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.