Marianna Langerová

I found a job rather quickly, I was the only one to have a job and my brother kept bombarding me – You don´t earn much, we still have some money – the army was at a place called Cholmondeley Park. So I obeyed him, handed in my notice and left. There I stayed in a private place and this is where started, or rather continued a romance between my brother and my future sister-in-law. She had a sister who gave birth immediately after the landing. And her mother, granny Ilonka, was so kind to cook also for me. I thought I was in a fairy tale: cooking was done on an open fire and so washing up was also special: they were all black, the pots. And once in a month arrived a squire, he was renting out the little houses. He owned the farm and they all ran outside, he didn´t even dismount the horse, they shook hands, he asked how they were and left. Well, I never! Another thing was the English police. They were always kind, on the contrary to the French policemen. We were not allowed certain things. For example, riding a bike. Why, nobody knows, perhaps not to pass on any secret messages, I don´t know. But me and my sister-in-law, where did we find the bikes? No idea. We were supposed to call at the police regularly, once a month and we went to the police station by bike. The policeman came outside and said – Dear young ladies, when you are getting here on bikes, be so kind and leave them at the back so that I won´t see them. And me and my sister-in-law, we cycled all over the countryside picking raspberries and brambles.

The left wing emigration, that means the Communists and Social Democrats, had a place called The Club of Czechoslovak-British Friendship. There took place meetings, lectures but most importantly there was a restaurant. It was possible to get pork, Czech dumplings and sauerkraut there. When you think: English cuisine, war, hospital – it´s clear. The fact is that we were never hungry, on the contrary to those who stayed here or somewhere else. When I was a pupil of the 1st class, a classmate fell in love with me, head over heals. My family made fun of it..He was accompanying me and to top it all, sent me a kitschy card. There was she, a blond girl with a pointer indicating it was meant to be me, and he, knealing with a bouquet. Well, I didn´t want to see him again any more. And here I was at the Friendship Club, eating my lunch and there was a boy sitting by the window dressed in a pilot´s uniform, nothing special about that. Suddenly he approaches me and says – Sorry to bother you, but aren´t you by any chance Mariánka Poláková from Prague? I say – Well, yes - And he replies – I´m your Francek from the first class!