Jaroslav Proche

“Because I had a very bad profile assessment - because in the meantime they’d removed my father from office as part of the ‘77,000 into Production’ operation. They did try and offer him to go with them to the district [office] in Prague. They said: ‘You can carry on, but you have to join the Party.’ But he refused that. He said that wasn’t his kind of thing and that he wouldn’t bow down to such demagogy.”

“One thing led to another, and he says: ‘Would you like to work at the Castle?’ And I say: ‘For goodness’ sake, I’m a former circus manager, I’m just a circus guy, what would I do here... You’re an advisor, you’re an architect, an educated bloke, an engineer... the only job I could do here is that of a stableman, except you don’t have any horses, you got rid of the stable...’ And he says: Well, okay, but if you’d like to, what about managing the Royal Garden?’ And I say: ‘Well, that would be something!’ And he says: ‘You could even live in the garden house by the wall, where the cops used to be when they guarded Husák.’ And I say: ‘By the gate, next to Belvedere? Well, that would be fabulous. There’s a Renaissance garden there... And I could live there?’ I ask. ‘Yep,’ he replies. And so I came to the office all poshed up, and Mirek Masák came there - he was already waiting for me there, and a moment later the president came and said: ‘You must be a jolly sort, going by what Mirek says. You two work out when you can start.’ Well, and I moved in two weeks later. And there I was!”