Ordinary people, extraordinary deeds
The inside story behind Edinburgh's starring role in the evacuation that gripped the world | Plus, we celebrate as the Book Festival begins
The poet Pam Brown put it well. “The courage of very ordinary people is all that stands between us and the dark.”
As Putin’s tanks threatened to rumble into Kyiv, turning out the lights of freedom in Ukraine, the world and its leaders watched and prayed.
The media coverage was wall to wall, the images harrowing. Then, out of the gloom, a tiny ray of light fired the imagination of the public in the UK and beyond, an almost unbelievable story with its roots here, in Edinburgh.
Sometimes, ordinary people do the most extraordinary things. Who would believe a Scottish alarm engineer, aided by a Ukrainian divorced mother and part-time charity worker, would mastermind and run an evacuation through a war zone. Ensuring more than 50 people making up six orphanage families escaped from the city of Dnipro, 2200 miles away, on the banks of the River Dnieper?
The story that gathered headlines around the world was of a little charity called Dnipro Kids, run by a group of football fans. Through the actions and courage of Chairman Steven Carr and charity worker Natalie Radchenko they achieved this evacuation at a time when much of the world was still struggling to come to terms with what was happening.
At the time, Steven funded much of the operation in Poland from his own pocket.
It is worth remembering this sobering statistic when we consider what was achieved: the Ukrainian government says more than 16,000 children have been abducted and taken to Russia - many of them from orphanages. Thousands of kids from this war-torn country have simply disappeared.
The evacuation did not end the story. It continues to understandably less fanfare in Edinburgh today, as Dnipro Kids, of which I am vice chairman and work alongside Treasurer Bruce Sherry and committee members Rachel Brykajlo and Carol Lyster, continues to work in an inspirational partnership to care for a group which now comprises more than 60 wonderful, complex, interesting people. They are glad to be safe, and appreciate all that Edinburgh and Scotland has offered them.
HIBS FANS TO THE RESCUE
Steven had watched the war unfold with increasing anger and upset, and he was determined to do something. He had established Dnipro Kids after Hibernian FC fans took time to visit a local orphanage when their team played a UEFA tie against Dnipropetrovsk in 2005. In those days, the children were in large state orphanages. Since then, the system has been improved and now operates smaller “family” groups led by house parents. Steven has been going back at least twice a year since 2005, visiting the kids, he and Natalie organising holidays and excursions, and delivering gifts. He knows all the families, has watched many of them grow up, including Natalie and her two daughters.
He broke the news that he wanted to offer “our families” support should they wish to leave, and he intended to travel to Ukraine to encourage them. Natalie was charged with organising their evacuation from Dnipro in the east, to Lviv in the far West, near the Polish border – a trip of around 600 miles. It’s worth noting that Natalie turned down invitations - from a good friend to evacuate to the USA and from family members to flee to Estonia - to stay and help the charity.
Describing herself as “not important, a little mouse” Natalie spent long days calling busy and important government officials, begging and cajoling for help. Dnipro was in turmoil, the area around the station an ocean of people desperate to leave. Finally, when all seemed lost, her persistence paid off and one official took pity. And the journey began with just an hour’s notice and with each person carrying all they could in one small backpack. A long, terrifying railway journey in total darkness ensued, followed by a night in Lviv sleeping in a hall on airbeds, before Steven – who had flown to Poland to arrange transport - crossed the border with a brave Polish coach driver and evacuated the group from Ukraine. Weeks in a variety of hotels in Poland followed, negotiations took place between UK, Scottish, Polish and Ukrainian governments until, eventually, an agreement was reached to bring this special group of cared-for kids to Scotland.
Through publicity, pressure and political goodwill, the group was out and safe.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE? ENTER EDINBURGH COLLEGE…
I met an utterly exhausted Natalie as she emerged from the final leg of her long journey into a dark Scottish night at a hostel near Callendar. We had arranged for the group to stay for three weeks to relax and recuperate, assisted by Stirling Council, as we prepared for their arrival at their new accommodation in Edinburgh. I had been charged with finding some place for a group of 55 adults and children to stay – and all in one place, please. It looked impossible, but I had not fully anticipated the enormous wave of welcome and support our city would give our group – the first group from Ukraine to arrive in Scotland and they remain the only group of cared-for youngsters fleeing war in Ukraine who are here in the UK.
Liz McAreavey, Chief Executive of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, introduced me via email to Audrey Cumberford, Principal of Edinburgh College, who had mentioned her desire to do something to help people fleeing the war. I asked Audrey if the College could help us, and her response was instant and simple. “Yes.” And that began the second stage of our incredible journey.
The College cleared an entire floor of their halls at Milton Road East, moving willing students to occupy only two of the three floors. We now had a self-contained space of 50 rooms. I cannot express enough our gratitude to Audrey, Nick Croft from her senior management team, Halls Manager Paul McGee and all the college staff and students for all they did and continue to do. Their support has been unstinting and, frankly, something wonderful to witness.
INSPIRING PARTNERS
Mags McPherson, a well-known businesswoman - and I’m sure she won’t mind me saying a natural organiser - threw her considerable energy into helping us prepare the space for the group, raising tens of thousands of pounds to do it, and with the help of friends creating a space that was homely and welcoming. They also raised enough to shop for every single member of the group, providing two boxes of brand new clothes in the correct sizes – a gesture that reduced many to tears.
City of Edinburgh Council stepped up magnificently, with a social care team put in place by the now sadly retired Andy McWhirter, and led by Eric Stitt and Jacqui McAlpine, providing support and care in situ that has been never-ending. Every member of the team, sadly too many to name, has given above and beyond, many giving up free time to help us also.
The Scottish Government too, has been hugely supportive and interested in what we have done, officials in constant contact, and at every stage all of these statutory bodies ensured that our charity has remained at the centre of the ongoing care. It really has been a true partnership and a unique experience.
THE CARE CONTINUES
So, what’s been done? The partnership helped get every child into school quickly – with extraordinary welcomes from Castleview Primary and Castlebrae Community Campus. Southfield Medical Practice took all the group into their care.
Through literally hundreds of medical and dental appointments organised and delivered, medical needs as diverse as tooth filling and cancer are being treated. We’ve assisted the group access benefits and now, for many, work. DWP staff have been patient with us. The charity supplemented the existing English language courses by employing our own English teacher for almost a year. With the generous help of law firm Addleshaw Goddard we purchased a minibus for the school run and for excursions. We’ve been supported too, by the Ukrainian community in the UK and by one generous family in particular.
We built a play area outside the accommodation, purchased UK phones and sim cards. We’ve organised holidays in London and York, and a plethora of events and activities. Hibernian football club has provided a steady stream of free matchday tickets and coaching for the kids. The UK space industry has raised funds for us, to help support these activities. The list goes on and on. Businesses, charities, clubs, organisations and yes, “ordinary people,” have stepped up to offer us their help and support. We could not have done any of this without the generous support and donations.
We’re now well into the third major phase of our care, getting our individual families back into more natural surroundings, creating greater self-sufficiency - although it is a group that will continue to need a considerable level of support. Finding homes large enough to accommodate family groups that are 6-14 strong has not been easy, and it can be expensive for a charity that is still modest in size, but to date we have managed to find homes for four families – two in Edinburgh and two in Perth. None of it possible without the continued generosity we’ve been offered, with Perth & Kinross Council now a much valued partner also.
The kids themselves? They’re all more than a year older - and most of them a year wiser also! Most of them have settled well into life in Scotland, a few have struggled, as you can imagine. Many of the older kids are moving on to College, and some of them have started on career paths, while our younger ones continue to enjoy the final days of their summer holiday ahead of continuing at school. Meantime, planning is already underway for their next short break.
I can’t tell you how or when the story will end, but Edinburgh, you’ve been magnificent, and we thank you.
HOW IT STARTED FOR ME
It began with a ping on my phone in the early hours of February 24th last year, and the appearance on screen of three little words. “We have war.”
The simple, shocking words had been sent by Natalie, our charity worker. At that time, we had exchanged a few messages, no more. She waited in the dark for a response, but I barely knew her. What to say? “I’m so sorry” I said. It felt so inadequate.
For me, her message heralded the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Like millions of others, I’d followed the media coverage in the days leading up to Putin’s “special operation”, and like so many others had thought it couldn’t happen.
Not in Europe in the 21st century. Surely not.
A few days later, she messaged me(sic): “It is all so hard for all of us…I already lost count of how many nights I don’t sleep normal. I guard my kids sleep. We wake up every day because the sirens are on and we quickly run and hide. My cousin with her 3 kids yesterday had to run away from Kharkiv (its under a horrible attack) their apartment is ruined by bombs. My uncle and many of my childhood friends are in Kherson, they all have to stay home because they have soldiers on the streets already killing people. I still can’t believe all this is happening.”
My earliest news had come starkly through the images and messages sent by Natalie, and one photo particularly moved me, of her nine-year-old daughter Dominika sitting fearfully in a corridor in their apartment block. A beautiful, scared little girl, terrified by sirens and explosions, dark-eyed and haunted. She’s allowed me to share it with you.
And then the media coverage got into full swing. The image of a young boy carrying a backpack crossing the border to Slovakia. Dear God, his terrified mother must have packed his bag with her heart breaking. A father sobbing his heart out for the daughter and grand-daughter he had seen cruelly taken by a rocket blast. The man berating himself for his inability to defend them from a rocket, launched from Lord knows where. Illogical, emotional, raw. I have two daughters I cherish, four grandchildren, and I have seldom been so moved, so I did something I rarely do. I wrote something to remember how I felt. I haven’t shared it before. It’s not Shakespeare, but I hope in some way it touches you.
If you want to help Dnipro Kids, please donate to https://www.justgiving.com/dniproappeal
The Tyrant
A father cries in unjust shame
His daughter dead, her child the same.
Lives snuffed out by a Russian shell,
He seeks to understand his hell,
His girls are taken; life is wrecked.
He weeps “I’ve failed, I can’t protect!”
Each day, in church, he lights a flame,
But still sheds tears of loss, and shame.
The candle’s tiny, flickering light
Small comfort through the lonely night.
The Tyrant’s war will haunt his dreams,
This faultless man whose conscience screams.
His sobbing wracking every bone,
A little boy walks all alone,
Up to the border, while we grieve
To see this boy, who’s forced to leave
His home, his family, all he knows,
As on he plods, the sadness grows.
Guards help him cross, at last some smiles,
He’s travelled many hundred miles.
His mother packed his small red pack
And placed it on her young son’s back.
She wants him safe, but has another,
Must stay behind, to tend her mother.
The Tyrant in his gilded chair,
Whose churning rage brings such despair,
Sits within his palace halls
Behind high crenelated walls.
Spurred on by his dogmatic fears
He hears no screams. He sees no tears.
This mortifer, this Azrael,
Creator of a Living Hell.
People, buildings, bombed to dust
To satisfy old power lust.
Homes destroyed, millions flee,
People dying, to live free.
He claims he wants to liberate,
This despot driven on by hate.
He’s killing those he claims to save
Sending thousands to their grave.
While shrapnel tears through children’s flesh
How can we ever start afresh.
How can The Tyrant even sleep
As sons are lost, and mothers weep,
And fathers, broken, filled with pain,
Can’t shelter loved ones from the rain
Of death, he orders, from the skies.
The Tyrant acts, the whole world cries.
FESTIVAL EXTRA
Final chapter opens for Nick Barley, the book festival supremo, writes Kenny Kemp.
For many folks who are beguiled by the pages of literature – be that on Kindle or in hardpack or paperback - the highlight of their summer is a cherished author’s event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
Over its 40-year span, the Capital’s Lit Fest has been a trailblazer in allowing writers, who spend long hours in solitude, to step out into a spot lit auditorium and lift the veil on their magical craft in front of a normally adoring fandom. It’s often an affirmation of love and respect between writer and reader, a life-enhancing phenomenon in itself.
There are even erudite Edinburghers who would happily forfeit all of the other Festival noise and bustle, as long as there remained a special place to hear their favourites. And the book festival is a special and yet fragile space.
Nick Barley, in his last Festival, has been in the hot seat as director over the last 14 years and has created many sparkling and often controversial events, with Scotland’s politicians becoming regular contributors. Even former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, herself a book lover, has been able to confab with crime writer Val McDermid, a close friend, at the fest.
It is the festival directors who have set the pace and dictated the pulse over the years, while the backdrop of Edinburgh, as a city of literature, has allowed the flourishing of JK Rowling, Irvine Welsh, Ian Rankin and Sandy McCall Smith, who have all been big ticket guests. (All guest writers are given the same modest fee, no matter their celebrity).
One fond memory for former director Catherine Lockerbie, who ran the greatest show in town for nine years and introduced the cosy Writer’s Yurt, is of Ian Rankin, the Rebus creator, kneeling at the feet of his heroine Muriel Spark, the Jean Brodie creator. Catherine also recalls the happiest of moments when Salman Rushdie walked into the gardens, smiling and without special protection, after a fatwah was lifted in 2005.
Nick Barley recently paid tribute to Jan Fairley, who was in charge from 1995 to 1997, who brought “a hefty dollop of internationalism to an already popular mix”, including enticing the legendary Mario Varga Llosa as a headliner. Book agent extraordinaire Jenny Brown was the original director from its inception in 1983. She set the compass, overcame early setbacks, and funding shortfalls, to give the whole event global stature, while Shona Munro, the director from 1991 to 1995, brought in a roster of writers including Anthony Burgess, Margaret Foster, Alan Bennett and Ben Okri.
So from today until 28 August, the bibliophiles, the novel hunters and the fiction fiends will be in book nirvana, whether that is Tartan noir crime, surrealist fantasy, spy thrillers or something more intellectually stimulating.
This is where folks who are passionate about writing and the spawning of new thinking congregate and commune, and where some are seeking emerging heavyweight favourites to replace the likes of Hilary Mantel or Cormac McCarthy, who are gone but will not be forgotten.
Of course, the days of pitter-pattering rain on the plastic roofs in Charlotte Square have given way to the surroundings of the Edinburgh College of Art, helping to move Edinburgh’s Festivals more and more to the south side of the city.
Romantic book-lovers still miss trawling around the Square, where it was possible to bump into a cherished writer enjoying a Crolla’s ice cream.
We’ve some sympathy with the view of Neil McIntosh, the Scotsman Editor, who said: “The loss of the Edinburgh Book Festival from Charlotte Square remains a shame. The festival’s new home at the School of Art removes it from the heart of the City. Its absence leaves the New Town a little out of it all.”
No matter the venue, there are many who choose only to come and listen and enjoy.
Irvine Welsh, most famous for Trainspotting, appears tonight in an opening night sell-out session, promoting the second of his Crime series, The Long Knives, and talking with Alan Warner and John King, about the second volume of The Seal Club 2 entitled The View from Poacher’s Hill.
Of course Welsh’s brew of drug-fuelled degradation and violent street life in Drylaw and Muirhouse, isn’t everyone’s cup of Earl Grey, so the likes of McCall Smith bring a more flippant, but no less poignant, take on Edinburgh life. His latest stories return to the familiar haunts of Scotland Street.
Today’s hot ticket will be to hear Canadian-born Eleanor Catton, who lives in New Zealand and is the youngest winner of the Booker Prize in 2013 for her second novel, The Luminaries, set in the goldfields of 1860s New Zealand, who will be talking about Birnam Wood, her third novel, an update of Macbeth.
James Kelman, winner of the Booker Prize in 1994, is on 20 August, presenting his new novel, God’s Teeth And Other Phenomena, with poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, on 19 August, speaks about Windrush and Jamaican culture and his new non-fiction book on his roots, while top Irish DJ, Annie MacManus will talk about her second novel, The Mess, on 26 August.
Jenny Niven, a leading cultural producer and director, will replace Nick Barley. She begins her new role in September after Nick has overseen the final chapters of this show. So thank you, Nick.
(Edinburgh International Book Festival, Edinburgh College of Art, 12-28 August)