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Some of us kept diaries, some of us just have good memories, others have vivid imaginations and still more just don't even know what day of the week it is. Wharever category you fall into, send us your memories of the Bradford days, whether true or fantasy, so that we all get the chance to say "Oh, no you didn't, it was four pints of creme de menthe at the most". |
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| CHAS BAKER'S RETURN TO SLOVAKIA IN
SEPT.2010 We flew to Bratislava and landed in glorious weather. Picked up a hire car and drove via Nitra, Zvolen absd Banska Bystrica to a little village just north of BB called Spania Dolina. It was up in the hills and had been mining village in the last century. All old cottages and one small Pension but we actually stayed in a private house because the Pension was busy. Lovely autumnal feel with ripening fruit and mist in the hills. Needed to use a bit of my painfully bad Slovak but it was fun. Next day we went back to BB for a look round. The main street is beautiful with many old buildings and churches. Everything has been renovated in the old part of the town which is very much from the Austro-Hungarian period. From there drove north to the village Vlkolinec which is a UNESCO site of very old cabins, still inhabited, in the Low Tatras. There is a tremendous amount of new road building and we kept coming upon bits of new motorway not marked on the map. We had our satnav with us and the poor woman got totally confused in several places! North via Ruzomberok to Sviaty Kriz where there is a wooden church which was moved there in the 70's when they flooded the area outside Liptovsky Mikulas. I have a feeling we visited it in its original location in 1970? Onwards to Spisska Sobota which is just north of Poprad. Stayed at the Pension Fortuna which was excellent and highly to be recommended. The owner/chef had worked in the UK with Gordon Ramsey and also at the Dorchester as a sommelier. The best place we stayed and the most expensive for dinner (but then only Euros 70 - in general we found everything relatively cheap). Woke up next morning with a marvellous distant view of the High Tatras and drove to Stary Smokovec and from there via Tatranska Lominca to the Polish border. A beautiful drive including passing the village of Zdiar with its painted chalets. We parked at the border and walked into Poland via the old border post. What a difference. The whole place was really run down and people looked unfriendly. We stayed about 10 minutes! Then back to Stary Smokovec where we checked in at the Hotel Smokovec, an allegedly renovated hotel facing the mountains but in fact rather shabby, probably due to the skiing season. We had lunch in its "bistro" which was really an old style canteen like we used to have in Presov. We looked round SS and thence on to Strbkse Pleso where we did a very leisurely walk round the lake. Next morning we took the funicular from SS up to Hrebienok and then started one of the very well marked walking routes towards the Sliezky Dom. It was hot and hard going, walking up through the forest along rocky paths but it was very worthwhile. After nearly 3 hours we got our first distant view of Sliezky Dom which now has a lake beside it (of course it always did but we didn't know because it was frozen and covered in snow when we were there!). When finally arriving at the Sliezky Dom we got confirmation that it was closed for renovation (which I had been told when I tried to book accomodation there). Anyway we walked round the lake which was spectacular with still some snow on the mountains. Then back down to Stary Smokovec through the forest, another 2 hours but mercifully downhill! Took a drive to Tatranska Polianka to find the railway station where we arrived in 1970 to be taken up to the Sliezky Dom. Found it and the only thing that had changed was the trains. That night had a very expensive dinner in the hotel - Euros 3 each! Left next morning heading for Presov, first via Levoca which was an interesting place but we felt a bit uncomfortable there. This was our first realisation about the economic difference between West and East Slovakia. The people seemed much poorer and clearly much less EU money had reached there. Also it was a very misty morning which always makes things a bit menacing. This was a disappointment because our next stop was to be Spisske Hrad but when we got there you could see nothing of the castle on top of the hill. Anyway we decided to walk up which was quite a pull and when we got to the top found a car park full or coaches and cars! Anyway, suddenly the mist disappeared, the sun shone and we got some fabulous views. [continues on next column] |
Presov was the next stop. I had previously made a contact with a lady called Nada Pollakova from the university who promised me she would arrange for someone to show us round. In the end she didn't but we found our way around anyway. First the old campus and halls of residence look very different to when we were there. In fact the buildings are in a poor state of repair. The Hviezda club and the old shops under it are still there but I couldn't find the building we studied in. Ulica Gottwaldova has been renamed 17 noviembra. I blagged my way into the men's hall of residence but fairly soon got thrown out by the concierge: however nothing much seemed to have changed. We also went to the Ice Hockey building and up to Kalvary - again nothing much had changed. The main street of Presov however has been beautifully restored and has some gorgeous buildings. The Hotel Dukla has been renovated and is opposite one of the ubiquitous Tesco's! From Presov we went on to Kosice which is much larger than I remember with a lot of factories and retail stuff. Again there seems to be less investment than in the West. We stayed at a rather strange place called the Penzion Grand, near Tesco's, which was not at all grand and had the worst bed we'd experienced in a long time. However this was more than compensated for by the old centre of Kosice which is spectacular as well as dinner at the Levocke Dom which Nick & Erica had recommended and was excellent. The next day we headed towards Roznava along a route through the Slovensky Kras. There were a number of old monasteries and places we wanted to visit but they were very hard to get to in isolated spots and usually when we got there we did not stop as again we felt quite uncomforatble. The areas were poor, even some slums and the local people were far from friendly. There would appear to be a large Hungarian population in this area. We had a look round a castle just outside Roznava and also drove to Betliar, a stately home kind of place but which was shut by the time we got there. We stayed at the Hotel Cierny Orel in Roznava. Near Tesco's of course. Roznava is quite pleasant but not much to see. Next day we drove back to Braislava via Lucenec and thence to Zvolen, Nitra etc, retracing our steps. Checked in at Hotel 21 which is very close to the airport though quite hard to find when your satnav goes haywire. Anyway, not a bad little hotel. We then took a trolleybus into the centre. I have to say that I was not hugely impressed with the old town in Bratislava - fairly commercialised which I suppose is to be expected. But we then went up to the castle from where we had some marvellous views along the Danube. Following morning, after a bit of panic finding the airport as the satnav went haywire again (Anne's theory is that the overhead electric cables of the trolleybuses affect the satnav, which is her excuse for not being able to read a map!), we left Slovakia with great sorrow after a splendid week and vowing that we would come back soon. Sorry, this seems to have gone on a bit! But I think the Slovaks can be proud of what they have achieved in the last 20 years and especially since joining the EU. I don't begrudge them my money! |
| from THE MIKE WILLCOX DIARIES | |
| 1968 | 1971 |
| First day at Bradford 1st Year at Bradford
September The first thing which has to be said about this section is that it seems to consist almost entirely of dances and parties. This is partly because most of us turned up before start of term for "Freshers' Week" (3 dances in 10 days); then there was a dance a week after that; and I recorded little about lectures (apart from Textiles, see later). However, before the fun began there was the question of getting up to Bradford and settling in. My parents gave me a lift up there and they were in for just as much of a shock as I was. My digs for the 1st Year were with Mrs. Hall at 71 Gladstone Street. This was a steep, grimy, cobbled street of small terrace houses off the Leeds Road. Had we been fans of "Corrie" this wouldn't have seemed so alien, but with the rain lashing down and giving the houses and cobbles an almost sinister black shine, we half expected that at any moment someone with a cart would appear crying "Bring out your dead". It was probably the most depressing place I'd seen. To add to this I was billeted in the attic. It was more than Mum could bear - as my parents prepared to return home, Mum, bless her, cried her eyes out. My solution was to make straight for the Union Bar. |
Wed Oct 27 - Bought Chas new racket. Bought
Charter Ball ticket. Ordered suit, packed up Penny, glued racket together. Tues 30 Novv - Handed in Dissertation 5 mins before deadline, an hour after finishing it and 2 years since we had the thing! |
| The Presov Years (well months actually) - an exclusive chapter from the forthcoming Mike Willcox Diaries for you to download and keep. And remember, you read it here first! | Presov miscellia Words of Chairman Grosberg: "Upon your arrival in Czechoslovakia, you will be given the equivalent of £80 in Czech Crowns. Our experience is that of the approximately 740 crowns you will receive monthly, only one third will be spent on accommodation and all meals, leaving you a gigantic surplus for travel, etc, even at the official rate of exchange of 37 crowns per £1; and in view of the much cheaper cost of living in Czechoslovakia, obviously you will be in a much more favourable position financially than the Slovaks staying in Bradford". Yeah, sure! |
| November 1969 | |
| Sat 16 Sponsored Hitch-Hike. Start at 8.00
a.m. Left 50 mins late. Reached Exeter at 6.30 p.m. and London at 11.45 p.m.
Went home. (The objective was to get as far as you could in 16 hours –
i.e. by midnight. I was doing fairly well until I got to Exeter when it all
went pear-shaped. I hadn’t been waiting too long on the A30 when an estate
car stopped and a very friendly looking gent offered me a lift. He was going to
Ottery St. Mary. This, of course, meant nothing to me, but it sounded like a
town of reasonable size and the evening was already getting cold, so I was
thankful just to settle down in the warmth and have my neck nuzzled by the
Labrador on the seat behind me. I didn’t check how far this was going to
get me. After what was probably only about 10 miles the car slowed and my host
said, “Right, this is where I turn off”. A signpost to the right
pointed to Ottery St. Mary but we were in the middle of nowhere and I was
deposited at the side of the A30 in pitch darkness. Thanks a lot! I set out to
walk Londonwards expecting that very soon I would reach civilisation, or at
least a much better spot for hitching. After walking for about 20 minutes I
stopped to reassess the situation. I couldn’t see a light in any direction
and it was getting very cold indeed. I decided I could either curl up in a ball
in the ditch and wait until daylight or try and get a lift where I was. Visions
of the following day’s headline, “Student dies of hypothermia for rag
stunt”, persuaded me to carry on walking and hitch, but this was not going
to be easy. Apart from the darkness the road was fairly narrow and the hedge
came down virtually to the road’s edge. Basically I was going to have to
stand on the road itself and try to stop someone who could not see me until the
last moment. I had several near misses that required me to fling myself into
the hedge to avoid being hit. Finally I found myself on a straighter stretch of
road where drivers would be able to see me a bit earlier. I stopped there.
After a few minutes I waved down a lorry-driver who, fortunately for me, was
going all the way to London. I was dropped on the Edgware Road at 11.45 and
went straight to the local police station to have my form stamped to confirm
how far I’d got. I suppose I could have hitched for the remaining 15
minutes, but somehow the fun had gone out of it. While in the police station I
phoned my Dad who drove the 30 minutes down to Edgware to pick me up.) Sun 17 Left home 4.45 p.m. Started hitching 5.15. Got first lift 6.15 and reached Bradford 10.45 p.m. (This time much more successful, but not quite as good as the two 2nd year girls, Kate and Jenny, who got further than any of us – to Frankfurt no less!) |
Tue 12 Went selling Rag Mags (Selling Rag Week magazines was good fun and a great way to meet people. I teamed up with Mike from Social Sciences, and amongst other places, we went to Leeds to sell them. This was actually not a very good idea. Firstly, there was a fair amount of rivalry between the two universities. Secondly, Bradford had, the previous year, pulled off a bit of a stunt which left Leeds students very pissed off. The two Rag Weeks were fairly close together and, in order not to be overshadowed by Leeds, some Bradford students had collected all the Leeds “Mags” from the printers and dumped them on Ilkley Moor. Mike and I did not know this until after we had returned safely. |
| The Sochi sojourn is another chapter from the Mike Willcox diaries so click here for memories of sun, caviar and jellyfish! | |
| DEREK MEGGINSON REMEMBERS............... | |
| Park Kultury i Otdycha Smotanovy Krem Ulitza Gottwaldova That's about all I can remember from Presov, and I don't really know what Smotanovy Krem was! Some sort of yoghurt, wasn't it? We used to get it from the shop on the corner, just across the street. No, that's a lie, I've just remembererd something else: Along with all the various shortages which we had to endure was a toilet roll shortage. I remember our joy when we spotted some soft toilet paper on sale, and our amusement when we found that it was produced in Finland and had the word "Dubbelkrap" on the wrapper! |
Hitchhiking …. the hazy recollections of
Derek Megginson Nice story from M Willcox about hitchhiking, so here's mine….. Back in Bradford days, hitchhiking was my normal means of getting from one place to another ("One place" being Bradford, and "another" usually meaning Scarborough). I didn't get a car until my Final Year, even though I'd passed my test in my elder brother's Ford Anglia whilst still at school. And my first car - see the photo on "Picture Gallery" - was a puke green minivan which cost me eighty-five quid. Its bonnet was held on by rubber straps, the engine was started by pressing a button on the floor, and its top speed uphill was 28 mph. But I digress…….. Saturday in 1969 used to be football day. Well, still is, actually! During our first year at Bradford, four of us (the other three weren't linguists - you're all far too sensible) used to meet up and decide which match to go to at the weekend. If it meant hitchhiking to Liverpool or Newcastle, fine. Birmingham? Sure. London? Why not? Occasionally we'd do the sensible thing and get a bus to watch Leeds United, and of course we didn't neglect Bradford City and Bradford Park Avenue either. Yes, Saturdays were a good day for hitchhiking. But on one occasion, a Wednesday evening match in Nottingham was suggested. Brian Lockwood was a pharmacy student -I remember he once bought some fish and chips but then accidentally dropped the fish on the footpath outside, however he simply picked it up and ate it, saying "Germs? That's for your stomach to sort out". Brian came from Knutsford and was a Manchester City fan (Amusingly, there is a track on the new Robbie Williams album called "Knutsford City Limits"). And Man City were playing a big F.A. Cup replay at Nottingham Forest on a Wednesday evening. So of course I said I'd go along with him. Getting from Bradford to Nottingham in the afternoon was no problem (though I may have inadvertently missed a lecture or two). The match was fine, though it went to extra time and didn't finish until about ten o'clock. And of course we were thirsty, so we spent a while in a pub. And at about 11.30 in the middle of Nottingham, our thoughts finally turned to the return journey. Very difficult to get lifts in the middle of the night, we thought - so let's find an all-night café or all-night laundrette and wait there until early morning. OK, we managed an hour drinking coffee before becoming incredibly and totally bored. We did actually find a laundrette, but the seats were uncomfortable and we couldn't face spending the night there. So, at around one o'clock or so, we thought we may as well try to get back to Bradford. Well, Nottingham isn't exactly on the M1, and of course no buses were running, so we set off to walk the four miles out to the motorway. The weather had been OK, but now it started to chuck it down so we sheltered a while in a shop doorway. Until two police cars screeched to a halt and four beefy coppers came running up towards us. Someone had apparently reported that two suspicious looking youths were trying to break into the shop, and it took a while before the policemen grudgingly believed our story and told us to move along. A bit further along the road, as the rain became heavier again, we went into a bus shelter to dry out a bit. Would you believe it, within five minutes a cop car was on the scene, and we had to explain ourselves yet again before resuming our trudge eastwards towards the M1. Miserable and wet, we were walking along the side of a stretch of dual-carriageway when a police car pulled up in front of us. "Now then, what are you …? Oh, it's you two! I've been hearing about you on the radio!" At least this particular copper took pity on us and gave us a lift the rest of the way to the motorway junction. Can you imagine how many cars join the northbound M1 from the Derby-Nottingham junction at three o'clock in the morning? Not many, I can tell you! And because of the rain we sheltered most of the time under the flyover at the roundabout. At first light, I guess around six o'clock, we were standing at the edge of the sliproad waving our thumbs when not one, but two (identical) lorries stopped for us. Finally we were on our way back (one in each truck) and drying out a little, though my conversation with the lorry-driver began with the driver's comment "I hope my mate doesn't fall asleep at the wheel again like he did last week. Wrote off the truck and was lucky not to kill himself." Our lift brought us all the way to the Wakefield junction of the M1, and after a short walk we were actually able to catch a bus into Bradford. I don't know if I attended lectures that Thursday, but if so, I would probably have been dozy, dirty and smelly. What do you mean, I always was? |
| From PAMELA POWELL ARRIVAL: I came on the train with my father. The taxi driver told me to have a good look at the sun, as it was probably the last time I would see it for a long while! I was given lodgings near Bolton Junction. It was the landlady's first time, and she had not been told that freshers would be coming early, so she was not ready. However, she and her house looked welcoming, so I ended up spending 3 nights in hall until the sheets were aired. ( I stayed with her until I was married, just after we came back from Presov.) I was amazed to see buses with doors, and I thought this was just something they had in the Frozen North (I came from Surrey). It was actually a cold winter. The wind used to blow the snow along the road where I lived, and pile it up at the corner of the road, just by the house. I soon discovered that you could not really get lost in Bradford: if you wanted to get to the city centre, you just had to make sure you went downhill! GENERAL LINGUISTICS I actually enjoyed this. Every exam included a variation on the following question: "Strumpf (German for stocking) could not possibly be a word in any other language. Discuss." LANGUAGE LABS The headphones were so large and uncomfortable that I nicknamed them "jawcrushers". There were texts about subjects such as the inexaustible mineral resources of Siberia. Simultaneous interpreting involved not getting too far into your sentence, until you heard what the other person was actually saying. Short sentences were probably the safest idea. Consecutive interpreting meant covering reporter-style notebooks with notes and abbreviations which looked like total nonsense afterwards (or even at the time!) PRESOV The internat, where we stayed, had such hard beds, that when Fiona hurt her back, and the doctor told her to lie on the wooden bed-base without the cushions which formed the mattress, we wondered why she had to bother. The hot water only came on occasionally, so we all tried to make the most of it. Unfortunately, the town also had unpredictable water rationing. Once the water-supply was cut off while it was hot. I believe Tony was in the middle of washing his hair. The potato harvest was so bad that autumn, that the Slovak students were organised into "brigades" to harvest them. As foreigners, we were spared. Potatoes (as "opekane zemiaky" especially) were a major part of the diet, together with "knedliky" --bread dumplings. About a month before we were due to return to Britain, there was an outbreak of cholera at the other end of what was then Czechoslovakia. Although we were several hundred miles away from it, the British Government did not want to reintroduce cholera to Britain, so a batch of vaccine was sent out for us. We did actually have some Russian lectures in Presov, too. Sometimes when the lecturers tried to invent examples for us to translate, to practise something, their English was not actually up to it, so that the English sentences they gave us, would not go into the Russian phrases they wanted us to use. How useful, that they could come to Bradford to improve their English! Richard and I went to the Lutheran church, and made friends with a girl called Ol'ga. We are still in touch with her and her family, and we have met her children. Because of the English connection, her daughter even studied English at Presov University, and came over to Bolton for her period in England. Ray and I took our daughter to meet her, and she was interested to hear about life in Slovakia today. |
From CHAS BAKER IF ONLY I'D KEPT A DIARY! If only I'd kept a diary of the Bradford days like Mike Willcox. I don't think my memory was ever that good but with the onset of senility now, I seem to remember even less! Hopefully all this "website therapy" will stimulate a bit of brain activity but until then here's a few things I do remember. I remember my placement in Germany. I was sent to Darmstadt to work for the pharmaceutical giant, Merck, as a technical translator. This was a good placement with DM 800 per month pay (except that there were DM10 to the £ in those days!). It was also good because I realised that translation was never going to be for me. The office was in the main square in Darmstadt and the translation department was surprisingly large. It was run by a German and counted among its staff an elderly Englishman and another placement student, a girl from Salford Uni. I don't remember their names but the English chap seemed ancient, chain-smoked and had probably been in Germany since the war (or am I confusing him with one of our lecturers?). The texts we had to translate were full of technical terms about pharmaceutical and cosmetic products, none of which ever came in useful either back at Bradford or in later life for that matter! I lived out of town in the suburb of Darmstadt-Arheilgen, not to far from where Merck's factory was. I had a basement flat in a fairly modern house, typical of post-war Germany. The flat had a window which was at the level of the feet of the people walking past in the street and from this I learned the extremely useful term "Froschpersepktive" ("frog's eye view"): I tried desperately to use this word in some context when I got back to Bradford but probably failed. In those pre-EU days you had to register with the local police as an "alien" which in true German style involved lots of form filling at the local constabulary. You also needed a work permit, various health examinations etc and you had to get the right pieces of paper from the right office in the right order. Much easier for young folk today: eh, they don't know they're born, happen as like! Darmstadt itself was a smallish but pleasant town. In those days of course the whole area was still part of the American occupation zone (or at least there was still a large US presence) centred on Frankfurt, north of Darmstadt. Frankfurt was just a train's ride for me and I used to meet Alan Toms there on occasions. Alan was working for Opel at Russelsheim, near Frankfurt, in the export department I believe. Darmstadt was also on the edge of a hilly region called the Odenwald, with its centre Gross-Gerau. At that age I sadly still noticed things like car registrations and soon came to recognise GG as the Gross-Gerau plate as well as all the other local ones. Still, what else did you expect me to be doing on that sort of salary? I could get to the Odenwald by tram from Darmstadt and spent a number of weekend days walking through the countryside there. Further south still was the famous university town of Heidelberg. Heidelberg and its castle are "musts" for anyone visiting Germany. The castle has several huge wine barrels ("Fass"), big enough to walk into, though all you get is a taster and a free wine glass to take away (which I have to this day. Nice!). Heidelberg is where I occasionally met Derek Megginson who was based in Stuttgart. I think he was working for ICI but here the memory gets vague (Derek, help please!). Anyway, I seem to remember a certain amount of beer was consumed on these occasions. Darmstadt was also a university town and this meant that it had frequent visits from British and US rock groups. Having a student card I was able to get tickets and saw some good gigs, so good in fact that I can't remember the names of any except Rory Gallagher. I think both Derek and Alan may have joined me on some of these so maybe they can help? While in Darmstadt I started work on my Bradford dissertation which was all about the position of foreign workers ("Gastarbeiter", guest wokers as the Germans liked to call them, while exploiting them to the full). At the time, when Germany's economic boom was still in full swing, the country employed several million Italians, Greeks, Turks, Portuguese etc to do all the dirty jobs. They were not treated too well and I can remember that many used to congregate at railway stations at weekends to socialise, the railway station being their "link with home". At some stage during the Darmstadt days I went to Strasbourg and stayed with Nick Panagakis. I seem to remember that quite a lot of us met up there for the weekend and a good time was had. Can anyone remember any details? I also visited Bremen in the north of Germany where I had lived for a year before going to Bradford. I think Mike Willcox was working in Hamburg - did we meet up at all? The end of my time in Darmstadt was all a bit of a muddle. I had been joined by my then girlfriend from Bradford for the last few weeks out there. To save money (you understand), I had smuggled her into my accomodation but she was discovered by my landlady. Said landlady threw a fit and threw her out, muttering words that sounded like "Verkupplung" which I still don't understand but is probably something to do with laws against running a brothel! Shortly afterwards I went down with some kind of illness which confined me to bed thus missing my last week at work. Then it was back to the UK lugging two huge suitcases (remember those occasions?!). Well, I think I've proved how vague my memories are. If anyone can fill in any of the gaps for me, please feel free. Chas Baker |