A REFUGEE who came to Blackburn and was best known for serving up a speciality chippy dish has died aged 95.

Zaharija Zarac, also known as Jack, was widely renowned for selling a battered black pudding treat, John Bull, which people in Blackburn would queue around the block to buy.

The 95-year-old, who ran Jack's fish and chip shop on Unity Street with his late wife, Jean, for 16 years, was described as a 'generous' and 'kind' man by his two sons, Peter and Dusko, following his death at Royal Blackburn Hospital on November 16.

Peter, 51, has kept the family tradition going and for 32 years has been running his own chippy, The Wellington, on the corner of Hancock Street and Wellington Road, Blackburn.

The former Witton Park High School student, who previously ran a chippy in Oswaldtwistle in the 1990s, said: "I owe everything to my dad. He has made me the man I am today.

"A lot of people still ask me about my parents because they remember being served food by them.

"He was well known for the John Bull dish but it actually started out on Bolton Road.

"My dad just put his stamp on it. He created his own secret recipe, which he has passed on to me."

Peter's father first moved to Blackburn in 1951, years after the Yugoslavian was forced to leave his own country after it was taken over by the Communists at the end of the Second World War.

The refugee, a Serbian Orthodox, walked through Slovenia and into Italy where he was placed into a British displacement camp where he worked as a batman, a soldier assigned to a commissioned officer as a personal servant.

In 1950 Jack was given a choice of moving to Britain or Canada and chose the United Kingdom because he had built an 'affinity' with the British. A year later he moved to Blackburn, where he had family relations.

Jack, of Risedale Grove, Blackburn, opened his first fish and chip shop in 1967, the year his son Peter was born.

The former weaver at Scapa Dryers, Blackburn, had gone into early retirement in the 1980s but went back into the trade in the early 1990s with his son, Peter.

He opened his second fish and chip shop, also called Jack's, on Stansfeld Road and the business lasted for six years.

Following his retirement in 1997 the building, located a street away from The Wellington, is now being demolished.

Jack's eldest son Dusko, 65, who lives in Cherry Tree, tearfully described his father as a 'generous' man who was loved by his family and friends.

The dad-of-two, who works as a sales manager, said: "My dad was a very generous man. He was family oriented, very kind and well loved by the customers that he served.

"While in the camp in Italy he tried to help as many people as much as he could because he had more food than some them because he had a semi-privileged position for being a batman."