A World of My Own Read Online Free PDF Page B

the poetry of A.E. Housman.
François Mitterrand
    In December 1983 I had a brief encounter with President Mitterrand in London. He was walking to Paddington Station via Hyde Park. I told him how much I disliked Chirac and I would have added Giscard d’Estaing if Giscard had not joined us at that moment.
Fidel Castro
    In June 1984 I was visiting Castro in Cuba. We walked around chatting in a friendly fashion and came to halt beside a poor man who was weeping. He had just buried a small child in a tiny grave he had dug himself.
    Castro tried to comfort him by telling him that now his child would suffer nothing, know nothing.But the man was not comforted. I crossed myself and he at once stopped crying and shook my hand. He said, ‘I feel you are one of those who think there may possibly be something after death.’
Ho Chi Minh
    Visiting President Ho Chi Minh, I found him very courteous, and he explained the difficulties which had made him refuse my previous visit. He took me for a walk in the countryside surrounding his HQ. One had to keep a weather-eye open for American bombers. A helicopter approached and I wondered whether it was American, but it proved to be one of ‘ours’ and landed. A very pretty European girl appeared and began to walk off on her own. ‘Is she safe?’ I asked Ho Chi Minh and he called after her, ‘Come back. You don’t know what our boys mightn’t want to do with you.’
Oliver Cromwell
    A lot of noise in the streets outside the flat where I was living—military commands, etc. It seemed very unusual. I tried to find out what was happening from the radio without success—it wasn’t the hour fornews. I went out and saw Oliver Cromwell walking down the street. I realized why he had once been described as the shadow cast by a crab. I had not expected to see him for at this moment they were voting in the army for and against his policy of executing Charles I. He sat down with a group of people and began to talk to them in French. He said Charles was in effect being killed by the doctrine of divine right. Without that a compromise would have been possible. News of the voting came—only an old officer had voted against Cromwell. ‘He wants to shake the temple,’ Cromwell said, ‘but not destroy it. That would be fatal.’

V

War
    I was visiting Berkhamsted when I learnt that, with the permission of the British government, the United States planned to drop four hundred parachutists and take over the town at four A.M . in order to capture me. It was then nearly midnight and I tried in vain to think of somewhere to go. I checked on the time with two friendly police officers. One of them questioned whether there might not be some resistance.
    ‘No,’ I argued, ‘they’ll behave very well and probably bring balloons for the children.’
    I went back to my room and was handling my passport which would certainly betray me, when the drop occurred early—at midnight. I found myself in a room, under arrest. To the American plainclothesman in charge of me I said, ‘When I get out of here I’ll have the pleasure of hitting you—I shall be hitting a police officer for the first time.’
    A voice behind me said, ‘Do you really mean you’ve never hit a policeman before?’ I looked around. It was my old friend Claud Cockburn, who was also under arrest.
    We watched the American troops through the window. I had hoped they would disgrace themselves by looting and raping, but to my disappointment they seemed to be behaving correctly.

    In February 1965, after an air raid, German parachute troops landed in a quarter of London where I was living. With a friend I tried to get away by car, but I made the mistake of leaving behind a compromising letter dealing with espionage. As we drove away we passed two German soldiers who made no attempt to stop us. But a moment later we saw others approaching and we made another mistake by backing and turning, which aroused suspicion in the soldiers we had passed. We