last post 12th March

Sunday 12^th March 1972

Dear Mum and Dad

It was lovely to speak to you both on Friday. It seems so long since I saw you but it is only a couple of months. I am getting spoilt now with all my planned trips to England. It has been beautifully warm all week, just like spring but last night it started to rain and then to snow and it has been snowing all day today. I hope it does not delay Tony’s plane which is due at 8.10 this evening.

I am getting excited about our move to Holland. It will be wonderful to have the shops and conveniences of the west and be able to phone you more often.

I want to be very firm about this holiday if you come to stay with us in April. I am quite prepared to pay the air fare. I think it would be far quicker and easier for you to go by plane. I would love to see you both again and give you a nice holiday so it is quite selfish that I want you to come so it is only fair if I pay.  After all you must save your money for your trip to America. I hope our furniture will arrive by then otherwise you may find yourself sleeping on the floor! I think you will like Holland as it is a very interesting country with plenty to see and do.

I have been quite busy since Tony has been away. Frano K. and Terry C. have been looking after me so I have not been too lonely. Their daughter Iana is lovely now. She is nine months old and such an intelligent child, smiling and laughing all the time. I went there last Saturday and succeeded in locking myself out of the car. I managed to break in next day using a piece of wire. I am glad the Bulgarians don’t realise how easy it is to open the car as it would have been stolen by now!

I also started writing a book last weekend and wrote about 12 pages but have not done any more since. I felt quite inspired to write down our experiences in Eastern Europe but I don’t think anyone would ever publish it. I met some of Tanya K.’s friends on Saturday and they were not typical Bulgarians being artists, a cartoonist and a journalist- quite the artistic elite and very interesting people. One of the artists invited us both to go and look at his paintings one day. On Monday I went to see a film at the American embassy ‘There was a crooked man’ quite a good Western. On Tuesday I went round to Terry C. and Tanya’s for a meal and played cards. Wednesday was international Women’s day and we bought some champagne to celebrate. Dancha gave me an embroidered cloth she had made herself. In the evening I went round to Terry C.’s and Tanya’s flat for dinner and we all went out to a new Bulgarian film ‘the horn of the goat’. It was mainly silent with only 5 sentences of dialogue so I could understand it OK.

Thursday I went to dinner with Carol.N  as her husband, John was also in the UK. 

Friday I stayed at home! Saturday I had two secretaries from the Austrian embassy to dinner and then afterwards we went to the American embassy to see the film. Gusty and Rosemary are very nice. Gusty is going back to Vienna next month to marry one of the USA marines who was in Sofia for a year. At the embassy I saw Paul (the one American lecturer with a Japanese wife). His wife has gone back to Japan to have another baby so I expect we will invite him round for a meal. They are a very nice couple. I must say travelling around Europe you do meet some very interesting people. The problem is keeping in contact with them when you leave to go to another country. I hope we will have a lot of visitors in Holland as it is conveniently on the route between England and Eastern Europe.

The customers here still don’t know we are leaving yet and keep making me a lot of work. There is still no one to take our place but we hope someone will arrive in the next two weeks.

I had a very flattering telex from Vic C. this week thanking me for going to Bratislava. The customer there wrote a letter saying how useful my visit was for them and praising my work. I now have difficulty getting through the door my head is so big (taking after my mum) but I am careful not to brag about it at work as some people are jealous anyway.

I am glad Nanny is better and she liked her Brandy.

Give our love to everyone

Gillian and Tony

Ps. Thanks for the letter which arrived today. Tony has returned safely- only a bit tired after travelling. The new address is

30, Reigerslaan

Voorhout

Holland

Our adventure behind the iron curtain was at an end. We came away with a different view of communism than that held by the majority of people in the West. We could see the good and the bad in the system. The bad included the lack of freedom of speech, the rigid control of industry with unachievable quotas and unrealistic expectations. There was no motivation to work hard or progress because of the very flat pay system. Both parents had to work to survive and children were often brought up by grandparents or spent long hours in nurseries.  Flats were small and cramped and often identical. The ruling elite became an oligarchy based on who you knew or were related to, rather than on merit and party members had privileges not given to the ordinary citizen. People were not allowed to travel or consider any other ideas that contradicted communism and citizens were spied on by the secret police if they had any Western leanings. There was censorship and terrible architecture. Religion was suppressed. The shops had varying and minimal goods, often only selling basic commodities and the transport and provision of frozen food was still rudimentary.  People queued for food at times especially in Prague. Roads were in a bad state of repair.

On the good side, everyone had a roof over their heads and a job. Education and the health service were free. Sport facilities were excellent and promoted for everyone. People did not work very hard and had lots of holidays. The arts, opera, ballet, plays were affordable. There was less materialism and more community and networking among the population. People valued their friends and family and simpler pleasures such as skiing, walking and being out in the countryside. They also enjoyed meeting together in the pubs and bars though we did not see much alcoholism in either Prague or Sofia. (Unlike Moscow and East Germany).

Communist countries were very different from each other, reflecting a longer history and national characteristics were apparent in spite of communism. We felt much more at home in Czechoslovakia than in Bulgaria.

The other thing we learned is that people are people everywhere, some friendly and honest , others prejudiced and unfriendly. We met some lovely Bulgarians and Czechs as well as some who were aggressive and xenophobic.

We also had a different perspective on our home Nation and its merits and shortcomings. We travelled widely through Germany, Greece, Turkey and France. We saw some things which were better than in the UK and some that were worse. Overall the experience was one that shaped our ideas and our view of the world and we both look back on our time in EasternEurope as an important life changing period which to some extent shaped our future.

No more letters for the blog ‘behind the iron curtain’.  We still have letters from our time in Holland and Pakistan to share with the world. But that is a project for a bit later on this year when we have had time to type them up!

march 1972

March 1972

Dear Mum and dad,

Thank you for the letter. I am sorry I have not written for so long but I have been trying to catch up on the letter I owe to other people so I am afraid you have been rather neglected. Also I have had a bad cold since returning from Amsterdam but I am much better now.

Tony is going to England on Thursday via Amsterdam so he will post this when he reaches London. I expect you will be seeing him in the next couple of weeks.

It looks as if we will be moving at the end of next month. We had a telex from ICL Holland to say they have found us an unfurnished house in Amsterdam for rent. So Tony will stop and look at it on the way to England. If suitable we will have our furniture shipped there and then Tony will drive the Daf back to Holland with the belongings we have left with you and then fly back to Sofia. We are quite excited about the prospect of living in Amsterdam as it is a very interesting city – full of life. I hope we will be settled in for mum’s winter holiday as it would be nice to have you visiting us.

We went to Greece last weekend and it rained solidly the whole time. We went down to Kavalla visiting Philippi on the way-where St Paul preached. Kavalla is a nice little town even in the rain. And we had some nice meals of squid and crayfish as well as steak and spaghetti. We went to the pictures Saturday night and saw ‘The Statue’ which was the only English film showing. It was quite amusing with David Niven and Napoleon Solo.

It is getting boring now in Sofia as we are just waiting for someone to take over from us so we can leave. Of course ICL are messing everything up as usual but we are getting use to that by now.

I think I had better not write any more as Tony will tell you all the news when he sees you. I will remind him to bring the brandy for Nanny and I will try and buy something for auntie Kath tomorrow.

I am glad mum’s literary tastes are developing. We have several Steinbecks and Durrells here you can read. I have just started a book on Tutankhamen which is interesting. Hope I shall see you soon

Love from both of us

Gillian and Tony

The Daf was left in the UK and the aim was to register it in the UK and finally obtain a log book. We spent a great deal of our life driving around in cars which had the steering wheel on the wrong side for the country we were living in. I guess it made us more careful drivers and less likely to overtake.

Tony rejected the Amsterdam house and was shown a possible house to rent in Voorhout, just inland from Noordvijk, only a few miles from the sea  and convenienty situated between Amsterdam and The Hague. It was a three bedroomed terraced house with a small garden, a definite improvement on the small flats we lived in behind the iron curtain. The only similarity with Prague was the fact there was no bath , only a wet room. The other difficulty was that it was unfurnished but ICL agree to pay for our furniture to be shipped from storage in England. We looked forward to getting our own meagre belongings reunited with us after over two years in furnished rented accommodation.

.

The experience of living in Eastern Europe made us far less dependent on television than if we had stayed in the UK. We did not buy our first TV set until 1978- after eleven years of marriage. Reading was our mainstay, though finding English books in Prague or Sofia was not easy and we would stock up on titles every time we were somewhere with an English bookshop. It often led us to read authors we would have otherwise not tried. We also played a great deal of cards and dice in Bulgaria learning many new games. They were useful when playing with multilingual groups with no language in common. Gill was also a big fan of scrabble and would ask any visitors from ICL back to her flat for a game.  We remember one sad occasion when an ICL employee from Putney headquarters visited us to sort out an administration problem. Mr M was of Irish descent and enjoyed his evening with us playing scrabble. He had a really bad cold but insisted on carrying on working and left Bulgaria to travel to Russia on another task.

The next time we were in London we were shocked to find out he had died of pneumonia. His cold had got worse but he refused to take time off and when he finally went to the doctor it was too late for the antibiotics to work. One of the engineers Jim M also had pneumonia whilst he was in Sofia and we visited him in hospital to keep his spirits up. These incidents made us aware that dedication to work should not take precedence over the need to look after your health.

8th february 1972

Hotel Devin

Bratislava

8/02/1972

Dear Mum and Dad

As you can see from the paper I am back in Czechoslovakia again. I arrived in Vienna last Monday and met Andrea L. there. We had a nice day shopping and then came to Bratislava Tuesday evening. Andrea drove on to Prague. The work has been interesting so far and not too difficult. The only problem is getting up at 5.45 to get to work by 7 am. However they finish work at 3.00pm so I have lots of spare time in the evening. I spent the weekend in Prague- it was lovely to see the city again Charles Bridge and the Old Town Square. I stayed with Andrea .L. and V.L and we went our skiing on a small slope near their house. It was enjoyable as there were not many people there to show me up and I mastered going down slowly without falling. The snow was soft anyway so I had a soft landing. We spent a lot of time talking and catching up with the news. Tony had not heard anything about the Amsterdam job yet but is hoping to be contacted next week. He has wrangled a trip to Prague this weekend so we shall be together on Thursday evening and return to Sofia the following Thursday. We shall be looking up our Czech friends over the weekend.

I got all your birthday cards before I left for Bratislava which is amazing considering the postal system. I hope the Daf is behaving itself. It looks as though we may be collecting it sooner than we thought. Has the log book arrived yet?

I had a letter from Jane M and she married in Zambia and is now Jane. W. She is visiting the UK with her new husband at the moment.

How is Dad enjoying his retirement? I expect he will be busy in the garden so I will expect a good show of flowers next time I visit.

Give my love to Paula David and family I will write to them soon and to you as soon as I get more details of the new job.

Lots of love to you and Nanny.

Gillian

After writing this letter we were given a trip to Amsterdam to meet the country manager and staff in Holland and get some background on the customers there. We remember staying at the Polska hotel in Amsterdam and being overwhelmed by the bustle and commercialism of Holland. The Dam square was full of hippies selling homemade silver jewellery and strumming guitars. The whole town appeared to be singing. We went round the red light district to see the famous ladies sitting in their windows. In spite of the lack of an organised religion, the communist countries were very prudish as seen in the censorship of miniskirts. It gave them a sort of moral superiority to talk about the ‘decadent West’. The sheer availability of goods and products was overwhelming. The restaurants offered a variety of food and you did not have to wait hours to get your dinner. In Sofia we usually resorted to playing cards or dice while waiting for our meals because the service was so bad.

When we first went to Eastern Europe it was because there was a desparate need for a system 4 programmer in Brno- the previous one having been deported for taking part in a demonstration against the Russian invasion. In fact they had only been out shopping when the demonstration occurred, but it was convenient to blame foreign agitators for the unrest.  Tony was given a job in Prague so we were both employed. This time it was Tony who was needed to manage a difficult site in Holland who were 1900 users.  He was needed to project manage the site and address their grievances. There were no Systems Four computers in Holland so Gill had to retrain as a George 2 expert. Gill was sent on a 1900 PLAN programming course and a George 2 course so she could become an instant expert.  Gill was allocated to an Insurance customer in The Hague, whilst Tony’s customer was the Amsterdam City council whose computer was at the town of Amstelveen. This caused a bit of a dilemma on where to live as the two cities are about 30 miles apart. At that stage we did not realise how good the rail and bus services were in Holland, plus the tram network in both cities.

27th January 1972

27/01/72

Dear Mum and dad

Sorry I have not written for so long. As usual we have been busy. Things happen very quickly here and I am sorry to say I won’t be coming to England in March. Yesterday Vic C phones to say he needed someone to go to Czechoslovakia next week and that I was requested. I am just waiting to phone A. L and confirm the details. The problem is at our site in Bratislava but they need someone for two months which means I will have to cancel my course in England. This is not as bad as it sounds as I shall be doing a week in Bratislava  and a week here so I shall still see Tony some of the time.

The other startling news that Vic imparted yesterday is that there is a strong possibility of a job in Amsterdam for both Tony and I starting at the beginning of April. We have not got the details but the idea of living in Holland for a while is strongly appealing especially as it will be easy for you to visit us from there. We will let you know when we have more information. Quite appropriate a Holland (Gill’s maiden name) going to Holland.

We are quite excited about both possibilities. I am pleased to be visiting Czechoslovakia again and hope I may be able to fit in a visit to Prague and visit old friends there. The work should also be interesting but difficult as the customer is very anti ICL at present and I have the task of changing that attitude.

I expect we will need to come to England sometime in the next two months to settle the details of the job in Holland and see if it is suitable.

Thank you for the birthday cards. I had one from Paula and from Auntie Dorothy as well. I had a quiet day on Monday but we were busy over the weekend. Saturday we went to a Jazz concert with Frano and Tanya and then for a meal at the Budapest restaurant. On Sunday we went up the mountains with Terry and Tanya and Tanya’s sister and son and walked for about two hours in the snow and sun. There is a fair amount of snow on the mountain but we have had only a few showers in town which have not settled but it has been very cold. Afterwards we went back to Terry’s flat and had a meal and played cards. We have had several ICL visitors from England and have been entertaining them.

I have just spoken with Andrea on the phone and I shall fly to Vienna on Monday and meet her there. I shall probably spend two weeks in Bratislava at first and then see how things go. So don’t be surprised if you get a letter from me from Czechoslovakia. The alarm clock you bought me should come in very useful.

Everyone likes my new hairstyle but I am afraid I have started smoking again after three weeks abstinence. It may be easier to stop when I leave the strain of living in Bulgaria behind me.

I had better close now as someone is going to England tomorrow and can post this letter for me.

Love from both of us

Xxxxx

Gillian and Tony

Christmas in Bulgaria was fun as most of the ICL staff did not go home for Christmas. However the festival was hardly celebrated by the Bulgarians as religion was very much discouraged during the communist regimes. They chose to celebrate New Year rather than Christamas. It was quite a challenge trying to find the usual Christmas food and presents. A trip to Greece always helped when we needed to stock up on goodies not available in Bulgaria.

While we were in Brighton in January we had the usual talk from MI5 about the dangers of fraternising with the natives and being used unwittingly for espionage purposes. However the British embassy was not against using us for their own purposes when it suited them. It was usually the cultural attaché who would put in these requests; innocent sounding requests to look for a bridge or a lake not on a map; or to count the number of telegraph poles between two points. They also asked us to note if an area ran out of four star petrol. This usually meant that the area in questions was expecting to hold some sort of tank movement or military exercise and had requisitioned all the higher grade petrol for that purpose. The ICL engineers were more likely to receive such requests as they more often or not drove to their clients carrying heavy spare parts which would cost a lot to transport on a plane. In this way the British could gradually build up a view of the country and identify targets for if a conflict did break out between the East and the West. I guess the Russians were doing the same thing in Britain and the USA.

Gill was needed in Bratisalava because they were another PERT (critical path analysis) customer. The Eastern block countries really liked PERT and Resource Analysis as it fitted in very well with their planned economies.

19th Dec 1971

19/12/71

Sofia

Dear mum and dad

Thank you for the Christmas card and the ones from Nanny and Paula and also for the letter. We have just come back from a weekend in Thessaloniki. The weather was lovely. We watch the sun setting over Mount Olympus the sea turning all the colours of mother of pearl. We went there to buy a new battery for the Daf and it is now running very well. We did some shopping and bought lots of fruit, tangerines, oranges and bananas ready for Christmas. We really do like Thessaloniki – it is such a gay friendly town and we really had a good weekend there.

Tony is wrapping up Christmas presents for our friends here. Last week we both had a bad cold but we are better now. We went to Russe last week and had a pleasant meeting there. In the evening we went out for a meal with the R’s who teach at the English school there.

We have decided to drive home and leave the Daf in England for the next six months. There are no planes flying 31^st December 1^st or 2^nd of January because of the New Year celebrations so we thought we might as well drive. I don’t know when we will arrive in England- it will depend on the weather. At present there is no snow in Sofia so we might not get a white Christmas.

Our course in Brighton is at the Hotel Albion from the 3^rd to the 7^th January so I don’t expect we will get to see you until the weekend of the 8th. I shall have to go to Putney on the 10^th and return to Sofia on the 11^th. I am hoping to have a month in England in March so you will see plenty of me then.

Tony had a good rise of £300 so we are quite content to stay here for a while and make a bit more money. I don’t know what we will spend it on though.

I shall do my family Christmas shopping after Christmas as I think I shall be very busy next week.

How is Dad managing his retirement? I don’t expect he will realise it has happened until after Christmas. The children should keep him busy next week.

We shall have to arrange a holiday for you in a German speaking country so mum can practice her language skills.

I had better close now. I hope to get this posted in England so I wish you all a very happy Christmas and New Year

Love to everyone

Gillian and Tony

We cannot remember why we contemplated leaving the Daf in the UK at that point in time. We were reunited with it later as we drove it in our next country- Holland. It had a long and happy life. After our eventual return to the UK we kept it for several years until Tony got a job with a company car. We then gave it to Gill’s sister Paula who was in a small village in Leicestershire with three young children and no transport. She donated it to the technical college where it was used by students studying car maintenance. The Daf factory was eventually bought by Volvo and the Daf transmission, which used a strong belt and gave you an infinite number of gears, was used in some of the smaller Volvo cars.  It was ideal for driving in icy conditions and Gill can only remember skidding once, driving in Greece in the New Year on a beautiful sunny day and hitting a patch of black ice on a shaded bend.

We can remember the magic of driving home that winter over the Alps and through the mountain villages, blanketed in snow. On New Year’s Eve all the grave yards had lighted candles by the graves giving a ghostly glow to the village churchyards as we drove through the evening. We reached Frankfurt on the night of the 31^st December, tired and travel worn to be kept awake by the fire crackers let off in the street to keep away the evil spirits and the drunken celebrations which lasted till the early hours. Of course we had to take both cars with us but by now we were used to driving everywhere in tandem.

We had an interesting ICL training session for people working behind the iron curtain at the Hotel in Brighton and met up with lots of old friends from Czechoslovakia and other eastern European countries. The people who worked for ICL were always more non conformist compared with the typical IBM employee and we made some good friends from those days.

8th december 1971

8th December 1971

Sofia

Dear Mum and Dad

Anton is going to England tomorrow so I am taking the opportunity to write you a quick note to let you know we are OK. I posted all the Christmas cards in Bulgaria last week so I hope they will be arriving soon.

Tony is in Rumania at present but should be coming home tomorrow provided the planes are flying as we have a lot of snow here at present. He went on Tuesday so he has only been away for 3 nights which isn’t too bad.

I have had some trouble with the Daf as the battery is not charging properly and so it is not starting well. Typical it waits until the weather is cold and Tony away before playing up. I spent about half an hour getting the ice off the windows only to find it won’t start – very annoying. Anton decided he would help by adjusting the points and then it would not start even with a 12 volt battery. We are wondering why. Tomorrow I will get a new battery. We were hoping to go to Greece this weekend but I don’t expect we will now especially if the weather is bad.

Social life has been mainly entertaining ICL friends but we shall be busy as there is a carol service at the embassy and an invitation to the Ambassadorial residence on the 23^rd- evening dress. I hope my black cocktail dress will do.

Our rises came through. Mine £143 not too bad considering the market at the moment. I don’t know what Tony has got yet. We also had £200 bonus this month which pays for the new record player and watches. In spite of this I am still short of ready cash (Tony has it with him) and have about £4 at present which is hampering my Christmas shopping. I shall have to tackle scrooge Fifield tomorrow and get some more.

I am listening to my record of Stravinski’s Firebird. I never realised it was in stereo before. All the scratches sound loud on the new record player. When I am in England I shall buy some new unscratched records.

There are no flights on the 31st of December so we will have to fly a different day. I will let you know when we have bought the tickets.

I hope all the family are well and that you have a lovely Christmas with the children. Give my love to Paula, David and family and Nanny.

Love to you both

Gillian and Tony

We later found out that the point settings on the Daf are quite unlike any other car which accounted for the failure to start once Anton had ‘fixed’ the points.

Tony made several trips to Rumania during our stay in Sofia. Again it was on an old Antinov plane which never seemed too air worthy so you were always glad when you landed safely.

This was before the atrocities of the Chauchescu regime. At the time Rumania was allied to China rather than Russia, having fallen out with the Russian regime. Tony bought some Russian Palek boxes in the duty free shop in Bucharest and we remember he paid about £3 for them. He also bought some nested Russian dolls for our niece. There were many Chinese goods for sale there at the time. Bucharest was still a beautiful city with Parisian type buildings which were later demolished to be replaced with Stalinist style megalithic tower blocks. The people were more friendly and Southern European in nature.  It was easier getting around as Romanians used the Latin script, unlike the Cyrillic script in Bulgaria. Tony found the department stores had more goods to sell than most communist countries and the people seemed happy and well dressed. The Hotel International was modern and comfortable and much more Western in style than the hotels in Bulgaria. We had two customers there, one in the shipyards who were pleased to see Tony. The second was one of those mysterious customers who disappeared after the computer was shipped. There was an open air museum of old farm buildings outside the city that Tony visited which was very interesting. What happened a few years later to Rumania was very sad and shows that politics do have an effect on the people being governed. It really is not the case that all politicians are the same, or all governments the same. The quality of the leadership of counties does impact on the citizens and their economic prosperity and freedom.

1st Dec 1971

1/12/71

Sofia

Dear mum and dad

Sorry I have not written for so long as usual. I became very depressed while I was here without Tony- I really don’t like to be away from him as long as three weeks. However he came home last Saturday and I am quite cheerful again.

We are beginning to get ready for Christmas and I am writing all our cards. I am enclosing a photo taken of Tony at the marine ball while I was in England. While Tony was in England I was quite busy entertaining Dr S. I also went to supper with the BEA representative and his wife.

The new flat is very nice and we feel quite at home here. There is a big fireplace and we are looking forward to roasting chestnuts on a log fire at Christmas. Nearly all the ICL people are staying here for Christmas and we are spending Christmas day at the Nettings so we shall have their small children to play with. I think it will may the day a proper Christmas.

I expect we shall be coming home about the 31^st December. Our course on the 3^rd January is being held in Brighton at a Hotel which will probably make it pleasant. I have another 3 day course a bit later but will let you know the exact date when I have it.

We have not got our telephone installed yet so I cannot give you the number but you can always contact us via Terry C if an emergency occurs.

We are both very tired at the moment due to our hectic social life. On Monday Terry and Tanya came round for dinner and we played cards. On Monday we went to the ballet with Frano and Tanya. It was an extremely good modern ballet based on classical Greek stories. The audience did not appear to understand it and were not very enthusiastic.

The weather is quite mild here at the present but there is snow on the mountains so we should be able to start our skiing lessons soon. We are expecting to stay here another six months and have some interviews with ICL scheduled for January when we are in London and hope we can find a new job. Tony’s parents are thinking of coming here for a holiday next year which I think is a good idea- it will keep their minds off their problems.

My new watch is lovely but I keep forgetting to put it on in the mornings because it is so long since I had one.

You can certainly have our old record player- the new one is fantastic and we are both very pleased with it. We may not be able to bring the old one back with us for a while because of the customs regulations.

No more news-we are going to be busy the next few weeks paying back all the dinner engagements we have had in Sofia. The best way is a couple of massive dinner parties which should keep us both busy for a while.

I shall be thinking of you at Christmas

Lots of love from both of us

Gillian and Tony

The cut and fill software produced for Institute of Constructional cybernetics by Dr S worked. So Gill was popular with her customer again and an instant expert in civil engineering programmes. Motorways were just starting to be built in Bulgaria and the first one was scheduled for the road to Greece. Large piles were being set into the river bed to take the proposed bridges. The construction work slowed the journey somewhat especially as they used a technique of putting down the hard core and then allowing the traffic to drive along the road to produce a foundation for the motorway. Of course bumping along on the uneven surface slowed our trips to Greece considerably. Other things we had to contend with driving round Bulgaria included finding a herd of sheep on the dual carriage way that left Sofia which caused us to brake violently. We had less traffic accidents than we had in Czechoslovakia mainly because there were less cars on the road and we had got used to driving in foreign countries and expecting the unexpected.

The new flat was part of an older, once luxurious house. It boasted a marble bath and was in a select area of the city. We took our cleaning lady Dancha with us. The new landlord was very friendly and spoke some English and would often turn up unexpectedly for a chat and to practice his English. When we finally left Sofia we gave him some spare parts for our cars and a non stick frying pan which made him very happy. The house still suffered from the frequent electricity cuts which we had learned to live with.

Importing the new sound system was another fight with the customs police. We had bought the system in the UK and it was an up to date system with separate turn table, amplifier and speakers. I seem to remember we did not intend to buy it but Terry C had bought a system and taken it with him and then been told that was one going to be shipped to him as the retailer had got in a muddle. We agreed to buy this second Hi Fi system and it arrived on the plane and was taken to the customs warehouse. We then had to go through a series of steps, filling forms and paying the tax on it. Nothing was simple.

23rd October 1971

23/10/71 Sofia

Dear Mum and Dad,

Sorry I have not written for two weeks but as usually we have been very busy. I can’t find your last letter but reading the previous one I realise your crafty attempt to temp us back to the UK with cottages in Meriden. However we still do not know what we will be doing next year but we will let you know as soon as we know. It is possible we will stay in Bulgaria a little longer as the job market is very flat at the moment.

Some goods news- I may be coming to England for a week in November. I will let you know the dates when I know them myself. I don’t expect it will be the same time as Tony is in England that would be too much to ask.

Let me tell you why I have not had time to write for two weeks. Last week we had two dinner parties we were invited to. One on Wednesday with Sonia LeB who is the wife of one of the ILO experts and the second with Gusty from the Austrian embassy on Friday. We left both after midnight.

Secondly the VW stopped one day and after having it towed to the VW garage they found one of the fuel injection heads was not working and of course there were no spare parts available in Bulgaria because of the lack of hard currency. This happened on the same day we had a letter from VW in Austria saying they would refund the £200 we spent on having the automatic transmission replaced. We are looking forward to receiving the money.

On Saturday (after the dinner party which went on till past midnight) I got up at 5 Am and drove to Thessaloniki on my own in the Daf to buy the spare parts for the VW. Tony could not come because the VW was on his visa and he could not leave the country without it. I did the journey in record time-5 hours and successfully purchased the part. I decided to have a meal and a siesta but went to sleep about 2 pm and did not wake up till the following morning. I drove home on Sunday without seeing much of Greece apart from the hotel bedroom of the Delta hotel.

On Monday we went to Russe for a couple of days coming back to Sofia on Wednesday midday. Wednesday evening we had to entertain john P who was visiting Bulgaria and who is the ICL compensation expert. He is also quite rich from his family connections and was making us very envious with his tales of a house in Hampshire with two horses, three dogs and three cats.

Tuesday evening we went out with two ICL visitors from Yugoslavia and then to the American embassy where we saw an amusing film called ‘support your local sheriff’. The VW is still not working completely correctly so Tony has taken it down to Greece on Friday to get it tuned. I could not face going to Greece two weekends running as under the new rules it is difficult to leave one car here and drive together in one car.

To stop me being lonely Terry and Tanya invited me to dinner on Friday night and we spent the evening paying dice. This is probably due to communication difficulties of not having a common language. Terry and I talk in English, Terry and Tanya in Bulgarian, Tanya and I talk in French and we play dice in Bulgarian.

That brings me to Saturday and my first chance to write to you. I am hoping Tony will come home this evening but he may have to stay until Monday if they can’t fit the car in on Saturday morning.

I am hoping we will have a quiet week next week but Tony may have to go to Romania for a few days to do some systems work- it is very difficult to produce children when you never see your husband!

There are two parties on next weekend because of Halloween, one at the British Embassy on Friday and one at the American Embassy on Saturday. The Americans are having a Ball in November and we are invited. I shall regret having given away my evening dresses but it will be an opportunity to wear the black cocktail dress I have which has been sitting in the wardrobe for two years.

We learnt on Friday the landlord wants his flat back so I guess I will be busy flat hunting next week. We are not too upset as things are always going wrong on this flat; the bathroom is often like a cave with water dripping everywhere with puddles under the cistern. But I suspect all Bulgarian flats are the same.

This last week has been very cold but the trees are splendid in their autumn colours. Today has been milder but very windy and as a result there have been autumn leaves whirling everywhere and collecting in drifts at the side of the road.

This week I had letters from Pat S and Jane M. Pat is enjoying South Africa and is not ready to return home to England yet. She appears to be having a gay social time with plenty of boyfriends and has made friends with some of the South African ballet company which has led her to going to modern ballet classes once a week.

Jane has moved to Zambia where her fiancée is working for the FAO and they are returning to England in February to get married.  I have started smoking again after stopping for five weeks during the holiday. I have resolved to stop again and will try some of the tablets you can buy to help you stop. The best way to stop is never to start in the first place.

I had better finish now before this letter gets too heavy. I will endeavour to write next week as usual. Give my love to Paula and family. I hope to see them all in November. Also love to Nanny- I expect she is having her usual gay social life. I expect dad’s chrysanthemums are looking lovely- if only I could spell them. Mum should be doing some good flower arrangements with them.

Love for Now

Gillian and Tony

.

Gill did not tell her mother about the strange experience she had in Greece, After sleeping for about eighteen hours she was awakened by the sound of sirens- like the modern whooping police or ambulance sirens you get today. Gill had never heard anything like it before and was at a loss to know what was happening- World War Three? The evacuation of Saloniki? A huge fire? She looked out of the window to find the streets empty of normal traffic but full of menacing tanks driving down the street with sirens blaring out. This was not the sight she wanted to see and did not calm her anxieties one little bit. She quickly dressed and ran downstairs to reception to find out if the Russians had invaded or some other tragedy was talking place. The staff quickly reassured her it was a Nato excercise which had been planned for some time. Very relieved she went for breakfast. Later driving back to Sofia she caught up with the tanks near the border but after Czechoslovakia she was quite used to overtaking a convoy of tanks on narrow bumpy roads.

It is difficult to remember the exact trips we took to the UK. Gill joined Tony in the UK for some time in November where she spent a week learning the new construction software written by Dr S so she could support the software back in Bulgaria. This had been one of the main grumbles of ICC (Institute of constructional cybernetics) where Gill worked as they had been promised the software with their machine. Tony was in the UK with a group of managers from the ILO project visiting the various factories of ICL and certain valued customers who would sing the praises of the ICL machines. At that time in the UK theatre censorship had been withdrawn and there were a flurry of new plays and musicals pushing the boundaries. We took the Bulgarians to HAIR not really realising the extent of the nudity and innuendo. We also went with our country manager Terry C, on his recommendation to a Spanish restaurant with live flamenco dancing. The Bulgarians were not at all entertained by these decadent Western shows. I went back to Sofia with Dr S after a week but Tony’s trip lasted a further couple of weeks.

11th October 1971

Monday 11^th October

Sofia

Dear mum and dad

Thank you for your letter which arrived today. That was the first time we heard of mum’s rise and of course we are very pleased-you certainly deserve it. Just try and save a bit of it!

We have had a busy week. All your cards arrived safely for Tony’s birthday. Tony says thank you, especially to Nanny, he was very pleased with the record token; book and record tokens are always very acceptable to us. I will try to write to Paula this week and thank her for the letter. Your parcel still has not arrived but it should be here soon.

Well Mr E MBE arrived on Tuesday. He is the boss of all the European division of ICL With him were Ralph L, head of Eastern European division and Mr L the manager of the production division of ICL. We all had dinner with them at the Hotel Sophia on Tuesday evening. I was seated next to Mr E. He was not all as I expected, a man in his early sixties who was very pleasant to talk to and not at all snobbish for an MBE. I got on very well with him, talking about his family, his grandchildren and he was very interested in Tony’s career so maybe he will do something for us- see what a useful wife I am. After dinner we went downstairs to the Sofia night club where the floor show was terrible- very low standard variety. We did not leave until 2 am.

Tony has been very busy chauffeuring the big boys round and Mr E even came to our flat one evening for coffee- just to talk to me again he said- flattery I love it.

They left on Friday. We went to the British embassy Club on Friday evening where they were having a brain trust quiz. Our team came third out of six-not very good. The winning team had Robin, an Englishman lecturing at the University here so we did not feel too ignorant. We had the disadvantage that one of the rounds was a spelling round and you know how good Tony and I are at that! (We are both dyslexic)

Saturday evening was Tony’s Birthday party and about 50 people came including five itinerant Canadians who were travelling across the world from Australia to America, the American Marines in force, three people from the British embassy, some Dutch and Swedes from the ILO (International Labour Organisation) an English schoolteacher and of course the ICL contingent.

I did my Holland bit and baked cheese straws and made trifles and a selection of savouries and everyone was impressed. We invited the neighbours but only two groups turned up. One was our block chief who speaks English. He bought Tony some beautiful gourds half yellow and half green with white stripes. It hardly looks like it could have grown naturally. Of course we will try and save some seeds for you. It seems this man works in agricultural research and they are developing new varieties of gourd which will be useful commercially. He was very proud because he had met the director of Roehampstead Agricultural Research Centre who had visited Bulgaria from England.

It was quite a swinging party- everyone became merry but no one was really drunk so I was quite pleased.

On Sunday we had no peace because we had the ICL Bar-B-Q. The Nettings plus their 3 children, Anton and family, Terry and Tanya, Jim M and Jan all piled into our cars and went up to the reservoir about 20 miles from Sofia. Anton was not happy as he had an accident on Saturday morning and had smashed the front suspension on his Ford Capri. The AA five star insurance however will pay for it to be towed to Vienna and he hopes to start the journey on Monday.

When we reached the lake we walked some distance to the side of a river which feeds the lake where there was a grassy bank to sit on. We built a fire and cooked steak and jacket potatoes and chicken legs. It was incredibly hot- I had on trousers and sweater and us women soon went off into the bushes to remove our tights, wishing we had put on summer dresses. The men were alright as they stripped down to the waist. Of course the children loved it, catching frogs and lizards and watching the fish in the river; returning with wellingtons full of water. We had a plentiful supply of Beer, wine, cider and orange squash- quite an idyllic day. After we gorged ourselves on food, followed by hot chestnuts a game of football was suggested. Needless to say every sixth kick ended in the river and Tony was chief rescuer dashing down the bank to jump on a stone and just stop himself from toppling in. We all got our trousers wet at one time or another. We had periodic choruses of ‘happy birthday to you’ for Tony’s benefit.

Afterwards we went to the Nettings flat for coffee and cards. Tony and I could not bear to face the mess in our flat left over from the party.

Today Dancha came and cleaned the flat like a whirl wind and it is looking lovely now especially as I had several bunches of flowers –carnations and roses, given to me on Saturday. I think I got more presents than Tony. I have not bought him a birthday gift yet- I shall wait until our next trip home. Even Dancha bought us a present, a tablecloth she had embroidered beautifully herself. She has just invited us to visit her home town outside Sofia for a weekend to get some country air and food.

We are enjoying our life here very much. I think it is mainly because there are more ICL people here now and we have a nice community feel. Our Sunday trip reminded me of when I was a child and we used to go to Ham Hill with all the cousins for a picnic. By the way Dad the spot we chose for our picnic was very popular with Bulgarian fishermen- I should imagine it was a very good trout river.

Bulgaria is also getting better because the customers are more pleasant than they were at the start of our time here. We find we do not have to work such long hours as we did at first- I am even writing this letter at work!

I must have a quiet week next week and catch up on my letters and other chores.

I will try and post Nicky’s birthday card and one for Auntie Dorothy today. Unfortunately I can’t find the cards I bought- they were tidied away for the party but I shall have a good search for them when I get home tonight. I hope they will reach England in time.

Next week we have a two day trip to Russe which should be quite interesting. I had better close now and do some work. I hope Nicky has a lovely birthday and that we will see you all soon.

Love to you all

Gillian and Tony

One of the bad aspects of working for ICL was the fact it was formed from a merger of several smaller British computer companies. At the time there was fierce competition between companies to secure a share of the market leading to mergers and the subsequent rationalisation which really meant job cuts. Machines were large with software and free support from the manufacturer included in the price. We cannot think the company made a profit in Eastern Europe. The Americans were largely banned so the European computer manufacturers had an uncontested market and the British were welcome in some countries like Czechoslovakia because of our support for them in the Second World War. We were less welcome in Bulgaria and seen as a necessary evil to help them move into the computer age. The technology in the East for commercial computers was well behind the West.

Within ICL there was a lot of competition for the management post from personnel from the previous small companies which led to a great deal of politicking within the company. We were somewhat protected from this out in the field and were too lowly in the company for it to matter but saw the effect when we were back in Putney- the head quarters of the Eastern Europe division. Some of the managers were very ruthless and spent time securing their positions rather than looking after their staff. Mr E was an exception to this- a really thoughtful caring man which was why we were so taken with him.

We can still remember the weekend from our past. The Bar B Q was an idyllic day spent in the simple pleasures of eating drinking and being with friends in a beautiful setting with warm sunshine. A week later it was snowing!

The lecturer called Robin taking part in the quizz and was working at the University of Sofia. We met up with several times at the embassy club and film evenings but lost touch with him when he moved to Africa. About sixteen years later when we lived in Sonning we popped in to see one of our neighbours only to find Robin standing in their lounge. It seemed he had worked with our neighbour Geoff at a university in Africa after he left Sofia and was on a fleeting visit to see his old colleague. It reminded us how small the world has become with travel so much more normal especially for academics and business people.

4th October 1971

4^th October 1971

Dear Mum and Dad,

It was lovely to speak to you yesterday-I hope it did not cost too much. I am sure Tony’s parcel will arrive in the next few days. I have not bought him a present yet- it is so difficult here where there is no choice in the shops.

I am feeling guilty today as I have stayed home even though my cold is almost better. I am still feeling weak but should be well enough to go to work tomorrow. Tony has not caught the bug yet but several other people in the office have gone down with the virus.

We are quite a big community now, Terry C the country manager, with his Bulgarian girlfriend Tanya, both good company and friendly; Vassel I the Bulgarian who works for us; Jan H our Australian secretary and the three family men Frano K, John N and Anton B.

Frano is Yugoslavian with a Bulgarian wife with a six month old daughter Iana who is British, because she was born in Britain. She has her own British passport. Frano was with us in Greece last weekend but could not get a visa for his wife to come with him. Anton B and John N are both English. John has a son Marc aged two and another child on the way. John has three children, Adam aged 6, Amanda aged 4 and Toby aged nine months.

We were surprised when we were all invited to the home of one of the British embassy couples as we do make rather a crowd, especially with all the children. This was last Friday and we had a pleasant afternoon, missing work until about 4 o’clock.

John and Carol and family dropped by for coffee on Sunday and we are definitely getting a better social life now there are more of us.

The British embassy is still generally depressing and we still grumble about them among themselves. We went to the film last night and had the usual reception which means the only time anyone from the embassy speaks to you is to ask you for the money for the film. They charge about 30p for the film and 10p for a bottle of bitter lemon. I am sure it is cheaper in England. Every time we go the British embassy club we resolve not to go there again. The club at the American embassy, run by our friends the marines, is so different- very friendly with cheap drinks, free films, pizza and popcorn- it makes one ashamed to be British.

One of the big bosses in ICL, Mr E is coming to visit for some high level talks with the Bulgarians. Tony has the honour of being one of the party meeting him at the airport and there is going to be a dinner in the evening at the Hotel Sofia- the best eating place in town. One thing is certain if he gets nothing else in Bulgaria we should be able to give him the ICL cold.

I have just realised in my list of ICL personnel in Bulgaria I forgot Jim M the engineer whose wife and three children are in England.

Do you realise we have been married 4 years this September. We forgot our anniversary until two days later so we did not celebrate. I think we have enough celebrations in our life at present as there is always someone coming or leaving or holding a birthday party or house warming.

We are having a party for Tony next weekend on the Saturday and have invited several embassy friends as well as ICL people. Needless to say most of them are from the American and Austrian embassy, though we did put out a general invite to the British embassy. We thought it would be nice to invite the neighbours and at least warn them of the noise so we approached the block chief who speaks some English. He was very enthusiastic and we have the feeling he is going to invite the whole block which as there are40 flats would mean a huge number of people. I wish I had you here mum so you could produce your world famous buffet with scones, sponges, trifles etc but I expect they will have to make do with my poor efforts. I hope my Margaret Patten book will inspire me and I can produce some nice cakes. However the flat is singularly lacking in baking trays so I shall have to try and buy some first- heaven knows where they are sold. We are hoping to cook some hot soup and potatoes in their jackets in keeping with the autumn season. It is quite autumnal here and the weather is very changeable, cold one day and hot the next. The heating in the block of flats is not switched on till the 15^th October so we have been very glad of our German duck down duvets in the last couple of weeks.

It seems incredible it was so much hotter in Greece only a couple of hundred miles further south but I expect the altitude in Sofia does not help.

We met two very interesting Americans last night- quite clean and presentable who were walking round the world with a donkey. It is the first time this has been attempted and they expect it to take about three years.

I had better close now and pop to the shops for milk and onions. There are three little shops only about 100yds away which are quite good for everyday needs.

I will write next weekend

Lots of love to you all

Gillian and Tony

We were settling into the expat life style after nearly two years behind the iron curtain. The scenery in Bulgaria was dramatic and beautiful. Our flat was on the edge of the large park inside the centre of the city and there were plenty of places to walk sledge and ski. The American and British embassy had film evenings and the British embassy had a club on Friday nights which we occasionally visited. They had a table tennis table and the occasional quiz but most people went there for the cheap booze. What was interesting was the strange people that occasionally turned up like the Americans walking round the world with a donkey. Often such people had a rosy view of communism and were quite surprised when they met the dour unhelpful Bulgarians. I suppose we were on one of the old trade routes between east and west. Drug smuggling was already a problem and the Bulgarian’s were particularly harsh with any westerners caught travelling through their country with drugs. In the West it was the height of the flower power era but one of the good things about communism at that time was the lack of drug use apart from the old favourite alcohol. Most of the world travelling hippies avoided Bulgaria and travelled to Greece or Turkey or further afield to India. There was a fashion at that time to take the bus to Australia, camping on the way and we saw examples of this during our camping trip to Turkey.

24th September 1971

Greece

24/09/71

Dear Mum Dad and Nanny,

Thank you for the nice long letter which arrived in a record time of 4 days. I am sorry I have been so long writing we have been very busy this week without actually achieving anything.

I was amused at your account of the wedding but was puzzled by your reference to Trudi’s sister. Did you mean her sister from Switzerland? I agree with Harry- you are a good driver- but have I ever said otherwise? I hope you are recovered from your influx of visitors.

I was pleased to hear about your proposed trip to America. I can’t guarantee we will be there to welcome you but you never know, it is always a possibility. Tony’s application to ILO was too late and all the posts had been taken but they will put him on a waiting list and consider him if anything else comes up. The posts advertised had to be filled straight away so would not have been possible for us to take. Tony has written to several employment agencies and will also wait to see what is available in ICL so we still have no idea where we will be going next. I think living here has made us appreciate England a bit more. Of course our plans will also depend on how our family plans progress or not. I have hopefully started knitting but I think it will be Marc Ivor’s Christmas present and not for a small son or daughter.

Well now I must tell you about our holiday. If I wrote everything it would take a book. We travelled to via Erdine to Istanbul and camped on the outskirts in a Mo camp. These sites are run by BP garages and were the best we have ever stayed in with all facilities. They are scattered around Turkey in easy driving distance.

Istanbul was a little disappointing as it was not quite what we had expected but after a while we quite liked it. We visited the normal sites; the Blue Mosque- full of carpets and 19^th Century English grandfather clocks; The Topkapi museum where all the collections of past sultans are kept including beautiful china, Chinese vases, jewellery, and glassware. Very interesting. Also a very nice restaurant within the palace overlooking the Bosphorus- a very romantic setting.

The grand bazaar was a bit disappointing as it was obviously for tourists. I did buy a blue leather coat for £10 and Tony bought some new shoes. We left the Daf in a garage in a hotel to pick up on our return journey.

After Istanbul (where it had started raining anyway) we travelled to Izmir, a very sophisticated city, and spent the night there. We then travelled to the Mocamp at Kusadasi- shown in the postcard I sent you and stayed there three nights. It was a lovely area and very warm with temperatures around 100 degrees F. The sea was warm and nearby there many interesting places including Ephesus, a well preserved ancient Greek town which was deserted because of a malaria epidemic in the first century AD. All the places we visited in Turkey had connections with early Christians. At Ephesus not only did St Paul preach but St John was supposed to have written his gospel there and there was a house which was reputed to be the home of the virgin Mary. We also visited the cave of the ‘seven sleepers’ which was quite deserted and difficult to find. They were a series of caves which were used to bury early Christians and the tombs were decorated with frescoes.

After Kusadasi we went inland to reach the South coast at Atalanya. The scenery on this journey was particularly beautiful and varied. There were great sandstone mountains that had deep erosion gullies down their sides and still blue mountain lakes, steep mountain passes and fertile valleys. We stopped at Parmukkale for dinner. There have been  hot springs there since Roman times, containing white silt which deposits on the mountainsides in pools and makes the rocks brilliant white as they cool. This looks like a petrified white waterfall all down the mountainside. On route we saw Turks in native dress, threshing the corn in a traditional manner with flails then throwing it into the air to separate the wheat from the chaff.

We camped next at Sifliki. Here the camp site was in the middle of a Roman city. We could wander through the remains picking up pieces of roman glass and pottery disturbed only by an occasional donkey grazing nearby. Nearby was a town dating back to the pre Roman Hittite era where there were huge potholes 200yds in diameter with stalagmites and stalactites.

One day we drove to Antioch which is now quite a small town. In biblical times it had a population of half a million but now there were only 60,000 people living there. Hardly any of the Roman city has survived. There was an interesting museum full of well preserved mosaics from a nearby settlement where the rich Romans must have lived.

Antioch also contained remains of the first Christian church, hollowed out in the rock face from a natural cave and founded by St Peter. It is the first Christian church because Antioch was the first place the term ‘Christian’ was used to label the followers of Christ. As the religion was illegal there were tunnels in the rock leading from the church so worshippers could make a quick getaway if their church was discovered.

The south coast of Turkey is very hot and interesting with fields of bananas and cotton growing. The Turks harvest the cotton by hand and you can see rows of brightly clothed Turks of all ages walking through the fields turning them from white to green. We spent about five days on the coast resting and swimming before travelling inland to Goreme. This area is famous for some of the earliest churches and monasteries all hollowed out in soft sandstone rocks. These rocks are weathered into a conical shape like a dunce’s cap about 30 foot high giving the impression of a moon landscape. Inside the churches are decorated with portraits of the saints. We only stayed a day here and then travelled to Ankara where we found a nice hotel. Ankara was very quiet with lots of soldiers on every corner but there was no trouble while we were there. In fact it was a lovely city with a fabulous museum which we spent a couple of hours visiting.

We came home via Istanbul and Thessaloniki and had both cars serviced. At present I am sitting in a small restaurant in a fishing village about 10 miles from Thessalonica as we had to come back to Greece this weekend to get the Daf mended. The gear stick got stuck in forward gear. Tony said it was a good job it had not got stuck in reverse gear as we would have to drive here backwards. It is mended now and we are enjoying a weekend in Greece. Tony bought some new swinging clothes and is looking very smart and disco. It is still warm here but cold for swimming after Turkey.

Last night we went to a discotheque- a new experience for us- all coloured lights and loud music. We did not get to bed until 1 o’clock. Two of our acquaintances from the American and Austrian embassy are also here plus one of our colleagues Frano.K. from ICL, and we plan to go out together for a meal tonight. I had better close now or this letter will never get posted- it should only take three days from here. My lunch has arrived, cheese pastries, salad, octopus and a lamb chop, eaten sitting looking at the deep blue Mediterranean sea under pine trees- paradise.

Lots of love for now

Love to Paula and family

Tony and Gill

We remember our first disco experience. Strange amoebic shapes were projected on the walls, the music was loud and cheerful and there were very few people there. We probably went to bed too early for the main action after driving to Greece. That day we had gone to a clothes shop in Saloniki and bought a completely new outfit for Tony. This was the beginning of the 70’s when clothes became more colourful and exotic. We can still remember the purple and rose shirts we bought.

We definitely had a love affair with Greece. We felt a feeling of freedom when we reached the border crossing. The Greeks were ruled by the Colonels at this time but it felt like a free country compared with Bulgaria. It developed further our interest in ancient history which has stayed with us for the rest of our lives. We were lucky to travel in Turkey and Greece and see the sites before they became swamped with tourists.

One weekend we went down to Kavalla and took a boat to the island of Thasos. Here Gill bought a bright yellow sun dress and we walked down the streets of the main town full of boutiques and night spots and cafes where you could drink ouza and eat calamari and stuffed vine leaves. The countryside on Thassos was beautiful. Unlike most Greek islands its mountains were still covered with chestnut forests making it a green oasis even in the summer. The beaches were sandy and deserted. The Greeks had the habit of building houses piecemeal. Starting with the ground floor and then gradually adding higher floors as they got the money to do so. We were very tempted to buy a plot of land on the beach and build a summer hideaway but then our practical natures took over. How would we get there from the UK? There were no budget airlines and the drive from the UK would take at least three days.

Another experience we remember from our Greek visits was one night driving to Salonika in the rain when suddenly the road was full of frogs. We tried to swerve round them so as not to crush them but there were just too many to miss them all. With the rain bouncing from the tarmac it looked as if for all the world it was raining frogs.

We remember one experience  of cultural misunderstanding in Greece  which also occurred in Bulgaria. In that part of the world people nodded their heads for ‘no’ and shook them for ‘yes’. A further complication in Bulgaria was that ‘ano’ meant ‘yes’ but was often shortened to ‘no’. So ask a question in Bulgaria you were likely to get a shake of the head and someone saying ‘no’. It worked against us in Greece one time when quite late at night we stopped at the first Xenia Hotel (a chain run by the state of very reasonable clean hotels) It was in a small village where they did not speak English. Tony went to enquire about a room and the shake of the head sent him back to the car to say the Hotel was full. This seemed unlikely but it was only later we realised he had misinterpreted the body language. We stayed at a rather inferior hotel with no en suite bedrooms in the next village.