The Hungarian Revolution and Me

Russian Tanks Arrive in Budapest

You know the theory of the butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil and a tree falling on somebody in Sweden well here's the one about the Hungarian Revolution and its impact twenty two years later on an 18 year old trainee accountant in Dorset.

The Hungarian Revolution of October 23 1956 was a nationwide, student led, revolt against the Neo-Stalinist government of Hungary and its Soviet-imposed policies. It lasted until November 10, 1956. What began as a student demonstration attracted thousands of Hungarians as it marched through central Budapest to the Parliament building. A student delegation entering the Radio Building attempting to broadcast their demands was detained. When the delegation's release was demanded by the demonstrators outside, they were fired upon by the State Security Police from within the building. The news spread quickly and disorder and violence erupted throughout the capital.

The revolt spread quickly across Hungary and the government fell. Thousands organised themselves into militias, battling the State Security Police (ÁVH) and Soviet troops. Pro-Soviet communists and ÁVH members were often executed or imprisoned, as former prisoners were released and armed. Hastily convened councils took municipal control from the communist party, and demanded political changes. The new government formally disbanded the ÁVH, declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and pledged to re-establish free elections. By the end of October, fighting had almost stopped and a sense of normality began to return.

After announcing a willingness to negotiate a withdrawal of Soviet forces, the Politburo changed its mind and moved to quash the revolution. On November 4, a large Soviet force invaded Budapest, killing thousands of civilians . Organized resistance ceased by November 10, and mass arrests began. An estimated 200,000 Hungarians fled as refugees. By January 1957 the new Soviet-installed government had suppressed all public opposition. These Soviet actions alienated many Western Marxists, yet strengthened Soviet control over Central Europe, cultivating the perception that communism was both irreversible and monolithic.

Taling in public about this revolt/uprising/revolution was suppressed in Hungary for over 30 years, but since the political changed in Eastern Europe in the 1980s it has been a subject of intense study and debate. October 23 is now a national holiday in Hungary.

One of those 200,000 refugees was a young baker called Emir who made his way across Europe with one of his three brothers until they arrived in London in early 1957. Emir soon found work as a patisseier and in 1960 having saved enough money to enable him to leave London he headed for the south coast and Bournemouth where he found work in a leading hotel. Whilst working at this hotel he met a young Bournemouth woman called Brenda and they were married within weeks, she fell pregnant soon afterwards and on October 6th 1961 gave birth to a daughter Erica.

Just over sixteen years later, in March 1978, Erica took a job in a Chartered Accountants in Bournemouth where I was working, she was bright, intelligent and with her blonde hair, blue eyes and flirtacious nature she was the catch every male in the office wanted to land. Back in those days most of the office workers were of the same age, mid twenties through to early thirties, the exception being Erica and myself at 16 and 18 respectively, and we used to go out en masse on a Friday and Saturday night trawling the clubs, pubs and discos of Bournemouth, often ending up on the beach near the pier where people would swim, chat, get drunk and generally have a good time.

The first person to ask her out was one of my managers, a thirty year old Welshman called (without sense of originality or irony) Taffy. It hadn't occurred to me that I should ask her out, I had a long distance relationship with a member of the RAF who was stationed at RAF Wittering in Cambridgeshire and the thought of going out with two women didn't appeal.

Fortunately fate, or whatever, decided to deal me a decent hand. Firstly with the news that Lynn (my forces sweetheart) wasn't coming home after her committments to the RAF finished and secondly another of our secretaries told me that Erica fancied me and I should, in her words, 'make a move on her'. My chance came on the Thursday before spring bank holiday in 1978, like a lot of 18 year old males I didn't lack confidence and as I was leaving the building to go to a clients I called out to her, "It's a Bank Holiday this Monday, why don't you think of something we can do together."

She ran out of the office after me and told me she would. On Bank Holiday Monday we set off on my Honda CB250 from Bournemouth towards Brighton for the day, it was a journey that almost a year later would have a more sombre outcome - although on that Bank Holiday Monday we only got as far as Selsey Bill before the cold wind made us come home.

We then started 'going out' officially and that was when I started to see the other, less public, side that we all have and it wasn't all pretty. Erica told me one Saturday afternoon, on a bus ride home from a shopping trip to Southampton, how she had been physically abused by her Father who had beaten her with her shovel when she refused to clear snow from the drive of their house, she also told me, in horribly graphic detail, how she had been sexually abused by her Uncle and how she couldn't tell her Father because she knew he wouldn't believe her. I just sat on the bus and cried my eyes out, my head was spinning and all I could say to her was "Why?"

Erica also liked hitting people, or rather she liked hitting me and she would go off on these outbursts where she hated everyone and everything before calming down and becoming the most gentle and kind person you could meet.

She had long since moved out of her parents home and lived with her Grandmother, some ten miles from my home and it wasn't long before I was invited to stay Friday and Saturday nights before going off to play football on the Sunday and returning to my home. When I did meet her Father we had a blazing row, he didn't think I was good enough and I couldn't respect a man who had abused his own daughter.

Throughout the rest of 1978 and early 1979 things were great, we talked about getting engaged and went to look at bedsits in Bournemouth, most of which were pretty grotty, then just before Easter 1979 she told me she was pregnant. At first I was stunned, it's easy looking back as an adult and asking how did it happen but at the time I had assumed, well I don't know what I assumed. She told me that she wasn't having the baby and that she'd been to a clinic in Kinson (a suburb of Bournemouth) where they had arranged for her to go to Brighton for an abortion. When I asked how we were supposed to get there she told me we could go on my bike.

That journey and the night that followed in Brighton will stay with me, the journey was horrendous, the B & B was horrible and that was the least of my worries, I couldn't sleep thinking about her lying in the abortion clinic and how I'd got myself into this mess. The next morning I picked her up from the clinic and took her to Brighton Bus Station, it was pouring with rain, she didn't want me to touch her and she couldn't ride back in case she started bleeding. I watched her getting on the coach and set off in pursuit, the coach stopped at Chichester and I made sure she was okay.

When we got home things went from bad to worse. She moved in with me, my brother and parents, we'd had an extension built for my Grandmother early in 1978 but my Nan had died in March 1979 and there was a free room. Although our relationship was strained she got on very well with my parents and other relatives and once again we began looking for somewhere to live. We went on holiday to France but fell out halfway through our fortnights holiday and spent nearly a week in Cherbourg because we couldn't get on a ferry and then we went to Majorca but I realised things weren't going to improve when she insisted we had seperate beds in the hotel.

Realising that my salary was never going to be enough she suggested that I register with an employment agency and find another job, it was the last good thing she did for me.

I found one in April 1980 and my salary quadrupled as I moved from Bournemouth to Christchurch, in the spring of 1981 Janis my future wife would join the Christchurch practice straight from college.

Erica and myself stayed together until the winter of 1981 when the fickle finger of fate again pushed me in an unexpected direction. My Dad was made bankrupt and the Building Society foreclosed the mortgage on our house, we were given two hours to get as many possessions out of our house as possible, the only problem being we didn't have anywhere to go. Erica went back to her grandmothers which left three of us to find a new home, my brother was in Portsmouth during the week at college and only needed a bed for Friday and Saturday nights if he decided to come home, we rented a caravan at Rockley Sands, Poole. Not being responsible for providing Erica with a roof over her head gave me the chance to end the relationship, it also enabled me to have a 'breather' before asking Janis out in February 1982.

I have only seen her once in the past twenty five years which is remarkable considering that Janis moved jobs from Christchurch to Bournemouth and spent eight years working in the building next door but one to her. I knew I'd think of her today, it's funny but the only other time events of 1979 pop into my head is when I hear stories about parents who've become seperated from their children or men who discover they have a child they never knew anything about. I had a child I didn't know anything about until the decision to abort had been taken.

Still, I have Janis and I have Nathalie - wanting anymore would be greedy wouldn't it?

So there you have it, from Budapest in 1956 to Christchurch fifty years later.