On Monday 1st March I published a blog post entitled ‘Finally, the snow has melted’ describing how, after seven weeks, the snowfall that started in Prague on Friday 8th January, had all but disappeared. I’m afraid I spoke to soon.
I took this picture yesterday morning, Saturday 6th March, which shows my car parked outside the block of flats where we live. It had started snowing during the night and did not cease until early in the afternoon. Since then, the sky has cleared with a temperature of -10 Celsius being recorded at 6am this morning. Winter isn’t over yet!
This is a blog post that I started formulating almost two months ago. But for reasons that will be obvious as you read on further, it was only 48 hours ago that I was allowed to speak or write publicly about most of what follows.
The story starts on the morning of Monday 11th January 2010 when I received an email from the British Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Sian MacLeod, alerting me to ‘a visit next weekend by an official group from the UK who would very much like to visit your church’. Her colleague, the Second Secretary Alex Pykett would be in touch with me shortly to make arrangements and she expressed the hope that I would be able to help. I duly replied that I would help in whatever way I could.
A couple of days later, I had a phone call from the Second Secretary. Please could he and the ‘official group from the UK’, meet me at the Church on Saturday 16th January at 2 pm. When I enquired whether this was security related he agreed that it was and that he would be able to tell me more when we met.
Putting two and two together, I realised that what was mind must be some form of Royal Visit. What I did not yet know was who the visitors were to be. Was it to be Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh or HRH Prince Charles and HRH Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall? To save the mouthfuls, over the next few days Sybille and I reduced this to either E & P or C & C!
On Saturday 16th January, I travelled into central Prague from the Chaplaincy flat, opened the Church and awaited the arrival of the official party. Just before 2 pm, a car drew up and parked nearby. The driver came across to me and introduced himself. He was an officer of the Czech Secret Service, sent by the Office of the Czech President to meet with the ‘official group from the UK’ to discuss the proposed visit of Prince Charles + Camilla. So it was to be C & C.
Soon afterwards, a minibus pulled up and out stepped the ‘official group from the UK’, led by Alex Pykett the Second Secretary. There were nine or ten people in total and I never got to know who all of them were. Those I did speak with were the Princes’ Private Secretary, his Personal Protection Officer and his Press Secretary, together with the Duchess’ Lady-in-Waiting. We discussed in detail what normally happens at our regular 11am service each Sunday and the special arrangements to be made to allow the Prince and the Duchess to attend and worship with us.
The real shock came when I asked about the date of the proposed visit. I had assumed such visits would be organised several months in advance and presumed we would be talking about September or October 2010. You can therefore imagine my surprise when the reply came that, whilst the exact date had not finally been agreed, it would either be Sunday 14th or Sunday 21st March.
The great emphasis throughout all of our discussions was that the proposed visit had to be kept very hush-hush. This was partly due to the exact dates and arrangements still being sorted out. But sadly, the overriding concern was that of security. By not announcing details of the proposed visit until a few weeks before it is planned to take place, any terrorist would have far less time to organise something. I therefore concluded that at least some of the members of the visiting group who I did not really speak with, were officers of MI5, sussing out all the security implications of such a Royal Visit.
Despite the need for secrecy, I did share the basic details with the Church Council when they met the following day. For depending which Sunday the visit was to take place, it could have had implications regarding other Church activities. But nothing could be made public to the wider congregation until I had the say-so from the British Embassy.
On Friday 5th February, I had a second meeting at Church with Alex Pykett and his diplomatic colleague John Davies. As well as clarifying various practical details regarding the Church service, it was confirmed to me that the date would be Sunday 21st March. I was also told that this was all part of a three country tour with the Prince and the Duchess visiting Poland and Hungary, before arriving in the Czech Republic. The royal couple would be arriving from Budapest the previous day.
I was also promised that towards the end of the following week, there would be an official announcement by the British Embassy about the visit. However, this would still be in very general terms and not including a detailed programme of events. In the meantime it was still very hush-hush – please don’t tell anyone.
It was therefore quite a surprise when the following morning, one of the Churchwardens phoned me saying, “I see the news of the visit is out”. He sent me a link to an article on the website of the Czech newspaper Dnes (Today) with news of the forthcoming royal visit. I soon found an English-language piece on the website of the Czech News Agency CTK. Both articles credited the source of their information as being ‘unnamed diplomatic sources’. I was later informed that the source of the leak to was believed to have been in Hungary!
Finally, late on Thursday 11th February, the promised official announcement was posted on the British Embassy website and a similar press release was made by Clarence House in London. But again, mainly because of security concerns, there was still no detailed programme nor could I yet tell the regular members of the congregation that, as part of the impending royal visit, the Prince and the Duchess would be attending Sunday worship at St. Clements.
On Wednesday 3rd March at 8.30am, I had my third meeting at the Church, this time with the Director of Protocol of the Office of the Czech President, together with several senior officers of the Czech Police. Once more, Alex Pykett was there and helped finalise the necessary security arrangements.
However, the really good news last Wednesday was that later that day, there would be an announcement of the programme for the Royal Visit on the British Embassy website which would in turn give me the green light to tell all the members of the congregation and also be able to publish this blog post!
I have to say that I feel a certain sense of relief that I am finally free to talk openly about the forthcoming Royal Visit. It has occupied quite a bit of my time over these past two months. On quite a number of recent occasions I have had to bite my lip and refrain from saying something in order to maintain the requested secrecy. It hasn’t been easy.
I am also quite encouraged that attending Christian worship is seen as an important ingredient of the visit by the royal couple to the Czech Republic. This is in notable contrast to the visit of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama to Prague in 2009. Instead of attending a Church service, President Obama made his major European speech about promoting a nuclear-free world, standing alongside Prague Castle, but on the morning of Palm Sunday!
I previously blogged about the heavy snowfall that started in Prague on Friday 8th January 2010 and continued right through the weekend. The photo on the left shows my car on the Saturday morning after snow had fallen continuously for 24 hours. As I remarked in my more recent post about the visit of the Archdeacon to Prague on the weekend of 30th-31st January, most of the snow that fell then was still lying on the ground during his visit. However, after more than six weeks of temperatures almost permanently being below freezing, finally during the past week, a thaw has set in and the snow has gradually melted.
I was warned before moving to the Czech Republic, that I would have to get used to colder continental winters. But nothing could really prepare me for the weather Prague has experienced these last nearly seven weeks. Apparently, this has been the worst winter weather that the Czech Republic has had in 17 years. Towards the end of this long cold spell, even native Czechs were beginning to express their frustration with the extreme nature of the weather.
Despite the lying snow and freezing temperatures, Prague has continued to function. The city authorities have made major efforts to clear roads and pavements and public transport has kept operating with the minimal of delays. Particularly in popular pedestrianized areas in the city centre, snow has been cleared away by loading it into trucks and dumping it out of the way elsewhere. There are still massive heaps of snow along the banks of the River Vltava which are the result of this exercise.
Even in suburban streets, snow has been pushed into piles in order to leave a clear path along the pavement or road. It is mainly these heaps of snow that still have not melted, together with snow lying on north facing slopes which get very little sun.
When snow falls, everything looks beautiful and white. However, as it melts, dirt, litter and scattered street debris is revealed which look highly unattractive. In particular, many dog owners have got out of the habit of cleaning up after their dogs have obliged in the street believing that the snow will cover it up. Now the snow has melted, one has to walk quite carefully in places to avoid stepping in dog s–t. It will be interesting to observe how quickly all of this mess is cleared up.
As well as the marked improvement in the weather, last week was also notable for a number of other things. Both of us had our birthdays which has resulted in our joint ages now totalling one hundred! On the intervening day between our respective birthdays, I paid the last of several visits to the dentist for the fitting of a crown to replace one of my front teeth which I broke at the beginning of February.
Looking ahead, I have an early morning meeting on Wednesday 3rd March, following which I may be able to write a very interesting blog post. Watch this space!
