I was born on Saint Valentine's Day in the year 1943, in London. My father was a Czech diplomat, and when the war came it caught both my parents in the no land, at Tirana in Albania, which was about to be taken over by the German/Italian forces. Their escape through Greece, and subsequent journey through the Mediterranean to France and eventually to England, must have been adventurous. In England my father volunteered and fought as an army major with the Allied Forces in the northern Africa. Towards the end of the war he lead a battalion of paratroopers on a secret and very dangerous mission: they were dropped over Yugoslavia, where they had linked with the Tito's partisans. Meanwhile, with my mother we changed our abode a few times: after London we moved to Warwick in the Midlands and then, notably, to Stratford upon Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare... More of this autobiographical blog is on the link My Beard: A Short Autobiography, below the picture of me as a radio broadcaster.