RAOC Gazette - page 10
Image details
| Corps | RAOC |
|---|---|
| Material type | Journals |
| Book page | |
| Chapter head | |
| Chapter key | |
| Chapter number | |
| Full title | RAOC Gazette |
| Page number | |
| Publication date | 1978 |
| Real page | |
| Colour | No |
| Grey | No |
| Early date | 1978 |
| Late date | 1978 |
| Transcription |
the Hundred Eaves on roast venison and creamed haunch ••f hare, both game dishes absolutely superb. However, lunch 'ie next day on the national dish of Hungarian goulash was a •t down, it was fairly awful with little flavour or meat. Buda- •ost seemed very Western with most things being available, the .inly country of the four Communist countries like this, and we decided it was our favourite one. Parliament Buildings in Budapest. We missed out a stop at Bratislava because we were be- hind schedule, and decided to go straight to Prague. At the Czechoslovakian border we had our nastiest moment: an alert English speaking border guard saw our Foreign Affaires Immigration Stamps and asked David, who had two months growth of hair, a beard, was wearing an old T-shirt with a ski picture on it, dirty old trousers and sun glasses whether he was the Military Attache in Tehran!!? I've heard of low pro- file but He then asked David if he was a Major in the Army; as he could read the Status Stamp and next of kin address in my passport, we said yes. We spent another hour waiting while they took our passports away. After thoroughly checking the car and its contents especially camera and binoculars and books we were allowed on our way. During our journey we took few photos as we wanted no mis-under- standing. We had no further hastle apart from yet another stop for alleged speeding, I don't begrudge them the £7 fine, but the fact that only Western tourists are stopped; but then no- one argues with armed East European policemen. about life, prices, freedom and a little about politics. One of the chaps was a Television engineer and asked us about pro- grammes and their content. They had been seeing the Forsyth Saga for a few weeks, and had found it interesting. The second man was a farmer and worked for the state, he didn*t seem too badly off, as he obviously helped himself to eggs and milk. He came over initially to ask about the Volvo, his own car was a Russian made Wartburg and he had had to wait ten years for it, even so it was shoddily built, with no luxury about it at all. A car made in East Germany would have to be ordered only six years in advance of the delivery date! ! He told us that it takes him four hours labour to buy one litre of petrol. East Germans can take their holidays in any com- munist bloc country, with the exception of Albania which is closed to everyone, and Yugoslavia which is considered too lax and west orientated in ideology, and therefore available to only a small trusted minority. There must be exceptions to this rule, because we saw Polish registered cars in Switzerland, Austria and even England. Newspapers, books and films are censored, toilet paper, plastic bags and cardboard boxes just don't exist; whenever we shopped we had to take our own wrapping paper and bags; there is little waste of anything. Communication was not difficult, most Poles and Hungarians speak some German; the only country we encountered difficulty in was Bulgaria as few people speak a second language. Roadsigns in Bulgaria are in Cyrillic only, and initially made map-reading almost im- possible, however, with the help of a handbook I worked one village or city in advance of our route, and did a rough trans- lation to the Roman alphabet to give me an idea of what the city name looked like. One of the good things we saw and liked, was the use of horses in pulling ploughs, taking people to work in the fields, and collecting hay: life was much slower and quieter, with little traffic or pollution, the hedgerows full of hundreds of varieties of wild flowers no longer seen in England. We only spent twelve days in East Europe but now needed some colour and good food, so at last we decided to head for Austria, After passing endless checkpoints we arrived at the border for more money-changing and checking and at last we went under the barrier back to the West. It took a few days before we stopped saying to each other * look fruit and eggs.' Our first evening we spent in a small Gasthof in Austria, it felt luxurious, clean sheets, hot food, fruit and best of all a bath. 1 had four baths in twelve hours to celebrate! 1 We drove through Switzerland into France and onto Ostende to spend a day in England, putting the dog in quarantine, business in Lon- don, and collecting Simon from school Then back to France, for a three week holiday, by the coast at Hourtin on the Atlantic Sea Coast near Bordeaux, spent lying in the sun, relaxing, sunbathing and sampling the local burgundy. Nine weeks after leaving Tehran, we arrived in Dover on 27th July. We had covered 7,000 miles, visited Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Switzer- land, Liechtenstein, France and Belgium; had a wonderful holiday, thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and felt relaxed and happy. We camped on all but eight evenings, and had travelled without restriction in the Eastern countries; despite all, we in the West seem to have a much easier life than those in the East. As our next posting is in BAOR we are already planning a trip through Finland to Lapland and North Cape. PS. We eventually got our £20 back which pleased us no end. Storks nest in the telegraph poles in Czechoslovakia. Prague must be the least well signed city in the world, but at last we found a ghastly campsite with only cold water taps md exercise type loo, but with an old Mig plane in its grounds. Campsites in Czechoslovakia are run by the Army and Air Force jind have old planes and tanks for the children to play on. The camp fees were more for our Yorkshire Terrier than they were for us, I wouldn't have minded but he didn't use any of the facilities!! Prague has another lovely old castle and many other beautiful buildings although not in the same class as Budapest. We visited Lidice, the farming community which was razed to the ground by the Nazis on the 10th June 1942, the male population shot, the women and children taken to concentration camps in Germany. It's a quiet peaceful place, and on a warm sunny day with birds singing, ifs un- believable that such things could ever have happened. At the campsite that evening our East German neighbours invited themselves over and we had a long and interesting conversation • • • • REGULAR FORCES EMPLOYMENT ASSOCIATION LOOKING for a job in civilian life? If so, contact your local office of the RFEA. Branch address and tele- phone numbers can be obtained from Resettlement Officers and Regimental Associations—or from Post Offices, Employment Offices, or local telephone directories, — 239 — |
| Book number | R0246a |