Writer and broadcaster Benjamin Kuras recalls his days at Radio Prague
One of the thousands of people who have worked at the station over the years is the UK-based writer and broadcaster Benjamin Kuras. Not only did Mr Kuras work at Czech Radio - he was actually on the staff here at Radio Prague. However, his time here was cut short when he - like many of his generation - left Czechoslovakia in the wake of the Soviet-led invasion of August, 1968. On a recent visit to our studio, Benjamin Kuras told Ian Willoughby exactly how long he had been at Radio Prague.
The first time you were in the studio were you nervous?
"Oh yes, I'm still nervous now."
Do you remember your first day here at Radio Prague?
"I remember my first day, there was great confusion. I remember doing my first recording, my first translation of the news bulletin into English which I did with a native English young lady who was here on a six-month visit. The way we did it was that I would take a Czech item and dictate it to her in my Czenglish, as it were, and she would polish it up in correct English. And I would then record it. Everything was recorded, because at that time they were still afraid that we might say something on the air that the party might not approve of. It was, however, already after the reforms started in January, February 1968, and by April I must have been one of the first few people who joined the Prague Radio without having to join the Communist Party."
Obviously things were looser in those times, but I am still curious if everything you read or you put out had to be approved?
"No it wasn't. At that time we went through...particularly on the evening shift which was recorded I think around 8 o'clock and went on the air at 10 or 11. We were actually given quite a free reign of even what to select from the pile of Czech news items. And we tried to make it as entertaining as possible at that time."
How old you were at that time, if I may ask?
"I was 23."
And was it a big deal for you working for the national radio station?
"Absolutely, yes. Coming from a provincial university, I started in the local radio there. And then four months later I was on Prague Radio. And then the Russians came, and I went off to London, and six months later I was broadcasting back from the BBC, so for anybody who knew me from my student days it was an enormously fast career at that time."
