My Father-In-Law, who started his adult life as a Ukrainian cobbler, ended up with at least a working knowledge of Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, German and English. The war meant he was forcibly inducted in the German army, (Waffen SS), and ended up interned in Rimini by the Free Poles. Given an hour to decide whether he wanted to go to Stalin's Soviet Union, Canada or the UK, he ended up in a Displaced Persons camp at Redmile in the Vale of Belvoir as directed labour for the Ministry of Food. He eventually worked for British Rail for 30+ years as a trackman.
He had an interesting turn of phrase, "get harvest in when harvest ready", "you catch more (wasps) with honey than vinegar".
When the double glazing salesman called and asked if he wanted windows, he said, ".....but I got windows!"
When the Mormons called and suggested he come to Jesus, ".........hang on while I pack". (Caused chaos as he was an Eastern rite Catholic).
He got dementia in the end and lost his languages in reverse order of learning them, so lost English first, so for a while we spoke in German, (which I am terrible at!) Thankfully the local NHS had Russian, Polish and Ukrainian speakers.
