Mo Salah rescued me from a hairy spot in Ukraine

Mo Salah saved the day when a Liverpool man who’s faced countless challenges on missions to war-torn Ukraine thought his luck had finally run out as he found himself lost in a wooded area in the northern part of the country.

Retired rail industry manager Eddie Tunstall was stopped at a roadblock by military officials and, because of the language barrier, struggled to explain just why he was there.

Eddir admits:

“It was a hairy moment”

It was his love of Liverpool FC – ‘and the international language of football’ – that eventually got him to safety through.

Eddie, 59, who’s originally from West Derby and now lives in Rainford in St Helens, explains:

“I was travelling from a safe house in Korosten to take some shoe boxes to schools in Chernihiv and so I put the placename into Google Maps, but instead of taking me straight through Kyiv, it took me around the outskirts of the city.”

“I was delighted at first because it was much better than driving through the middle of busy Kyiv, but as I went down a single track road and then a forest track I started to wonder if it was the right road.”

“It wasn’t.”

Eddie finally came to the roadblock where he was faced by military personnel who clearly wondered what he was doing there.

He said:

“The guy who came up to me couldn’t understand me and I couldn’t understand him, so it did start to become a bit scary … until I went to show him my ID and got my passport out,” smiles Eddie.

“It was then the official saw my LFC passport cover and immediately started saying ‘ah, Mo Salah, Mo Salah, Mo Salah’, and we had a bit of a Liverpool sing song in the forest before he thankfully put me on my way.”

Eddie has faced numerous moments like that since he began travelling to Ukraine with urgently needed aid, but that doesn’t deter the unlikely hero who’s about to set off on his 14th mission later this month.

He began his journeys after seeing the horrific news coming out of Ukraine when war first broke out:

“I just thought it was horrible, and I had to do something.”

“I hired a van and filled it with food, water, clothes and toiletries and put Lviv in the Sat Nav and just drove there.  It was that simple.”

Since then he’s become attached to the area and its ‘warm and proud’ people, and continues to take aid over.

Now, though, he’s bought his own transit van and is increasingly knowledgeable about what’s needed and has made contact with other charities and volunteers to target the support he is able and ready to give.

On his next visit, Eddie will be supporting three places.

One is a safe house which looks after mums and babies who have moved from occupied areas and to which he’ll take children’s and baby clothes as well as baby formula and nappies (which are always needed).

Another is a former orphanage which is being converted into a building to hold internally displaced people

Eddie says:

“I will physically help out there as well as taking household stuff like ironing boards, bedding, towels, curtain poles and curtains, and clothes maidens, to help people living there be as self-sufficient as possible.”

And a third stop will be a school in Chernihiv which he will provide with clothes, toys and presents for children.”

It’s hard to stop now he’s started, he explains:

“You can’t just turn your back when they still need so much help and will do for years,” he adds, “regardless of what happens. The words ‘I’ve done enough’ don’t exist.”

“These are ordinary people. They are us.”

“You can see that they are getting tired as the war goes on. It’s taking its toll. I think they are prepared to compromise, but they will never give up.

“They are the proudest people I’ve met and they are not going to wave a white flag.  They never will. They remind me very much of scousers in that respect.”

Eddie ignores the dangers and refuses to talk about the horrors he has seen, instead preferring to recall the many lovely moments that have happened since he started going over there, especially with the younger citizens of the Ukraine

He said:

“I love to see the children’s smiles when I go over, and I’ll play games with them.”

“I’ll have a game of football, as long as it’s okay with their mums, or I’ll play with little cars I’ve taken with the kids in safe houses. You don’t need to be able to communicate in words, but it’s great to see them smile and hear them giggle. I don’t know what they are saying, but I can see they’re happy.”

“I took one and a half vans of shoe boxes filled with toys, and sweets and toiletries in two trips in December and it was so cold. But it was snowing so I had snowball fights, and it was just good to have a bit of fun with the children.”

“It’s a chance to let them just be kids.”

The grandad of two girls admits Ukraine and his missions to take aid have become part of his life:

“I go because I can, and I’m helped by people who donate so much for me to take. I’m just driving a van,” says Eddie, who prefers to view the bombs and missiles going off as ‘fireworks’ in the sky to suppress any fear.

“I can’t change the world. I’m not changing the world. I’m just doing my bit to help it.”

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