My father, Jan Kot, was born in Baranovichi in western Belarus. He studied engineering at Warsaw University, but at the start of WWII, joined the Polish cavalry and fought Stalin's invading Red Army. He was taken prisoner but escaped, crossing Europe and coming to the UK to join the Polish Free Forces where he became a paratrooper. Having opposed Stalin, he was not able to return to Poland after the war. He studied at the Polish School of Architecture at Liverpool University where he trained as an architect, and met his future wife, Margaret Woodcock. He came to Sheffield in 1949 to join the City Architect’s Department. He eventually became City Architect, and was responsible for many school and college buildings, and most notably, the Wedding Cake registry office, and the ‘egg box’ Town Hall extension, both sadly lost to redevelopment. He loved his adopted country, but always remained a Pole at heart.
On the site of former Town Hall extension