2nd February 1970

Monday 2/02/1970

Brno

Dear Mum and Dad,

I have not posted my last letter to you because of a lack of envelopes. I have some in Prague but forgot to bring them to Brno with me. So you will probably get several letters together.

I am very glad to say our things have arrived at Prague airport and Tony has filled out dozens of forms to be able to collect them this week. I am looking forward to hearing our records again.

My room in Brno continues to be very good- Yana is a very good cook and looks after me very well.

Last weekend we went skiing- I hope you got my card OK. We went on a bus trip arranged by Chedok and had a sing song all the way there and back. The Czechs are good singers and sing in at least two parts which you would never get in England. Dad would have enjoyed it.

Unfortunately I never got as far as skiing because as I was walking from the bus to the hotel I slipped and fell down hard on my bottom. (well padded I am glad to say). However I bruised my tail and could not bend too easily so I decided it was better not to ski as you spend most of the first few lessons sitting down.

Saturday was very cloudy and snow was falling but there were two nice hostels by the ski slopes so I sat drinking mulled wine (hot and spicy) and learning Czech. Tony spent most of the first day on his bottom under fir trees as one of the most difficult things to learn in skiing is how to stop. A.R. and V.L. were with us and V.L. is a good skier and gave us some instruction.

The weather changes very quickly in the mountains and Sunday was a beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky. I saw two stags lying down in the snow with lovely big antlers. The trees were beautiful in the sunshine- the snow sparkling on every branch. I had a little time on skis to get the feel of it and I think it will be very enjoyable when I have mastered the art. Tony got quite good and could ski down a gentle slope turning left and right and stop at the bottom. It is a very strange feeling to have your feet extended about five feet, especially behind you where you can’t see and it is very easy to get your skis crossed which is fatal as you always fall down. As the snow was fresh at least it was a soft landing.

In the afternoon we walked up to the top of the mountain -5000 feet the highest in West Czechoslovakia but not very high compared with the Tatras. There was a wonderful view across Poland to the north and Czechoslovakia to the south. Coming down the mountain there was quite deep snow. It is a pleasing sensation to sink into soft snow and it was too dry to be cold.

When we came home in the evening (Tony stayed in Brno Sunday night) we were just in time for the Forsyth saga on Czech TV. It was quite strange to watch it as all the voices were dubbed in Czech but the actors were the same. The bus came back especially early to be in time for the program and even the ice hockey matches are played early on Sundays the Czech are so addicted to the Forsythes.

Today I feel quite tired after being in the mountains all weekend. Tony and I feel that being here is like being on one long holiday for although we work hard in the week there is always something new to do at the weekends. I think we shall have to have a quiet weekend doing the washing and housework next weekend. Thank you for your letter dates 19^th Jan. You seem very busy with all these dinner parties. I am glad you are all well and that Paula has an interest at last- I think it is very important for married women with small children to have another interest.

Tony had a couple of bumps in the Daf last week. One was when he was parked and the other was when he was driving round a large box which suddenly appeared in the road. (Things like that happen in Czechoslovakia) If he had a left hand drive car he would have been OK. However we are insured so there is no problem but I think we may need a new wing which we will have to go to Germany or Austria for. Tony is quite despondent with the car but I don’t think it is really that bad as most people have similar experiences because the Czech people are such bad drivers.

My Czech is improving quite a lot living with Czech people. Yana’s husband speaks no English so I have to speak Czech with him.

Give my love to all our friends. Hope to see you in May or June. Lots of love

Gillian and Tony.

After grappling with the initial flurry of communist bureaucracy, Tony started his work of supporting ICL Computer customers in and around Prague. Computers in those days were very large, not as powerful as a small PC today, and unlike present day devices the software and hardware were often unreliable. Supporting ICL customers in the UK was easy compared with behind the ‘Iron Curtain’. There one had only to pick up a phone (or visit) to consult one of the software writers or a member of an engineering design team to get answers or software ‘patches’ to remedy a fault. Try that when phone calls could take hours to book & connect, and the only other direct contact was a very slow fax machine (more often than not regarded by the UK recipient as a lower priority than a problem presented by someone in the UK breathing down their neck). Tony soon discovered that the need to be much more self sufficient. The ICL customers in Eastern Europe too had teams of their own staff (both hardware engineers as well as analysts/programmers) to keep their systems running.

And then there was the car accident referred to in the letter home. It happened at the wide crossroad junction of Dukelakych Hrdina and Veletrzni, outside a vast rectangular block of a building that we knew as the ‘Kovo Building’. Kovo was the State central Organisation (one of many in this vast five floor construction) where contract details were negotiated when we sold computers to any Czech organisation. After a fire in the 1970’s it rose, phoenix like, and is now the superb Veletri Palac National Gallery.

What we did not tell Mum & Dad, for fear of worrying them, was that the car crash was with a large black ‘Troika’ staff car of a Russian General! In those days, in order to make certain types of inspections of sewers in the road, the authorities had very large bottom-less cubic boxes about 4 x 4 x 4  meters (constructed of planking with no windows) that were lowered over man hole covers by a big mobile crane. Presumably these inspections required darkness. One such had been positioned at this particular road junction obscuring our view. Edging our way around the obstruction resulted in the crash with the speeding black ‘Troika’ that would have looked more at home in 1930’s Chicago with a Tommy-gun toting gangster leaning out of the rear window. Built much like a Russian Tank, it did considerable damage to the front wing of our little Daf, but itself had barely a scratch. An anxious Czech Policeman quickly waved on the Russian General. Our car was moved to a quiet back-street where I tried to explain how the accident occurred. Turning to point to the large wooden obstruction, it had gone, carried away by the mobile crane. My case was lost and I was lucky to get off with an on the spot fine in local currency (without a payment receipt!). I saw in my rear view mirror the money disappear into the policeman’s pocket as I drove away. So it goes.

Sometime later we were advised by a more experienced ICL engineer that if there were other local people around, the thing to do was to step out of the car and say that being a foreigner you only had hard currency. Then try to pay the policeman with a $20 US note. It was absolutely illegal for any Czech to take ‘hard’ currency. So, as long as there just might be a person in the onlookers who could report the policeman (never popular with the locals), he would be bound to refuse & wave you on. And it worked.