Innocents. Jonathan Rose
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They alighted from the van. The man began to shout ‘What do you want me for, I’ve done nothing,’ over and over, whilst Michael Rigby was brought from the back of the van. Maxine was too scared to leave the van, and she was crying, but she was able to see the man, and she spoke, ‘That’s him, mum.’ ‘It is him,’ said Michael Rigby.
The house was at 31 Crawford Street. The man was Stefan Kiszko.
Charlotte Slawich had been born on 21 June 1923, on a farm in Slovenia, close to the Austrian border. She was the second daughter of Leopold and Hedwig Slawich. By 1945 the communists were taking vengeance on any German-speaking families, whom they regarded as collaborators with the vanquished Nazi occupiers. Charlotte’s older sister, Alfreda, arrived home from work at the local council offices one day to find the family home deserted. A neighbour told her that a ‘big lorry’ had taken her family away. Alfreda had to follow and she caught a train to Austria where she searched for her family. By some miracle of fate, Alfreda found Charlotte sitting on a bench in Ogersteiermag. Charlotte had already decided to emigrate to England, where there were no communists and she could find stability and work. She was unable to persuade her sister to join her so, when Charlotte arrived in England in 1948, she was 24, a refugee, and alone.
Charlotte headed for the north-west cotton-town belt where she knew she would find work in the mill. She went first to Oldham, where she trained for six months as a spinner before she was sent to a mill in neighbouring Rochdale. There, she lodged with other immigrants in Drake Street, worked as a spinner during the day and learned English at night. In 1950, sister Alfreda joined Charlotte, learning spinning, English and lip-reading, an essential skill amongst the racket of the looms.
Charlotte met migrant worker Ivan Kiszko, a burly Ukrainian road repairer and began a courtship which culminated in marriage, on 10 February 1951 in Rochdale. They moved into their first home at 31 Crawford Street. Far from the horror of Nazis and communists and the poverty of her homeland, Charlotte had found work, then a husband. She now had the peace and stability she had longed for. Now she wanted a child. Her son, Stefan Ivan, was born on 24 March 1952 at Birch Hill Hospital, Wardle, Rochdale. Twelve days after his birth, the young Stefan Ivan Kiszko was taken to the house at Crawford Street, which was to be his home for the next twenty-four years.
Stefan was a healthy baby until he was six months old, when he developed breathing problems, diagnosed as asthma, a common ailment for those who lived in streets which were constantly blanketed with cotton dust. The child’s condition worsened during the first five years of his life, and there were fears that he might die, which prompted specialists to advise the Kiszkos to move house or go abroad. It was a terrible dilemma for Ivan and Charlotte. They had found happiness, peace and a living in the north of England, an area chosen for the cotton process because its inherent dampness helped to prevent yarn from becoming brittle. Now the choice was to remain within the bliss they had found, with possible tragic consequences for their son, or abandon their home and their livelihood and move back to Eastern Europe for the sake of the life of their only child. At this time Stefan developed eczema, a common ailment accompanying asthma. The Kiszkos were prompted towards a short-term solution. Charlotte would take Stefan to her mother’s home in Radbersburg in Austria for six months of clear air and medical treatment. Stefan was 5, and had not even started school because of the severity of his affliction. He and his mother spent the next six months in Austria where the boy received treatment under an asthma specialist, Dr Sollag. Charlotte too was developing chest problems which manifested later in her life as byssinosis, a potentially fatal consequence of her constant inhalation of cotton dust. The clean air of Austria provided welcome relief for both mother and son.
Whilst in Austria, however, Stefan suffered further health problems. He had his tonsils out and, because of an ensuing blood disorder, had to remain in hospital for eleven days, during which time he developed an abscess on his buttocks. When Stefan was 6, Dr Sollag forecast that the boy’s asthma would alleviate as he grew older and stronger, and with the doctor’s prognosis in mind, Charlotte decided it was time to return to England.
With the family reunited in Rochdale, Stefan finally started school, one year behind his contemporaries. He attended Newbold Junior School in Vavasour Street. His maternal grandmother, Hedwig, travelled to England in 1956, living in the Kiszko home while Charlotte went back to work in the mill. Hedwig stayed with the family for ten months of every year, until 1967 when Charlotte and Ivan were granted British nationality. Stefan became very close to his grandmother, a portent of things to come. He rarely played with children his own age, which served merely to emphasise Stefan’s position as the strangest boy in the area. It was an image for which Charlotte had to take much of the blame, having sent him to school on his first day dressed, doubtless with touching pride, in traditional German dress. During the long summer holiday Stefan became even more alienated from the other children when, rather than enjoying the long school holiday running in the streets, playing football and getting into childish mischief, he went with his parents each year to spend six weeks in Austria, as an aid to his poor health.
Stefan’s poor health was in marked contrast to that of his father: a massive man who utilised his great physical strength by helping to lay the M62, the great trans-Pennine cross-country motorway, which ran from Liverpool in the west to Hull in the east, passing close to the Kiszko home of Rochdale, and across the broad expanses of Manchester on its way. This was the great road which had to split for a distance of three miles, because a landowner refused to sell his farmhouse which lay directly in its path, obliging the road planners to direct the new motorway on either side of the house. This was the motorway which would carry speeding cars past Saddleworth Moor, drivers’ eyes pulled inexorably towards the dark foreboding hillsides.
But as his father was strong, so was Stefan weak. Moving to St Peter’s Junior School at the age of 8, Stefan received a total exemption from all physical activity because of his weak constitution, an exemption which can have done nothing to assist in his integration into the school community. But the sickly child combated his alienation by taking pride in his classwork. He passed his 11-plus exam and went on to Kingsway High School where he was remembered by the headmaster, Ronald De Courcey, as a boy who had few personal friends, but who got along well with everyone. He was a loner, probably because he had few of the qualities of his contemporaries, and was not attracted by their usual activities. He did not take part in sports, for he had no interest in them and was, in any event, limited by his medical condition, which had not resolved. He was not a ‘boy’s boy’, but was generally friendly, well behaved and generous, although he dressed a little eccentrically, being a little old for his age. He tried hard to be reliable and trustworthy, and was on an academic par with his contemporaries. Still exempt from sports and physical activities, Stefan was encouraged by Ivan to learn to play the accordion, something no other child in Rochdale ever contemplated doing. Stefan learned to play the difficult instrument diligently, entertaining his family whenever they gathered in celebration, with his father beaming with pride. As each day passed, Stefan became more dependent on, and closer to, his parents, grandmother and aunt. Inevitably, he was taunted at school by his schoolmates, who accused him of skiving from sports. It was decided that, to escape the teasing, Stefan should transfer to Rochdale Technical College, where sporting games were not on the curriculum.
Stefan was 15. His last school report read: ‘An average pupil who does not excel in any subject. On the physical side he is very weak. He has no aptitude for games. He was an oddity and a butt for bullies. Dressed differently from other children. Old-fashioned. Very kind and thoughtful and bore his physical disabilities well.’
The comments were made by head teacher, Mr De Courcey, whose wife would, coincidentally, work with the adult Stefan Kiszko at the tax office, and who described him as ‘very conscientious and the only lad who ever carried heavy bags for ladies in the office’.
On leaving school in 1968 Kiszko completed a one-year full-time commercial course at Rochdale College followed by a two-year part-time course, receiving a certificate in office studies. He also attended evening classes in English and German.