Jan Fiala

"1969 was an important year, the anniversary of August [occupation]. A lot of my classmates had some problems. Míla Hubeňák, now an architect, a great guy, was arrested. There was a trial with him, the headmaster of our school went to the court and said that it was some mistake, that he must have just gotten mixed up somewhere, that he just happened to walk by, that he was his best student - even though he was making it up. He saved him. He only spent six months in custody, poor guy."

"There were some girls and a couple of artists. I was given the task of making huge banners on cloth, which were then on the Letná stands at the Sparta [stadium], so these were made by my hand. Then there was another group of girls who made a second banner similar to that, more cheerful. I was a classical graphic designer, so I did the lettering as best as I could. While the girls made it so playful, with all the little faces too, the letters were so disordered."

"When I was studying the faculty of education in Hradec [Králové], apart from being unhappy there, I tried to be there as little as possible, I worked with, I also made pictures for the Jazz Bulletin. That was a magazine that was published by the Jazz Section. I made a lot of pictures, I made record covers, a poster for Martin Kratochvíl's Jazz Q band and things like that. I was also involved a little bit outside, so I tried to keep the inner freedom."

"I was friends with a beginning band called The Plastic People of the Universe when I was at secondary school back in those days. But they weren't the famous group yet. The guys who stayed from the earlier days were just Míla Hlavsa and maybe Števich, those two continued. So I made posters for them, used to hang them all over Prague. I'm quite glad that their name came to light, that I had a small part in making them known in Prague. But that was when they were still not an underground, but a psychedelic [band]."