23rd February 1970

Brno 23/2/70

Dear Mum dad and family, Thank you for the letter of the 9th Feb. We have been thinking about our holiday together. I noticed in my diary that 25^th May is a bank holiday and wondered if you both have this holiday? If so you could possibly have an extra day’s holiday on Friday 22 May or Monday 8^th June. When you tell me what flights you are on I can book the hotels for the right days.

We have just spent the weekend in the High Tatras at the world skiing championships and the scenery is lovely. Unfortunately we both had bad colds so we were not feeling very energetic. The ski jump is fantastic in real life much higher than it looks on television. However it is a bit cold standing watching for too long so we went home to bed early. We stayed at a private house in Poprad.

 Poprad itself is not a very nice town- very industrial even though it is right in the middle of some lovely countryside. There is a very good tram ride from Poprad to Strbske Pleso where the championships were held. It goes through the forest and I could see lots of interesting pieces of wood on fallen trees there. There is a lake nearby and rivers for fishing. I am tapping the knowledge of people at work for a list of all the nice places in Slovakia. There seems to be plenty to do- cable cars, rivers and lakes, mountain walks. There are plenty of modern hotels right in the mountains and special alpine flowers grow there.

I am going to Prague on Thursday evening as we have a monthly meeting on Friday. I seem to manage quite well at only being 4 days without seeing Tony.

I was pleased to hear news of Gibby (Mr Gibson our church minister at Limberick wood Baptist church). I always thought he was a fantastic person. Do give him our regards when you see him.

The car seems to be behaving itself at present so I hope that means the end of our bad luck.

I hope you win your boxer dog. It will be company for dad if he retires. Do you know if he will stop work in April or not?

I have not heard from Jane but I expect she is in Ethiopia by now.

I am sorry my writing is so terrible but we got up at 5.30 this morning so Tony could catch his plane and I am feeling rather tired.

Work tends to be very frustrating as it is difficult communicating with people who do not speak English.

The first snowdrops were on sale in the shops today- I think I shall really appreciate spring- living in a country with so much snow. It snowed quite a lot this week but it is thawing at present.

Must close now as I am feeling lazy and have a good book to read. Tony is reading more now I am away from him- he is becoming quite a bookworm

Lots of Love

Gillian and Tony

The Czechs still had steam trains at that time almost everywhere and the smoke from a train could be seen in the distance chugging across the countryside. In other ways the Czechs were ahead of their time and very energy efficient. The local power station on the way to our home in Branik heated many houses in the district and the local swimming pool, so you could swim outside in the winter snow in a heated pool, enveloped in a mist rising from the surface of the outdoor pool. The countryside en-route was markedly different from England because there were almost no hedgerows. The fields came right up to roads which enabled you to see a long distance.

Poprad was covered in a pall of smoke. On arrival we found our way to our ‘Bed & Breakfast’ accommodation in the home of a local family. Our room was comfortable, if a little sparse, and wall-paper being an unavailable luxury, the beige painted walls were highlighted with large stencilled Art Deco abstract coloured patterns. The next morning we could see some some spectacular mountains in the Tatra range towering above the (then) little town of Poprad. The only way up the mountain to the Ski Championships was on a brand new ‘light railway’, constructed specially for the Championships. Unlike most other forms of transport we had encountered behind the Iron Curtain, the stations were pristine, the train carriages spotless and didn’t smell of garlic sausage. Even the railway officials had brand new clothes, and for some reason I particularly remember the ticket collector’s comical rather short brown plastic neck-tie, attached with white elastic.

At the World Ski Championships, the crowd showed what they thought of the Russian invasion by whistling every time a Russian competitor stood at the top of the ski jump hoping to put them off their stride. This was true of international ice hockey matches as well. No one could believe that the majority of Czechs were in favour of the Russians or communism. The people we talked to wanted to be a neutral state between the West and East. This was true of educated Czechs and the ordinary citizens we lived near. I suppose the party members felt differently but with nearly 90% of the population not in the party it signalled a lot of opposition. The protests were very Czech- often using irony rather than violence to get their point of view over. They would paint ‘Intourist’ on the Russian tanks which was the Russian travel company which usually brought Russian tourists to Czechoslovakia. I felt sorry for the Russian soldiers at times. Occasionally people thought we were Russian and then you would never get served in a shop or restaurant. We got used to saying ‘Ja sem angliski ’ to let them know we were English. On the other hand most Czechs were very pro-British as we came into the Second World War because of our treaty with them. We met several English speaking Czechs who had flown with the RAF from England during the war. It was only 25 years from the end of the Second World War so the memories were still fresh for everyone.

A year after the Russian intervention in Czechoslovakia, the tanks, lorries and soldiers were stationed all around the outskirts of the city. Quite unexpectedly one would come across a convoy of tanks in town. I clearly recall driving to work on more than one occasion from our flat in Branik long Razivnovo Nabrezi road bordering the Vltava River, only to encounter a column of Russian Tanks. Eager to get to a meeting on time, I would overtake each tank in turn in my little Daf 44 Dutch car feeling rather superior for some reason. The tank drivers were sufficiently well trained to leave a suitable gap, although I did have a narrow squeeze when on one occasion I overtook just before the narrow rock tunnel at Vysehrad.

If you got in a queue behind a Russian soldier you had a long wait. We can recall waiting in line for a rail ticket behind a Russian, only to find that when he reached the front of the queue a sign was placed in the window saying that the office was now closed and ‘Please join another queue’. The average Russian ‘squady’ we have learnt from more recent discussions with acquaintances from the Russian Federation, had been told that they had been ‘requested’ to enter Czechoslovakia and would be welcomed by the people. So I could think of no more forlorn sight than that of a Russia soldier in uniform trying to hitch-hike on a day’s leave. We saw this several times and absolutely no Czech would stop.