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.