I feel really sad that Vaclav Havel has passed away.

I was fortunate enough to spend a month cycling back to London from Warsaw across Poland, Czechoslovakia, West Germany and Belgium a few months after the Iron curtain came down. It was an amazing month with a dear friend from University. The highlight was our time in Prague soaking up the atmosphere of a newly liberated capital and nation. The buzz was astounding. I could have stopped there permanently.

Vaclav was the defining figurehead along with Lech Walesa from that period for me. Vaclav really did appear true to the Velvet revolution he created and inspired his whole life and what a life. So to hear he’d died and was buried yesterday is particularly poignant for me. It reminds me of my youth. It also marks for me how Europe’s democratic youth has now passed.

Will Europe get away from the the pleasures of its youth and settle down into grown up institutions? Dull but necessary for long term stability.

Vaclav Havel achieved so much peacefully. And as a politician inspires me on my small local scale to keep true to my roots – play a straight bat.