Petone piano teacher grieves childhood friend Karol

The Pope's high school friends expected him to become a great actor like Richard Burton, says Petone piano teacher and childhood friend Arianne Latyshev.

Mrs Latyshev, now 80, grew up in Poland. Her family moved to Wadowice and she met Karol Wojtyla, who was later to become Pope John Paul II, at joint high school drama productions.

"We had teachers who were interested in acting, performing, putting on plays for children because there was no television then, we had to perform for ourselves. We had a beautiful stage and theatre."

She played an elf in one play, while Karol Wojtyla, several years older, played the knight in a Shakespearean-style Polish tragedy.

"In the holidays we were living by the river. We only went home when we were starving. It was a lovely place to swim and it was hot weather.

"He was living with his father and I remember him playing cards with his father. His father was in the army. He had no mother at that time. Just him and his dad."

He left to study Polish literature at Krakow University.

"Then came war and during the war he changed. He saw what was going on. During the war it was hell for Poles. Many of us died in concentration camps.

"But it was hard for me to believe he became a priest. I was very surprised because he had such a big talent for acting. We thought he would be a very famous actor because he was fantastic on stage. We thought he could have become like Burton."

Mrs Latyshev and her husband Victor, in danger from the communist regime, fled Poland and arrived here in the early 1950s.

She was stunned when her old friend became Pope in 1978: "You couldn't get sense out of me for several days."

They were reunited when he came to New Zealand as a cardinal, and later as Pope in 1986.

"Somebody told him that I was from his town and he was thinking who was it? I was coming close and he recognised me. He told me all about my friends."

Mrs Latyshev said her friend's death, which follows her husband's death last year, was a loss: "Because he is dear to all of us and because I knew him as a young boy."

- NZPA