REAL LIFE DRAMA
WHENEVER EastEnders star Kristian Kiehling finds himself at the coast, he remembers the father he lost to the sea.
Playing dodgy market inspector Aleks Shirovs in the BBC1 soap, the actor was involved in many dramatic plotlines.
But none of them were as shocking and tragic as the story of how he lost his sea captain father Uwe.
Kristian was 18 when Uwe was killed by pirates in the Malacca Strait between Malaysia and Indonesia in October 1995.
Uwe, 59, was thought to have been wearing just a towel when the ruthless bandits attacked his cargo ship.
They forced him to open the vessel’s safe and stole money, then took Uwe hostage to escape and dumped him overboard. He was never seen again.
Kristian, who left EastEnders last month, said: “You can imagine what it was like for a boy whose father was a captain sailing around the world.
“He was my hero. I never imagined a day he would not come home. It was very traumatic.
“Having no grave to visit is so hard. I have no idea where my father is and nowhere to commune with him. So for me the sea is his grave. Whenever I visit the seaside, I get very emotional and upset. But then I get a sense of peace knowing he is out there somewhere.”
Uwe, who had fled communist East Germany for Denmark with his brothers, travelled the world’s most dangerous waters – including the Gulf at the height of the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s.
Adored by his crews, he was months from retirement when tragedy struck.
Kristian, now 38, who was then living in Hamburg with the family, said: “They sent us a suitcase of his belongings from the ship. I can still see that very clearly in my mind.
“As we unpacked it, we began sobbing. All his possessions were there, but there was a huge void in our lives because he would never be coming home.”
Kristian still has the old transistor radio his father always took with him to listen to the BBC – as well as the telex Uwe sent for his 18th birthday.
Then there are mementos of his time on board ships with his father, including a wooden machine gun carved for him at the age of four by a Filipino crewman.
The life I have