Editing Tapio Rautavaara (section)

===Early years===
Tapio Rautavaara was born in the municipality of Pirkkala (now [[Nokia, Finland|Nokia]]), a suburb of the industrial city of [[Tampere]], as the son of Henrik Kerttula and Hilda Rautavaara. Just three weeks later, his mother moved to the [[Helsinki]] suburb of [[Oulunkylä]], where she had lived before. Rautavaara's father was rarely at home, and soon left the family permanently. In 1921, Tapio and his mother moved to Tampere. Rautavaara used to have conflicts with his conservative teachers due to his working-class background. Tapio earned pocket money by selling socialist papers for local workers of the [[Finlayson (company)|Finlayson]] textile factory. Four years later, the family returned Oulunkylä, where Rautavaara lived the rest of his life.<ref name="palmen">{{cite web|url=http://tapiorautavaara.net/tapio_rautavaara_eng.pdf|title=Just a Vagabond|author=Palmén, Jussi|publisher=Rautavaara.net|accessdate=2 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150221204635/http://tapiorautavaara.net/tapio_rautavaara_eng.pdf|archive-date=21 February 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In the late 1920s, Rautavaara joined the local working-class sports club Oulunkylän Tähti (″Oulunkylä Star″) for practicing athletics.<ref name="palmen"/> Rautavaara's formal education ended at the elementary level.<ref name=sr/> By the outbreak of the Finnish [[Winter War]] in 1939, he had worked as a newspaper boy, roadworker, lumberjack and as a storeman at a co-operative mill. His [[Conscription|national military service]] was with the [[Finnish Navy]] in the mid 1930s.