A tribute to Stanley Surmacz

Stanley Surmacz a quiet and very clever man.

Stanislaw Surmacz like most of our family friends, quiet, kind and always there to help.

He was a soldier in the Polish army, survived the war came to work at Remploy with my father as a plant engineer from what I remember. He never talked about his war experiences.

Surmacz (as my dad always called him) was always messing about with mechanical stuff, building, repairing he was a keen engineer.

Once a new machine arrived to Remploy from London and nobody knew how to put it together let alone make it work. I supposed you didn't get a book of instructions in those days. But he managed to figure it out when nobody else could.

I always remember him with his trilby hat and in later years he did look a bit like Bill Maynard (Who played Claude Greengrass in Heartbeat tv series - google it). There is also a shade of Paul Hollywood to his face, not least Errol Flynn from that early photo playing the violin!

He also liked photography fortunately I have these photos plus lots of pictures of us, as a family including my dad, which I am grateful for since dad was generally behind the camera like me today.

Stan always had a Triumph Dolomite (in chocolate brown of course) the only person we knew that did have a car!

I always remember trips out to the countryside in it, huge brown velour seats in the back. It was an excuse to get the camera out. I always remember Radio 3 on with Classical music playing.

Once he purchased a small boat, we drove down to Blackpool and I sailed in it with him. Thinking back now, all that poo floating about no wonder it's called Blackpool!

I think he retired from Remploy in the mid 80's by which time he met Lily, she was a shy and very lovely lady.

They used to live on the same road as us but he decided to move to the Isle Of Skye, to see his days out I guess.

It was sad to see them move up there, they were always round our house, birthdays, parties just to say hello and it wasn't the same afterwards.

He purchased a traditional Scottish house near Broadford. He bought an ex Post Office Leyland Sherpa van to move house with) I don't even want to think how long that took!

I did promise myself I would go up and visit when I passed by test, sadly that was not meant to be.

Stan had only been there a couple of years, they purchased another house in Glendale, with land, water nearby for his boat, when he was taken ill to Inverness hospital and sadly died. He was a diabetic I don't remember the details but it was a shock to us. Late 1980's I think?

His wife stayed up there eventually moving to a care home where she passed away in the early 2000s.

From what I have been told, he was going to leave the Truimph Dolly to me, used to touch up the rusty bits on the paintwork now and again but it's a Triumph you can hear them rust in real time! There is more to this story but its too upsetting to relate here.

My parents took care of everyone we knew and made them feel welcome. I suppose we were the only family he knew other than his wife all that time, he married very late in life.

I did go a few years ago visited his land and house. There were 2 caravans still there with all their belongings, including the model railways (that I got him into!) it was like they had just popped to the shops for milk, upsetting for me but at least I could say goodbye in my own way.

The saddest part is not knowing exactly where they are buried since they insisted, no headstones and basically wanted to be forgotten about. I do know the cemetery on Skye so when I venture to Scotland and I am near Skye, I do visit and say a little prayer for them, so they know we never forgot them.

Thanks for everything Stan.