Michal Giedroyc

For two weeks they travelled on cattle trucks, singing hymns. Food was rare, with bread distributed only twice on the journey. After 3,000 miles they were ordered off the train and forced to sleep without shelter for two nights. “Here, by the will of the rulers of the Soviet Empire, we were sent to toil and die,” Giedroyc later wrote. “Early death was an integral part of the formula.”

The Giedroycs had been sent to Nikolaevka, a small town renamed the Collective Farm of the Red Banner. They eventually found lodgings shared with two other families, nine of them in one small room covered with mould.

Michal’s mother never gave up hope that her children would be reunited with their father, but she took a practical approach to their life in Siberia. Michal attended school, although she warned him to “be selective in your learning”. He made friends with Russian boys, learnt to speak their language and studied hard to stave off the cold and hunger. Independent in thought, he refused to join the Young Pioneers. Instead, he kept busy doing odd jobs in exchange for bread and made some money by drawing and selling cartoons of Russian aircraft bombing German tanks. In 1941 Tadeusz was sent on a death march, but could not keep up and was eventually shot. His body was left by the roadside.

In June 1941 the Germans invaded the Soviet Union and Poles in the country were formed into “Anders’ Army”, the Polish Armed Forces in the East under General Wladyslaw Anders, and were evacuated to the west via the Middle East. The following year the Giedroycs set off on foot to join them. By luck they encountered a Polish sergeant who provided them with the official stamp, made from potato and ink, for the last boat across the Caspian Sea. After two days they arrived in Iran and were taken in by the western allies.

By late October Anna had moved her family to Tehran, where she found work as a seamstress and rented a small apartment above a cinema. When not at school, Giedroyc would sneak into the cinema to watch Hollywood films. He then attended Polish military school in Lebanon and Palestine before arriving in England in 1947.

Many years later he decided to write his own story — in part to lay the ghosts to rest. He worked at it on and off from 1991 to 2010. The process was draining; he would write about things he had never revealed to his wife, often needing to lie down with exhaustion. However, it was cathartic and resolved the nightmares that he had suffered ever since his arrest and deportation. It was published in 2010 as Crater’s Edge and translated into Polish, Lithuanian and Russian. A Times critic described it as “the epic tale of a brave and enterprising young boy coming of age and surviving extraordinary events”.

Prince Michal Jan Henryk Giedroyc was born in 1929, the son of Prince Tadeusz Giedroyc, a Lithuanian senator, judge and decorated soldier, and his Polish wife, Anna (née Szostakowska). Before the occupation his childhood was idyllic. He played in the gardens and ate “delicious ice cream” made by the family cook. Wildlife flocked to their home; a night owl was a frequent visitor as were cranes, one of which the young Michal once nursed back to health. It was a peaceful world, one that was torn apart by war.

After arriving in the UK, Giedroyc began studying aerodynamics and hydrodynamics at the University of London. He went to work for Vickers Aerospace as an aircraft designer and became a naturalised British subject, no longer able to use his title.

A year into the job he met Rosy, a trainee nurse, and they were married in 1958. She survives him with their four children: Miko, a banker and gospel musician; Kasia, a special-needs teacher; Coky, a director; and Mel, a comedian known for her presenting role on The Great British Bake Off.

In 1956 Giedroyc moved to Folland Aerospace to design wings. That was followed by a move to Hong Kong. He returned to the UK in 1966, branching out into economic consultancy.

On their honeymoon Giedroyc and his wife had passed through Oxford and promised each other that they would live there one day. The opportunity presented itself in 1979 when Giedroyc began to write for the Oxford Slavonic Papers, exploring medieval Lithuania. He became involved with the subject, supporting Lithuanian scholars and giving financial support to archaeological projects in the country. He was also financial adviser to the Oxford Union Debating Society.

Giedroyc never felt resentment towards the Russians; to him they were victims of the same Soviet communism that killed his father. Instead, he was grateful for the Russian language, which enabled him to read the classics so widely. However, he was no literary snob. Once while on holiday he came across a copy of Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger and was enthralled by a drink mixed by James Bond. It became his staple go-to, which he named “the Goldfinger” and would offer to visitors.

Giedroyc never got over his dread of the cold from those bitter winters in Siberia. He would cry out for people to “shut the door” if it was left ajar. When they married, Rosy promised him that he would never be cold again.

Michal Giedroyc, aircraft designer and author, was born on January 25, 1929. He died from a pulmonary embolism on December 29, 2017, aged 88