My mum did end up as an accountant. To be honest I don’t think she has ever met my grandfathers criteria and the standards he wanted her to be. I remember my mum used to work as an accountant in a secret U.S.S.R. manufacturer of electronics, for building rockets and satellites. Because the economy was so linked, when the U.S.S.R. collapsed, the whole economy went to pieces and none of the country could function on its own, because the economy wasn’t able to function.

She gave up the job and she started going to Moscow to buy goods and bring them to the Ukraine, where we lived, and she had a little market stall. It gave an amazing financial impact on my family, that’s when life changed for good, for better. That’s when my parents bought their first car, when they got a new flat and when my mum tasted life for the first time. I can’t say it was luxury — it was luxury on her scale. It was affording food she wanted to have. This gave her the push and she has never worked for anyone else since. She became self-employed and she had a little business trading, with my father, until my father passed away 7 years ago and my mum was left alone. But, she is doing some work and she has got a state pension now.

I became very cool at school because I had a denim jacket on, I became a dealer of denim goods and chewing gums — which were so foreign for that time.

I was probably 14 or 15 at this point. It was a very important time in my life because when you hit teenage years, you are realising what money is, what can money buy and it is a turning point in your life. We had some family members in Poland and when U.S.S.R. and Ukraine opened the borders, they started bringing Polish goods to the Ukraine. I became very cool at school because I had a denim jacket on, I became a dealer of denim goods and chewing gums — which were so foreign for that time. 

I used to hang out with the coolest kids at school, because if they wanted a denim jacket they had to go through me! I was bringing them to my flat, introducing them to my Polish relatives and they were getting denim jackets. I wasn’t making money, my family were making money, but I was the link.