My father-in-law
Charles Edward Brett
a gentler man you never knew
saw best pal’s head
blown off in France.
My Father-in-law
served his country
was Churchill’s bodyguard.
A photo in the War Museum.
Potsdam.
Harry, Joe, Winnie shaking hands
and Charlie standing to attention
behind and to the left.
My father-in-law
was in the Royal British Legion
sold poppies down in Beccles town.
Had Gallic mother
spoke French and German
proof read foreign language books at
Caxton’s printing press for years and years.
My father-in-law
card carrying communist -
was common way back then –
full of compassion for fellow women
… and for men.
My father-in-law
despised injustice
supported workers
never voted Tory in his life.
He fought to keep this
country free from darkest tyranny
and fascist ideology.
My Father-in-law
a kinder man you’ll never know
is turning in his grave right now.
Six long years he’s been grumbling
I’ve felt it in my bones.
He’s stirring now.
He fought to save Europe
and our nation
from all that was a violation.
My Father-in-law
The war destroyed him in so many ways.
He rarely spoke of it.
Silent with stiff upper lip
kept horrors witnessed to himself.
He is rising now
like an apparition
from a witch’s cauldron.
An unearthly shadow, full of anger
… and compassion in his hollowed eyes.
A dire portent
for those who rule us now.
My Father-in-law
takes no pride in what we have become.
Divorced from Europe
he would be horrified
at the obscenity of Manston
our treatment of asylum seekers, refugees.
He fought to free those terror struck
and beaten down
the walking skeletons in striped pyjamas.
Was proud to welcome
fleeing strangers to our soil.
My Father-in-law
part of a spectral army
wages war on those in charge
building concentration camps
in our green unpleasant land.
My Father-in-law
would not understand
or countenance cold austerity
the decimation of our NHS
while the rich look on with spiteful eyes.
He’d rage against the Tory lies.
This Sunday, I do remember him
those he fought beside
and those that he saw die
and weep to think
they might have fought
in vain.
Did they stop Hitler and the fascists then
only to hear the ugly rhetoric
rise again?
Nicola Tipton
