Bedřich Zákostelecký

"It was a lot of work at the farm; we did all of it. We had to mow by hand with a scythe; my dad worked from morning till night. I remember the honesty of both my parents putting potatoes in sacks. I was standing by the weighing scales as a kid watching the needle till it was fifty kilos. My dad added two or three handfuls of potatoes and said: 'People's scales may be set up differently and they could think we cheated them.' I have remembered that moment all my life; honesty should pay off, but it didn't in those days. See, we surrendered our milk. The quotas were high and we never diluted it - it was always full-fat. It didn't make any difference because when the cooperative was about to form, they raised the quota. Once, we still managed, but when they raised it again... It was impossible to get any redress. My father went to the national committee and they told him they didn't do it - the district committee did it. He went to the district to Trhové Sviny and they said that they didn't do it, that the national committee did it. That's how they manipulated us, and when they required three times the amount from us, we couldn't keep up, it was no longer possible."

"Mr Dostál was filling in some papers when they were about to sign the contract with me, and there was a mention about my activity that was monitored by the communists. I wasn't doing well in that respect, I even had to move from Volyně to Strakonice because after 1970, after the background checks, my score was bad. Well, Mr Dostál said, 'You don't have problems.' I said, 'Yes, I do.' Still, he wrote in the box that I didn't have political problems, and it worked. See, if my issues were mentioned the book wouldn't get published. This was confirmed to me when it [the School of Clarinet Playing] came out. The girls at the bookstore in Strakonice where I went to buy textbooks put it in the shop window. There was an uproar at the party's district committee in Strakonice about how it was possible that the School had been published at all."