Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Raimund Puda
Foreword
15.04.93
Dear friend, Mr Sldek
I am not sure what title to use in a Czech letter, I am not
sure what to call any patriot in the Czech Republic these
days. Madame Your Worship?
I had all sorts of dreams for the future then. I was also
continuously subject to a strict upbringing by my father. I
was the eldest, having also a brother and a younger sister. It
would often happen that I was blamed, as the eldest son, for
various mischiefs by my siblings.
My father was fair regarding manners both at home and
at work. My fathers character was important for managing
the people he employed in the forest during certain seasons.
Each village in the surrounding area was dependent on
jobs in this industry. People who worked in the forest felling
trees had a certain perk. They received their weekly wages
and every day they were allowed to take home a supply of
wood that had no value for further use.
My father also used to organise regular hunts and I
would often take part. Lichtenstein forests were scattered
around the Czech territory and on a smaller scale also in
Moravia; Kostelec Chateau also belonged to the estate. It
was the centre of forest management in the sense of business
organisation. There were offices there, as well as
accommodation for clerks with their families, widows,
members of staff and people who had retired.
In this short description by an amateur writer I would
like to continue briefly but in an interesting way regarding
my first five years of primary school from 1918 in the small
village of Oleka. After that I was educated at Kostelec
nad ernmi lesy where I stayed with a family (the father
was a retired former employee of the Lichtenstein office) in
Kostelec Chateau. During the last year of my school
education number 4, I stayed with my parents friends in
Prague, where I completed primary education and the door
into the future opened for me. I attended a college near the
National Theatre and after that I worked as an apprentice in
the Letov military aircraft factory in Letany. The manager
there was Mr molik who was an engineer.
This was where I first came into contact with a military
aircraft and my dream of becoming a pilot began.
Letter number 2
1) Will describe how I was accepted into the Flying
Academy in Prostejov;
2) My time at pilot school and other interesting and
sometimes unpleasant events in my training as a
pilot;
3) After successfully completing training I applied to
become a pilot and was sent to the 1st Regiment of
TG Masaryk in Kbely as per my request. Here the
aim of my career to become a military pilot and
receive an aviator badge started.