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.