Mgr. Věra Perlínová

“Mr. Havel, the former president, moved to the former post office building in Mikulandská street during his pension. So, he was directly neighbouring the playground, where all the physical education classes took place. I wrote him a letter saying that I welcomed him as a new neighbour, being an old resident of the Mikulandská Street, and that I hoped it would be fine. I wish him all the best here and I eventually invited him to visit our school. The next day, the phone rang, Václav Havel's Office, and I was already kind of jumping with joy, so I thought it was the president Havel. In fact it was his secretary, who asked on behalf of Mr. President, as he had a door to his office towards the playground, where the training take place and how many PE teachers are there. I said I would find out about that. I found out that the training were going practically non-stop there, there were very many classes in that school. Well, I called her back and she said: 'Yes, Mr. President thought it that way, well never mind, we'll put soundproof glasses in his office,' not even a word about a request that we ought to limit it or whatever. She just said: 'Of course as expected, let us put noise-proof glass there.' And then word got word, I didn't leave it alone, I reminded it of my visit. Within about half a year, President Havel came to our school. I was very happy to walk down that street with him. People were looking to see who was going with him, 'Hey Havel', and so, that was good. And Mr. President Havel came to Mrs. Wolf's class, because she was the teacher who taught him, she had him in the curriculum. She was teaching about his book, which is called Pižďuchové, you probably know that, and there were kids from all kinds of classes and the kids were amazing. Just like you are cool too. They were just fine and that Havel, that was his merit, because he was able to break the atmosphere very quickly, that it was such an immediate, nice class. It was wonderful, just lovely.”

“I was born in Prague, but the first fifteen, sixteen years of my life I lived in a small town near Prague named Nové Strašecí, and my whole childhood was motivated by that, because they lived such a very casual life there, and it was quite interesting. My dad, who worked there as a lawyer and a very successful lawyer, so we were quite… well, we had many friends there. But then came the so-called Victorious February 1948 and my father came to his office, where he had his books, his library, a lady who assisted him there, worked with him. Suddenly behind his desk sat the then chairman of the Communist Party in Nové Strašecí and said: 'Comrade, nothing here belongs to you anymore, your office belongs to the people,' he somehow broke in there. In addition, my dad went to work at a nearby sawmill two days later as a labourer. I do not know if you will also have a question about my role models; if that question were to be asked, regarding our role models, since I have a sister, those models were clearly our parents. Especially because our father was a great fun lover, and our father simply went to work as a sawmill worker and came back from that first shift and told us such things that we laughed and said to ourselves that this was very funny, actually. And therefore my childhood was rather associated with such pleasant experiences.”