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.