Alf

This is the story of Alf, a cleaner whom I once knew when he worked in a factory in South Wales. Like many people who perform such work, Alf seemed invisible and most people never spoke to him. I developed a friendship with him, of sorts, and his story is one of the most remarkable I've heard. He deserves his place in history, and it's to him that I dedicate this poem.

The old cleaner bent to his mop,
And swabbed the washroom floor.
‘You surely must have been there, Alf,
What d’you do in the war?’

He was small, silver-haired and stooped,
Invisible to most.
He rarely spoke; a quiet man,
In his simple work engrossed.

He looked long at the mirrored wall,
And a younger man replied.
‘Oh, I had a busy war, boy,’
And he spoke on with pride.

‘I was a miner here, in Pontypridd,’
His lilting voice compelled me,
To pause, to stand and listen well,
And so he told his story.

‘Over two hundred of us left,
We volunteered to fight,
’Gainst Franco and the fascists,
To help freedom in her plight.’

He was no lettered Thomas,
But made my time stand still,
His were the annals of working men,
And how his tale did thrill.

‘We came home, beat, in ‘39,
I couldn’t face the pit,
So answered our country’s call,
And, aye, I did my bit.

France was a bloody mess like Spain,
It was a dreadful slaughter,
At Dunkirk, we waited for days,
Waist deep, I stood in water.’

A crowd burst in the washroom then,
But none did speak to him,
And to his swabbing, he returned,
His eyes, I saw, did brim.

The aged man he then began,
As the crowd did leave the room,
To weep in mourning memory,
But I begged him to resume.

‘I went to the bloody desert,
But I got blown up there.
I came to, surrounded, so hurt,
I uttered up a prayer.

I wasn’t too badly wounded,
Thank the Christ they didn't kill me,
They sent me to a prison camp,
Some place in Italy,

My fearfful war was done, I thought;
But, ‘twasn’t done with me!
Oh, that winter was bitter cold,
Yet, from that camp, we’d flee.

The partisans gave us refuge,
As allied lines, we sought,
How we feared those desperate men,
But alongside them, we fought.

Through the cold and freezing winter,
We strived while good men died,
Until the Yanks, at last, broke through,
In a dogged, drab green tide.

He looked away from the mirrored wall,
And the older man returned,
From the memories of his war,
Our dialogue adjourned.

The old cleaner bent to his mop,
And swabbed the washroom floor,
‘I’ve been here cleaning ever since,
I came home from the war.

I’ve been here cleaning ever since,
I came home from the war,
I’ve been here cleaning ever since,
I came home from the war.’

Photo by Rad Cyrus on Unsplash