|
Post by swl on Mar 21, 2009 22:29:57 GMT
I had a biology teacher from Prague, Jaroslav Baldwin. He fled Prague in 1968 with his parents and changed his name, to Baldwin I think. I remember him telling 2 or 3 of us about the invasion and escaping by lying on the floor of a bus as it went through checkpoints. He made us all promise to visit Prague, which he described as the most beautiful city in Europe.
I'll go one day.
|
|
|
Post by riotgrrl on Mar 21, 2009 22:36:25 GMT
I had a biology teacher from Prague, Jaroslav Baldwin. He fled Prague in 1968 with his parents and changed his name, to Baldwin I think. I remember him telling 2 or 3 of us about the invasion and escaping by lying on the floor of a bus as it went through checkpoints. He made us all promise to visit Prague, which he described as the most beautiful city in Europe. I'll go one day. Oh it's Gorgeous. Maybe not as picture-postcard perfect as Dubrovnik, but it knocks Krakow ('the new Prague' my arse) into a cocked hat. It's just great. Kafka came from there, and you can go to see his house, and see where the alchemists lived, and the old Jewish cemetry and so on. It's a real blend of the ancient and the new. A sort of Eastern European Edinburgh, only on a different scale. While Edinburgh is forbidden and hidden being built on hills, Prague has a river running through it and is therefore in a valley, and all open and lovely. Cities with rivers running through them are better than cities that don't. No exceptions.
|
|
|
Post by housesparrow on Mar 21, 2009 22:43:51 GMT
I was in Czechoslovakia, in the mountains near the Polish border, when the country was invaded. I remember the planes going over and the hotel staff huddled round the TV station. We understood not a word but it suddenly went off air. Just as well, or we would never have got breakfast. What, seriously? What were you doing in Cz'vkia then? (I thought you were just a young thing!) I have never visited a Communist country; Communism had fallen before I could really afford to travel much, but since then I've visited many, many Eastern European nations. It's one of Gothboy and my fascinations. The earliest was Russia, where I was in 1999, which was obviously 10 years too late to see things as they really were. What's your take on Communism then? I'm seriously interested. I was on holiday with my dad, walking with a group. We spent a night in Prague before travelling to the country and the place was vibrant and happy. But we still needed a Communist guide who,if I remember right, was much too fat and we had to keep waiting for her. She insisted that despite the reforms, the country was still firmly communist. However she turned to jelly when the Russians invaded so the rest of us had to organise how to get out of the place. It was the end of our fortnight and Dad needed to get back to London urgently (the rest of us weren't bothered) There were road blocks everywhere so we had to bribe the local policeman to let us through. Prague was a different place altogether: white faced young Russian soldiers on their tanks. We were forbidden to go anywhere near Wenceslas Square and eventually got out in a coach with our guide hidden under the seats. To this day I wonder how. She wrote to us from Holland, and said she was trying to get to ... (wait for it)... Romania. As for communism - as the woman said on today's programme, it did a lot of good, with farm collectives and a greatly improved standard of living for some. But power corrupts (and you know the rest)
|
|
|
Post by riotgrrl on Mar 21, 2009 22:50:05 GMT
That's me at the cathedral at Prague Castle in 2002.
|
|
|
Post by riotgrrl on Mar 21, 2009 22:52:04 GMT
Top story Housey! I totally love peoples' travel stories. Sadly most Stub Crouchers rarely venture past their own front doors. (lol guys . . honestly). How old were you then?
|
|
|
Post by housesparrow on Mar 21, 2009 22:56:32 GMT
I get my bus pass in June so work it out!
I hope it comes before I go on my hols. Nowhere further than Yorskhire though!
|
|
|
Post by riotgrrl on Mar 21, 2009 22:59:08 GMT
I get my bus pass in June so work it out! I hope it comes before I go on my hols. Nowhere further than Yorskhire though! So NOW you're giving it 'just day trips on the Saga coach', but in reality you were the grrl who was out there doing walking tours under Communism. You don't fool me with this Housesparrow lark. You're really a sparrowhawk.
|
|
|
Post by housesparrow on Mar 21, 2009 23:04:07 GMT
Not exactly a day trip - we are finishing walking Waiwrights Coast to Coast. I've scheduled in two 19 mile days so am hoping the thermals are in the right direction this time.
It would be good to return to Prague - I can remember little except the tanks.
|
|
|
Post by riotgrrl on Mar 21, 2009 23:06:28 GMT
It would be good to return to Prague - I can remember little except the tanks. That is the best single sentence I have read all week. Should we start a 'sentence of the week' competition? Ok? No? Not? Just me then? Drunk you say? Oh. Ok. Not then. Seriously, that should be the first line of a novel.
|
|
|
Post by Patrick on Mar 21, 2009 23:11:56 GMT
Chap who did well down the mines there looked a bit Reg Varney-ish You can bet there were quite a few like that who feathered their nests and bugger everyone else. That prog makes you want to dig deeper - and it's a pity it didn't go there - they made it look very pretty and very "Oh Well" about it - and I'm sure it wasn't! Piccie I showed not long back was of my Dad wrestling with his classic bit of Czechoslovakian technology - his Jawa 350. we had another one and a half in the garage! Not many bikes can sail through 250,000 odd miles
|
|
|
Post by riotgrrl on Mar 21, 2009 23:12:47 GMT
FFS Patrick. It's not about cars and motorbikes.
|
|
|
Post by everso on Mar 22, 2009 1:50:45 GMT
It would be good to return to Prague - I can remember little except the tanks. That is the best single sentence I have read all week. Should we start a 'sentence of the week' competition? Ok? No? Not? Just me then? Drunk you say? Oh. Ok. Not then. Seriously, that should be the first line of a novel. Man, that IS a great first line of a novel! HS, I insist you write a novel so you can use it. It's almost Daphne Du Maurier.
|
|
|
Post by everso on Mar 22, 2009 1:56:02 GMT
My brother's wife (who's German) was born in West Germany but her dad (now sadly no longer with us) was born in what became East Germany. Fortunately, he'd heard rumours that the wall was about to go up and was playing in a football match in what would become the West. He just didn't go home and didn't see his family for quite a while. He settled down just outside Frankfurt, met his future wife and made a good life for himself. His family left behind in East Germany were pretty badly off though. Nasty communism
|
|
|
Post by everso on Mar 22, 2009 1:57:07 GMT
One thing that sticks out in my mind is watching t.v. in the 60s and seeing people trying to flee East Germany and being shot doing so.
|
|
|
Post by riotgrrl on Mar 24, 2009 14:16:37 GMT
One thing that sticks out in my mind is watching t.v. in the 60s and seeing people trying to flee East Germany and being shot doing so. There's a great museum in Berlin all about the Berlin Wall. It has all kinds of different stuff about people who tried to flee. Did you know that parachute-grade silk was banned in East Germany ever since someone tried to use a parachute to escape over the wall? Anyone who is sentimental or silly about Communism should visit that museum and see for themselves just how desperate people were to escape to the West. 171 people were killed or died attempting to escape at the Berlin Wall between August 13, 1961 and November 9, 1989. That museum is heart-breaking. I would like to nominate an unsung hero. Apparently, before the Berlin Wall fell and Communism finally came to an end, a farmer whose farm covered the border between Hungary and Austria simply took down his fences, so that people fleeing Communism could get to the West via Hungary. I'm not sure if I've got that story 100% right or not, and when I have asked Eastern European about it nobody seems to know, so God knows where I got it from. But if it is true, somewhere out there is (another) real farmer who is a hero!
|
|
|
Post by riotgrrl on Mar 24, 2009 14:18:09 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Flatypus on Mar 24, 2009 18:28:07 GMT
I thought I saw something like that yesterday, a very odd little 2-seater job but bigger than the 1950s Goggomobile. There's another familiarity because my second car was its Western cousin, an orange Auto-Union DKW Junior 3-cylinder two-stroke. It shouldn't have gone go wrong because the engine only had seven moving parts: three pistons, a crankshaft and three somethings attached to the pistons. That is, it wouldn't have gone wrong if somebody before me had realised that 2-strokes need a pint of oil in every five gallons of petrol.
It was a smart angular little thing a bit like the late 60s Ford Anglia. After 1945 DKW factories found themselves in two different countries and the Eastern ones went on to produce the Wartburg Knight with the same engineering (I had to get spares through East Berlin because DKW weren't doing them any more) but a more 50s style body and then the downscaled version that became Trabant.
|
|
|
Post by riotgrrl on Mar 24, 2009 18:30:38 GMT
Where is Patrick anyway?
I can't be expected to talk about cars!!!
|
|
|
Post by Flatypus on Mar 24, 2009 19:29:22 GMT
That's about as far as I go! If it's electrical I can usually fix it, if it's mechanical, one or both of us is buggered
|
|
|
Post by riotgrrl on Mar 28, 2009 21:27:42 GMT
They're doing Romania tonight. All the enforced pregnancy and stuff. Weird set-up.
|
|