Jiří Stehlík

"Then there was one more obstacle with the machine. Where the knitting is being dropped or moved, there are pads, they were called slats. They had two of these beaks and they had to be made in the tool room. And even though we had a good tool room, the head foreman said they can't do this, let's have Totex do it. So the production manager at the time asked Totex to make the tool. They also refused. So we had no choice but to make the tool ourselves. We made it, and I must say that within three months the machine was ready and my brother and the production manager, Pokorny, went to the testing room in Brno and they approved it the first time. So the machine was approved, everybody was happy at the end, even the tool room, because they were busy, because there were a lot of tools for parts. And three months later it went into production."

"My father started to get sick, at that time they called it a heart defect. It probably wouldn't be a problem to cure now, but it was a problem then. He continued to get sick, he was short of breath, he couldn't breathe properly. I have to say that even the fabricator where he worked was sympathetic to him, and even started bringing material to our house so he could work at home. But it didn't work because there wasn't enough room at home, so it had to be cancelled. Then it went on like that, he was on sick leave quite a lot. And even, I must say, it was during the Protectorate, and he was certainly twice, maybe three times, in the spa. Once, I know that for sure, I have documents here, photographs, in Poděbrady and in Chocerady. And it didn't cost him anything. And I know that even when he was ill, we didn't suffer much from poverty. First of all, because we were in the countryside and we grew the basic food, but then when my father couldn't do it anymore, it became a problem. And I also remember what my father did at that time when he saw that he wasn't able to take care of the family anymore. Our mother blamed him and never wanted to talk about it. He even sent a letter to the president's office telling us what condition he was in and that he didn't have enough strength to support the family, if they would send us some allowance. And I have to say that at that time so much money came in that we wondered. But our mother was ashamed of it, she never wanted to talk about it. But it really was like that."