to the UK after World War II. Before arriving in the UK, he had been a medical student at Warsaw University in Poland, but he never got to complete his final year due to the outbreak of the war. He and all his brothers and sisters joined the Polish underground, but because being a doctor is about saving lives, he wanted nothing to do with death. He was betrayed, arrested, and offered the chance to be a doctor for the Nazis, which he refused, so they smashed his fingers to pieces and sent him to Auschwitz.
I was born after the war in August 1947 in Penley Community Hospital, a former community hospital founded near Wrexham in North Wales in 1946 to care for Polish ex-servicemen who fought alongside the Allies in World War II and their families.
The wartime experience of my father has had a huge impact on me throughout my life, not least when, following Pam’s death, I considered taking my own life, a story I tell in detail in one of the many heartbreaking poems in the book. I chose not to go through with it in part because my father went through what he went through and managed to bear it without taking his own life.
Like Pam, I was a scientist – a marine biologist. Up until Pam’s death, I hadn’t really had any interest in poetry – I had certainly never written a poem to Pam. The process that led to me writing this book is outlined in this detailed account.
Today, I still live at Oaklea, near Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire in the East of England, in the home that Pam and I created together.
I was born after the war in August 1947 in Penley Community Hospital, a former community hospital founded near Wrexham in North Wales in 1946 to care for Polish ex-servicemen who fought alongside the Allies in World War II and their families.
The wartime experience of my father has had a huge impact on me throughout my life, not least when, following Pam’s death, I considered taking my own life, a story I tell in detail in one of the many heartbreaking poems in the book. I chose not to go through with it in part because my father went through what he went through and managed to bear it without taking his own life.
Like Pam, I was a scientist – a marine biologist. Up until Pam’s death, I hadn’t really had any interest in poetry – I had certainly never written a poem to Pam. The process that led to me writing this book is outlined in this detailed account.
Today, I still live at Oaklea, near Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire in the East of England, in the home that Pam and I created together.
Silence surfeits each cranny and nook. Time, the cruel old bastard, did what he does best, the crook.
Once I’ve mastered being disastered, I’ll bring that bugger to book: with Your stolen life outlasted.
Recovering a Snatched Wife – a Slagging
The book is illustrated by eight beautiful wood engravings, lovingly created by the incredibly talented artist Harry Brockway.
