I don’t know who took this photo, but it is one of my favourite ones of my father. He stayed in Italy after the war, and started attending Rome University , but soon realised that there would be more opportunities in England for Poles like him, who had been deported to Siberia, then managed to join Anders’ army, and eventually made their way through the Middle East and Italy, finally joining the Polish resettlement corps in England.

He didn’t have an easy time of it even so. He was in a camp in high Wycombe for about six months before he got a place at London school of Economics – there were special arrangements made for ex soldiers like him I believe – and he received a grant of £25 a month, I believe. Not a lot to live on, though he did have a room in Royal Avenue off the Kings Road which he shared with his best friend. Very des res today – quite a slum in those days, I hear.

Then he married my mum and moved to Battersea. He was still a student when I was born – but in fact he never stopped studying. One of my proudest memories of him is when he was in his early nineties, and still working as a “Scottish” chartered accountant, they would send someone down to London to test him to make sure he was uptodate with tax law. He was very nervous, I remember, and slightly embarrassed as he couldn’t walk, and therefore could not go to the test centre himself, but the joy on his face when he told me he’d passed, was lovely to behold.

But it all started in Italy, where he had his first taste of freedom, with the sunshine and the dancing and all the attractions they engendered. He certainly introduced me to the beauties of Italy, not that I was remotely grateful at the time.

But here I am in Venice today, having arrived last night by water taxi. Well out of my comfort zone again, but that’s life. I survived.