The recent violent scenes from Ukraine have rocked the world and as the dead are counted and the search for ousted President Viktor Yanukovych continues, I am only glad that my Ukrainian father is no longer with us to witness yet more bloodshed from his beloved country.

Sadly, Ukraine is no stranger to violence. Its history is washed in the blood of innocents who have fought and lost against seemingly invincible tyrants.

Ukraine is a huge country, the second largest by area in Europe. As such its potential economic power and strategic positioning has attracted attention from those determined to seek control over what is often simply seen as a 'resource'.

It is frequently described as a country of 'two halves' - an Eastern or Russian half and a Western or previously Polish half. But many Ukrainians consider such descriptions as deeply damaging for a country that desperately needs to consider itself 'whole' and entirely Ukrainian.

Like many Ukrainians who came to Lancashire, my father's move was precipitated by horrendous violence and oppression, first from Stalin and then Hitler.

My father lived through the dreadful 'Holodmor' which took place in 1932-33. Now recognised as an act of genocide, 'Holodmor' was a man-made famine devised by Stalin to punish the 'inefficient' Ukrainian farmers.

It is estimated that between 2.4 and 7 million Ukrainians lay down and starved to death in Ukraine's fertile fields and dusty streets.

In 1941, the Nazis invaded the Ukraine. At first, welcomed by some as liberators, the brutality of the Nazis soon became apparent. My father remembered how prisoners of war were kept in a field with no shelter in the middle of winter.

As they slowly froze to death, survivors were forced to stack their bodies like railway sleepers in piles at the edge of the field.

The horrors were limitless. School children, who had been found in restricted areas, were bound with wire and shot in woodlands that were once the site of childhood games.

Shortly after, at the age of 16, my father was loaded onto a truck by the Nazis and taken to work in the slave labour camps in Germany. The plan was to clear the Ukraine of Ukrainians by working them to death in labour camps. The years that followed were marked by hunger, brutality, bombings and fear.

Like many other Ukrainians, my father came to Lancashire at the end of the war. The war had left the Industrial North short of workers and the Ukrainians were only too happy to fill the vacant roles, glad for the opportunity of an honest day's work.

My father arrived in this country exhausted, hungry and afraid. But it was the numerous acts of kindness that allowed him to re-establish his faith in humanity - a meal of fish and chips at the port and the freedom to sing his national anthem in public for the first time in his life.

He was always grateful for the stability of life in the United Kingdom. It was a stability which meant he was finally able to live a simple and quiet life, an aspiration I'm sure shared by many Ukrainians today.