Jaromír Prach

“The camp was built the same way as before. Once again, we had a green gate, a watchtower – all of that was identical. The campfire circle, chairs, totems… And then again, there was an issue with the totems. We weren’t allowed to make totems. Once again, knowing there’d be inspections, we decided to use driftwood instead of totems: ‘Find a piece of wood with two horns, make a goat out of it, color it a bit, and that’s that…’ The inspection came over: ‘How come you have totems here?’ – ‘These are not totems, these are pieces of driftwood – it’s fine art produced by the kids!’ There were ways around everything. I was already telling the taxi driver who brought me here before that I like to call it VSNKZ – having the cake and eating it.”

“Interesting things had been happening there. For instance, there was Honza Tomer who later emigrated, and he was a great adventurer. He was able to find a box of air shells dug out by the chicken. He dismantled them, spilled out the gunpowder and made paths of it, which he then set on fire. For us, that was great adventure. Down in the gorges we were able to find real hand grenades, no kidding. He would find grenades and go dismantle them in the cellar. We only waited for an explosion and Venca coming out with his hands torn… I didn’t like to take part in such things, however. I was rather into the magazines and Foglar’s books. It put a spell on me. Then came this beautiful year 1956. Obviously, we had all read he Rychlé šípy comics – even my brother and my friends, we were lending it to each other. My brother then said: ‘What if we also created a club like Rychlé šípy?’ I was very excited about it. We were the first two members, then Jarda Skružný joined, later Venca Kobes, Míra Kasala… And so there were five of us like in Rychlé šípy.”