Do you recognise this man? Yes, believe it or not, it is Yours Truly – the photograph being the one that appears in my first-ever British passport, issued to me forty years ago in 1974, by the British High Commission in Canberra, Australia. It dates from the days when you were actually encouraged to smile and show your teeth in a passport photograph, something that is now no longer acceptable or allowed 🙁
It was with this passport, that in 1975, I travelled from Australia, where I had lived for the previous four and a half years, back to my country of birth, the United Kingdom. After flying from Sydney, to Kathmandu in Nepal, the rest of that journey was overland, taking a period of two and a half months.
It is amazing to think how much the world has changed since I made that journey. I travelled through three countries that no westerner in their right mind, would currently seek to visit – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. For at that time, there were no Taliban in northern Pakistan, the Soviet Union was yet to invade Afghanistan, and the Shah still ruled in Iran.
I also travelled the length of a country which has since ceased to exist – Yugoslavia. This does create problems when I’m asked how many countries I’ve visited. Do I count Yugoslavia as one country or as seven 🙂 To be fair, I usually ignore Yugoslavia in my calculations, but include Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia, as I’ve visited all five of them since they became independent nations. But in 1975, I did also pass through what are now Macedonia and Kosovo, but have not been back there since then.
Whilst I am saddened by what has happened since 1975 in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, as I have fond memories of my time spent there, including attending an Easter Day Communion Service in a little chapel of the Episcopal Church of Iran in Isfahan, the last forty years has also seen one massive change for the better that I never, ever expected to see in my lifetime – the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989. As a result, I now live in a country which was once part of the Soviet Warsaw Pact. I still smile and pinch myself when travelling by tram past the headquarters of the Czech Ministry of Defence and see the NATO flag flying on top of the building.
That dramatic change has, since moving to live in Prague in September 2008, allowed me both to explore the Czech Republic, but also to at least briefly visit, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland. And visiting the Baltic States and properly exploring both Poland and Slovakia, is firmly on my agenda during the next three years. Until twenty-five years ago, freely being able to visit any of these countries was well nigh impossible.
Finally for this post, any intelligent individual reading this and wondering how on earth I managed to travel to Australia, without previously holding a passport, the answer is that I travelled on a ‘Document of Identity’, valid for a single journey to travel to Australia as an approved migrant. The photograph of me on that item of paperwork is so awful that I’m surprised the Australian authorities ever let me into their country 🙂 I have no intention of reproducing that photograph here, without a generous donation first being given to support the work of St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church, Prague 😀
This morning, my wife Sybille set out from the front door of the Chaplaincy Flat, to begin her long distance pilgrimage, walking from Prague to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. I took this photograph just before giving her a long kiss and hug, as if all goes to plan, I will not see her again for about two months.
Sybille started out this morning at 05.30, wanting to take full advantage of the cooler hours of the day whilst we are experiencing a Central European heatwave with temperatures rising to well over 30 degrees Celsius in the afternoon. Her main aim today is to successfully walk out of Prague, hoping to reach a campsite between Zbraslav and Radotin, adjacent a short part of the route that we walked together last November.
If you want to know more about Sybille’s pilgrimage, her motivation, proposed route and much more, then do visit her Prague-Santiago website. There is also a link in the right-hand side bar of this blog. She is hoping to post an update roughly once a week, dependent on time and wifi access. There is provision on her website for you to sign up to receive an email each time she does post an update.
I’ve been promised a text message update each day, whilst Sybille is walking within the Czech Republic as the cost of a text between two Czech mobiles is minimal. Once she reaches Germany, more specifically Freistaat Bayern, then I’m informed that contact will be less frequent 🙁
In early August, I will be taking some of my annual leave and the plan is for me to walk with Sybille for a couple of weeks, provided I can get Šárek cared for and find a willing plant ‘waterer’. Where that will be we don’t yet know. It will depend on Sybille’s walking speed which will only become clearer once she has been on pilgrimage for some weeks. However, we think it will be somewhere in France. Readers can be sure of a blogpost about it here in due course.
During my recent visit to the UK, I met up with my nephew Tim in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, so we could have lunch together. Before our lunch, Tim took me on a short walking tour through Jephson Gardens, an attractive park in the town centre, in order to show me this memorial fountain commemorating the seven Czechoslovak airmen responsible for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most senior figures in the Nazi Third Reich.
In January 1942, Heydrich chaired the infamous Wannsee Conference, which set out plans for the enslavement and murder of 8 million European Jews. The Slavs, according to Heydrich’s plans, would have been next. At the time of his assassination, Heydrich was the acting Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, the present-day Czech Republic.
The seven Czechoslovak airmen were based just outside Leamington Spa and were parachuted into their homeland by the RAF, in a covert action called ‘Operation Anthropoid’. Seventy-two years ago on 27th May 1942, two of the seven carried out the assassination, though not everything went to plan as is explained in this BBC News report marking the seventieth anniversary of the event in 2012. As the report also explains, sadly all seven also lost their lives.
The memorial fountain is in the shape of a parachute around the edge of which the names of the seven are inscribed. The water dripping of the edges of the structure is meant to illustrate the strings of a parachute. Behind the fountain is this commemorative plaque.
On the base of the fountain is a double tailed rampant lion, the Czech national symbol, and superimposed on it is a shield with a double cross, the Slovak national symbol. I am most grateful to Tim for showing me this fascinating link between Warwickshire, the county of my birth, and the Czech Republic, the country where it has been my privilege to live for the past nearly six years.
I have every intention of writing further posts about the ICS Chaplains and Families Conference and my recent visit to family and friends in the UK. But first I have to write a rather sad post regarding our Senior Cat Oscar.
On the morning of Friday 23rd May, just as I was waking up at the home of my sister June and brother-in-law Garry in Bournemouth, I received a text message from Sybille in Prague, asking me to call her ASAP. I knew it must be serious as I believe it is only the second time when I have been away from Prague, that Sybille has contacted me and asked me to get in touch.
When I called, Sybille explained the situation. Oscar had been trying to pass urine but was unable to do so. He was also wincing in pain and had then proceeded to be sick several times over. She wanted my agreement to call the Pet Medic and to ask for Oscar to be put to sleep. Knowing Oscar’s age and how frail he had become, we both knew there was no way he would survive any further operation. It is almost certain that his kidneys had failed so no intervention would have helped. An hour later, I got a another text message to say that ‘Oscar was now with Sam‘.
At seventeen years and two months, Oscar has lived far longer than most cats. He has been a wonderful companion to us since we adopted him from our friends Mike and Nikki Geelan, in April 2007. We are both so thankful that we did hold a little party just a couple of months ago, to mark his seventeenth birthday. The two photographs accompanying this post, were taken by Sybille during the last two weeks of Oscar’s life and help us both to remember his companionship for the past seven years.
On Wednesday 30th April, I paid my fifth visit in the last nine months, to see a Czech dermatologist at Vojenská Nemocnice, the Military Hospital here in Prague. It prompted me to think that I really ought to write a blog post all about my experience, along with a brief explanation as to how the Czech Healthcare System works. But first a bit of background about me.
Between July 1970 and February 1975, I lived and worked in Australia. During my time there, I got badly sunburnt on several occasions and have since suffered from the consequences of being a pale, white, north-European, who exposed himself to far too much Australian sun.
It took nearly twenty years before I first experienced the unwanted consequences of my unwise actions. It was in 1988, whilst I was training for ordained ministry at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, that I eventually went to see my GP about a scab, located on the hairline of my forehead, that refused to heal up. The GP sent me to see a dermatologist, who promptly diagnosed it as a Basel Cell Carcinoma (BCC), the commonest, but fortunately least dangerous, form of skin cancer.
Unfortunately, by that stage, it had become too big to be cut out under local anaesthetic, with a couple of stitches to pull the resultant wound together. Instead, the BCC had to be removed under general anaesthetic, with a skin graft taken from my chest, put across the gaping hole on my forehead. The evidence of that operation is still visible today, all the more so because my hairline has receded much further in the subsequent twenty-six years.
Ever since that operation in September 1988, I have kept a very watchful eye on any scab or spot on my face that refuses to heal up and promptly sought medical advice. As a consequence, over the years I’ve had several more small BCCs cut out under local anaesthetic. During the latter years of my time living in the UK, my BCCs were usually ‘frozen off’, by being treated with liquid nitrogen which destroys the cancerous cells.
During my first few years in Prague, I was pleased that I could not see any visible signs of further BCCs on my head and face. However, in the Spring of 2013, a tell-tale non-healing scab appeared on my current hairline, on the right side of my face. I also observed several smaller spots, all of which looked ominous. So in early June last year, I finally took myself off to see my GP, Dr Adriana Youngová.
Dr Youngová is a fluent English-speaking Czech, helped no doubt by being married to an Englishman called Mr Young, hence her unusual surname. Interestingly, although she has taken the Czech genitive form of Youngová, she calls the medical practice she heads, ‘Young & Co‘, without the ‘ová’ 🙂 But I digress.
Dr Youngová immediately agreed that I almost certainly had a BCC and promptly wrote a letter of referral for me. She recommended that I see a dermatologist at the Military Hospital as she knew that many of the medical staff there, spoke English. However, unlike in the UK, where your GP sends your letter of referral to a hospital and the hospital then writes back, giving you an appointment, in the Czech Republic, the patient has to contact the hospital themselves and make their own appointment.
I therefore went in person to the Military Hospital in order to make my first appointment. I could just have telephoned, but realised that if language was going to be a difficulty, which it was, you cannot make hand signals over the phone 🙂 Surprisingly, the young female receptionist on the main hospital entrance, spoke better German than English, and successfully directed me ‘auf Deutsch‘, to the building where the dermatology department is situated. However, the receptionist in the dermatology department itself, only spoke Czech, so I was most glad that I had not tried to phone. Eventually, my limited Czech, combined with appropriate hand signals, got me my first appointment for 15th July 2013.
As is required under Czech law, as an employed person, I and the Church as my employer, make contributions each month, to VZP CR, who in turn provide me with full medical cover under the Czech public health insurance scheme. VZP CR in turn, issue me with a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) which I show in order to receive, almost free medical care.
I say ‘almost free’ as, on each occasion you visit your GP or have a hospital appointment, you are required to pay CZK 30 (just under £1.00 or US$1.50). On entering the dermatology department, there is this machine in the entrance hall, into which you put your CZK 30 and obtain a printed ticket, showing you have paid up. This is then retrieved from you, when you see the dermatologist.
My appointment yesterday, like a couple of previous ones, was for 08.00. This is very Czech as there is quite a tendency here to begin work early in the day. I first went to the machine to obtain my CZK 30 ticket. There was a delay whilst an elderly Czech lady in front of me, slowly managed to recover her coins, having first pushed them into the slot where the ticket comes out! I felt a certain sense of satisfaction that I understood the instructions on the machine, better than did a native Czech!
Then it was on to reception, to confirm my arrival. This receptionist is a classic example of what I have previously described as how to dress Czech. She regularly wears tops that reveal a large amount of cleavage. As I’ve previously written, it is look that would be appropriate for a romantic dinner with her husband or boyfriend, but not what I really want to see at 08.00 in the morning, in advance of being attacked with liquid nitrogen. Fortunately, the top on Wednesday, was somewhat less revealing than a couple of the previous ones 🙂
Once my arrival had been confirmed & the receptionist had found my file, I had to wait in the adjacent waiting room, until summoned. For the first time yesterday, I was summoned by a nurse who could actually pronounce my surname. My surname of ‘Yates’, causes great problems most of the time, as no Czech surname begins with the letter ‘Y’!
I saw the same young female Czech dermatologist that I’ve seen on four of my five visits. She speaks fluent English and has a helpful and friendly manner. She agreed with me that the original large BCC on my hairline, has still not completely disappeared, despite four previous treatments with liquid nitrogen. However, she was convinced that it was now much smaller and that one further treatment might finally do the trick.
So it was out with what I would describe as a cotton bud on the end of a large stick, first placed into the flask of liquid nitrogen, and then dabbed firmly on the offending area, several times over. She also treated a new spot I had identified, alongside my ear on the other side of my face. After treatment, she dusted both with a white antibiotic powder which does leave me looking slightly ghostly.
Having received treatment, I was duly given my next appointment for two months time at the end of June, along with a written report about my treatment, all in Czech! Then it was back to the tram for my journey home.
In conclusion, I have to say that I have been most impressed by my experience of the Czech Healthcare System. It is effective and efficient and gives an excellent level of care. Even as a foreigner, once you get to know the basics as to how the system works, then you should not have any real problems or concerns. And because most well-educated Czechs, especially the younger ones, speak reasonable English, language is usually not a problem with many doctors or with some nurses.
