late october 1970

Thursday

October ?

Thank you for the letter. I am afraid I carried the last one round with me for about a week without posting it so you may have had a gap without any news from me. .I have been very busy since Tony left going out to dinner nearly every night. I went to a concert last night and enjoyed it very much. Unfortunately I had a cold this week and have been feeling sleepy. Last week I went to Brno for 4 days and stayed with A.L and V.L.. I spent a whole day giving a lecture on discs and another trying to solve PERT problems. On Friday night we went out for a meal to the restaurant in Brno castle. I had a very nice Chinese dish- quite a surprise to see it on the menu. All the I.C.L. people were there. We have some extra programmers from London actually programming in the hope they can get the customer programmes working in time. We drank wine and listened to the gypsy band and afterwards went back to V.L.’s for coffee. It was 3 am when we finally got to bed.

On Saturday after a late start we went out in the countryside near Brno. The autumn tress were fabulous- just at their best with the sun shining on them, We found one mushroom in the woods, a bedela which I had for breakfast on Sunday- delicious not unlike our mushrooms. Now the trees are past their best- too many leaves have fallen but last weekend they were perfect.

On Sunday morning I helped with some apple picking and of course it reminded me of the orchard and home. I flew back to Prague Sunday afternoon so I had time to do some housework. This week I have been quite busy at work but remembered to post Auntie Dorothy and Nicky’s birthday cards. I sent Nicky’s card to your address as I thought Paula would probably be staying with you. Give her my love and say sorry that I have not replied to her letter yet. It is difficult with this extra person, Tony to write to in England. I hope Paula will be with you the weekend of the 23^rd as I would like to buy her something practical like clothes or shoes for Paula and Nicky’s birthdays.

Have you been bothered by the co-op insurance man at all? I suddenly realised I forgot to tell him we would be leaving England so I must be a little behind with my payments? I also realised the other day I had not collected my co-op dividend- I hope it is still there. I was also thinking (see what happens without Tony- all this thinking) I ought to have my eyes tested again as it is about 4 years since I had them done. Could you make me an appointment at the co-op or elsewhere on Sat 24^th October or Monday 10^th November and could you post any new glasses I needed to me later? I always seem to have a long list of jobs for you whenever I write. What would I do without my ‘agent in England’

I had better close now and look as if I am working!

Lots of love to everyone

Gill remembers giving the lecture on disc technology in Brno. Discs were the cutting edge technology of their time, and the ability to go to a piece of data without having to read through all the preceding records quite revolutionised the speed of processing programmes. These were not CD type discs but large and heavy 15 inch diameter things, housed in fridge sized cabinets. Initially such discs were ‘Fixed Discs’ that were not interchangeable. These were similar to huge magnetic ‘drums’ which were just coming into use (  We had one at a customer in Holland a couple of years later). The race was on to develop more immediate access to data to avoid trawling through large magnetic tapes when the data you needed might be at the very end. There were even machines (still largely prototype at the time at the UK Post Office I recall) using Magnetic Cards of about 4 by 8 inch held in a carousel and then picked up and projected at high speed along narrow shoots to be wrapped round a cylindrical reader before being whizzed back to the carousel for filing.

Gill gave a talk on the even newer exchangeable disc drives. This was quite amusing and typical of the way I.C.L. operated. She had the technical manual not given to customers and was able to tell them how the discs were organised and controlled but had never as yet written a programme using one.

The Czech and other European countries were very keen to use Pert and resource allocation. It fitted in very well with their central planning. Gill was lucky to have worked on the PERT Resource Allocation package for the smallest system 4 computer. Nowadays it would only be a fraction of the computer power in a mobile phone. She remembered having to reduce the coding to the minimum to fit into the main memory store. She was particularly proud of her coding to predict and take account of leap years. We wish Microsoft would be so diligent when writing their software which these days takes up more and more computer power and memory- always forcing you to buy the latest machine.

14th October 1970

Branik

14/10/70

Dear Mum and dad

Thank you for the letter we just received. He had a very interesting week this week. On Friday we went to dinner with some Czech people who live near us. They do not speak English but we had a good time and managed to communicate quite well. On Saturday we went to Lidice and found it very moving. There was a museum there which included photos of the old Coventry cathedral where a memorial service was held for the victims of the massacre. The rose garden was very beautiful but for some reason was home to thousands of mice. If you stood still you could watch them scurrying round with their little wufferly noses. It made us think of our hamsters. As a coincidence on the drive home to Prague we saw a pet shop with some hamsters for sale in the window. We are tempted to buy one when we get back from our UK trip in October. After Lidice we went to Krilokrat castle. It is situated on a hill.

..........page missing.............

Henry, the old English sheepdog puppy came too. He is not quite house trained and does not appear too intelligent. L and M B are leaving Prague for a job in Jugoslavia with I.C.L.

As usual I have some requests for you to do. I am going to stay and extra day in England so I can go to the doctors and dentist. Could you make appointments for me on Monday 9^th Nov?. One for the dentist. I think I need two teeth filling and a clean and polish. Could I also get an appointment with one of your doctors? I would like a TAB job against typhoid paratyphoid and tetanus. I would also like a check up to make sure I am sound in wind and limb. The problem with the injection is I think you need two jabs a week apart. If so could I have the first one the previous Monday early in the morning or better still the previous Saturday or Sunday if the doctor could be persuaded to do it as I don’t want to miss any of my courses. I can pay in hard currency sterling or Tuzexs (joke). I am looking forward to coming home and seeing you all and I shall have fun shopping for presents before I come. Last time I came to England I did not have enough notice so I was not able to look forward to the trip. I may take the VW to Germany next weekend and get it serviced. Tony can’t come with me at the moment as he has not got a valid visa but this should be sorted before our trip to England.

The BBC world service has been very good lately and we heard ‘The Winters tale’ the last 2 Sundays in two parts. We really appreciate the news and comment on England and the rest of the world. I am reading the biography of Mao-Tse-Tung and it is extremely interesting. I am quite ignorant about that part of history. I will send Auntie Dorothy a card for her birthday but is there anything she might like from Czechoslovakia? Jewelry, cut glass, pictures or anything else you can think of just let me know.

No more news. Love to Paula, David, Nicky and Christopher. I hope Nanny enjoyed her holiday in Wales and that she had good weather.

Love to you both

From

Tony and Gillian

Lidice was very moving. The whole village had been raised to the ground after one of the inhabitants was thought to be involved with the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the German Reich Protector in 1942. The men were lined up outside the church and shot, whilst the women and children were sent to concentration camps. Very few survived to the end of the war.

 For the most part our work of supporting early computer systems in Eastern Europe revolved around trouble shooting and helping the customer to design & develop fairly complex software systems from scratch, together with chasing up administrative issues such as whether a training course had been booked or an urgent hardware modification had been despatched. The few reliable software packages that were available did not always fit the larger scale of a centrally planned economy. Whist some software packages could be adapted, that was a tricky business given the relatively fragile nature of bespoke packages. Most software systems were developed locally were unique to that particular industry. Due to the communist central planning approach, any particular industrial sector would be well integrated and ultimately report into one government ministry. The scale and amount of data to be processed by the systems was often greater than businesses in the West. It could even be bigger than had been anticipated in the original specifications for an ICL Package or excede hardware design limitations. Whilst we could often resolve software problems locally, there were many occasions when we needed urgent communication back to the UK to speak to the original software designers & programmers.

With the long delays in phoning anywhere outside the country, the standard communication was via a slow ‘Telex’ machine. The message had to be written down and then laboriously typed into the Telex machine. At least you’d get a hard copy, but an answer often came the next day or later. In the UK a secretary had to tear off each message from the continuous role of paper, divide it up and get it to the appropriate ‘expert’. It wasn’t easy and meanwhile we’d be taking all manner of flack from a frustrated customer. There were no on-line communications facilities, no Internet, no e-mail, no international telephone dialling codes we could access, so the Telex it was!

6th October 1970

Branik

6/10/70

Dear Mum and Dad

Thank you for Tony’s birthday card which arrived yesterday- unfortunately he is in England at present so we won’t be together for his birthday. I have bought him a record of West Side Story as part of his present but I don’t know what else to buy him- probably a large Chinese meal when I get to England.

I have not had time to feel lonely since Tony left on Friday the neighbours have ‘taken me over’ feeding me taking me out and amusing me. Friday I went to  Honza and Mila’s flat to watch TV- an ice hockey match and everyone was happy because CSSR won. Afterwards we played cards and talked- in Czech of course. On Saturday I went shopping with Mila in the morning and took her son Marek, 16 months old to the zoo. It was lovely as all the animals were outside, the little boy really enjoyed it. He calls me ‘Tatta’ Czech for auntie.

On Sunday I did the washing and tidied the house and read. I read two books over the weekend and really enjoyed it- not feeling guilty about Tony with no one to talk to.

Last night I went to some different neighbours and helped their daughter with her first English lesson, mainly to help with pronunciation. Just imagine a Czech girl speaking English with a Coventry accent. As usual I was given apples and cake- I have hardly had to buy any food since Tony left. Today I had a telex from Tony saying he had arrived safely so I don’t need to worry about him having an accident en route.

I have bought Auntie Dorothy a broach as I had a feeling she did not wear necklaces. I also managed to get Paula’s earrings at last. They match my ring. Don’t tell her- I want it to be a surprise. However I am having trouble with your candles as I can only find plain ones in the shops at present-I think the pretty ones are made nearer Christmas- I will see what I can find.

I have a busy week ahead. Tomorrow a friend from work is coming to dinner. Tonight I am going to the pictures or swimming. On Thursday I am going to Brno for a few days to give a talk on discs. I may stay the weekend with A.L. as V.L. is working away in East Germany. Next week have already an invitation to dinner and a concert arranged besides two parties on Friday night- quite a hectic social life. Still better than sitting at home brooding! Of course I am really looking forward to coming to England and seeing you all again.

We moved our office today so the Pankrac address is no longer valid. The new office address is

I.C.L.

Ricanova 44

Praha 6

Brevnov

In case you need to contact me urgently. It is in a nice villa but unfortunately on the other side of Prague from us. I had better close now and will see you all very soon for a nice long chat and all the news.

Lots of love to you all

Gillian

PS Thanks for arranging the dentists for me. I hope I can get some new pills from the doctor.

I.C.L did have some excellent training courses. We spent quite a bit of time travelling from Prague to UK by plane or car. We found we could do the trip in two days easily if we stuck to the German motorways and did not digress down the picturesque river valleys. Looking at this year of letters illustrates how communication has changed during the last 40 years. I tried to write every week. In my recent travels abroad living in Holland in the 1990’s I would telephone my mother every day but rarely write to her. I have even stopped sending post cards when I go on holiday where it was a vital part of keeping in contact with friend and family back in the old days. Nowadays its Facebook, and texting on mobile phones that take precedence over writing. Even e-mail use is diminishing as it takes too long in our instantaneous world to write an e-mail compared with a posting on Facebook or a tweet.

Gill’s job at UAVT (a Ministry of Technology organisation with its building grounds of the old international exhibition site at Vystaviste in Prague) was an example of the ICL ‘instant expert’ syndrome. Gill was sold to them as a COBOL expert but had only had a one week course as part of her initial training. Any problems with the Cobol compiler she would always ask for a core dump. She had learned the low level language usercode and had written programs for the PERT software so was able to interpret machine code. She had a flair for debugging and could usually narrow down where the error had occurred. She then had to relate the area of the core dump back to the COBOL instruction that had malfunctioned. Doing this meant she could telex the Cobol compilers in UK and alert them to the error and possibly suggest an alternate way of programming to avoid the error. The customer appeared happy with her results but I guess she might have solved the error faster if she really had been a COBOL expert.

We’ve mentioned before that the first line of defence for our maintenance engineers when a hardware fault occurred was normally to take of the cover of which ever large metal box was playing up, and carry out some deft Hoovering. It was at this computer site in Vystaviste, in a large sealed air conditioned computer room, on a 15 inch raised floor, that a particular fridge sized printer had an intermittent fault. Removing the outer cover and noting an unusually large amount of fluff & dirt inside, the Engineers Hoover did its job displacing a family of mice who had taken up residence. The printer worked perfectly thereafter.

27th Sept 1970

Branik

Sunday 27^th Sept 70

Dear Mum and dad,

We are just starting our Sunday night tasks of cleaning shoes, washing hair and writing letters. Tony is getting ready to go to England- making lists of all the things he has to do and buy there. We had a busy week. On Wednesday we went swimming at the big pool on the river road. It is a fabulous place- very clean and well organised. There are two large outside swimming pools and one indoors. Although the weather was really cold the pool outside was very hot and it was very pleasant swimming under the stars in the open air. Tony is progressing real well with his breast stroke- he will soon be swimming as well as me. After our swim we had our first experience of a sauna bath, a Czech variety rather than a Swedish one. It is a very hot steam room that you sit and sweat which brings all the dirt out of your skin. The swimming bath included hot showers to use before and after bathing and hair dryers for hire.

On Friday V.L. and Andrea L. came up to Prague for the day and stayed the night with us. It is the first time we had seen them since their wedding. We spent a pleasant evening with some of the other I.C.L. people listening to records and chatting. Andrea.L. plans to come to Prague in a fortnight’s time and will probably stay with me then. I have all sorts of people to visit while Tony is away in England.

I have had a good time last week buying presents to take home. However it is impossible to buy any garnets at present so they will have to wait until Christmas.

Today we got up very late after an evening with the neighbours. I am finding the book ‘Colloquial Czech’ very useful as the vocabulary is good for everyday conversations. However my grammar is still terrible. I was very warm today without a cloud in the sky. We drove in the Slapy direction but stayed the same side of the river as our flat and stopped by a small tributary of the Vltava. We walked for about three hours up a wooded valley. There were lots of Czech summer cottages in the woods but they blended in with the scenery. We came home ravenous and I cooked roast beef with green beans for Sunday dinner. I am looking forward to some roast lamb when I come home. I don’t think we have eaten lamb since April. The concert season has started again in Prague with some very good operas and ballets being performed so I am looking forward to the winter here.

I had better close now and wash my hair ready for work in the morning

Lots of love as always

Tony and Gillian

Our neighbours were lovely and really took me under their wing when Tony was away. I wish we had kept in touch with them but it was difficult when we did not speak good enough Czech and they did not speak much English.

If you read this, Thank you Mila and Honza. I hope Marek grew up in a lovely man like his parents.

 We became friends with several of our wonderful Czech neighbours who benefited from their informal network of friends and relatives who told them when meat was available at a particular butcher, or vegetables somewhere else. In this way Czech families helped each other to survive this difficult time, and took pity on two poor foreigners living in their midst by passing on information about where we could find the provisions to live. Over the years since we have both travelled the world, and between us we have lived & worked in many other countries, but we have always held the Czech–lands people in special regard for their incredible quiet fortitude in the face of oppression, resilience against the apparent stone wall of Russian strength, and above all, despite their desperate position, the willingness to help and succour English alien immigrants in their midst. How easy it would have been, as we have more recently seen in other western European Nations, to blame all ills on foreign workers taking their jobs. What a great nation.

Tony particularly remembers the swimming pool at Branik. It was late September and there had been an early snow fall. Tripping across the ice cold tiled floor to the get into the outside pool, we remember the mist evaporating from water surface and the contrast in temperatures once in the water. But his strongest memory was the from the large open area men’s changing room. Being a rather modest Englishman at the time, with several other naked and near-naked Czech men around, it was a shock to see a lady cleaner ambling around with a meter wide ‘squeegee’ broom quietly manoeuvring it around the men present, even asking them to step aside to make room for the broom.

23rd September 1970

23/09/70

Dear mum and Dad

As you can see I got back to Prague safely after my trip to Germany. I quite enjoyed walking round the shops but the clothes were terribly expensive. We have decided to buy clothes in England as it is certainly the cheapest place in Europe. A dress costs £15 to £20 in Germany. Last week my old faithful watch from Spain finally stopped and as I am lost without one I bought one in the Tuzex shop. It is a stainless steel Japanese watch with a second hand which is useful for timing eggs and pulses. Tony is now convinced his watch is horrible, besides losing time, so I might buy him a new one for his birthday.

I had a nice long letter from Paula on Monday which pleased me very much- I shall try and write to her sometime this week.

As always we have had a busy life. Last Friday we went to dinner with one of the I.C.L. people, Tony A.  His girlfriend is Swedish and cooked some Swedish food for us. Several other people were invited including a couple from the embassy who go riding in Prague. They have promised to phone us next time they go as someone from the embassy acts as interpreter and they have lessons in an indoor school. Needless to say the thought of riding again pleased me very much.

Tonight we are going swimming with our neighbours to the indoor swimming baths. It has suddenly gone cold the last two days although it is still sunny.

I looked at skiing equipment in Germany and it is very cheap so we will probably buy some next time we go to Germany together. We will have a very sporty life; swimming, riding and skiing but it will be good for me after all the Czech dumplings.

We have just been to the Tuzex Shop in the foyer of the Alcron Hotel, but the watch Tony liked so much has been sold. Also there was hardly any cut glass or garnets in their shop as it is the end of season so I am not sure I will be able to buy any earrings for Paula’s birthday. We saw a silly American cowboy film called ‘The Professionals‘ on Saturday- it was quite entertaining.

We were upset as one of the shock absorbers on the VW has gone already, according to the garage where we had it serviced in Germany. It cannot be too bad as we have not noticed it but Tony will have to get it repaired when he gets back to England. The roads here are terrible to damage a new car so quickly. We hope we will not have to pay for it as it is still under the 6000 mile guarantee.

Tony and I will probably travel up to Coventry by car on the 23^rd October as Tony will meet me at the airport and we can drive via Aylesbury and Banbury. We will bring home some of our sheets and blankets as we have bought Czech style duvets. We hope you can find a spare corner in your loft for them. We will also bring over our Czech home movies to show you if you can borrow a super eight projector from some of your rich friends.

Love Tony and Gillian

Compared with modern cars those built in the seventies appear very shoddy and unreliable. Reading these letters I am amazed how often we had to go to Germany to get the car serviced. The roads were bad in Czechoslovakia but we expected a German car to be more robust than the one we bought and it had more problems in the first year of its life. It wasn’t just the miles of cobbled streets that caused such wear on shock absorbers and the like, but the harsh prolonged icy winters left a legacy of large pot holes each spring, and roads were forever being ‘dug-up’ to repair underground pipes and especially tram rails. The repair workers were not supplied with high visibility barriers, let alone night time warning lights, so it could be very hazardous driving at night especially during a blackout.

One of our colleagues, I think it may have been M.V. in his new Ford Capri, actually broke the axel driving into one such deep pot hole around a tram track repair. Perhaps he was just very unlucky because not long after, having parked his car in the main car open-air car park immediately outside the Prague Airport terminal building on route to a training course in the UK, he returned to find the car on bricks and his four wheels missing.

Burst tyres, also nothing like the quality they are today, were another frequent problem for the faster drivers amongst our maintenance engineers. Nothing to do with too much ‘Pivo’ we were assured.

We were advised not to get our cars serviced in Eastern Europe. Mainly because they did not have the currency to buy the spares needed but also because there was a possibility that an unscrupulous garage would swop parts from your car with locally manufactured parts so they could sell your genuine parts on the black market.

Two other crossing the border stories. The first was when we came back from Germany on one of our trips. We were stopped for speeding near the border in a village and given an instant fine. We did not have any Czech crowns with us only Deutschmarks and sterling. Another guard came over who spoke English. We explained the predicament and offered the guards hard currency. Had one guards been on his own he would have taken it and made a three-fold profit on the black market, but because there were two guards (one might have reported on the other) they sent us on our way. The second story again was about the engineers. As a joke the engineer left a trick bag on the front seat. When it was opened a recording played of someone laughing heartily. The joke backfired when the border guards were not amused and he spent a couple of hours being interrogated on who he was where he was going and why.

___________________________________________________________

7th september 1970

Branik

07/09/70

Dear mum and dad thank you for the letter- it only took 3 days to arrive so the post must be getting better. I had a very nice present on Friday- a bikini from Auntie Kath in London. Her best friend works making these bikinis –it was fabulous-black and fits me perfectly.

I have not heard about my courses yet but I am expecting a telex this week. It is possible there are no places left so I may not be able to get to England until later.

Our water came back on Wednesday and we washed both cars and waxed the VW ready for the winter. On Sunday we spring cleaned the flat and I disgraced myself by spilling window cleaner on the radio- Tony’s pride and joy. Although it stopped working it is OK now it has dried out.

On Saturday we visited Les B. and his wife M. who have just bought back an old English sheep dog puppy from England called Henry. He is fabulous a ball of black and white wool with big floppy paws and no tail. Greg. W. and his wife Angelica have just been adopted by a stray kitten. I feel envious of all these pets. I will have to ask Tony to bring me a hamster from England.

Tony bought me some lovely roses this week as it was our third wedding anniversary. I arranged them in a Hogarth curve in our new Japanese vase.  He also bought me some books by Hungarian authors and I am looking forward to reading them.  I bought Tony some chocolates and champagne and we celebrated with chicken curry and peaches. The shops are unusually good at present with pears and peaches available and we have been cooking some good meals. The weather is changeable with warm sunshine at present but wind and rain over the weekend.

We have been reading a lot lately having raided Greg. W.s library while on a visit to see his new son. Yes the first new I.C.L. baby has arrived and the second due to Chris. J and M.J. is due in the next six weeks.

Work is going quite well. Tony is going to Karlovy Vary tomorrow for a symposium on computer topics. We are both waiting for pay rises but knowing I.C.L. it will take months for them to come through.

Give our love to everyone at home. Hope Nanny has a good holiday.

Love Tony and Gillian

It was about this time Tony started working with the Czech wood industry in their attempt to justify buying a computer and to find the hard currency to pay for it. Tony recalls that on meeting the Directors they each handed him a unusual business card. Each card was printed on a rectangular slither of hard-wood veneer, in a variety of different woods, beautifully gilded with each person’s details. I wish we had kept them.

But it was the usual problem of the lack of hard currency in the organisation to pay for a computer system. Their plan was to produce an excess of their products and sell them in the West for the hard currency needed. They were big on wood chalets and cabins that might do the trick. A City of London ‘Barter House’ Executive duly arrived from the UK, the very epitome of a city international wheeler & dealer. Dressed in his slightly too bold blue stripe three piece suit, white starched shirt, military colours tie, paisley top-pocket handkerchief, and sporting a well OTT public school accent, he exuded self confidence. His role was to find a buyer for the Wood products outside the Iron Curtain, arrange the export, get the hard currency, take a substantial cut for his services and place the residue in an escrow account so that the computer company could then ship the computer in from the West. That is, subject to the Czech technical import/export agency Kovo’s agreement, and more importantly the approval of the NATO CoCom committee in Paris whose job it was to ensure that no computer equipment went into Eastern Europe that would give them any strategic advantage.

Tony didn’t spend very long on this project because were soon to move on, but we did hear that a computer was eventually supplied some years later.

 

31st August 1970

Branik

 31/08/70

Dear Mum and Dad ,

Sorry I have not written for so long but we have been very busy since we came home. Thank you for the photos- they are very good. I think you both look very young. I owe everyone letters. Pat.S. wrote and guess what? She is going out with David. K. again. He finished his finals at Christmas. However P.S. is still going to S. Africa and is waiting to see if D.K. will forget her or not. I would very much like to see them married.

I hope you got your card from Corsica. I sent one to you, one to Nanny and one to Auntie Dorothy all at the same time. In case you did not get them the interesting news is Christine B. is expecting another baby so she has relented in her determination to have only one child.

I also had a letter from Jane .M.  which contained the information that she is unofficially engaged. I was told to keep the information under my hat but I don’t wear one. I don’t think she would mind me telling you as you are unlikely to see her mother or anyone else she knows. I cannot remember whether I met the man or not at the weekend we spent with J.M before we left so I am not sure who he is.

There is then several pages describing our holiday in Corsica which we thouroughly enjoyed, camping by the sea shore and relaxing. I have decided not to post these pages as they are not related to our life behind the iron curtain and many people will find it tedious to hear our travels. We did get stuck in a huge traffic jam over the Brenner pass because the tunnel through the mountains was still being built. Years later we traveled the same way and found it very quick and convenient but not in 1970.

Since we came home we have been very busy doing all the washing. Last weekend we had planned to clean the flat and the car but were frustrated by the metro workers fracturing our water main. Instead we started filming the epic ‘Prague’. We had a good day Sunday filming the lesser town with Charles Bridge and the castle and many of the back streets around there.

Tony is coming to England in October for four weeks to learn German so he will probably come and see you one weekend. I am trying to book some courses and I will telephone you if I am able to go on them and let you know. You must write and ask if you want anything from Prague.

Give my love to Paula David and family. I hope Auntie Dorothy has a good time with you in Coventry. Give my regards to Auntie Phyllis and Uncle Jo. I will send them a card soon. Love to Nanny

Lots of love

Tony and Gill

We were very lucky to spend such a good time travelling in Europe and visiting so many different countries. We always found holidays on islands worked well for us. There is a limited amount of ground to cover which prevents one from travelling around at too fast a rate and makes you take time to really look at the scenery and history of a place.

 We still have the cine films we took with our super 8 camera in Prague. They were transfered to Video tape in the 1990s and soon we hope to have them on the computer. They are of poor standard as the tape started to mildew before we did the transfer but they act as a reminder of our earlier life.

It is hard to remember the time when the motorways did not go everywhere in Europe and travel could still be slow even in Austria. They were beginning to build the first motorway in Czechoslovakia while we were there. Travelling around the country was very slow especially in the mountains with the hairpin bends. They were also starting building the metro in Prague as the letter shows but it was not opened until some considerable time after we left. We were quite used to the electricity going off for a few hours each day but it was the first time the water had stopped and it took several days to get it back on again.

Sometimes the blackouts due to electricity cuts would last hours. Tony was driving home after dark through one of the road tunnels when a blackout occurred. It caused chaos & it was probably only due to the slow driving speed of the many antique cars on the road that prevented a large ‘pile-up’.  The locals said that the blackouts were due to the Russians cutting supplies because the Czech Authorities had not paid their bill, but how true that is we were never sure, especially considering the very negative attitude at the time towards the occupying Russian Military in Prague.

There were work related consequences when electricity failed and customers who had not commissioned or maintained their stand-by generators faced many hours of running slow back-up tapes to recover their computer programs and lost data.

4th August 1970

Branik

4/08/70

Dear Mum and Dad,

Yesterday we saw the Tony’s parents and aunties off on their travels across Europe. At present I am busy preparing for our holiday in Corsica which we start on Friday so I am writing this at work as I am not too busy at the moment.

We had a good time with Tony’s family. Auntie Pat and Auntie Kath were thrilled about everything. It was Aunties Pat’s first trip abroad. She had planned to travel with her husband when he retired but of course never had the chance. The Fs travelled slowly across Germany stopping at Coblenz, Bonn, Mainz and Nuremburg and arrived in Prague Friday evening. Lucky I was home. Auntie Kath thought to bring a jar of instant coffee which was very kind of her. The aunties said they were quite willing to stay at a hotel but we fitted them quite easily, I had fun cooking for my large family and I don’t think I washed up once as they were all very helpful.

The Bohemian cut glass was very much appreciated and they went home laden with vases, glasses and ash trays. It is much cheaper in the Tuzex shop than in England. Auntie Kath and Tony’s Mum bought some Czech garnets- auntie a ring and Mrs. F. a broach for her sister and a cross for herself. Mrs F also bought a modern glass fish which had been incorrectly priced- it said £2 instead of £20 so she was very pleased with her bargain,

The first Sunday it rained all day and they were all very tired from travelling so we stayed in and played cards while Tony’s Mum read ‘Devil Dr- Fu Man Chu’.

On Saturday we had looked around the castle and Belvedere summer palace and in the evening we went to Slapy Dam. Like you they were impressed with the Slapy area.

On Tuesday we travelled to the mountains stopping at Zelezny Brod where there was an exhibition of modern glass at the School of Glass. Mr. F. bought Tony a piece of modern glass sculpture for his birthday. It is a large smooth Art Deco sculptured block of dark blue glass that looks lovely with the light behind it.

The Hotel we stayed at (Alpski Hotel) was only small, built like a mountain chalet with about 30 rooms. It was not as luxurious as the Panorama we stayed at in Slovakia but the food and service were very good. We were not sure how the Fifields would react to mountain walking but they enjoyed every minute. Mrs F. was very game and did not grumble in spite of slipping twice. Auntie Kath was very pleased with herself as a year ago, when she had the cancer she could not walk any distance at all, so to go on a ten mile hike including climbing 1,400 feet was quite an achievement. We were lucky as the weather changed for the better the day we arrived. It was ideal for walking hot with a cool breeze. We walked up the valley where the hotel is situated, following the river all the way and climbing through the pine woods. I recorded a very amusing scene on the cine camera of Mr F., Tony, and Auntie Kath climbing up the river from stone to stone and Tony and Auntie Kath falling in the water. I hope the film comes out OK.

We were pleased to find at the top of the mountain a route centre with a restaurant where we could have a pint of lemonade. On the mountainside there were lots of flowers including marsh orchids, alpine pansies, hare bells, knapweed and cotton grass. On the way down the mountain we had the new experience of being caught in a thunderstorm. The forest went really dark and we could not see where we were walking. Then the rain just poured down with thunder and lightning. We tried to shelter but decided it was better to carry on and as a result got soaked. None of us had a Mac with us as the weather had been so perfect all day. (All the Czech walkers had handy pocket Macs and plastic hoods). When we got back to the hotel we had a bath and were none the worse for the experience. The next day we visited a large cirque valley with two waterfalls. We all felt a little stiff except for Mr F and Tony and Auntie Pat who did very well for her 60 yrs.

On the way home we stopped at Kutna Hora which they liked very much. The last few days were spent visiting Karlstein castle, Slappy and doing last minute shopping at the Tuzex shop in Prague. We were all prepared to go boating at Slapy on Sunday. I had lent my spare swimming costumes to the two aunties. We went to Zverhost to the hotel Sport and had a meal. After the meal we were preparing to inflate the boat when a thunderstorm arrived and it has been raining ever since so Auntie Kath and Auntie Pat did not get their swim.

The aunties insisted on buying a record of a Dvorjak concert and giving me £5 to buy some shoes and bringing Tony a jumper from England. Auntie Kath is also going to finish knitting the blue jumper for me so I may have a chance to wear it before Christmas. Mr and Mrs F. bought us a nice Japanese style vase so I can do some Ikebana flower arrangements.

I am looking forward to coming to England to see your films of the holiday in Czechoslovakia. Ours are not too bad and I have some nice shots of you and Dad in the mountains. We gave Mr and Mrs F a couple of films to develop in England and we hope to take some more in Corsica.

The boat tickets only had one mistake in that it had our car as a Vauxhall instead of a VW but I don’t expect it will matter. We are planning to travel via Saltsburg and the Austrian Tyrol then via Lake Como to Milan, arriving at Genoa on the third day. Tony has all the equipment ready so I have to do the ironing and packing. We are greatly looking forward to this break. The VW is a good size and can comfortably transport six people on short journeys.

I said you would always be pleased to see Tony’s parents & aunties if they have time to visit. They all thanked you and sent you their love. Auntie Pat said you must visit her in Folkestone next year when her house has been decorated. Mr F’s chest is still bad but he is still smoking. I think the holiday has done him good. We did all the driving while they were here so he had a rest.

I hope Paula and David have a good holiday in Yorkshire- I keep thinking how they would like the countryside here, especially the mountain walks. I sent Christopher and Nicky a post card so they don’t forget who we are.

The plant you bought me is shooting out new leaves so I am hoping it may flower again- it will probably suffer when we are away on holiday. I have a few scrubby marigolds in my window box and some wilting nasturtiums but the standard is not good at all.

I hope Auntie Dorothy enjoys her holiday with you. Thank her for her letter and give her my love.

Have you heard any news from Pat S? I have not heard from her for a long time but I guess she is busy preparing to go to S Africa. Remind her to write to me when she arrives, I shall be interested to hear her impressions.

I had better close now and look as if I’m working. I don’t expect I shall have time to write in the next couple of weeks but I shall send you some post cards. I never have time to write to all the people I should, like Auntie Edna. What did she think of your drift wood from Slovakia?

By the way the driftwood in the giant mountains was very good, polished smooth and white by the mountain streams. We would have been stopping all the time if you were with us. I did bring one piece back as a souvenir, shaped like the head of a dog- psohlavcu- very appropriate.

My Czech has not made much progress or Tony’s German- we don’t get a spare minute. Perhaps we will have more time in the long winter evenings.

The grass outside our flat is full of beautiful blue chickory, knapweed and cow parsley; blue, mauve and white.

Give nanny my love. I hope she enjoys Wales this year

I must say bye bye now. I will write a long letter when we get back from holiday and tell you all about it.

Lots of love

Tony and Gillian

I remember on the journey to Kutna Hora as we met a huge convoy of Russian lorries and tanks. We were travelling in two cars both with Dutch export plates. The road was narrow and winding and we tried to hop past the lorries one by one but they were driving so close together it was almost impossible to get back into the right hand lane. I was in front and came to a straight piece of road and put my foot down and sped past the convoy. Tony followed more slowly partly because the road started to bend again. When he reached the front of the convoy a local police officer stepped out in front of him and told him he had been speeding and had to pay a fine. He tried to explain it was not him that exceeded the speed limit it was another Dutch registered car. In the end he paid the fine. I was sitting in Kutna Hora wondering where the other car had got to and imagining they had broken down or crashed.

Tony later explained the delay, and as usual, noted that the speeding ‘fine’ went straight into the Police Officers pocket. No receipt was offered.  The pocketing of money incident, not unlike the similar experience in Prague earlier in the year involving Tony’s ‘prang’ with the Russian General’s car, was (we later experienced) to be found from time to time in similar guises throughout the Eastern European communist countries. It was said (not sure how true it was but the phrase was well known at the time), that Lenin had said that to take a tip or a bribe was an affront to socialist dignity. Often we found that government officials all the way down to waiters were delighted to have their socialist dignity affronted, most frequently by request.

27th July 1970

Branik

27/07/70

Dear Mum and Dad,

Thank you for the two letters. I was glad to hear the tickets arrived safely. I am sorry they caused you so much trouble. You seem to be having a good time with your American visitors. I shall look forward to seeing your films when I am home again. Mr and Mrs F and family must be somewhere in Europe now. We are expecting them on Friday. We will be quite pleased to see how our films have turned out. We keep meaning to take some film of Prague as we have not managed it so far. I think it will take a whole weekend and we never have time to devote solely to filmmaking. It would be good to film at different seasons to show Prague throughout the year.

We have just finished cleaning the flat and I have all the bed clothes ready for the incoming F hoards. I hope they like Smetana crème, smazony syr and knedlicky.

Last weekend we went to Brno for A and V’s wedding. We had to get up at 4.30 to arrive get changed and be ready for the wedding at 12 noon. I was surprised how nice the service was translated into English. A. wore a long dress and veil and her sister was the bridesmaid. The town Hall was a fabulous setting with a vaulted Norman ceiling and bare stone walls. The actual words were similar to a Christian wedding replacing ‘God’ by ‘our socialist state’. The funniest part was the interpreter who came with several quaint phrases like ‘put aside all inhibitions when closing this marriage’ There was a mixture of Czech and English traditions. A cup was broken in front of the couple as we saw at the wedding we witnessed at Kutna Hora. The bridegroom must sweep the pieces symbolising he will help his wife with the house work. At the reception afterwards the bride and groom have to share a soup bowel, another Czech custom. However Czechs do not have confetti or the traditional wedding cake. After the formal reception there was an informal party at V’s parents flat which went on quite late into the night.

We came home on Sunday after a long lie in. On the way home we picked some cherries which were lovely. The shops are full of fruit and veg now (unlike in the winter months) pears, red currents, cherries, apricots and new potatoes, carrots and cauliflower. I don’t expect it will last long.

Work is progressing as usual. I have had another pay assessment though I don’t expect .......THE LETTER ENDS here with a missing page do we will never know what Gill did not expect

The cherry trees grew along all the roads in Czechoslovakia. If they belonged to someone there was a piece of material tied in the branches. Those who did not have an owner could have the fruit taken by anyone. You would often see people standing on top of their lorry cabs picking the fruit. And the lorries themselves were always the same, flat-bed with side flaps (and sometimes with canvas over-mantels), a separate drivers cabin, never washed and painted the same dull grey brown, probably made in some vast factory deep in the USSR.

Quite a few of the I.C.L staff married Eastern Europeans and many of the marriages have stood the test of time. One of the married English engineers in Brno started an affair with a Czech girl and decided to smuggle her to England. He hollowed out the back seat of his car and she hid there. Amazingly they crossed the Iron Curtain and passed through all the border crossings in Germany, Belgium and France (all in those days strict individual passport-checking and car inspecting places) only to be discovered at Dover. The girl asked for political asylum in the UK. The last I heard she was working on a supermarket check-out. I wonder what happened to her? I hope some of my old ICL friends are reading this blog?

13th july 1970

Branik

13/07/70

Dear Mum and Dad

I have just done all the washing and watered the flowers. Your plant’s flowers have died but it is making several new shoots and hopefully might flower again. My window box is just coming into flower and the first nasturtiums are out and the marigolds are budding. It was very hot today and the sun is just setting like a red ball behind the hills opposite.

We went to Brno last weekend and guess what? Tony played football. He did quite well considering his lack of experience but is suffering as a result with all his muscles aching. There was a swimming pool next to the football ground and we all went for a swim afterwards. On Sunday we went out to Brno dam with A and V and sunbathed for a couple of hours. Again it was very hot.

I have to get up at 4.30 tomorrow as I am going to Ostrava on a disc course for 3 days and the plane leaves at 6.10 in the morning. Next weekend we are going to Brno again for A and V’s wedding.

We heard from Tony’s mum and Dad and they are bringing Auntie Kath with them as well. I think we will be camping outside the flat! We have booked a Hotel in the giant mountains for 3 days during their stay.

The other evening we drove into town and walked over and around Charles Bridge for the first time. It is a pity I was not fitter when you were here as we could have gone out more in the evenings.

All the theatres are closed for the summer but open air theatres have sprung up in all the parks.

I had better close now. Sorry this letter is so short. Give my love to all the family

Gillian and Tony

Gill and Tony had their first steak tartare after the football match and found raw beef surprisingly tasty! The match was between I.C.L. and one of our customers. What we did not realise was that the Czech football league was based on industries rather than towns so the customer’s team were of a high standard and easily thrashed us.

The number of tourists in 1970 was very small. We were almost the only people walking on Charles bridge. I remember being told that the mortar for the bridge was made using the whites of duck eggs which is why it has lasted so long. Most of the tourists came from other Eastern European countries. When we were staying in the Tatra Mountains with mum and dad there was a package holiday of Russians, the women still wearing traditional costumes with headscarves, thick multi-layered skirts and baggy blouses in bright colours. They were very noisy and full of excitement and I guess it must have been the first time they had left Russia or even their local village.

6th July 1970

A YEAR IN PRAGUE JULY

6/7/70

Dear Mum and Dad

Thank you for the nice long letter that arrived today full of news about friends and relations. We were very pleased to hear about Frieda’s baby- I will send her a card. We also had a letter from Auntie Dorothy with all the news from Yeovil. Your express letter has not arrived yet but it is only Monday so a bit early to receive it. We are pleased our holiday is settled. Tony was upset as he would have travelled quicker to Corsica but I would like to see something of Austria and Italy on the journey rather than driving nonstop all day. We have 10 days on Corsica and I think it will be enough to get to know the island. We only had 7 days in Fuenterrabia and it felt like home. However I think Cooks were very bad making you pay for the boat tickets in advance when they may not be able to provide them. Imagine it happening in any other industry. I did not like the sound of the insects in Sardinia- I hope there are less in Corsica.

I am sorry we have not had time to write but I did manage a letter to Paula which I expect you will have read. We had a hectic time driving to Nuremburg and doing all the shopping last weekend. We finally bought a nice tent called the ‘Tahiti’ which sleeps 3 to4 people, so the brochure says but anyway two adults can use it quite comfortably. The tent itself is 10 foot square with an 8foot by 6 foot 6 sleeping compartment which is mosquito proof. It has two windows, a cooking area with washable walls and a plastic roof to keep out the rain. We were very thrifty and went round all the shops comparing the prices of gas stoves, air beds, sleeping bags etc. In the end we had just enough money for a rubber inflatable boat which is now our pride and joy. It is possible to fit an outboard motor to it but at the moment it is propelled by a pair of oars. We had our cars serviced and were shocked at the bill for the Daf -£15 for a service and wheels balanced. We found that his included an hour’s labour for the mechanic to drive to another garage and wait for them to fit in the wheel balancing. We were annoyed by this but they would not reduce the bill.

Nuremburg is a very interesting old city with old castle walls and a modern shopping centre. We treated ourselves to a Chinese meal and an Italian Pizza while we were there. I did not have time to shop for clothes but my old clothes will be OK for camping and boating. It was very nice weather last weekend and I was almost melting on the car seat driving home.

On Sunday we had to try out the tent and drove up the Vltava but not as far as Slapy. We crossed the river by an iron bridge and found a track on the other side. It was quite amusing trying to erect the tent as the instructions were all in German and the pictures seemed to gain and lose poles as they progressed. Actually it is quite simple once you know how. We ended up with 3 spare poles and spent some time wondering where they went until we realised they were for the canopy. We couldn’t resist cooking a meal on our gas stove in our new saucepans. We also tried out the boat and it was really good fun. It was very hot so it was lovely to lie back in the boat and trail my hands in the water whilst Tony paddled.  We had a few arguments about the best way to propel and steer the boat but had developed a good technique by the end of the day.

When we got home we had an unpleasant surprise because the Daf had two flat tyres with needles sticking in them. We called the police and a young officer came round and said it was a common occurrence. Luckily we got them mended as we did not fancy getting the wheels balanced again. The poor Daf is in the wars as I grazed a hub cap on a high curb in a garage- the curb was about a foot high!

Monday and Tuesday of last week I had to go to Brno which again meant a lot of travelling but I had a good time while I was there. On Thursday we went to V.C. for dinner and had a good evening boring them with our holiday films in Slovakia.

On Friday we had the monthly meeting which is why we did not phone. We had just left the office when you rang. P answered and thought you were Czech because you were speaking so slowly.

K.R spent the night with us as her husband was away and she does not like sleeping in her flat on her own.

I must close now as Tony is making the bed and is very tired. I will write again soon.

Love Gillian & Tony.

We really had it quite easy being able to go to Germany and Austria to shop. The contrast with Czechoslovakia was very marked and we wandered round the department stores in Nuremburg like children at Christmas. We would come back to Prague stocked up with food for the next few weeks. Some things like cut flowers were extremely expensive in Czechoslovakia. It was quite normal to take a single rose to the host of a party rather than a bouquet.

Making the bed was a daily task as we slept in the living room on one of the ubiquitous sofa beds. The bedroom in our flat only had a narrow single bed which we used to keep our clothes in and for the occasional visitor.

One of the new ideas in computers at that time was the ability to multi-program. Inputting records from tapes was slow so while that processes was carrying on the central processor was largely idle. Reading punched cards and paper tapes was even slower and this was the method of inputting all programmes and data initially. The newer operating systems allowed another programme to run while data was being read or written. I think the system 4 computers could theoretically run 16 programmes at one time but rarely got above three, nonetheless a major step forward for its day. The operating system for the System 4 machines was called ’multijob’ later to be replaced by the superior ‘J’  We all felt it was superior to IBM’s DOS. It made solving problems in machine-level code and ‘core dumps’ when the computer crashed much more complex as you had to find out which programme was active when the fault occurred. The operating system had to be fine tuned to reflect the mix of programmes submitted by the user. Anyone out there remember this more clearly than Gill does?