* Cambridgeben, akár Oxfordban, az egyetem mint olyan nem vesz fel hallgatókat, csak előadásokat és vizsgákat szolgáltat számukra: hallgatókat az egyes college-ek vesznek fel saját legjobb belátásuk szerint.

... and what happened thereafter

During the second term following the school’s nationaisation our new Head, Gábor Rajnavölgyi, called me to his office and told me in confidence that, due to pressure from above, at the end of the year they will have to fail me in so many subjects that repeating the year, or ever atten­­­ding any Hungarian secondary school again, will be im­­­­possible; the only way I can avoid this is by dropping out soon for ‘health reasons’. As of 26 April this happened, I was severed from the class.

That year I still managed to sit my exams as a private student, I no longer remember in which school. During the school year 1949/50 I also managed to learn, with help, the subject matter of the VII. form’s syllabus, but by summer 1950 no school could be found to let me sit my exams. My secondary school career, my chance of taking the matura, seemed at an end. Despite this, shortly before the school year 1950/51 began and acting on ‘who dares wins’, I opened the Budapest telephone directory at Secondary Schools, closed my eyes, and brought down a pencil on the page: when I looked the pencil’s tip rested on the Kölcsey Ferenc school in Munkácsy Mihály Street. Pocketing the School Report Book that re­corded my career to date (but, having been issued in 1943, paternal-maternal titles too) I then – with courage whose source I still do not know – went to see its Head and asked him to admit me. He studied me at some length, paged through the Report Book, then said that if I can bring a medical certificate to show that I dropped out and missed a year owing to serious illness, he’ll take me. His name, alas, I no longer recall, but he was an honest, and brave, man: by then ‘the hard fist of the Party’, the ÁVH, ruled the land.

June 1951, the school year almost over – and the deportation of erstwhile exploiters from Buda­pest began. I de- and re-registered each week at a different address, at none of which I ever slept, until the exams were over and the marks proving that I had completed the VII. (but here already III.) form were entered in my Report Book. Then I fled, before they get me, to ‘build socialism’ at Kazincbarcika. For some two and a half years thereafter I was a 2.08 Forint per hour unskilled labourer, rod-man. In fact I performed a technician’s job: thanks to Arthur Schwarz Eggenhofer I still knew my trigonometry well, so roamed the site with theo­dolite or leveler, calculated in the office.

Meanwhile my mother had been arrested at Christmas 1951, after weeks of fruitless interrogation interned, and in finally in eary 1953 deported under conditions of ‘strict supervision’:, ony in ate summer 1953 was she permitted to return if not to Budapest at least to Budakeszi (a village just outside the capital). A short time later, in autumn 1953, I was called up and finished up at Kiskúnlacháza, in a reconnaisance regiment of the Air Force. Of our classmates Peter Spyers was already there, if with another unit, and Laci Kún was called up to it together with me (all three of us, I may add, once members of the Turul boy-scout patrol).

My soldiering years in the Peoples’ Army were not unpleasant. In the Air Force disci­pline was in any case laxer, and food better, than in the infantry, let alone the labour corps, but beyond this chance brought it about that even before the end of our basic training I was taken into the regimental office, since I could manage typewriters, soon to be­come regi­men­tal clerk (and a lance-cor­poral, then corporal). Exploiting my position – I posted and opened mail – I rapidly checked my­self out: the replies I got, about an un­in­te­res­ting, DISZ (the Hungarian equivalent of the Russian Comsomol) and Trade Union member, un­skilled labourer, were most satisfyingly neutral. But early in 1955 I began to sense that some­thing was amiss; then I learnt from an enlisted sergeant, whose wife worked as a typist at Regi­­­mental HQ, that the counter-intelligence boys were taking an interest in me; why just then I do not know to this day. I successfully had myself transfered to Tapolca (as regi­men­tal clerk I had good connections at Air Force HQ), and nothing much happened until autumn; unless, that I got no leave for a while in late summer.

Then at the end of October fierce class-struggle pounced on me. My immediate superior told me ‘we know exactly who you are, you cannot remain here!’, from which it then emerged that, since I had already served two years and could thus not be transferred to another – meaning: labour corps – unit (in the air force service was three, elsewhere two years), I would be demobilized. I got ten days’ demob leave and took a train to Budapest. At Székesfehérvár station one of the Tapolca counter-intelligence officers approached me quietly, as quietly arrested me, then we left the train, settled into a waiting motorcar, and were driven to the counter-intelligence section of Divisional HQ, located in that town.

A week’s interrogation followed, essentially repeated recitals of my autobiography, and at night writing down all I had said that day. At the end of this interrogation I had to sign the typed report that condensed my repeatedly re­counted biography and they explained that for forgery of civil and military documents – before and when called up I had knowingly concealed my class-enemy background, thus smuggling my­self into the air force – I would land in prison for a long time. Then I was offered a cigarette and in a different tone of voice it was put to me that, should I agree to work for them, the case will be put aside, I will be demobilized, they’ll even help me find a suitable job. ‘I shan’t be a nark!’ I said; with a ‘you’ll regret it!’ I was locked into a cell.

Hence to Fő utca prison – the same gate in Gyorskocsi Street where I had hung about in 1944 with parcels for my uncle then held there by the Gestapo – then court-martial: two years’ prison, loss of political rights for five more (that really hurt!), de­mo­tion. Early in the new year, 1956, I was taken from Fő utca to Várpalota, to mine coal for Inota power station in a prison-camp; not much later (snow still lay) to Herend, to build a new camp for prisoner-miners, where I ex­pan­­ded ­my so far theoretical learning with practical studies as a trainee bricklayer; finally in late summer to Pécs, to build a block of flats well inside town – Sem­mel­­­weis Street – reputedly for ÁVH officers. We were still laying the founda­tions when, one October morning, they made us stop work and transported us to the County Jail (a plaque on the wall says: Listed building).

Inside we did not, until 1 November, know what was happening ouside: something clearly was, but what? The screws did not say, other sources we had none. Then a three-man committee, with red-white-and-green rosettes, came, briefly questioned everybody in turn, sent back the common criminals, promised the politicals their release next day. The night was long, the day that followed perhaps longer, but by afternoon I walked the streets of Pécs a free man again, and sitting in a coffehouse I gradually learnt what had beenhappening in the last few weeks.

By the following evening I managed to make it to Budapest, and found my mother too. Next morning, 4 November, Soviet troops were also there again, not much later also Communist militia. My only identity docu­ment was that issued by the Revolutionary Workers’ Council of County Baranya when it set me free: here and now I would no longer get far with it; but even that apart, the Communist future being re-born did not hold out any rosy promises to a prison-escapee of my kind. By late November, if with a heavy heart, I was in Vienna; my mother too: ‘if I don’t come with you now, I’ll never see you again’ she said, which seemed very likely in the situation as it then was.

Vienna was gemütlich, but I instictively knew that I should not stay on. On the other hand, unlike many, I was not attracted by America at all. But fate, inserting some lucky chance inci­dents, flew me to England within weeks, with briefly glimpsed hopes of a scholar­ship. In London soon a three-man committee again, without rosettes: these were less interested in my past than in my ideas about the future. I forget the details, only remember that I made it clear to them that, as far as I knew, England had two universities and I had no preference between these two. This achieved its aim, and within days – all of this took place between my arrival on 10 Decem­ber and Christmas – I was sitting in the room of the Senior Tutor, also responsible for admissions*, of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. We chatted of many things, history, then he took me home to lunch with his family. After lunch he excused himself for being unable to give me more time now, but I had better come up on 12 January, first day of term, I could stay with them temporarilly, and all else could be arranged then. With this he shook hands, got onto his bicycle and rode off: I had been admitted. (Nor was there any form-filling bureaucracy later, and it took me some months to realise that here no one had e.g. a Student ID Card, not even in the University Library did I have to identify myself.)

During January I moved into college, where two of us (a close friend ever since) shared a set of rooms, that is our sitting-room/study was joint; in my second year I lived in town in a bedsitting room, but in my third in college again, by then in my own two-room (bedroom and sitting-room/study) set. At that time, the 1950s (since then all of this has vanished), one’s shoes put out before the door at night were polished for one; of a morning the manservant (gyp) responsible for the rooms off a staircase would draw aside the curtains with a ‘Good morning, sir! time to get up.’, and would later, assisted by a bedmaker, clean; dinner was served – in the strict sense of the term – in the 16^th century Hall, where we students ate in gowns, sitting on wooden benches along long scrubbed wooden tables. All of this I only mention here by way of contrast with my life of a few months earlier.

Allowed to choose my subject, Moral Sciences – a mix of philosophy, ethics, logic and psychology (since abolished as being, they say, ‘too broad and general’) – became my choice. Two considerations led me in this: on the one hand, it is interesting and the diametrical opposite of my life, limited to day by day sur­vival, of the last few years, on the other hand it does not call for much rote-learning of facts, but rather playing with thoughts and ideas. The teaching system in Cambridge (as in Oxford) suited this, and me, equally well. The college allocates each student to a Director of Studies in his subject who, or the Supervisor nominated by him, every week sets an essay subject, and draws the student’s attention to the books he might with profit read and study before writing his essay; the following week the two of them go over and discuss the contents of the essay, handed in in advance of this session: what is good in it, what is poor in it, what was left out, and so on. If nothing else, one learns to express oneself well in writing, and how to defend one’s written assertions and views orally against, often advocatus diaboli style, objections. There were lectures too, but I only went (not earlier than at 10) if I knew that the lecturer was interesting or that many girls also went to hear him.

In summer 1959 this pleasant life came to an end: in a formal ceremony I was handed my degree certificate, according to which I had earned the academic degree of Bachelor of Arts, BA – to which end I had had to pass eight to ten exams (all but one written) on each of two occasions, at the end of my second and my third year – and with this my formal education, begun twenty years earlier, was finally terminated. (Since then I possess the Master of Arts, MA, degree as well, but Cam­­bridge, like Oxford, awards this four years after the BA, on request, without any further exams on payment of a modest administrative fee; I have used it but once, when I had prepared a systems study for the Bodleain Library of Oxford University.)

On the advice of the University Appoint­ments Board (which helps graduands find jobs) – ‘What are you reading?’ - ‘Moral Sciences.’ - ‘Well, that’s not easy. Try adver­tising: they take anybody.’ – I got a job with the market research arm of the international J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, at £750 a year, and moved to a bedsit in London. In time I left my first employer for the Young & Rubicam advertising agency, but was bored to death by market research: who cared which margarine or detergent, the adverti­s­ments of which, were more successful? I most certainly not. Then, we wrote 1963, fate brought me together – at a dinner with much wine, during which we discussed the links and interactions between religion, ethics and world politics at length – with a bearded Greek. Perhaps the wine did it, but he invited me to join the computer service bureau he was just starting adding that, although ignorant of my current salary, he would pay me the same amount. On the principle that by doing so I coud not lose, I accepted his offer. It was a good moment: the commercial world and industry were just beginning to discover and use the power of computers, but there were as yet no formal qualifications for the design of such systems. In the course of my work I gradually learnt as much about the essentials of computers and their capabilities as I needed to know, but always left the implementation of technical details, programming and the like, to others. That is how I became a systems consultant some forty years ago.

I worked for four different companies in jobs of this nature (at one of them I even had executive, and at another manager, in my official job title). Meanwhile – I had long left the bedsit to move into a small flat overlooking a garden in a quiet Kensington side street – I married, we bought an early Victorian, mid-19^th century, narrow red-brick house of several storeys with an extensive garden in Richmond; our son was born, and the following year our daughter too. I also applied for and was granted British citizenship.

By 1975 I had had enough of being an employee: I knew exactly how much my employers charged for my services, as also what my salary was – the gap between these two was huge, and provided for the main­tenance of numerous useless ‘bosses’. So I went inde­pendent, as INSYC Information System Consul­tants; and from then on I quite successfully made a living. I saw the world too: work took me to Iran (a lot, still in the days of the Shah), Ceylon, Nigeria; then from the early 1980s more and more contracts came from the European Commission in Brussels, including an initial six months, that grew into four years, as an ‘expert’ working within the Commission.

After 1956 I dared make no visits home: there had been general pardons, but could one ever know whether the deserter + escaped prisoner + class enemy mix might not be an exception concealed in some well hidden paragraph? Only in 1989 did it begin to seem that now it might perhaps be risked, and in August that year, after an absence of nearly thirty-three years, I was in Budapest again. Here, to my delight, every one took me to be a local from my speech and pronoun­ciation (‘How did you bring this car back from England?’ they asked seeing its British number plate); I was also present in the Basilica at the first St Stephen’s day pro­cession held again. At long last, after so many negative ones, a positive turn of history.

From then on I visited every year, and thought of buying a tiny flat here, rather than stay in a pension or rent a flat temporarily whenever I came. But the health of my wife got worse with every passing year, in 1997 I became a widower; the children long adults, living their own life, why should I remain in England? After much searching chance guided me to the flat in Cimbalom Street, which I bought, had renovated, and into which I moved in January 2000, in the hope that I shall never in my lifetime have to move again; in England I keep but a small cot­tage. There is no getting away from it:

extra Hungariam non est vita, si est vita non est ita!

Glossary and notes for non-Hungarians

ÁVH (Államvédelmi Hatóság: State Defence Authority). Political police, fashioned on the Soviet KGB down to its uniforms; nominally under the Ministry of Interior, it took its orders directly from the Party, whose ‘hard fist’ it publicly claimed to be.

Basilica, St Stephen’s (first King of Hungary). Large, late 19^th century neo-Renaissance church in Budapest, where St Stephen’s pre­served right hand is now kept; traditionally this is carried in pro­ces­sion on the anniversary of his canoni­sation, 20^th August, a tradition dis­continued from Mindszenty’s arrest until 1989.

De- and re-registering. Registering one’s address with the police was compulsory; the deportation (q.v.) lists relied on registration address data held by the police.

Deportations. This was the term used for what was, in effect, Russian-style ‘internal exile’; those deported were forbidden to travel beyond the parish boundaries of the, generally remote, village they had been taken to.

Exams. In Hungary such had to, still have to, be taken and passed at the end of each school-year; if failed in one or two subjects these could be re-sat in late August, if failed in three or more the year had to be repeated, if failed in six (I think) or more no re-admission.

Fő utca (High Street). Location, in heart of old Buda, of a large prison built ca. 1900.

Matura. Key exam taken on completion of the gimnázium (q.v), passing it a condition of admission to university or other forms of higher education, and a prerequisite for most white-collar jobs as for an army commission.

School Report Book (iskolai értesítő). Hard cover booklet issued on starting gimnázium (q.v), it contained formal certificates, year by year, of the results of all the exams (q.v.) taken; the front page listed personal data, including parents’ full names.

VII. / III. Form. By 1951 the traditional 4 + 8 years split between primary and secondary education had been remodelled, on the Soviet pattern, to 8 years of ‘comprehensive’ general school – általános iskola – with 4 years’ of secondary education after that.