I guess the reason why I'm here today, telling one of the Canterbury Tales, is that at one time of my career I was involved in a science that was exploding. It was immunogenetics and so my participation in that area of research might be perhaps of some interest to the listeners or viewers of this series.

I was born in a small village, it's actually a hamlet rather than a village... just a few houses... but this is what I would still call my home although... although the village still exists it doesn't exist the way I remember it. In my memory, if I close my eyes, what I see is a road... wide road leading from Neplachovice, which was where I went to school, to Štemplovec, to where I was born. The road is lined with cherry trees, each of them different, each of them tasting different and of course they belonged to somebody and there was a watchman to guard it, but when we were going home from school he could not... it was some two kilometres long road, so if we knew at which end he was we just waited until the other end and then tasted. So I tasted all of them. I can still remember where particular trees of a particular taste were located. And I... so I was going closer to my village, I remember the road was sloping down and then it suddenly turned right, crossing a river... bridge. And then it continued straight for a short distance and then it was like if it was going... enter into a farmhouse but it actually turned left before the farmhouse and went through the village. Well the place where it was like going to enter the farmhouse, the farmhouse was the house where I was born. On the right was a garden with peonies, dahlias, bleeding hearts and all the other plants. On the left was a vegetable garden, in the windows were nasturtium and petunias and all the other plants. Then there was the house and behind the house was a big orchard and then somewhere on the hill was a manor house... manor park surrounding a manor house. In my time it was... the lord was no longer living there, it served some other purposes. But the park was full of magnificent trees, truly magnificent trees. I remember, for instance, two tulip trees, huge tulip trees. Well I have now one in my garden. Many of the plants I mentioned I have now in my garden, so that's my reminder of my home. Behind the park was an alley of linden trees, about 500 metres long. Wonderful trees. And on the hill was a small patch of woods with a chapel.

Well that was my home and it was... it remains in my memory as it probably never existed. It has, kind of, quality like the Dutch paintings where you have the golden glow on them.  They look very realistic but in fact they are idealised landscapes. And that is also what probably is now in my mind, in fact I know when I visited it, it's no longer the same place. It has changed physically and it is different. So, but in contrast to people who were born, for instance, in this country, I would still call this my home. Although I am citizen of this country and I have lived in many other places which I loved, this was my home and I realize that it has influenced me in many, many respects.