A long journey, it doesn’t scare the Sokol!

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Miroslav Benda was born on January 20, 1932 in Křenovice near Brno. His father Antonín Benda worked as a locksmith, his mother Marie, maiden name Küchlerová, was a housewife and later worked in the JZD (Unified Agriculture cooperative). Miroslav Benda joined Sokol in 1938 and as a teenager in 1948 he took part in the 11th All-Sokol meeting in Prague. After graduating from the town school, he trained as a coppersmith and worked for forty years in his trade at the Destila company. He specialised in the craft production of metal parts of equipment in the food industry. He married and had two children. In 1972, while on vacation in Hungary, he befriended sociology professor and member of the Japan-Czech Society Akihiro Ishikawa and visited him and his wife Jana in Japan in 1978. He is still an active member of Sokol. In 2018, a documentary about him, The Good Life of Benda the Sokol, was made. In 2024 Miroslav Benda lived in Křenovice, in the same house where he was born 92 years ago.