Stalin Ate My Homework

by Alexei Sayle

  Though we were travelling independently Joe had had to make all the bookings for our trip, instigate the various permits, accommodation requests and visa applications, via an organisation called Progressive Tours, a travel agency set up and staffed by the British Communist Party in London. Maybe somebody at Progressive Tours was annoyed that an upstart railwayman from Liverpool, certainly not a person who was high up in the CP hierarchy, was trying to see the Soviet Bloc without taking one of their highly regulated official tours. Or maybe some bureaucrat in Czechoslovakia didn’t understand why a minor trade union official and his family from an obscure town in the north of England wanted to come to his country Whatever the reason, it became clear to us over the next few hours that, rather than a holiday spent wandering around the medieval town of Bratislava, marvelling at the baroque splendour of Prague or hiking in the forests and mountains of Bohemia, perhaps spending our nights in ancient castles and smart hotels, we had instead been given permission to spend two weeks in an out-of-season spa town, sleeping in a tent.

  It was very late by the time we had walked to the place where we were supposed to be staying, and it was only then that it dawned on us that it was a deserted campsite. When we finally managed to rouse somebody from a nearby administrative block, the people who ran the place said they had received no notification of our arrival and had no idea what to do with us. Indeed, they were a bit nervous as to how to cope with these foreign people who had suddenly landed on them. Molly’s response was to start screaming and crying.

  The tent they eventually showed us to was in a row of identical structures. It was semi-permanent, with dull red canvas stretched over a metal frame, and inside there were six bunk beds with thin sheets and emaciated mattresses. We were not the sort of family that was emotionally suited to sleeping in a tent at the best of times, so we passed an unhappy night.

  The next morning, maybe looking for something better, perhaps just trying to get away from our misery, Joe went for a walk. After a short while, he noticed on the other side of a meadow a large square building with the look of a clinic. Above the portico of this establishment were three large letters emblazoned in red: ROH. Joe knew that the ROH was the Czechoslovak trades union organisation, similar to the British TUC but controlled entirely by the government and the Czechoslovak Communist Party In fact, back in England he had written several letters to their headquarters saying he was a British trade unionist eager to see their country, but had received no reply Joe strode into the ROH building and began being genial. Almost immediately he encountered a man who had spent the Second World War as a fighter pilot, stationed in Oldham in Lancashire. Throughout our time in Czechoslovakia we constantly came across people eager to reminisce about the happy war years they had spent in Warrington, Stockport and St Helens — half the Czech population seemed to have been based in Lancashire during the conflict. When Joe told this man where we were staying he was so appalled that he went and found a woman who had been garrisoned in Burnley from 1939 to 1945, and she too couldn’t understand what we were doing at the campsite. In the end they arranged for us to spend the weekend at a trade union-owned miners’ sanatorium nearby.

  Possibly because we were all in a heightened state of emotion, our first weekend in Karlovy Vary seemed extremely vivid. The sanatorium rooms were fairly austere, but the beds were soft and laid with snowy white sheets and at least the walls didn’t flap. We walked into town along a river path. Karlovy Vary is a spa famous for its hot springs, and in a spirit of delirium brought on by our escape from the campsite I was persuaded to drink some of the waters, which tasted like a frying pan cordial.

  The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival had just ended, marking the end of the season. Though all the filmgoers had departed, international flags and banners still flew and posters for films in ten different languages were gently peeling from the walls. Right in the centre of town stood the epitome of the European grand hotel de luxe, built in a florid, high-baroque style unseen in Liverpool. It was named the Grandhotel Moskva, and I probably remember it so clearly because I wished we were staying there.

  Sadly, on the Monday, because the sanatorium was expecting an intake of tubercular Slovakian strip miners we had to return to our tent. When we got through the flap there was an odd stale odour, which soon revealed itself as the smell of the mice which had been eating our clothes. Extremely depressed, we went to a café to get some breakfast. Communism was turning out to be not all puppets and pastel-coloured, geometrically shaped coffee pots. While we were picking at our breakfast of bread and jam one of the officials from the campsite, who up to that point had been quite rude and dismissive, came running up and made it clear that we had to come back with him immediately to the office.

  As we walked back down the path from the café, harried by the visibly nervous functionary, my gaze was drawn to the parking area in front of the rustic wooden administrative buildings. My eyes widened in astonishment, because parked on the semicircle of gravel was a convoy of the most extraordinary vehicles I had ever seen. They were cars, all identical, all black and all shined to a high polish. Each had a large front windscreen, six big windows on either side of the passenger compartment and a back window split at the centre and curving around to the rear pillar. Large air scoops flared out from the wings, the rear wheels were concealed by spats and across the curved front, enclosed under a continuous one-piece glass panel, was a row of three enormous circular headlights. These cars were nothing less than the future rendered in metal and glass, and if they had been hovering three feet from the ground as the vehicles did in ‘Dan Dare Pilot of the Future’ in the Eagle comic I wouldn’t have been at all surprised. Beside these amazing automobiles stood a group of men in suits and hats. The campsite manager, now sweating and very on edge, urged us onwards. Though at the time we chose not to be aware of any of this, a fleet of three black Tatra limousines, a car reserved solely for the use of state officials, pulling up outside your campsite didn’t usually mean anything good was going to happen.

  As we approached, a round-faced man in a dapper grey tweed suit detached himself from the waiting group and came towards us. In perfect English he introduced himself, saying that his name was Ladislav and he had been sent by his boss, a man called Prukha, the Minister for Trade Union Affairs. Over the weekend he said they had uncovered all of Joe’s letters to the ROH and, while obviously the tents were a fine place to spend a vacation, perhaps the comrades from England would like to come immediately to Prague, to stay in one of the best hotels at the government’s expense and to accept a refund for the money they had paid to stay at this no doubt excellent campsite. Within seconds our mouse-nibbled luggage was brought and placed in the boot, which is to say the front portion of the lead Tatra, while we climbed on to the leather bench seat of the passenger compartment. The ministry driver climbed aboard, the man called Ladislav took the passenger seat, the driver pressed a button and the Tatra’s rear-mounted V8 engine rumbled into life. Looking around, I noticed that all the switches and the steering wheel were in an elegant ivory plastic unlike anything I had ever seen in Britain — though, to be fair, as I had only ever been on the bus and in a taxi there wasn’t much to compare them with.

  Our fleet of limousines gathered speed, crunched across the gravel, turned into the road and took us away from the rows of red tents and towards Prague, the city known throughout Europe as ‘The Golden City of Spires’.

  My parents’ faith in Communism and the Communist Party had been vindicated in the most spectacular fashion. When we had been at our lowest ebb, Communism had seen that we were distressed and had sent Ladislav with his fleet of Marxist limousines to rescue us and carry us off to a city of almost indescribable magic and mystery.

  Of all the heroes of that country and that city I don’t think they once mentioned Franz Kafka to us. It’s not really likely that they would, but he wrote, ‘Prague never lets you go … this dear little mother has sharp claws.’ He was right — the city held us enthralled. I
t seemed like there really were a million golden spires. There was an ancient castle, narrow medieval streets crammed with taverns and coffee shops, and right by our hotel there was a famous cobbled bridge, its balustrade lined with the life-sized statues of venerable saints, all looking in the early morning mist like a row of eighteenth-century ecclesiastical suicides.

  A decision had been made within the highest levels of the bureaucracy of the government of Czechoslovakia that the Sayle family couldn’t be allowed to languish in a tent. Like Kafka’s Metamorphosis but in reverse, we had gone to sleep as insects and woken, in the very city where he had written that story, as people. And not just ordinary people, but people of the highest importance. Right to the end of our fortnight’s stay we had Ladislav, a Tatra and a driver at our disposal night and day Every morning, dressed in a different natty suit, Ladislav would be waiting for us and would then take us around the sites of Prague and the surrounding countryside, pointing out astonishing things in his punctilious English. In the evening there were formal dinners hosted by Ladislav’s boss Prukha, a thinner, more watchful man, at which we were constantly toasted as visiting comrades from Britain. And wherever we went we were given gifts, vases of Bohemian glass, coffee sets and folklorique woven things whose exact purpose we could never quite figure out. You only had to look at something and people would give it to you.

  After their success in Brussels at Expo ‘58 the Magic Lantern Theatre had been given their own purpose-built theatre right in the centre of Prague. We took in a performance, now sitting in the best seats, and it felt like we were visiting old friends.

  Molly, Joe and Ladislav got on really well together. I had never seen my parents make a new friend before, so I found it compelling to watch. Ladislav had the same fascination with terrible puns as Joe and he found Molly’s behaviour charming — I suppose that, as there had been Jews in Prague for over a thousand years they were used to her kind of carrying-on. But more than anybody else it was me who was the centre of attention. Everywhere we went I was spoilt and flattered; I suppose I was some sort of novelty, but whatever the reason I loved it.

  The most famous, indeed the only famous Czech at the time was the athlete Emil Zátopek, also known as the ‘Flying Czech’ because he was so fast or ‘Emil the Terrible’ due to his ugly running style. Zátopek first came to the world’s attention at the 1948 Olympics in London, from out of nowhere winning the ten thousand metres and finishing second in the five thousand. At the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki he amazingly won gold in both the five thousand and ten thousand metre races. We were already aware of Zátopek, who was particularly admired in our house because in the five thousand metres at Helsinki he had beaten a great British hero, Christopher Chataway. Chataway, an ex-public schoolboy and a bit of a Young Tory, was second, but after being overtaken by Zátopek he tripped and fell. We especially liked that.

  Though not universal, it was instinctual amongst a great many British Communists to be noisily unpatriotic. It was not a matter of party policy but a way of thinking that had grown up, a prejudice that had formed like barnacles beneath the waterline of a ship. They assumed that taking pride in any kind of British achievement, in science or the arts or particularly sporting achievement, meant you were somehow taking pride in the excesses of the British Empire. To my parents and their friends it was as if by cheering on the English football team, the cricket team or Britain’s runners you were somehow revelling in slavery, the Amritsar Massacre, the suppression of the Irish or the Opium Wars.

  Very early on I sensed that this anti-nationalism was not a good thing to flaunt in front of other children. It might be all right to make fun of the Milk Marketing Board or go on and on about the many achievements of the Soviet Union, but it was not okay to deride the England football team for being beaten 6—3 by Communist Hungary in 1953. If I felt any of this unpatriotism I didn’t voice it, and in fact slowly I came to question this attitude in my parents. At the very least, as well as risking getting hit in the playground it seemed ungrateful and ungracious to deride this country that gave us free milk and rail travel. But I kept all these thoughts to myself and it was perhaps the beginning of a certain secretiveness, an internal, critical but unexpressed mulling-over of what was said to me.

  At any rate, Emil Zátopek, unlike his British rival on the running track, was considered impeccably proletarian because of his background and because he would train in any weather, including snow, and would often do so while wearing heavy work boots as opposed to special running shoes. I don’t know if they thought I was good at running or were just flattering me, but Ladislav and the driver and then everybody else took to calling me ‘Little Zátopek’, saying that one day I too would be a great runner and compete in the Olympics. I loved this attention and did not see any reason to develop a critical attitude to the idea, which sounded perfectly plausible. I already had the feeling that there was something special about me, so why shouldn’t I win gold at the Olympics, possibly as early as 1966?

  The return trip from Czechoslovakia was a very sad experience. Ladislav and the driver waved us off from Prague Station, and suddenly as the train headed west we became just ordinary people again — though admittedly ordinary people who were loaded down with Bohemian glass, dolls and folklorique woven things. One way to try and keep the special feeling alive was to tell all the kids in the street and all the kids at school about my adventures, and initially it seemed to work. I would talk about Prague and become the centre of attention as my classmates listened in rapt, enchanted silence. But then some other kid would tell a story about how their cat could drive and the same children would listen to that in fascinated silence. My classmates accepted that everything I said was true, but then they were at an age where they accepted that everything was true. I wanted to shout at them, ‘Look, this isn’t like your imaginary friend Gerald who wets the bed! I really have been in a car that looks like a spaceship. I really did meet the Minister for Trade Union Affairs. I really did walk across a bridge lined with statues.’ But it wouldn’t have made any difference. Truth was trumped by a good story any day.

  In the early autumn of the year that we returned from our first visit to the East, Joe attended a weekend conference of the National Union of Railwaymen at a place called Earlstown in Cheshire, an important railway town possessing a huge wagon works. Me and Molly came along too. The days were bright and sunny and to entertain the families the union put on a sports day It was mostly for the older children, but there was a very informal hundred yards dash organised for the seven-, eight- and nine-year-olds such as me. On the starting line, poised in an anticipatory crouch, my heart was bursting with confidence, eager to fulfil my destiny because I was Little Zátopek.

  Of course I won! My prize was a magnificent clockwork motor yacht presented to me by a senior union official. Made of polished wood and metal, the fitments meticulously rendered in minute detail, it was the most elegant toy I had ever owned, the sort of thing that the son of a press baron or a property developer might have. But the yacht was only the physical symbol of other things. Firstly, it seemed to prove the ideological superiority of Communism. Some people in Prague had said I was going to be a great runner, and it turned out to be true. But, more than that, it was my first experience of winning something and I found it sublime. The attention, the feeling of being special, the sensation of beating other kids, proving yourself better than them, was all brilliant with no apparent downside. Back at school on the Monday I told all the kids over and over again that I was now the NUR Under Ten National Hundred Yards Dash Champion.

  The following spring, in another railway town in the south of England, possibly Swindon, there was another weekend conference and another sports day I felt slightly queasy competing away from the north, my home ground. This place seemed alien and different, but I was quietly confident of being able to defend my title. After all, Marxist determinism seemed to state that it was inevitable that I should win.

  Shockingly, I came last. Last by quite s
ome way I can still see the other kids disappearing into the distance, their shapes getting smaller and smaller, and I can still recall the horror of my mind telling my legs to move faster but them refusing to respond. After the race I was so clearly distressed at losing my title that the organisers, perhaps at the prompting of my parents, scraped around until they found a consolation prize for me — a toy gun with a broken handle.

  This was my first experience of losing and it felt really, really bad. The pity of the organisers and the crappiness of my prize were hard to take, but more than that I couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. Was the first win an illusion, or was this loss some sort of abnormality? Either way, here was a new and unsettling realisation, that the pain of failure, sharp and nagging, was much greater than the warm but easily dissipated pleasure of winning. I thought about it over and over. I had lost by quite a margin, but in the end found it impossible to accept that Little Zátopek wasn’t a good runner.

  My parents’ faith that I was special remained unshaken, but perhaps this was also a modern thing and not of their class. Most children in Anfield were brought up to think of themselves as being profoundly ordinary — if you had called them ‘special’ they would have been insulted. In our neighbourhood you believed the same things as everybody else, you wore the same clothes as everybody else and you planned to go into the same job as your father. I loved the idea that my mum and dad thought of me as some sort of Chosen One, but it also seemed like quite hard work. It was decided that perhaps a lack of training and preparation had led to me losing my title as the hundred yards dash champion, so when we got back to Liverpool I joined a running club, as its only junior member. They were called the Walton Harriers and they practised at a sports ground directly opposite the long brick wall and lowering grey blocks of Walton Prison. Over the next year or so I attended running practice at least once or twice a week.