WHEN Joseph Carmichael died last month, Edinburgh lost not only a prominent businessman but a small piece of history as well.
Born Jozef Horodyski in eastern Poland, he was 17 when Hitler's tanks rolled into his homeland.
Within weeks he was a
rrested on a false bombing charge and sentenced to death, along with two others.
His father protested his innocence but the three prisoners were lined up to be shot – only for the German commander, who also had a 17-year-old son, to order Jozef to run when it came to his turn. He dived through a hole in the hedge and got away.
He later escaped from Poland with his brother. They made their way to Paris via Budapest and joined the Free Polish Forces.
He fought during the evacuation of Dunkirk before giving the Germans the slip a second time and retreating across France to La Rochelle and a boat to Britain.
Jozef eventually arrived in Scotland and continued to serve with the Free Polish Forces. He was stationed at Gosford House in East Lothian, where he met his future wife, Marion.
First, however, he returned to action and fought in France as a tank commander and became the first Allied soldier to enter the Dutch town of Breda during its liberation in October 1944.
He married Marion in 1945 and in 1947 he joined his father-in-law William Carmichael's motor repairs business at the Maybury Garage as a motor engineer.
Over the next decade, Jozef's business acumen made him a partner in the firm and helped transform the firm into one of the largest motor companies in Scotland.
It expanded from repair work to car sales and became one of the foremost agents for MG cars. It was during this time, in 1950, that Jozef Horodyski changed his name to Joseph Carmichael, in honour of his wife and his adopted homeland.
Under his leadership, the company grew in leaps and bounds through the 1960s and 1970s. It brought discounted Jet Petroleum to Scotland for the first time and expanded the firm to become the Carmichael Motor Group, with ten garages, over 400 employees and the car franchises of Austin Rover, Jaguar, Land Rover, Rolls-Royce and Bentley.
This success allowed Joseph to buy Laverockdale House in Colinton in 1967 – one of Edinburgh's finest mansion houses, and this became the family home. The motor business closed in 1985, leaving Joseph to enjoy a happy retirement, spending his summers in Majorca pursuing his passion for sailing.
He died on April 2 in Edinburgh and leaves his wife, two sons, a daughter and six grandchildren.
The full article contains 467 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
