Florida Author Celebrates 70-th Anniversary of Edinburgh Festival of Music and Drama

SARASOTA, Fla. - Aug. 14, 2017 - PRLog -- After WW2 Edinburgh was returning to normalcy, like most towns and cities in Western Europe. One of the leading events in the city was the annual Festival of Music and Drama during August of each year, starting in 1947. For that occasion Princes Street, the representative thoroughfare of the city, was decorated with national flags of all the countries participating in the festival. Among others, it included the red flag of the Soviet Union with a golden hammer and sickle in one corner. When it was flown at the West End in front of Binns department store, the management objected and it was moved to a different location along the street. The establishment in front of which it ended up also objected and another place had to be negotiated with a store that was willing to accept it. Nevertheless these activities got the attention of the local newspapers and it became the talk of the town.

Many of our parents and veterans discussed the events and called for a total removal of the flag, but since the Soviet Union was sending a ballet group to perform at the festival, this was not considered possible.

Bohdan Szuprowicz and his friend George discussed the possibility of removing the flag as a demonstration of our independence and disapproval of the Soviet imposition of the communist government in Poland. We assessed the project by looking at the ropes, on which the flags were attached to very tall flagpoles along the street, and decided to make an attempt during the middle of the night, when it was dark and street traffic was negligible.

It was a night in mid-August when we crept out of the hostel where we lived through a back door, armed with a kitchen knife. We chose one with a serrated edge because it was a question of cutting through a line about half an inch thick in the shortest possible time. When we arrived at the flagpole I had to climb on George's shoulders to reach the point where the rope was tethered to it. Within seconds I unwound it and we pulled the flag down. It turned out to be much larger than we expected. We had to fold it in a way to be able to wind it around George's body and cover it in part with his jacket.

When Father  Slawik, the Polish priest who ran the hostel, realized the next morning what we had done he panicked and wanted to call the authorities and identify us as culprits. Nevertheless he must have thought better of it because he did not do it and we became little heroes in our Polish community. The local newspapers also had a ball. The next day headline on the front page of the Evening Gazette was; "Gone With the Wind or Stolen". This continued for several days with a cartoon showing a night watchman keeping warm at a coal fire, as he guarded the Soviet flag padlocked to the flagpole and fenced around.
Suprowicz described the action in his memoir:
http://www.amazon.com/ebook/dp/B00BZE7SHS

About 21st Century Research

Bohdan O. Szuprowicz founded the 21st Century Research consultancy and collaborated with Chase Manhattan Bank in setting up a market research operation to evaluate opportunities in China, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He traveled frequently to those areas and crossed Checkpoint Charlie to East Berlin on several occasions. He also toured South Africa to observe apartheid environments and met with independence fighters in Namibia. His work on network planning earned him an invitation to present it at the International Symposium on Operations Research for Developing Countries in Paris.

As a result of his experiences and research into geopolitics, he published "Doing Business with People's Republic of China" and "How to Avoid Strategic Materials Shortages" with John Wiley & Sons, as well as  "How to Invest in Strategic Metals" with St. Martin's Press. He also published "Multimedia Networking" with McGraw-Hill, which included Japanese and Korean editions and "Multimedia Tools for Managers" with AMACOM. He collaborated for several years with Computer Technology Research, which published corporate reports on Internet and networking technologies.

To see all his published E-Titles and spot an occasional free review copy promotion please click on the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=node%3D15460...

Szuprowicz also published hundreds of articles in many countries in journals such as Les Affaires, Atlanta Constitution, Australian Financial News, Barron's Weekly, Bull & Bear, Business South Africa, California Business, Canadian Business, China Business Review, Christian Science Monitor, Computerworld, Denver Post, Dun's Review, Eurofinance, Financial Post, Investment Dealers Digest, IPO Reporter, Japan Economic Journal, National Investment & Finance of India, Newsday, Newsweek International, New Scientist, Oficinas, Singapore Times, Skrzydlata Polska, Usine Nouvelle, Wall Street Microinvestor, Wall Street Transcript, ZeroUno and many others.

He has been a frequent speaker, panelist and moderator at international conventions, symposia and conferences. He holds a BS degree from the Imperial College of Science and Technology of the University of London. He also did postgraduate work in journalism and management at Columbia University in New York and UCLA in California.

Szuprowicz is an active member of the British Schools and Universities  the Schiehallion Club of Kinloch Rannoch, Republican Club of South Sarasota County, National Rifle Association, Sarasota Fiction Writers, Sarasota Authors Connection, Sarasota Writers Forum, Sarasota Camera Club, PC Users Group, and was previously a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society.