My Dad had an extraordinary life. Born in Hungary in 1933, his early childhood was idyllic in many ways, Hungary being an independent nation at that point. He then experienced the Nazi occupation during WW2 which was immediately followed by another even more brutal regime under the Russians. In 1956 he became involved in the Hungarian uprising as a freedom fighter against the might of Russia and became an unintentional hero when he assisted many people to escape Hungary, probably saving many lives in the process, before reaching the safety of England as an almost fatally wounded refugee. The intention of this introduction is to outline how this book came about.