Cseh Valentin szerk.: „70 éve alakult a MAORT” – tanulmányok egy bányavállalat történetéből (2009)

Tibor Laklia: MAORT through the Eyes of a Former Employee

TiborLaklia: Ministry of Transport, Telecommunications and Energy MAORT through the Eyes of a Former Employee Esteemed guests, dear colleagues, friends! I was glad to accept Mr, János Tóth the Director of the Hungarian Petroleum Museum's invitation to a brief retrospection's worth of a chat. I became MAORT's employee at the age of 16 as an extraordinary solution to extraordinary events, and this circumstance went on to define my whole life. My story begins by my family moving to Söjtör in 1936. As a consequence, 1 became an eyewitness to the development of a new plant - or maybe a new world? - in the neighbouring village of Pusztaszentlászló as a primary school pupil. Using the "new world" as an attribute may well seem excessive, but it was from being so in the Zala County of the thirties! - There is no industry' in the county apart from a couple of brickworks. The majority of peasant farms are very poor, there were no job opportunities there either. Bad transportation conditions - periodically impassable roads, bus transport that was hardly discernable, just in the stages of formation, and a sparse railway network - could not expedite development. This is the era in which one has to place the appearance of the "drillers". This job opportunity first presented itself in the most remote region of the county, west of Borsfa, in the vicinity of Bázakerettye, then along the southern border in Lovászi, then finally in Pusztaszentlászló: freightage with horse-drawn cart (combustible, then pipe and armature transportation), earthwork (pick-and-shovel work, primarily trench digging [pipeline construction], terrain correction, road repair), tradesmen (first at the drilling site, then at the housing development construcdon: stonemasons, carpenters, metal fitters), officials. fust as a small sample: some 10-15 people for drilling initially at the plant in Pusztaszentlászló, approximately 30-40 people for plant construction, 40-50 people for production. One year later there were 200-250 people working at the plant, about half of whom were directly from the nearby village, half were "settlers". Needless to say this team immediately appeared in stores, tap-houses, at the butcher shop as customers, and also as tenants in larger village houses. The children of those transferred from other parts of the country increased the number of pupils at the school. Life truly changed in Zala County. So, how did I become an oil man? Right in the midst of World War Two, on April 20, 1944, Ödön Nagy - the Pusztaszentlászló plant's manager - hired me to work as a "day-wage man" along with several of my fellow classmates. Perhaps as a bit of explanation, I should point out that teaching was cancelled as of April 1 at the schools because of war events, so students who could be counted as adults hurried to find a job. Most of us - those who lived in the neighbouring villages - came from secondary schools in Zalaegerszeg, but there were a couple of others from other areas looking for work in Pusztaszentlászló.