As a general rule, memoirs are written by people who are clever, rich or famous. People who, over the years, make notes of interesting events which, years after, help them to write about them. In my case I am neither clever, rich nor famous, nor have I written any notes to make use of. I will depend entirely on my memory and my recollections. I consider myself as a poorly or, at best, a self-educated Bosnian peasant. I was born in 1928 in former Yugoslavia, now known as Bosnia and Herzegovina. My name is Spiro Dobrijevic. Having lived in the UK since 1948, by naturalisation I am a British citizen. We all have a story to tell and I hope that the readers will find mine both interesting and entertaining. The story will tell you of my upbringing in that lovely corner of Bosnia, of my wartime experiences as a boy soldier, of my journey, on foot, from Bosnia to Italy, of my journey, by train, from Italy to Germany, then from Germany to England. It will tell you my experiences, my observations and comments on a number of varied subjects. It will tell you of my activities to maintain my mental as well as my physical existence for the last eighty-eight years. Above all, it will tell you what it means to have to leave your birth place, at my age or at any age; your family, your friends, your neighbours and everything else that makes life worth living. It will also tell you what it meant for a young, uneducated, inexperienced boy to find himself in a land which offered nothing remotely familiar to him.
