Granddad

Hans Sauer (who became John Saver) was born in Brennberg, Hungary, close to the Austrian border. His mother was a teenager when he was born, who had got pregnant when she was raped by a Russian soldier. He never knew this – his family told him he was fathered by a man who had died in a mine – and she completely doted on him. She went on to marry and have three more children, and when the Soviets took over their village she was thrown out of her house and given a tiny, one-bedroomed annexe with no running water to live in with her four children.