Вт 1 Июнь 2010
Встреча-рассказ
All Them Cornfields and Ballet in the Evening
by Mr John Miller
Programme of the GB Russia Society

Язык: английский

To book/pay for tickets for this lecture, go to the GB Russia Society booking page

Thirty-five years ago, John Miller gave a talk to the Great Britain – USSR Association about his experiences in the Soviet Union as a foreign correspondent. At the end of his talk, a lady sitting in the front row, who was clearly not pleased with what he said, weighed in with the first question. ‘Can’t you find anything good to say about the Soviet Union?’ she asked, reprovingly. He managed to reply that although the Soviet Union had a rotten system, it was an extraordinary country where he had met some wonderful Russians and had experienced a great many delights, such as evenings at the Bolshoi Theatre.

His book All Them Cornfields and Ballet in the Evening is the story of some of the people and places he visited over some 50 years of involvement with the USSR – now a vanished world. The title is unashamedly stolen from the film I’m Alright Jack, which appeared in 1957. Fred Kite (played by Peter Sellers) is a communist trade-union leader, who is forever acclaiming the Soviet Union as a workers’ paradise. Asked if he had been to Russia, Kite/Sellers says wistfully that he hadn’t, but he often wanted to because of ‘all them cornfields and ballet in the evening’.

Some of the big stories of the Cold War, such as the Great Spy Game, the U-2 drama, and the Cuban Missile crisis were played out in front of John Miller’s notebook. But during the eight or more years he lived in Moscow with his family, he also had to deal with cockroaches and bedbugs, the KGB, censorship, living with a rabbit called Floppy, shortages, bureaucracy, dissidents, and death.

After National Service when he learned Russian, John Miller started his working life as a district reporter for the Eastern Daily Press. He joined Reuters and became the Moscow correspondent, before switching to the Daily Telegraph. Now, he and his wife live in Southwold, Suffolk, which he swears is the first place in England to feel the cold wind that blows from Mother Russia.

John Miller’s new book All them Cornfields and Ballet in the Evening, just published by Hodgson Press and reviewed in the Spring Issue of the East-West Review, will be on sale at a preferential price on the evening of his talk.

To book/pay for tickets for this lecture, go to the GB Russia Society booking page