Bat'avision

I don't often get excited enough to take pictures of the telly, but in the middle of last night (apparently) I heard the name Tomas Bat'a mentioned, in a programme about Essex.
The Czech Tomas Bat'a (the first) created the shoe manufacturing company and philanthropic enterprise that, in its day, produced shoes for much of the developing world. The centre of his operations was a town in South Moravia, Czechoslovakia, named Zlin. Here he created a 'garden city', based on new towns such as Letchworth in England, with modernist houses and gardens for his workers. The town also boasted a Bat'a cinema, a Bat'a swimming pool, Bat'a sports facilities, and so on.

Why the excitement? I lived in Zlin, from 1992-3, at a time when the functionalist architecture of the shoe factory still dominated the town, and Bat'a shoes still rolled off the assembly line. Tomas Bat'a died in a plane accident in 1932, but his son and grandson carried on the work. During the Communist era, the factory was nationalised and named Svit. As if trying to wipe the face of Tomas Bat'a and his successful shoebusiness right off the map, the Communists renamed the town Gottwaldov. (Gottwald was a prominent communist). By the time I arrived there, the Bat'a factory was Bat'a again; there was a Bat'a shoe shop in Wencelas square, Prague, and the town once again rejoiced in the name of Zlin.

I never did buy any Bat'a shoes, but I did visit the shoe museum! I did hear that none of the pairs of shoes produced from the assembly line were the same, which to this day I do not understand. They were not supposed to be one-offs! My central heating and hot water was supplied by a grid of underground pipes from the shoe factory to my block of flats, which was in Sevcovska (shoemaker street). It was a shoe-time and place. Some of my students worked in the shoe factory; others in the leather works. I wore Doc Martens then, with rainbow laces, and Levi 901s.

Now, why Essex? Bat'a created another model town (village, really) in East Tilbury, Essex, which boasted some of the same types of housing and social facilities as Zlin. Workers were encouraged to go to Zlin for their holidays and learn Moravian folk songs and dances. This is the point where I got out my camera and started snapping, when the ancient pictures came up. In some of the shots it was hard to tell whether the buildings in question were in Zlin or East Tilbury. On the whole, though, Zlin has more red brick and glass. Both have an abundance of trees and gardens. I loved my small comfortable flat in Sevcovska, with its views over distant trees and hills.

Later I re-watched the DVD of 'Bat'aville: we are not afraid of the future', which is a sort of arty film about a group of former shoe factory workers from Maryport, Cumbria (northern England) and East Tilbury, who go on a coach trip to Zlin, by way of the last european factory (in Holland) that actually produces Bat'a (safety) shoes. Now there are robots performing certain tasks, and the bulk of Bat'a shoes are produced in the Far East, where labour is cheap and workers replaceable. The factory in Zlin has been refurbished, but is an administrative centre. This is an emotional film: not a documentary, nor a travelogue. More of a peoplogue, and an Epilogue to East Tilbury, which is in the Thames redevelopment area.

I also explored the canal around Stroud again today, but neither of my batteries was charged! Either I am forgetting to recharge, or the cut-price non-Olympus charger is not doing a good job. So, Zlin it is. I apologise for the lack of accents over the Czech words, but I do not know how to access all the international virtual keyboards that my iPad apparently has! Bat'a is pronounced "Ba-tya" not "Barter" as a lot of Anglophiles pronounce it. The thing that looks like an apostrophe is in fact a hacek, or "hook" which signifies that a "y" sound should be inserted after it occurs.

Some links for the super-keen:
The Joy of Essex tv programme

Bat'aville, East Tilbury

Bat'a's Zlin

Another blip about Czechoslovkia (as was)