Letters of Solidarity and Friendship: Czechoslovakia 1968-71
Edited by David Parker
(Bacquier Books, £14.99)

THIS remarkable collection of letters between a Czech citizen, a medical doctor and former communist living in Czechoslovakia and a 70-year-old British man provide a unique insight into the momentous period following the Prague Spring of 1968 as seen by two individuals on either side of the Iron Curtain.

Both have in common deep humanitarian values but are ideologically far apart. Leslie Parker, a Communist Party member, clearly sees and bemoans the iniquities of capitalism, while his co-correspondent Dr Paul Zalud lives under a deformed socialist system and has lost his faith in the benefits of state socialism. Both give detailed descriptions of what life is like in their respective countries.

Tragically, they never met, but a warm relationship developed on the basis of their common sense of humour, love of language and debate. Their amicable correspondence took place over almost four years after Parker read a letter by Zalud in The Times in July 1968, only a month before Soviet tanks rolled into Prague.