Fred gives me my TV break

I would never have guessed that the man who helped me make my TV debut would be someone who didn't even know how to use a satellite dish, writes blogger Dan Wainwright.

Next week, July 21 to be precise, I will appear on BBC TV's Heir Hunters. It's a daytime TV show in which a probate company is followed as they search for the people entitled to inherit from relatives who died without making a will.

In the episode featuring yours truly the heir hunters are trying to find the people due to receive the unclaimed pension of one Josef Stawinoga, better known to you and I as Fred – our late ring road tramp.

In the absence of people who knew him personally the Beeb turned to the reporter who had the task of breaking the news of the 86-year-old's death.

I grew up knowing about Fred. I remember trips into town with my parents on a Saturday and my mum would point him out to me.

I was mesmerised by that grotty tent, the lank beard, the dirty coat and the broom he used to sweep up leaves.

As a seven-year-old I was convinced that tent housed great secrets, a doorway to a magic kingdom a bit like Narnia, rather than just a load of Tesco carrier bags filled with used tissues and empty bottles.

He chose this way of life despite offers of housing.

I remain convinced that Fred's situation could not have happened anywhere else. No other town but Wolverhampton would have allowed a vagrant to live in one place outside for 30 years. This city would never allow it again either. A district judge at the magistrates court said so when someone else tried to live there: "There's only one man allowed to live on that ring road and he's dead".

Fred and I never met but he meant a great deal to me.

He was an anecdote to share with new friends at university who just assumed Wolverhampton was a suburb of Birmingham. He was a symbol of living a simple life, revered by Sikhs and Hindus for spurning material wealth.

The rest of the details of his life, his war record, his time at Stewarts and Lloyds steelworks are largely irrelevant.

However his possible life as a German soldier must surely tarnish the bittersweet tale of his life.

Nonetheless Fred's living on the ring road undisturbed by drunks and yobs proved that we still have some respect for the sanctity of a person's home, however makeshift and unofficial it may be.

Heir Hunters is only really concerned with the pension he never claimed and the hunt for his family.

I have corresponded with his German nephew and Polish half sister. They told me all about Josef Stawinoga.

But they never knew Fred. Not the way that we did.