In my first years in Hungary, I taught in various towns around the country: the State Farm in Mezőhegyes, the glass factory in Orosháza and the glass factory in Salgótarján.
Orosháza |
Mezőhegyes |
"Orosháza was my favourite country course. Lessons were held and teachers accommodated at the glass factory's guesthouse on a lakeside. It was a large, single-storey building predominantly made of glass, with long lawns sloping down to the water's edge. Each day's lessons ended with some kind of party or an evening spent at the home of one of the students.
One memorable Saturday separating the two weeks of a course, we decided we would all go to the champagne-bottling plant at Kecskemét whose bottles were made in Orosháza. János, Miklós and Paul were all there so, with about a dozen students we set off in convoy for Kecskemét. We were met by our students' counterparts and taken for champagne tasting. Six long, slim glasses containing different varieties of champagne were poured for each of us. After three glasses I, for one, had ceased to notice anything but the increasing effect, the taste fast becoming of secondary consideration. We were then presented with an unopened bottle of the one we liked best and led down into a cool, dark cellar furnished with long wooden tables laden with cold food. My memory of events became hazy from that point on, and it was only late Sunday morning that I found out whose car I had come back in, and that I had slept throughout the journey." |
"Again the train stopped in the middle of nowhere. Turning to a fellow-passenger I asked, ‘Is this Mezőhegyes?’
‘No, not yet,’ came the reply. ‘Do you know how many more stops it is?’ I asked again, fearful of missing it altogether. The woman turned to someone else, ‘How many stops to Mezőhegyes?’ she asked in turn. The other shrugged. He did not know how many stops it was but he said he would tell me when we got there. Every time the train slowed down I looked with anticipation at the elderly man until he finally nodded, ‘This is it.’ I remained in Mezőhegyes for a week, soon becoming accustomed to being whispered about by passing school-children, (‘That's the English lady!’) as we passed one another in the small park that lay on my way to where our lessons were held. " |
Salgótarján
"Salgótarján was in a long valley, a town of one steel and two glass factories with its inhabitants housed for the most part in prefabricated concrete blocks of flats. Its one redeeming feature is the wooded hills that lie between it and the Czechoslovak border, but in late October the trees were already bare and so my impression remained unfavourable.
The great gossip of the time was a story concerning a group of housewives who had set up a brothel in the home of one of their number which had just been uncovered by the police. Otherwise life consisted of shift-work at the factory and family life in concrete blocks, and an occasional trip to the one cinema or the concrete shopping centre. It would be untrue to say that I was not glad to leave and head back to Budapest on a sunny, frosty Saturday lunchtime, leaving Salgótarján a receding image in my rear-view mirror."
The great gossip of the time was a story concerning a group of housewives who had set up a brothel in the home of one of their number which had just been uncovered by the police. Otherwise life consisted of shift-work at the factory and family life in concrete blocks, and an occasional trip to the one cinema or the concrete shopping centre. It would be untrue to say that I was not glad to leave and head back to Budapest on a sunny, frosty Saturday lunchtime, leaving Salgótarján a receding image in my rear-view mirror."
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my book on Amazon
and here for details
of how to buy my book on Amazon Kindle,
or from Stanfords in London
and Bestsellers in Budapest.