Martina Radova - keeping Brisbane's Czechs up-to-date with events back home
In this week's One on One, David Vaughan speaks to Martina Radova, a Czech woman who fled Communist Czechoslovakia in 1949 to start a new life abroad. After saying goodbye to her native Susice, she finally settled in the Australian city of Brisbane, where she's lived for the past 54 years. Now a housewife, Martina is actively involved in the local Czech community and even broadcasts - in Czech - on a local radio station.
Martina, do you have any regrets about moving to Australia?
"No, I don't. I've got used to the climate and everything else. My children had a good future there. You get used to everything. In the beginning it was a bit hard, because of various shortages, such as accommodation: back then all the migrants were coming, and there were no houses for them. So it was very difficult. But I'm quite happy."
Many Czechs who emigrate to the English-speaking world, after a few years they start speaking Czech with an English accent or an American accent or an Australian accent, they quite often forget their roots. I've heard you speaking Czech, and after 54 years of living in Australia, you haven't forgotten your native language, you haven't forgotten your culture. Why's that?
"I think it's because we have the Czechoslovak Club in Brisbane, and meet every Friday for dinner. We have barbecues, we have dances. So I'm always in contact with the people there, and then the radio of course, I've been doing it since 1987. So that's a long time!"
Tell me something about your radio programme. You're broadcasting to Czech speakers, in Brisbane, in Czech. It's a private station isn't it?
"Yes, it's a private station. We've got about 42 different languages. Each group has a certain number of members, and according to the number of members in your group you get a certain amount of airtime. We have over 80 fee-paying members every year, so we get one and a quarter hours on Wednesday afternoon, and one hour on Saturday morning."
And what do Czech émigrés in Australia want to hear?
"The older ones want to hear the old music, you know, what they grew up with and all that. The young ones want to hear the young music - what's coming out now. They do like to hear the news, what's happening here in the Czech Republic as well as what's happening around Brisbane. So we announce all these functions that we have, if it's someone's birthday then they call in and request records and so on. It's like a family thing. We love these little cassettes you send us - the 'travelling through the Czech Republic' programmes - because there are people from all over the Czech Republic living in Brisbane, and everyone likes to hear where they came from and how it was and all that."
I'll have to explain to our listeners that Radio Prague's own Czech section regularly sends programmes to Brisbane and they're rebroadcast through your station. It's called 4EB isn't it?
"4EB FM now! Last year we got the FM. It's very good, because a lot of Czechs have settled on the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast. They couldn't get it before. Now with the FM they can tune in, and we have more members, and of course more people are listening to it."
Tell me a bit about your own programme that you do yourself. Are you a journalist by profession?
"Never. I was a little bit of a singer with a jazz band, so sometimes when we play something I know I might put my voice to it! But I no longer sing really. I'm a housewife. But it was because of the singing that I started at the radio in the first place. They were very short of broadcasters, and the man behind it told me 'you can do it - you've sung in front of people'. I was a little bit nervous when I saw all those buttons and everything, but in the end I managed. The way we do the programme is we have a bit of music at the beginning, and then news of what's happening around Brisbane, and then more music, and then the greetings and things like that, and then we might put one of your tapes on. And at the end I usually read the Internet news from the Czech Republic, and then more music. That's how it's done."
You mentioned the Czechoslovak Club - which is still called the Czechoslovak Club even ten years after the split of Czechoslovakia! - what do you do, how many members do you have?
"It now has about 300 members, and the ages are fairly mixed. A few more older people than the new ones, but there are a lot of people younger than the first generation. We call them the Old Immigrants and the New Immigrants. The "49ers" and the "68ers" - two waves of immigration really."
And I imagine there's been another wave in recent years, since the borders were opened in 1989.
"Well, it's not like the first immigrants - I don't think they can emigrate now, because there's no threat to them in the Czech Republic. They're more like tourists, or students - we have a lot of students coming to Australia learning English. If they come on a tourist visa they can work for twenty hours a week I think. So they do that and they save money and then they go round Australia. Some of them have seen more of Australia than I have! This is what they do, and I think they find it very rewarding."
What about the second and third generation - your children or grandchildren. Do they still speak Czech?
"Some of them do. I'm sorry to say that my own children don't. My granddaughter, who came here with me for a visit, she wanted to see Charles Bridge and Prague before she settles down. And she absolutely loved it, because of course there's nothing like it in Australia, it's all very modern. The countryside's very nice, but...The things you can see here, she was absolutely wiped out. She couldn't stop talking about it when she got home. Her mother said 'I can't shut her up!" But to get back to your question - my children don't speak Czech. It was very difficult for a lot of us. We started with nothing. My husband was working, and I was working too. My son was three when we arrived in Australia: we were speaking Czech, he was speaking Czech perfectly well. Then he went to school, and it sort of started. Then I had a little girl, and many times I would say to my son: speak to her in Czech! They'd speak a few words and then revert back to English. When you're working, you come home, and you have to cook dinner, you have to do the dishes, you have to do this and that, and you say about three times - talk to her in Czech! Then you get fed up. That's how it was. Some of the children, they want to belong, they don't want to be something different. That's what stopped a lot of children learning Czech. Of course now my daughter's very sorry she didn't learn Czech - next year she wants to come over to the Czech Republic with her husband. So I said to her - you better get stuck into the Czech!"
For more information about the Brisbane Community Radio Station, see www.4eb.org.au
