Vaclav Havel RIP

Vaclav Havel 1/10/1936 - 18/12/2011

From dissident writer and intellectual to emerge after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 as the last President of Czechoslovakia and then first President of The Czech Republic, the humble and irrepressible Vaclav Havel died  yesterday at the age of 75' 

I recall when thousands of us here in Brisbane took to the streets in 1968 when Russia invaded Czechoslovakia to bring the Prague Spring to an end. Vivid is the memory of myself along with fellow university and school friends holding hands and dancing down the main street clapping and singing 'Power To The People' as the sound bounced off the office buildings. My other memory from 1993 is of being thrown off a train in the dark at an isolated station at 2 am as it entered The Czech Republic because I dad not have a Visa. Scary!