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.