IT WAS in the autumn of 1961, some time before the currents of alternative thinking, which would be synonymous with the decade, took root, and certainly one would not expect to find any hint of such at a party in the Rickmansworth end of the Chorleywood Road.

We arrived and parked in the long wide drive, which swept down the main road, and subsequently enjoyed the party. Then the host came to a group of us and explained there was a gate crasher present. Would we help removing the individual?

The Uninvited One declined to see reason, so it was left to us to grab him firmly by the arms and march him to the front door. He attempted to fight his way back in, was repulsed without a blow being struck, whereupon he turned and fell on the lawn.

From a sitting position, he told us: “You haven’t read Kafka. Franz Kafka summed you up.”

It is with some embarrassment that I admit that at just 20, I had not heard of Franz Kafka and no one else at the party was familiar with the name.

“Did he go to the Grammar?” one partygoer asked, clearly baffled.

Later someone opened a Pitkin of beer and it sprayed all over the place, prompting a friend to observe: “Kafka had mentioned such things could happen.”

Briefly Franz became our invisible mentor but I remember surprising friends a week later when the subject of Kafka and the Uninvited One came up in conversation. I revealed I had researched Kafka and that he had been born in Prague back in the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

We did not have Internet in those days so his quotes and philosophies were not instantly available, but I never forgot Franz and his spouting in distant Prague in the days of an empire I knew little about.

Life went on and one day my ears caught a pleasant classical piece of music and, after some difficult inquiries, I discovered it was Smetana’s The Moldau, written about the Vltava river in Czechoslovakia. I bought the record and loved the development of the piece.

At the end of the 1960s, and culturally having missed more than one bus, I decided to “do Europe”. Armed with the book “How to live in Europe on Five dollars a day” I set forth.

But I had not really dropped out. I was playing at it. I had 16 days to see as much a possible before heading back to reality and the Watford Observer.

I did Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Innsbruck, Milan, the Lakes, Paris and back to Redheath, Croxley Green. It was a marvellous experience, some of it spent hitching and I retain a plethora of anecdotes and memories, because more things tend to happen to you when you are travelling on your own.

I recall a blue-eyes Fraulein at Berlin Zoo station, bidding me farewell as my train began to move, and uttering the line which I think all those with the travel-bug must dream of hearing. “When you remember Berlin, you think of me a leetle?”

Two nights later I arrived in Stuttgart and was asked if I was prepared to join a 50p whip-round for petrol to help a group get to Munchen. I had not heard of Munchen, but when an American explained it was also known as Munich, I agreed. Six of us climbed into this VW van and we were driven to central Stuttgart where the American driver stopped and asked what was presumably a friend, standing by the fountain, when he intended to be in Prague.

The friend had obviously come across some vegetation that day and his eyes did not focus too well.

“I think I might be in Wenceslas Square on the 28th or the 29th. I’ll be there before the 30th, that much is certain,” he promised, slurring his words.

I was not concerned as to the likelihood of his making the rendezvous but I was distinctly envious that he would be strolling round Europe and arriving in Wenceslas Square, probably two weeks after I had been back between the shafts of employment at the newspaper.

Kafka had known Wenceslas Square, I reminded myself. The Vltava flowed through the city.

Fourteen years and five months later, Graham Taylor returned my call to my house in Sarratt. I had phoned Watford FC, trying to ascertain his reaction to the UEFA Cup draw, for Watford had beaten Kaiserslautern and then won in Sofia in the previous rounds.

“Hello Oli,” said Graham. “I have just heard the draw. We are playing Prague.”

I admit, I had willed it to be so.

We arrived in the city on a Monday afternoon for the match on the Wednesday evening in early December. We were in central Prague and it was very cold. There were even doubts about the game.

For me it was a dream trip and, while I found it hard to get used to the fact all communist hotels seemed stifling hot, I had long overcome the surprise at seeing the lounges and bars packed with attractive-looking females: mostly prostitutes, In the morning I looked over the Vltava to the cathedral and could not wait to take in the sights. They played piped Christmas carols as we walked through the snow of Wenceslas Square, and it seemed as if this was where Christmas was meant to be celebrated.

I did cast my eyes round, wondering if there was an ageing American hippy, high on some vegetation, still “doing Europe” but I suspect he had long gone and I hoped he would recall his wandering days and the opportunities I so envied.

I consoled myself, he must have a mortgage by now.

I got a taste of Prague, which was so beautiful, it was declared an open city and neither of the armies fought over it in the Second World War. I could only spare eight hours from my work preparing, previewing and then covering the match but vowed I would return and bring Ellie with me. On Tuesday, we will be there and doubtless we will drop into the Kafka Café.