Farewell the Wolverhampton Ring Road Tramp

10.08.00am GMT Thu 1st Nov 2007

I haven't had a chance to write about Josef Stawinoga who died on Sunday. Josef Stawinoga who was better known as the Wolverhampton Ring Road Tramp was found in his tent on Sunday - it appears he died of natural causes.

According to the Guardian Josef Stawinoga, a second world war veteran from Poland, had been living in a tent on the grass island for 40 years. Traumatised by war, he had a phobia of confined spaces. The ring road was the only place he felt secure. He believed the second world war was still being fought and feared strangers were out to harm him.

Apparently some of Wolverhampton's Asian community revered him as a holy man who had shunned all worldly possessions. Several regularly paid their respects. Every morning for the past 13 years, a Sikh woman had travelled six miles to leave a flask of hot tea and a sandwich outside the tent. Another Indian woman appeared one afternoon asking the hermit to pray for her family, who had vetoed her choice of husband.

Many believe Mr Stawinoga, who spoke only a few words of English, was held as a prisoner of war by the Russians. But others, in the Polish community, say he was never captured. He arrived in Britain in 1946 and was a hospital orderly in Wales. His brief marriage to an Austrian woman failed and he found work at a steelworks in Wolverhampton.

Whatever the story of Josef he was a Wolverhampton institution and will be missed. Another part of Josef's story is the attitude of the local Council they had worked with Josef and provided him with his tent and did not force him from the Ring Road showing that a rare compassion most people would not associate with a Council.

A facebook group has been set up to try and get a memorial in Wolverhampton for him .. If you feel this is appropriate please join http://aston.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6135302086