Rastko Kolaček

“My father told me: ‘I will support you until you are twenty five; after that, help yourself any way you can.’ There were never any favours in our family... Boy, please go find a job. Grandfather sent his sons to take training with another craftsman: ‘Go and look how someone else does it, so that when you come back you know how to manage our shop.’ That’s big experience and tradition.”

“My children had a great time there. There was a lot of food – seafood. We stayed there for seven month once because it did them good after the heart surgery in London. First, there is zero elevation above sea level there; the air is good and salty; and I provide fresh food. The water springs are good, the water is pure… My children ate date mussels, cuttlefish, octopus and all kinds of fish – my wife even made fish pljeskavica. It is really healthy because fish bones contain phosphorus, which is very good for thinking and health. So we built a cave there. It is a cave to this day because two of its walls are rocks. When my little son Janko saw it for the first time, he asked: ‘Dad, how did you get the rock inside the house?’ I said: ‘Like that, through the door.’ That’s where we treated our children and it was a success – nobody else did that.”

“My father and uncles went to Czechoslovakia in 1964 and brought back photographs and nice experiences and told us how cultured the people there are. Our Czech relatives visited us in 1966 and were enthusiastic. I remember some correspondence afterwards; my mum took part in it. Those were invitation letters. Basically, our relatives asked us to send them invitation letters so that they could leave the country, but they did admit: ‘Excuse us, we are not coming to you – we need this to leave Czechoslovakia; we want to get to Germany or Spain…’ These days, it has nearly come the time for us to write to them to get us out of here.”