"I started working down the Nosek mine in Kladno. I got a carbide, I got a helmet, and I was assigned to a working group. It was a platoon of workers, miners - it was a father and two of his sons, quite musclar men. They were from Subcarpathian Russia and I was there with them as if I ran for a shooting devices and so on. And the old man was interesting, he impressed me kind of like Michelangelo. He walked to the front and stroked the rock with his hands, which was obviously completely uneven with the holes, and suddenly he said, 'Drill there and then drill here.' And we could not understand it, even the boys did not figure it out, but the old man had a special skill. He let them do holes while drilling; dynamite was put in there and it exploded. And sometimes the whole cathedral was revealed."
"And I said, 'Listen, are you in pain? No. Do you have any injury? No. Are you coming in respect of this issue? Could you have come during the day?!‘ - ,Well, well, during the day, please. You have a shift; you have a night shift! ‘I said, 'It's not a night shift, and I find your behavior a bit chunky.' You have high salaries! 'I said,' We have twelve hundred and fifty crowns. '' Well, well, then you have apartments and villas.' So we went through the park, to the third floor. There was a corridor of nuns where there were cells, but nuns were no longer there, there were nurses. And I said, 'Take your shoes off here.' So he curled up on the couch and wanted to go to the window, where there was a small coffee table, but he had to avoid the wet diapers, which we hanging down to dry up on about four lines. So he was a little surprised, he didn't talk much, drank his coffee and got out."
"After graduation, we went to the committee and they asked me was a question: 'So you would like to work in the field of health care?' - 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' - ´Well ok, comrade, so you will work with the microscope too?´ - ´It's possible.´ - ´And who produces microscopes?´ - ´Meopta Košíře.´ - ´Well all right, and what is so important for Meopta company?´- ´Well, precision engineering?' - 'Well, smelters.' - 'Indeed, and for smelters?' - 'Mines.' - 'Very well, so you're going to work down there for a year now.' I was surprised because I studied well and attended quite a lot of brigade labours."
Václav Bedřich was born on September 13, 1932 in Prague. He graduated from a grammar school in Křemencova Street in Prague. After graduating, he wanted to study medicine, but before he got to the desired college, he had to work as a miner in the Nosek mine in Kladno for a year. He graduated as an ophthalmologist and he was placed in České Budějovice; later he worked in Český Krumlov. He has been an active scout since 1946. In 1990, he was co-opted as a member of the Czech National Council for the Civic Forum. However, he soon left the world of politics and continued to pursue medicine and his hobbies - painting and sculpture. He and his wife Eva raised three sons together.
