When we first heard of Stan “So-snow-ski”, we thought he must be a skiing cartoon character.

We were wrong!

Stan Sosnowski is a grandfather and Polish war veteran, who this week spent his ninetieth birthday speeding down a ski slope.

He had given up skiing, his favourite sport, seven years ago, aged 83, as he thought he was getting a bit too frail to continue.  However, a successful visit to The Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead this week has renewed his vigour.  He has now vowed to keep skiing until he reaches his hundredth birthday.

Stan learned to ski as a child in Poland, with leather boots and two planks of wood strapped to his feet.  As a teenager, he fought with the Polish Army before fleeing to Britain where he joined the RAF.  Post-war, he settled in London with his wife Dana.  He taught his daughter and his grandchildren to ski in the French Alps.

Stan reminisced: “I learned skiing before the war when I was just a child.  If I wanted to go up a slope I used to get pulled by a horse.”

“My best memory of skiing is the feeling of snow under my feet,” he continued. “I want to come back here next year. Who wouldn’t want to ski until they are 100?”

You can see how he got on here:

 

 

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