When he died he took a thousand stories with him. And just as many songs. He was a guarded man. The few stories we shared only offered a glimpse of the life he’d lived.

Born in a field in the Ukraine. Before the First World War. Before the Russian Revolution. His mother cut the umbilical with her teeth. A break from picking potatoes. His childhood years saw rural adventures punctuated with death and hunger.

His brother, shot dead for stealing fruit. His father, an officer of the Tzar, died in a prison for being anti-Communist. He left the Ukraine and travelled Russia during the famine. Searching for food and work. Some of the stories I overheard as a child were the background for my first nightmares.

What I most remember, and in some ways is his legacy in place of the missing stories, were his skills. A proud man, an emotional man, his first passions were poetry & music, but denied an education because of his fathers politics, he chose to repair things, to make things, create things.

The first time I fixed something was with him. It was the sole of a shoe. He could make shoes and told me that a handful of simple skills had saved his life more than once. His early life had involved walking countless miles. Away from prisoner of war camps, away from famine. From meal to meal, job to job. I only now understand what he meant when he said  ”If you can fix soles you can save lives.”

He taught me to tie my laces, but with a special knot. He taught me change a plug, to solder, to fix a radio, a TV. He taught me nothing was broken that couldn’t be fixed. And I believed this. Even as I watched him lose the ability to walk, as a worsening limp forced him into a wheelchair. As failing eyes made him blind.

Most of the stories I now remember came from afternoons sat with my housebound Grandfather. A man too proud to seek medical attention until forced. A man who occasionally told me how proud he was of me. Of where I had been, of what I had seen, but mostly that I had listened to him. Learned from him. And that those skills would live on after him.

He shared more stories and tales in his last year than all of the years before. I would sit and listen to him, or we would both listen to his treasured short wave radio. Like our lives depended on it. He could translate the crackled tales from five different languages. He told me words were the only tools left to him.

He gave me his hat telling me there was no weather indoors. He gave me his watch as he could no longer see it. He gave me his shoes with the metal heel taps.

It’s his words though that I treasure the most. That I’m writing here in case I forget to pass them on.

It made him sad to fade away. To avoid death for 91 years and yet have his physical abilities stripped slowly away in the last 20.

He told me “You must make and create while you can. For as long as you can… When I couldn’t find food, I made music. When I couldn’t buy a ticket, I made shoes. There is always hope. It’s the simplest of tools.”

When helping my Grandmother tidy her house the other day, I came a cross a carrier bag under the stairs. It was like I’d found treasure. Inside were a handful of tools and a cast iron shoe repair anvil, a cobble.

These were my Grandfathers tools. His words sit in my memory and now these tools sit in my hands.

I find a beautiful momentum in the journey both these tools and my Grandfathers words have made. It’s comforting to think that there may be a certain immortality to our ideas and creations.

If we share.

After moving house I now find myself surrounded by boxes that had recently been stashed away in an attic.

In one box was a BSAF 90 minute cassette tape. The label had only one word.. ‘Granddad’.

I had the feint recollection of recording my Granddad singing but wasn’t sure.  So this week I bought a Walkman from eBay for £9 and have just been taken back in time.

My Grandfather died on the 14th of August 2003 and towards the end of his life I spent a long time sitting and talking with him. Trying to find out as much as possible about his past.

There were snippets here and there. His childhood, riding horses bareback. Stories of how he would stand on the back of a trotting horse and dive into the river that ran through his hometown of Vil’shana in the Ukraine.

He told me about his Father Trofin Podolak, an officer of the Tzar, dying in a prison for being anti-Communist. About how he never got to see him before he died but managed to get him some clothes smuggled through a prison guard. He doesn’t know how his Father died or where and if he was buried.

He told me of his own times in prison. Three in all. All of them German POW camps. Every time he escaped.  Once in transit by jumping from a train. Once when he asked a guard if he could wander past the fence and collect some clean fresh snow to boil for water. He kept on walking. His walk turned into a run and he was soon in the trees bullets zipping past his head. The last time he escaped was from in front of a firing squad. Everyone was told that if they agreed to wear the German uniform they could go free. My Granddad was the only one that agreed. He stepped aside and all the others died. He then told the commander he would only wear the uniform of a fireman. He would only save lives. Not take them. And this is what he did.

Many of the darker stories he was reluctant to share. It took me years to get a glimpse of his past.

When he defected and arrived as a refugee in the UK, he adopted a Polish name and for a while hid his Ukrainian origins. He met my Italian Grandmother Ofelia in Coventry and without speaking a word of each others language, they fell in love and married

He worked as an electrician and for years as a car park attendant at the Odeon in Coventry. One of the best presents I ever got was from his time there. An unlimited cinema pass.

He was a proud man. An emotional man. He loved poetry, music and books. For many of his later years he was housebound. He had fallen from a roof at the Odeon and damaged his leg which got steadily worse. He loved his job and the people he worked for, so never dreamed of asking them for any kind of compensation.  

Years before he died he also lost his sight. The doctors said it was because of a much earlier hit to the head. He put is down to his horse riding antics and recalled a time he was knocked from his mount by a tree branch.

So it was in his last five years, while he was blind and in a wheelchair that this recording was made. Too proud to venture outside, for people to see him disabled, he would listen to a shortwave radio to the German, Italian, Russian, Polish, Uranian and English news. He understood it all.

I had just got a personal sterio that had the ability to record. I’d intended to document some of my band rehearsals but thought I’d first test it on my Granddad.

Also in the room at the time was my Brother Daniel. We were eating toast and my Grandmother was popping back and forth from the kitchen, obviously feeling left out, reminding me that I was to take her to town. 

As far as I know this is the only audio recording of my Granddad in his 91 years.

Granddad_Sings.mp3
Listen on Posterous

John writes poetry and is in the process of writing his memoirs. He’s had many adventures spanning many careers. Personally I always like to ask him about his time with the Beatles. He plays it down just calling it ‘another job’. He has so many amazing tales that may never see the light of day due to the subject matter. John is a very honourable man and I imagine he will take many of these amazing tales to his grave. Sometimes he finishes a story with “..and that story never made the papers.. Only me _____ and the police know about that”.

Fascinating stuff.

Anyway, today I took John aside for a few moments and asked him a couple of questions. Nothing probing, as I knew he was on the record very reluctantly.

Maybe i’ll ask John to share more. Perhaps he will let me see his memoirs from this time. I am mainly interested in the truth and tales around the phenomenon that became the Beatles. Their story was honed, polished and drip fed to the press. John and the others that supported and worked with the Beatles hold the raw truth. They really know what happened.

I call her Nonna.

The dish has many different variations. I enjoy all the ones she makes. If you have a chunk of black bread to hand.. even better.

The video footage and photos were shot just over a week ago. Our Granny died last night. This is the only footage of my Son with his Great Grandmother.

We should all record more. Not just for ourselves but for those who will carry on after us.

When i look at a photograph of my Granddad, it’s as if he is still here. There’s still life in his eyes.