Václav Moravec

At the beginning of the year 1990 I began work on the rehabilitation of my uncle. I wrote a series of articles on him and organized an exhibition about his activities. I could use the materials from the suitcase which my uncle left behind at his sister´s when he emigrated. She then passed on the suitcase containing material from uncle´s activities in England, to grandfather, later my father looked after it and then me. At the same time I wrote a request to the President of the Republic asking him to return the military rank that had been taken from my uncle by the Communists. He received the rank back in memoriam and was awarded the Order of Rastislav Štefánik on 9th May 1991. Uncle´s family, unfortunately, didn´t see the day. The Document got lost at the Czechoslovak Embassy in the USA. Thanks to a long-time effort and great help of Ladislav Špaček, the spokespearson of the President, my aunt, the General´s daughter, received it as a gift for her 96th birthday. It was six years later, in 1997, when she received a copy of the Document.

The future of the Vrdy Apprentice School was not too bright, that´s why my wife and I made a decision to change the school for the Apprentice School of State Workforce No.24 for car mechanics in Čáslav. We stayed there until our retirement. The school was located inside the factory in a wooden building. When the building of the boarding school was completed, we taught in its enlarged corridors. The building of the school itself was completed in the year of our retirement. For most of the time the headmaster of the school was a certain Blažek. Apprenticed as a bricklayer, an ardent Communist. He was given the position thanks to taking harsh steps against private farmers and establishing collective farms in his function of Agriculture Officer at the local office after the February 48 coup. In the mornings, before going to school, he went for a beer to the local pub and had to have more beers in store in his school office. He always bent down for a bottle kept under the table, no matter who he was dealing with at the time. He didn´t meddle with teaching, his only interest was that every apprentice gets a certificate of completion. When we brought to his attention that not every apprentice was able to manage, the headmaster called him to his office and asked him to sing a song. He told us then that if the apprentice was able to sing, he certainly was able to master the learning programme. Once he called a meeting of employees on Christmas Eve morning. When he started his speech, I lit an incense cone and placed it on his table. When Blažek saw it, he started to laugh and said – You´re right, you can go home. He easily got drunk at every social occasion and then asked for the song called Strahováček to be played and sung.