Recollections of Blaisdon Hall
National Newsletter
THE “Displaced Persons” LIVING IN “THE DAIRY”
During the 1950s, the farmyard and red brick buildings between the market-garden business and “The Spout” house,
were used to winter-shelter steers and sheep while the buildings stored grain and potatoes. A lean-to covered barn held hay and straw. Originally the Home Farm to Blaisdon Hall where the dairy herd was located; the great walled garden adjoining - George Keye’s - was the Hall’s former kitchen garden. Until demolished in 1956, a row of brick-built piggeries formed an outside wall between the two main gates that gave access to Blaisdon's main street.
In the winter months, the grain spread in the two overhead granaries was turned regularly, bagged and lowered by winch onto tractor-drawn trailers and conveyed for crushing at Stud Farm. The potato crop, harvested by the schoolboys each Autumn, was stored knee-deep under straw in the former cow byres, riddled, sorted, weighed and bagged up for sale in Gloucester. Cecil Beard, who lived next to the brook that runs past The Old Mill, drove the 10 ton flat-bed lorry loads to the wholesaler.
As Father Dan SDB RIP, Kevin Keating, Lawrence Stanton and various other farm workers paused from their work on the potatoes, they would have observed the activity of Muscovy ducks, geese, chickens, a couple of sheep with fostered lambs, various cats and a vegetable garden being tended by an aged couple. They were dressed like peasants who might have stepped straight out of a 19th century Russian novel. They lived in a small two-roomed cottage, set in an orchard below the towering height of Blaisdon Rectory: they were the parents of Brother Jan Orysiuk SDB RIP, who was in charge of all things electrical at Blaisdon Hall, and his brother Stefan.
Presently, the old couple would approach the sheds bearing a tray fashioned from a shallow fruit box. From this they dispensed tea and bread they had baked themselves. The bread was black and sesame seeded. Neither of the two could speak English. The elderly woman smiled often, revealing broken blackened teeth while her husband looked on unspeaking. When spoken to with our expressed thanks, Mrs. Orysiuk cackled and her husband bowed. Father Dan seemed to communicate with the couple somehow: ergo post-World War 11 “displaced persons.” Sometimes, the wizen-faced old man stayed and helped sew the sack tops with a bodkin and twine.
Stefan, leanly built, in his thirties then, flat capped and invariably grinning, worked as a driver of the two lorries at Salesian School, Blaisdon Hall. His manner of driving varied from erratic to nightmarish. Once, when driving the flat-bed lorry, he took a corner at speed near Over, on the road close to Gloucester, and the dozen or so large boxes of fresh eggs destined for market ended up all over the road and in nearby hedges. From then on it was known as Omelette Corner. Another time, when supposed to be collecting sawdust at Forest Products, Huntley, he could not lower the hydraulics of the tipper so drove it, raised all the way, back to Stud Farm. Some telephone lines were snagged near Hinders Corner. Eventually, continuing narrow escapes got Stefan transferred as a tractor driver to Stud Farm. There, he managed to overturn tractors, drive into ditches and wreck various implements to the increasing concern and frustration of Brother Joe Carter SDB RIP. Mercifully, Stefan eventually got a job in Gloucester.
Brother Jan was the complete opposite in character and characteristics to his brother. Squat, bespectacled, serious-minded and able to speak in broken
English, he possessed brilliantly applied skills in mechanics, engineering and electronics. (The boys liked to press his biceps.) He was particularly remembered far and wide for the way he lit up Blaisdon Hall as part of the community celebrations for the Coronation of the present Queen in 1953. The great crown he installed on the tower was his homage to a realm that had provided him and his family refuge from certain slavery under the communist regime: a political system that was to
dominate Poland behind the Iron Curtain during the years of the Cold War. For weeks, people visited Blaisdon from all over Gloucestershire to see the “Blaisdon Illuminations.” Flaxley Abbey organised public celebration also.
Brother Jan spent the rest of his life in Blaisdon as a Salesian Lay-brother. His parents died in the 1960s and he followed them in 1993. “The Dairy” became the Parish house of the Salesian priests serving the local community. Stefan, who fancied the local girls, particularly Brenda Davis who farmed opposite The Dairy, found his life companion among the Polish community in Gloucester, married and had children. He died in 2009.
Sometime, a group of us workers at Stud Farm accepted the hospitality of The Polish Club in Gloucester on the invitation of Stefan and his brother, and enjoyed a traditional Dinner and Dance. Stefan performed a lively crouching dance with the arms akimbo, held chest high, to wild gypsy music. We joined in with great gusto aided by Old Krupnik - polish vodka.
Tony Brady, February 2010