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HM Queen Elizabeth II – Ambassador for reconciliation in Europe

Since the death of Queen Elizabeth II, much has been written about her life and legacy. Living in Central Europe and with my ongoing ministry at the Frauenkirche in Dresden, two articles have particularly resonated with me. The first, written by the Anglo-German historian Katja Hoyer and published in ‘The Spectator’, has the subtitle, ‘She (QE2) understood the importance of reconciliation’. The second, written by +Robert, my Diocesan Bishop, has the title that I’ve stolen for this post 😉

Both articles mention that the Queen paid an eleven day visit to the former West Germany in 1965, twenty years after the end of the Second World War. Katja Hoyer goes on to say that the Queen ‘did not shy away from making difficult trips to places that had seen large-scale devastation through RAF bombing campaigns.’ She cites the visit to Düsseldorf where 90 per cent of buildings had either been damaged or completely destroyed and 5000 civilians killed.

Hoyer rightly says that the visit was not an easy one to sell back in the UK. Many British cities had experienced bombing by the Nazi Luftwaffe causing serious damage and loss of life, including my own home city of Coventry. But the Queen was determined to move forward and help establish good relationships with the German people, who in turn, warmly welcomed her on that first visit.

Hoyer then recalls a visit in 1992 to Dresden, less than three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Inner German border. Her Majesty visited the ruins of the Frauenkirche, destroyed by allied bombing raids in February 1945. I can do no better than to quote from her article.

‘Ignoring a number of people jeering and whistling, the Queen stoically took in the site and concentrated on the quiet majority of Dresdeners who had come to thank her for attending a reconciliation service nearby. The following year, the Dresden Trust was set up in Britain, collecting donations of over £1 million, including contributions from Her Majesty herself, to rebuild the famous church. Dresden and its partner city Coventry have been powerful symbols of post-war reconciliation – a process that the Queen and her family have lent their invaluable support.’

The Queen’s support for the work of reconciliation between two nations, previously at war with each other, stands in stark contrast to the words and actions of many right wing British politicians and much of the UK tabloid press. They portray modern-day Germany as the enemy that still needs to be fought against. Margaret Thatcher, for quite some time after the fall of Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, was strongly opposed to the reunification of Germany that finally took place thirty-two years ago yesterday. She expressed the fear that a united Germany would be too powerful.

Part of the Brexit campaign was based on the premise that the EU was run by Germany and that the UK should ‘take back control’. In particular, the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel, was portrayed as someone to be disliked, even hated.

The tabloid press forever harks back the Second World War, which of course, the Brits won single-handedly. It is as though the UK is still fighting, seventy-seven years after the Second World War ended. As I wrote and preached back in February 2020, ‘the EU was founded in part, to prevent a repetition of the two World Wars which had laid waste the continent of Europe in the first half of the twentieth century, something which the city of Dresden and my own city of birth, Coventry, know about all too well. Seventy-five years of peace have ensued!’

So I am thankful for Her Majesty being an ‘Ambassador for reconciliation in Europe’, especially in Germany, where it is still my privilege to minister once a month in the Dresden Frauenkirche. As Bishop Robert writes, when opening a meeting of General Synod in 2015, the Queen quoted St Paul writing in his second letter to the Corinthians – ‘As ambassadors for Christ [we] are entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation’.

The death of HM Queen Elizabeth II as seen from the Czech Republic

With the new King on Sunday 22nd March 2010. Photo ‘stolen’ from the Daily Telegraph

As I have mentioned previously, HM Queen Elizabeth II had reigned, until her death on Thursday 8^th September 2022, for twenty days longer than I have been alive. She came to the throne on 6^th February 1952 following the death of her father King George VI, and I was born on 26^th February 1952. Along with over 90% of the current British population, the late Queen is the only head of state that I have ever known.

Therefore, the current wall to wall coverage by the British media and the outpouring of public grief and appreciation of her reign in the UK, is perfectly understandable. But as I have remarked previously at the time of both the wedding of William and Katherine, and at the more recent wedding of Harry and Meghan, the fascination with the British Royal Family here in the Czech Republic is massive, as is the media coverage.

Last Thursday, the Queen’s death was officially announced at 18.30 in the UK, which is 19.30 here in the Czech Republic, just as the main news bulletin on TV Nova was beginning. Normally, the news bulletin lasts for forty minutes followed by ten minutes of sports news and a weather forecast. That night, the bulletin ran for a full hour with the only subject being the life and death of Queen Elizabeth II. Coverage of sport and the weather was completely dropped.

The extensive level of coverage has continued every day since last Thursday. On Sunday evening, the first twenty minutes of the news bulletin was given over to the events happening in Scotland that day. The first fifteen minutes of last night’s bulletin was all about the day’s events in the UK. I suspect TV programmes will be completely rescheduled or cancelled next Monday, in order to cover every possible aspect of the funeral.

On social media, I have previously questioned why there is so much interest in the British Royal Family here in the Czech Republic. After all, we are not even fellow members of of the EU following the stupidity of Brexit. Would Czech people really prefer having an hereditary head of state, even a British royal?

Whilst not wanting to be flippant in what is otherwise meant to be a serious post, I did enjoy a couple of the responses I got when I posed this question, I think at the time of the Harry and Meghan wedding. One, from a Czech friend, was that, ‘Anything would be better than Zeman!’, (the current President), a sentiment with which I would agree. The other, which came from an Austrian-American friend, was that, ‘There are a few Hapsburgs around who would be happy to take on the role’.

It will be interesting to see whether this same level of interest and fascination will continue now that Charles has come to the throne. I shall be watching and listening in the coming months. But what has already happened is that his name has suddenly changed. The Czech media has always insisted on calling the late Queen, Alžbeta II, the Czech form of Elizabeth. But her children were always referred to as Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward. But now Charles has become King, suddenly he is Karel III 😉

I intend to write another post regarding the late Queen being, ‘an agent for peace and reconciliation’, as my Diocesan Bishop has put it. But in the meantime, it has been fun telling Czech friends that, not only have I met the new King, I’ve also had to preach with Charles and Camilla in the congregation. Photographic evidence at the beginning of this post.

Brexit, Barclays & HSBC Banks

Earlier this year, I received a letter telling me of another wonderful ‘benefit’ of Brexit. The letter came from the headquarters of Barclays Bank, with whom I have banked for over forty-seven years, and told me that in a few months time, I needed to close my account or otherwise, they would do it for me at the end of August 2022.

The actual explanation was that, ‘We’re applying limitations to the banking services we provide to customers with an address in the European Economic Area (EEA). We’re sorry to say this means we need you to close your account’. This was Barclays polite way of saying that, now the UK was no longer a member of the EU, they were not prepared to go to the expense and trouble of setting up a legal entity in each separate country as they are required to do because of Brexit.

Whilst I have lived in the Czech Republic for nearly fourteen years and have Czech bank account, I have also always maintained my Barclays Sterling account. Since retirement over five years ago, I have had my Czech and UK state pensions paid into my Czech account and my Church of England pension paid into my UK Barclays account. I can normally live comfortably on my two state pensions and allow my Church of England pension to accumulate to cover the cost of travel outside of the Czech Republic and to make gifts to my children and grandchildren.

Several people upon hearing of my problem, have suggested that I give Barclays the UK address of a family member, the most obvious one being my son Phillip, as he has the same surname as me. Unfortunately, this isn’t possible as I have to declare that his address is where I live. And I don’t live there, nor am I on the Electoral Roll there. Banks require proof of your residential address as I shall shortly explain.

In online discussions with other Brits affected by this problem, several people recommended opening an account with HSBC, who several years ago, took over what was the Midland Bank. According to their website, they are happy to open an account with anyone who lives in the UK or the EU. Whilst it is possible to do this online, I decided I would prefer to do it by talking to a human being. So during my recent visit to the UK from which I returned a few days ago, I planned a visit to the HSBC branch in central Nottingham, whilst staying a few nights at the home of my son.

So on Monday 22^nd August, I went into HSBC’s Clumber Street, Nottingham branch to apply to open a new account. After much discussion as to what documentation I needed to show to prove my ID and my address, it was agreed that my UK passport identified me and my Czech biometric permanent residency card proved my residential address. My biometric residency card was issued to me last November, replacing the passport style document I wrote about and illustrated in this post from December 2017. This grants me, ‘Trvalý pobyt clánek 50 Smlouvy o EU / Permanent residence under Article 50 of the EU Treaty’. This is my new status courtesy of Brexit.

Outside the Czech Ministry of the Interior office in Ústí nad Labem on 2nd November 2021 with my shiny new biometric Czech ID card granting me Trvalý pobyt clánek 50 Smlouvy o EU / Permanent residence under Article 50 of the EU Treaty © Ricky Yates

I was given a letter, addressed to me, welcoming me as a new HSBC customer and giving me the details of my new account number and sort code. All I now needed to do was tell Barclays to transfer the balance of my account to this new account with HSBC and give the same details to the Church of England Pension Board.

Unfortunately, soon after I got back to my son’s home, my mobile phone rang. It was Tracy, one of the HSBC staff I had been dealing with earlier that afternoon. Someone higher up the chain of command at HSBC had spotted that what I had called my, ‘Czech ID card’, was not a Czech ID card but was my biometric residency card, and therefore wasn’t sufficient proof of my address. Of course I don’t have a Czech ID card because I’m not Czech. But it is my ID card as a ‘Third Country National’, as far as the Czech authorities are concerned.

We were back to what had been discussed earlier in the day. To prove that I really did live at the address on the back of my biometric residency card, I needed to present a bank statement from a British bank, (obviously from Barclays), that had been sent through the post to my Czech address, and was less than four months old. But, as encouraged by Barclays and out of concern for the environment, I had gone paperless many years previously, happy to accept online statements. And my letter from Barclays, telling me about the closure of my account, was dated 10^th February 2022, though not received until sometime in March.

So the next day, it was back into the centre of Nottingham to visit Barclays. A young man called Kieren on the Barclays front desk, was most helpful. Despite his female colleague saying it couldn’t be done, Kieren assured me that he could order a postal statement for me to be sent to my Czech address, and proceeded to do so on his laptop computer, there and then. A week later and back home in Stará Oleška, I’m eagerly awaiting its arrival. Of course, UK postal workers are currently holding a series of strikes 🙁

When, (and if!), I receive this posted bank statement, I then have to post it back to Tracy at HSBC. Only when she receives it, will my new HSBC account be activated. The two banks are effectively on the same street, within sight of each other. Absurd is putting it mildly. In the meantime, my Barclays account has been frozen and my August pension payment, due today, will be returned by Barclays to the Church of England Pensions Board.

One more wonderful ‘benefit’ of Brexit 🙁

Reconnected to the Internet

My new ASUS ZenBook 13 laptop with its predecessor behind © Ricky Yates

Over five years ago, just a few weeks before I retired, I bought myself a new laptop computer. You can read all about me doing so in a blog post from that time entitled, ‘A Tale of Two Laptops’.

However, in February this year, that laptop completely froze and I was thankful that JCR, Decín were eventually able to carry out repairs to the hard drive and get it functioning again. One corner of the casing was also cracked and it fell apart when being dismantled and had to be internally taped back together. I was therefore advised at the time that my laptop was now getting a bit old 😉

Since then, it has become increasingly slow to load and sometimes crashing whilst loading. Even when loaded, I would frequently get the message, ‘Firefox (my web browser) not responding’, or ‘Thunderbird (my email programme) not responding’, accompanied by a little blue circle going round and round 🙁 Whilst it is not the only reason, it is part of the explanation of why nothing has appeared on this blog for nearly four months.

Therefore in early July, I decided that the time had come to grasp the nettle and buy a new laptop. There followed a perusal of all that was on offer in Datart, before I opted for the one on which I am now compiling this post and featured in the photograph above – an ASUS ZenBook 13.

It was almost the most expensive of of those on offer, short of going over to a Mac. But I chose it for a number of reasons. It is very thin and light – 13.9mm / 1.07 kg according to the specification. It is also much smaller than its predecessor as it doesn’t have a panel of mainly numbers, on the right-hand side. It will therefore be much easier to carry around, something I am sure I will appreciate later this month when I will be travelling for seventeen days. It also means there is now more space on my desk so I can go from typing to writing on paper, without having to move the laptop or the paper 🙂

By previous agreement, yesterday morning I took both the old and new laptops to JCR, Decín, so they could set up the new laptop and transfer all of my files, photographs etc, from one to the other. Actually, they have copied everything so my old laptop still has all I’ve created, up to the evening of Sunday 31^st July 2022. In setting up the new laptop, I specifically asked that it, together with Firefox and Thunderbird, be made to speak to me in English (UK) and not in Czech or Slovak, which are usually the other two options.

Just over 24 hours later, I got a text message to say that everything was complete. So after a quick trip into Decín to collect and pay 😉 , I’ve spent the last few hours getting to know my new laptop, enjoying the speed at which it functions and not being frustrated by unwanted messages and whirring little blue circles.

I still have few things to sort out. I haven’t yet made it link to my mobile phone which I managed to do with the old laptop. And unfortunately, the new laptop only has one socket or port, that will take both the receiver for my mouse and the connecting cable for my printer/scanner/copier. I may need to buy a new mouse with a receiver that will fit into an unused port of a different shape.

But after all of the frustrations and wasted time of the past few months, it is very nice to be once more be fully and reliably reconnected to the internet. Therefore in celebration, I’ve written and published this post 🙂

Coffee & Books and English Small Talk

The entrance to Coffee & Books, Decín © Ricky Yates

In June 2017, just a few weeks after I moved to my new home in Stará Oleška, a new café opened in nearby Decín called ‘Coffee & Books’. It is located almost next door to Vesta Reality, the real estate business who were responsible for selling me my house. During the house purchase process, I often saw the sign on the neighbouring door declaring, ‘Coffee & Books, opening soon’, and regretted that it wasn’t already open 😉

The café was set up by Honza and his wife Jana. Honza had been made redundant from his previous employment and Jana had previously organised cultural events in Ústí nad Labem. Their vision was to have a café offering good coffee and food, but to also be a venue for a variety of cultural events. Six months after opening, Jana’s daughter Martina, returned to Decín from living and working in the USA and joined them in the business.

The following two photos were taken at a party held on 22^nd June 2018, celebrating the first birthday of Coffee & Books.

Having constantly spoken English during her five years in the USA, Martina was keen not to lose her use of the language. So she had the idea of a monthly evening event which she entitled ‘English Small Talk’, for people like herself who could speak English and wanted to practice it. Here is the poster for the very first edition of English Small Talk, held on Tuesday 9^th October 2018.

Advert for the first edition of English Small Talk

For the first hour, it is effectively speed dating in English 🙂 You talk in pairs for five minutes until the bell goes, then you form another pair for five more minutes of conversation. The second hour is less structured and gives you the opportunity to continue a conversation that was interrupted by the bell. Or you can talk to someone you didn’t get to speak to during the first hour.

It is through English Small Talk that I have made several English-speaking Czech friends. They are nearly all much younger than me and predominantly female. The age difference is because Czechs who are over forty, were never taught English at school. They were forced to learn Russian. The gender imbalance is harder to explain. I am one of only two native English-speakers who attend.

On the afternoon of my sixty-eighth birthday back in February 2020, I arranged to meet Michaela, one of my ‘Small Talk’ friends, in Coffee & Books. I had nothing special planned for the day and I knew that Michaela, who is a school teacher of English, had her half-term holiday that week. I looked forward to coffee, cake and a pleasant chat in English.

But what did Michaela do? She arranged for several other mutual ‘Small Talk’ friends to be there as well. And she told Martina, who duly produced a birthday cake and a bottle of Prosecco. Here we are with Martina.

From l to r: Martina, me, Michaela, Tereza K, Lenka, Iva, Tereza H © Martina Víchová

And here are my English-speaking friends again, minus Martina, but with the addition of Daniela who arrived just after the first photo was taken.

From l to r: Michaela, Lenka, Iva, Tereza H, Tereza K, Daniela © Ricky Yates

Sadly, just after that delightful surprise event, the Covid pandemic hit. We had three different lockdowns in which cafés and restaurants were closed or only allowed to serve takeaway food through the door. Cultural and social events like English Small Talk came to a complete halt. Whilst there was some financial compensation from the Czech government, businesses in the hospitality sector suffered badly, including Coffee & Books.

In the Spring of 2021, Jana organised an online fundraising appeal seeking financial help to keep Coffee & Books afloat. There were prizes or future rewards, according to the amount of money a person donated. I’m pleased to say that the appeal was a success with over two hundred people donating. I made a contribution with my reward being to work as a trainee barista for a few hours, once Covid restrictions had finally come to an end.

On Wednesday 15^th December 2021, I finally received my ‘reward’. Here I am, very carefully making a cappuccino for Honza the boss.

Carefully making a cappuccino for Honza © Jana Erdela Víchová

And it was a pleasure to pose for this photo with Martina and the rest of the team on duty that day.

With Martina & the team © Jana Erdela Víchová

After an initial get-together at the end of July 2021, English Small Talk restarted on Tuesday 14^th September and on every second Tuesday of the month since then. It has been great to meet up again with my English-speaking friends and to make new ones. I’m very much looking forward to the next edition on Tuesday 12^th April.