14th April 1971

GILL HAD ANOTHER TRIP TO UK so another gap in the letters,

St Radegunal

 Graz

Austria

14/04/71

Dear Mum and Dad

Sorry I have not written for so long so I shall post this in Austria and hope it will reach you quicker than usual.

After I arrived back in Bulgaria Tony went to Berlin for another week. The car was not repaired in time for him to drive there so he went by plane. He seems to have had a good time as Greg. W. Andrew, John and Eddie from Czechoslovakia ICL were on the same course. As a result they had a grand reunion. Tony was very impressed with West Berlin. He said it had a very lively atmosphere and is a very stimulating place. He had to work very hard on the course and did not finish until 9 o clock most evenings. He did have some time for sightseeing and bought me home an LP and a new umbrella. I was lucky having the new secretary J H to show the sights of Sofia.

We got the VW out of the garage when Tony got back only to find only the first and second of the automatic gears were working. We decided to drive to Austria and have a totally new transmission installed. We took the Daf as well to make sure we had back up if we broke down on the way. We were surprised that even being limited to 40 mph we did not take too long to reach Graz. We started out Friday morning and reached Graz on Saturday at 11 am. In a way it is easier travelling at 40 as everyone overtakes you and you don’t have to worry about overtaking anyone else. The countryside was much nicer in the spring than when we drove through Yugoslavia on the way here in December. The sun has been really warm and the forsythia and almond blossom are out everywhere and all the trees are busting into fresh green leaves. In Graz we decided not to stay in the centre but to stay in the foothills of the mountains in a little village called St Radeburg. The mountain the Schokenspeil was full of springs supposed to be good for hearts and lungs so we should be healthy. We are staying in a nearly new guest house which is very luxurious but a little bit clinical. We wondered if we had straying into an up market health farm or an exclusive old people’s home for the wealthy. We do not spend much time there as we are out walking the footpaths and climbing the mountain.

The fields are bright green and covered by masses of primroses and violets whilst the woods are dotted with wood anemones and the streets lined with celandines and kingcups. Today we have walking in the hot sunshine and my face and arms are quite suntanned. As we walked along I remarked on how much you would both like it here and I wished I could sprit you both here on a magic carpet. I could just imagine mum practicing her German.

We hope the car will be ready by Friday and we should be back in Bulgaria next week. I am not sure if this week away will count as part of our holiday or not. Tony was disappointed as he planned to go to Istanbul for Easter but it is better to get the car fixed and it is very pleasant here.

The problem with the car is we have to pay for the new transmission and send the old one to Germany. The engineers will examine the transmission and then decide whether to refund us the money for the new one. So we will be hard up until it is settled,

My course in England starts on the 3^rd may but I may not be able to travel until Sunday so I will not visit until the following weekend. Tony may be coming for 2 weeks as well but we are not sure yet. I will telephone nearer the time and let you know what the plans are. I was hoping to call you at Easter but staying at a guest house rather than a hotel makes it more difficult.

I had better close now.

Give my love to Paula and David and family. I hope their decorating went well and that they have found the hole in their oil tank.

Love to Nanny- I am looking out for a birthday present in Austria.

Lots of Love

Tony and Gillian

This was the final solution to the WV automatic gearbox problems which stared in December 1970. The drive to Graz was quite appalling. It was our first experience of driving back to the West. There was a long straight two way road across the top of Yugoslavia where accidents were common. The burnt out, crumpled wrecks of the cars and lorries on the roadside acted as a macabre warning to all drivers. Whereas the Czechs always drove slowly the Yugoslavs liked to race in their old Yugo cars. I followed behind Tony in the Daf and at one point was followed by two Turkish men in an old beaten up Mercedes who flashed their lights at me. Eventually we both pulled over, the Turks stopping too. Tony got out of the VW and told them where to go in International sign language.

There was a terrible part of the journey in Yugoslavia when the main E road climbed over a mountain in a series of hairpin bends. Huge lorries would become stuck round these bends and travel so slowly up the mountain pass so that long queues developed behind them. We found on subsequent journeys that we could still make Sofia to Dover in two days if the road conditions were good.

We decided to stay outside Graz while the VW was mended and chose a plush looking B&B. The other people staying there were ancient and appeared to live there permanently. They stared at us coldly at breakfast. The room was freezing as the radiator was turned off and it took us a couple of days to find out how to adjust the heating (we were too scared to ask the forbidding owner). When we went to pay the bill in the office there was a picture of the owner’s late husband in his SS uniform on the wall and we realised why the residents and owner had been so unfriendly. It was still only 25 years after the end of the Second World War. We read a book recently about the Austrian nation during and after the war and found that all the previous Nazi and SS officers were given an amnesty four years after the Second World War. Strangely we never found any anti British feeling from the Germans we met.