Just an old hippy

Deep down, maybe I’m an old hippy at heart. Why else would I have felt such nostalgia last weekend when I read of the death of the Volkswagen campervan?

A new Mrs Gutteridge

Another Mrs Gutteridge entered the world on Saturday. 

This time I wasn’t responsible – my eldest son, a film director, has finally tied the knot. 

The wedding took place at the home of an ex-Mrs Gutteridge, Jilly, my first wife and mother of the groom. It’s always nice to see the by-product of one of my divorce settlements: in this case, it's a picture-book beautiful farmhouse in Sussex, a perfect setting for any wedding.

Sheep's Stomachs in Syria

My first introduction to Syria was white and rubbery: a mound of sheep’s stomachs on a bed of rice.

We hadn’t wanted to be in the café at all: our trip to India, in the small campervan with blue curtains and photos of our parents on the walls, was supposed to take us on the old hippy trail through Iran. But two days before we were due to cross the Turkish border the Shah was overthrown and Iran was shut.

In desperation we turned right and headed for the deserts of Syria. We drove for half a day, then pulled over at the roadside café for a bottle of water.

Everything about the country seemed scary to naïve young Westerners. We knew it had one of the most repressive regimes in the world: an uncompromising elite had seized power nine years previously under Hafez al Assad. They were embroiled in civil war in Lebanon, just a few miles to the west and had failed to regain the Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur War. All dissent was stamped on: the day we arrived, the BBC reported that a demonstration against the regime had been brutally put down. It was 1979.

The men at the next table in the traditional didashah robes and red and white checked shemagh headscarves eyed us suspiciously as we sat down. We stared across at the mounds of white rubber on their plates. They caught our glance and I blushed. “It looks…very good”, I lied in that slow, condescending voice the British use with foreigners. Big mistake. The tallest of them, dressed in white, snapped his fingers and the café owner brought me a large plateful. My girlfriend declined – her mineral water had apparently made her full.

The sheep’s stomach stared up and taunted me. “Here, you must drink this”, said the tall man, handing me a large tumbler of ayran. The sour drink, made with strained yoghurt and salt, made me gag even more than the glutinous sheep. I closed my eyes and went for it. “It’s…extraordinary”, I ventured, smiling grimly through my misery. The man beamed: “You must come to my village”.

It wasn’t an invitation: more a command. All the houses in Kara had high white, spotless walls. Inside the man’s home there was a beautiful garden. They killed some chickens and threw a banquet, the men eating separately from the women.

We talked of London: the man frequently stayed at The Dorchester – he showed me his address book, listing phone numbers of his “good London friends”, all girls with names like Venus and Angel. “Do come and see us in Putney”, we said as we added our address to his list.

He told of his love for Johnny Walker whisky and in the morning he proudly showed us his mosque. As he washed my feet at the entrance, he taught us the principles of Moslem cleanliness.

His smiling face darkened only once, when he told of the people conspiring against the Ba’ath government. He spoke dismissively of the Palestinian refugees near the border and his hatred for the banned Muslim Brotherhood. He was uncompromising, for he genuinely felt the regime was right for Syria, the only way to hold together the divided sects and factions in the nation. It’s taken more than 30 years for his views, the official line of the ruling elite, to be openly challenged, and now the crisis appears to be spiralling out of control.

When we left Kara the whole village turned out to say farewell and I was given my own robe and headdress. I wore them once at a fancy dress party in Clapham.

Two years later I was out of the country when I received a panicky phone call from my girlfriend, by then my first wife. She was in our tiny terraced house, heavily pregnant with our first child, when the doorbell rang. Outside were four Arab women, dressed in black, clutching children and suitcases. They had come to stay.

A Tale of Failed Diets

Despite the fact that in five week’s time I’m due to get married in a sleek cream suit still a size too small for me, this week I broke my diet three times. I blame the rain: our summer of sun morphed into dismal October, so Jo and I decided to try out some local restaurants to warm ourselves up. First we went to Southern India: or at least to Newcastle’s quayside.

Now I know a bit about South Indian food. I cooked my first proper curry on a deserted beach in Goa, years before the place had been ruined by hotels and tourists. My girlfriend, shortly to become wife, and I parked up our VW camper van for a few weeks solitude and befriended a young man climbing a tree for coconuts. He introduced us to his family, and his mother taught me the secrets of the Goan fish curry: the dish that smiles at you with its coconut milk before its spices blow your head off.

The principal reason for heading South was to visit an army base. We couldn’t resist the polite invitation from the commander of the Marathas, India’s most famous light infantry regiment. Jilly’s father had served as a junior officer in India during the war and he’d written to his old regiment saying that as we were touring the country, could we please pop in for a cup of tea. The result was a two thousand mile detour.

Imagine the scene: battered old camper van arrives at the smart security gates; inside, two hippy Brits, one with a scraggy beard and torn jeans: neither had touched a bath for two months. The sentry snaps to attention; a bugle sounds. The base commander, resplendent in full dress uniform, marches up and ushers us into an open topped jeep. Jilly and I look at each other in amazement.

A military band leads out the entire regiment and, for a glorious moment, I find out what it’s like to be the Queen as we take the salute. It’s only when the commandant addresses the troops that the penny drops. “We are so honoured to have the daughter of Colonel Barber with us today”. “Colonel? I thought he was only a Captain”, I hiss beneath my breath. “He was”. Captain Cecil Carrington Barber was a delightful man, but colonel-in-chief he most certainly wasn't. Nevertheless the chap in charge droned on about the brave colonel's extraordinary leadership qualities.

I thought about halting the proceedings and to explain the mistaken identity. But I thought it would have been rather mean to let them down, particularly as they'd made such an effort. Particularly after they led us to a maginificent banquet in the officer’s mess. “Our chef is from Kerala”, they proudly tell us. Kerala: God’s own country, the lushest, most educated state in India. It also has the best food – fish cooked in tamarind, coconut and the freshest vegetables.

And, amazingly, we have our own Kerala in Newcastle. The Tyne doesn't have a great deal of culinary expertise to recommend it. Great ingredients, mediocre cooks. But if you're ever in town and you want to know what good curry really tastes like, go to Rasa and order their kingfish and tamarind curry with a side portion of black-eyed beans simmered in yoghurt. Rasa trains its chefs in its own cookery academy back in India and, so long as you order fish and vegetables, you won't be disappointed. It’s simply the best in town. Rasa, run by a delightful chap from Kerala called Das (who I believe had a hand in Jamie Oliver's wedding feast) has several branches in London. And, for some bizarre reason, Newcastle. Thank God.

By contrast, my two other diet-breaking diversions were less successful. I’d been warned about National Express and I can now confirm the catering on the East Coast line has been truly wrecked. Tough little steak sandwiches are no substitute for fresh meals in the restaurant car. I feel sorry for the catering staff, who used to be so proud of their culinary offerings at 125 miles per hour. The smoked fish used to come from Robsons of Craster, the beef and lamb was Northumbrian, and everything was cooked fresh and served with panache and good silver. Now there's no reason to go by train. It's usually twice the price of the plane, and you can't even enjoy a leisurely meal. The sooner National Express is stripped of its franchise the better. From now on it's Terminal 5 and Gordon Ramsay's Plane Food for me.

But Seaham Hall’s restaurant still has a Michelin star, so I was looking forward justifying the damage to my waistline by an evening of exquisite flavours and skilled cooking. I last went two years ago with a former Michelin inspector and we both reckoned it was on its way to its second star.

How have the mighty fallen. I don’t expect to pay £80 a head for a square of overcooked salmon the size of a thumbnail in a menu of bland, uninspired predictability. From the rubbish-strewn entrance to the over-familiar service, Seaham seems to have lost its way. What a letdown.

We went on Saturday for Joey's birthday. I was positively willing it to be great (not just because of the price: it was a rare baby-free evening and I really wanted Jo to enjoy it). We went for the tasting menu and course after course relentlessly arrived. Now I go to Michelin rated restaurants to be blown away by imagination and skill. I've flown to Rome to enjoy Heinz Beck's architectural creations; next month Joey and I are driving 8 hours to visit America's finest, The French Laundry in Napa. I'd go anywhere for a good meal. But not to Seaham. I don't think there was a thing on the menu I couldn't have rustled up at home without a recipe book. All beautifully presented, of course. But all somehow...dull.

It wasn't just the unmemorable food. As we drove in, there were plastic bags strewn over the drive (a fox had probably been in the bins the previous night and noone had bothered to pick them up); the place looks somehow tatty compared to when I last saw it: even the garden is lazily pruned rather than artistically pampered. Worst, the head waiter came up and interrogated every new arrival. "How has your day been?". The man couldn't be satisfied with "Fine, thanks": he had to ask us what we'd been doing. I felt like a six year old being forced to be polite to an annoying aunt. And if I he'd uttered one more "That will be no problem at all" in response to a request for something on the menu I think I'd have hit him with glass vase thing which substituted the need for fresh flowers (presumably because the gardener hadn't bothered to grow any). Seaham Hall changed hands since we last went. To the wrong hands, no doubt.

Ah well, vent over. Back to the diet.

Ski Stories

Every year around 40 people die from skiing accidents. The argument about whether or not helmets should be compulsory is largely irrelevant. At the speeds most recreational skiers zoom around, even a helmet can’t guarantee protection. Skiing is dangerous, and, to me, the most uncomfortable of sports. The news of Natasha Richardson’s tragic death has opened up wounds of personal grief, because I too lost someone very close, and I’ve always felt slightly responsible.

My best friend, best man at my first wedding and godfather to my son, was BBC Newsnight reporter Ian Smith. Tall, handsome, intelligent and incredibly athletic, Ian would turn heads wherever he went. He played tennis to county level and when we knocked a ball about on Saturday mornings he would return my weedy serves with smashes so violent the ball had to be prised from the netting. Ian was completely obsessive about hobbies – he did nothing by halves. When he took up cooking, he wasn’t interested in everyday food: he attempted the most sophisticated recipes and we all had to endure his experimental gourmet evenings. Then, one day in the early 80’s, I persuaded him to go skiing. It transformed his life and eventually killed him.

I myself would never have ventured on a ski slope had it not been for a beautiful woman. At the age of 29 I fell head over heels for a girl who lived in Brussels. Like most people on the continent who can pop up an Alp for the weekend, she was a stylish skier. One day she rang to say she had met a diamond dealer who had offered her the use of his chalet in Verbier. Sensing her excitement and panicking that she might go off with the dealer, I feigned enthusiasm and said I’d love to join her. “I never knew you skied”, she said. “I think skiing’s amazing” I replied, disguising the fact that I had never worn a ski boot in my life. But I did have a cunning plan.

We agreed our date in Verbier then I flew down a few days early and checked into the local ski school. Watching tiny children bombing down the mountain I thought, what’s the big fuss? Such a mistake: I never could understand why you should put all your weight on the downhill ski when every human instinct tells you to just sit down and enjoy the view. Nevertheless I plugged away and, by the time the girlfriend arrived, I could just about manage a shaky snowplough. The first morning she suggested a notorious black run. As we got out of the cable car I fell headfirst into a snowdrift. Through tears of laughter she said it was touching that I’d made the effort. A year later we were married.

I dutifully allowed skiing to share our life and, after listening to us droning on about the delights of gluhwein and mountain views (though secretly I hated the fact that I was always too cold or too hot, and invariably soaked through), Ian was eventually persuaded to join us. He was instantly hooked. Although nearly 40, he took to the sport like a 5 year old.

He became obsessed by powder snow and heli-skiing, and eventually quit his job to spend more time in the mountains. However his body didn’t have the suppleness of his ambition and he often had to be collected from Gatwick with sprained or broken limbs.

One day they brought him home in an air ambulance. He’d slipped over the edge of a glacier and hit his head. Ian never spoke or smiled again. The man who’d been one of the most promising television journalists of his generation spent the last five years of his life in a vegetative state in a home for the incurables. I have never skied since.

Countdown

In exactly four weeks time my world must change forever. I’ve been anticipating this moment for eight months or, to be precise, for the last 36 weeks. Yes, Izzy is about to arrive, so the waistline has to go.

I don’t mean Joanna’s: she has remained petite and trim with nothing to show but the most spectacular orb of a bump. From the front and rear she looks the same; turn her sideways and it’s as if someone has stitched a giant beach ball onto her tummy. I know that as soon as Izzy emerges, the beach ball will disappear – it’s my waistline that’s the problem.

I think I’ve developed male pregnancy by proxy. I don’t know if it’s a recognized medical condition, but I can assure you it’s entirely authentic. As Jo’s bump has grown, I’ve developed a sympathetic clone. Now it hangs below my chest, an entirely unwelcome addition to the family.

Regular readers may sigh that they’ve seen it all before. I know it’s less than a year since I was beaten in a weight loss contest by the dieting equivalent of an innings defeat. A failure so embarrassing I’ve had to eat humble pie all year, along with apple, rhubarb, steak and ale and any other variety on offer.

The problem is, Joanna’s food cravings are too enticing. It’s not just her passion for chocolate ice cream: we have 7 different varieties in the freezer; nor her desire for mustard mash at midnight (made with a gallon of double cream and a cowsworth of butter). It’s the reassuring argument that it’s OK to binge because we’re eating for two. Which, in my case, is a lie: I’m eating for me. By this date next month, Jo’s waistline will have become a person, so mine has to become history. But how?

After last year’s debacle, I can’t risk the ignominy of another failure. I’ve tried all sorts of diets in the past, and none of them have had the slightest impact. Except one.

It was in 1980, and this diet was unplanned, but incredibly effective. At the end of our year in India, my first wife and I decided to explore Nepal. A new route around the Annapurnas was just being opened over the Thorung La Pass, which rises to nearly 18,000 feet, and we wanted to be amongst the first to try it. We set off from Pokhara with laden rucksacks and a Sherpa guide called Bim. The problem was, that unlike the common tourist route through the Kali Gandaki valley, this trek wasn’t accustomed to visitors. There were no teahouses or hippy inns; no Tibetans lined the route offering snacks and turquoise souvenirs. In fact there was nothing at all, except the most spectacular scenery and a constantly uphill horizon. The path was so steep that Jilly had to tie her rucksack on top of mine. Occasionally we came across a little village and Bim managed to persuade a local to sell us an egg or some fermented vegetable soup. Meat was out of the question.

The only provisions we’d packed were several catering sized packets of dried beef stroganoff that had somehow survived a year in the back of our van. Sherpas and stroganoff don’t go terribly well together – especially beef, which is against their religion. But at 14,000 feet after 12 days of starvation, Bim was ravenous. The following day he turned green and developed altitude sickness. So it was that I ended up carrying all three rucksacks over the pass. It was the best view I have ever seen, and by far the best diet. I lost 30 pounds.

Somehow I don’t think a walk up Cheviot is going to have quite the same effect, even if I lived on dried beef stroganoff for a month. But I guess it’s worth a try. Any better suggestions gratefully received.

Last Days of the Raj

I’m glad England’s cricketers popped back to India to finish their tour. Otherwise I wouldn’t have experienced that sweet sense of shock this morning when I discovered that we could actually win the Test in Madras (sorry, I mean “Chennai” – it’s difficult remembering all the new names India has given its cities to disguise its colonial past)*.

Though I haven’t been back for nearly thirty years, I can still vividly recall India’s smells and sounds. Last week, while moving house, I opened a dusty old box and memories of my year-long trip came pouring out in a pile of faded photographs. One exposes me with hippy beard and long hair, clutching a piece of tinsel and a plate of Christmas pudding: Christmas 1979, Uttar Pradesh. In another I’m bowling very badly against a group of Punjabi children screaming with laughter at my sporting ineptitude. India takes its cricket very seriously. If we win this game, there’ll be gnashing of teeth across the sub-continent.

Madras was on our original itinerary, but we were distracted by an unexpected encounter. Driving from the South with Jilly in our little Volkswagen campervan, we’d decided to visit Khana tiger reserve in Central India. Arriving at sunset we were just parking up in a jungle clearing when we heard a low rumble, then a deep booming voice called out “What, ho! English?” We peered through the undergrowth; lumbering towards us was an enormous elephant and perched on top was an impossibly tall man who looked and sounded just like David Niven. “I say, you must be on your way to the Queen Elizabeth Cup – would you care for a gin and tonic?”

So began our friendship with the extraordinary Bob Wright, a man who managed to preserve the spirit of the British Raj throughout his life. He was a kind of stereotypical Englishman abroad; he’d stayed in the country after partition, and had established a little tourist camp (appropriately called Kipling Camp) in India’s most important tiger reserve. “Never heard of the Queen Elizabeth?” he roared at us, “It’s in Calcutta, the most important horserace in India; everyone will be there, you simply have to go”. Several gin and tonics later, we made a pact. We’d go to the race if he came with us in our van.

“You’re on,” he cried. And we promptly forgot all about it.

At dawn the following morning there was a tap on the van door. There was Bob’s diminutive manservant Nubi, and behind him were lined up more than a dozen suitcases and bedding rolls. Bob was bringing his entire entourage.

Calcutta was 1300 miles away, along a dirt track optimistically named National Highway 7. We didn’t drive along it, we bounced; for six whole days. Weighed down by Bob’s huge frame, luggage and servant, our suspension trawled through the dust and potholes. Swerving to avoid brightly coloured lorries and buses, trying not to hit ox carts, we grew to ignore the cries from the back as Nubi, sitting on the bedding rolls, kept bouncing up and hitting the ceiling. Every few hundred miles or so there’d be a smart government sign: “Roads Define The Culture of a Nation”. Quite.

At nightfall, Bob would instruct us to drive into centre of the nearest village where he’d boom out of the window, “Where’s the inspection bungalow?” Whereupon a mob of children would lead us to the only stone house, built by the British for their touring magistrates. An ancient manager would open the shutters, dust down the bedrooms, prepare us a meal and find a punka-walla to operate the human powered fans. All for about twenty pence. It was as if the British had never left; we’d gone back fifty years and were living a scene from Jewel In The Crown.

Now I doubt our English cricketers are getting service like that, however grand their Chennai hotel.

* Of course, this was written before England performed its customary eleventh hour collapse. I guess I shouldn't have mentioned the possibility of winning. Or touched wood, or something.

Electioneering

I love elections, particularly those that bring real political change. Next Tuesday night I’ll be glued to the box till the early hours with my American future-wife and future-mother-in-law, expecting Palin to be consigned to Alaskan obscurity and the accession of the first black president of the United States.

I think my fascination for the democratic process began in San Francisco when I was 20 and marching for George McGovern behind Jane Fonda. Quite a way behind in fact: there were about 20,000 of us. I guess the sight of so many hippies protesting against the Vietnam War was too much to bear for conservative Middle America; McGovern lost by a landslide.

Two years later I was a trainee journalist in the vast BBC election studio, sitting just behind Robert McKenzie and his Swingometer. I’ll never forget the excitement of the first result, with Robin Day growling at his guests and David Dimbleby calmly in control. I was in the producers’ room of that same studio in May 1979 when Thatcher came to power. And in 1983 I directed the whole of the BBC’s election coverage as Thatcher romped to her second term.

However I think my most memorable election was in the winter of 1979. Regular readers of this blog may recall how I left my job on Panorama and drove east in an old campervan in search of love and the Dalai Lama. I ended up marrying my first wife in a Tibetan ceremony in the Himalayas, but on our way to Nirvana, we completely ran out of money, largely because we had to ship our VW campervan on a tiny Chinese wooden dhow across the Arabian Sea.

We arrived in Delhi stony broke, and resigned ourselves to selling the van and hitching home. Luckily we were befriended by the BBC’s Bureau Chief Mark Tully. One day he announced over lunch that the Indian Prime Minister, Choudhary Charan Singh, had resigned. Indira Gandhi, ousted in disgrace just two years before, was hot favourite to return to power. When Mark told us the date of the election, I realised that in Britain the result would be announced at 8pm on a Monday evening, just as Panorama was going on air. I telexed my old boss in London, and an hour later the machine clattered back with the command: “Hire crew and start filming. Get interviews with Mrs Gandhi, the Prime Minister and the President.”

Our financial troubles were over. However Jilly and I had been on the road for three months; I had long hair and a scruffy beard; we wore ripped jeans and were living in the Tourist Camp, surrounded by vegetarians and clouds of marijuana. It wasn’t quite the image for the BBC’s flagship programme.

With gritted teeth, I went to Connaught Circle and ordered a baggy cream linen suit; a printer ran up some BBC business cards. But Jilly and I were determined not give up our lifestyle altogether, so we spurned the BBC’s offer of moving into the Imperial Hotel. Instead, every morning, a white stretch Mercedes slipped past the rainbow vans in the Tourist Camp to take us to the Presidential Palace. Eventually the urge for a hot shower got the better of us and we persuaded the manager of the Imperial to let us stay in the hotel car park and use the facilities.

For six weeks we followed the Gandhis: Indira, the most charismatic woman I have ever met, and her scary playboy son, Sanjay. On January 15th we sat in our van and heard Mrs Gandhi’s victory speech on the World Service. Her opponent, a man in his seventies, hadn’t stood a chance. Hopefully next Wednesday we’ll be celebrating the defeat of another septuagenarian, and the dawn of a new era in world politics.

Sweet Dreams in Disneyland

I’m writing this in a medieval castle. Sitting in my turret room, I look out over lush gardens resplendent with topiary and a lake. There are servants dressed in flowing uniforms. The idyllic style winding its way through the entire castle conjures memories of times long past. The walls are adorned with beautiful frescoes and the building itself is an expression of the most important elements of French history.

Those last two sentences are not mine, of course, but quoted straight from the brochure of the Dream Castle Hotel in Disneyland Paris. A dream castle that’s probably my worst nightmare. I have a fleur de lys wallhanging in my room next to a picture of a princess kissing a frog. Built in 2004, it’s one of several “theme” hotels that have sprung up around Disneyland. This one is a cross between King Arthur and The Three Musketeers. Joanna and I have brought Sam and a 10-year-old classmate to celebrate the start of the summer holidays. Last night we endured “culinary delights in a historical environment, an authentic buffet selection of French and European regional cuisine”. I think you get the picture: all you can eat for 25 Euros. Last night was “Italian night” and Mussolini must have been turning in his grave.

Why is it that hoteliers assume that if you cater for children you have to throw style, quality and good cooking out of the window? The Italians have it sorted: from the cradle children accompany their parents to proper restaurants in the evening. They eat adult food or they starve. We British only feel comfortable with our children in “family” restaurants, where we are forced to eat bland overcooked food which we accept because the kids are having such a ball. The consequence is, our children end up with picky tastes, don’t eat their vegetables, and this morning Joanna and I have indigestion. I guess the Dream Castle Hotel can be forgiven, though. It is owned by Austrians, so it’s unlikely that they’ll ever allow haute cuisine to permeate its castle walls. Austria: home of schnitzel and strudel. Enough said.

Sam’s friend is vegetarian, which is a bit tricky in a chicken nugget laden place like Disneyland. I felt rather sorry for him as he pushed his “authentic” cheesy pasta (more flour than cheese) and soggy broccoli round his plate. I just hope there’s a decent vegetarian alternative to “Cattleman’s Chili” at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show tonight.

I wouldn’t know what to do if my child turned vegetarian. Boarding school, probably. My eldest daughter has contracted the disease, but thankfully she waited until she left home. Like all flesh-eating parents, I still hope it’s just a fad, and whenever she stays I provocatively cook bacon in the morning to try to awaken her comatose taste-buds.

Scotland cured my first wife. Jilly had been a veggie for six years before we met and all my attempts at healing had been in vain until one summer we went to the Edinburgh Festival with our first born. Ben was just six weeks old, and we were staying on the top floor of a rather smart hotel overlooking the Castle. On Sunday lunchtime we carried the baby in his Moses basket down to the Carvery. While Jilly inspected the cauliflower cheese, I sliced off a solitary doorstep of Aberdeen Angus. That did it. She took one look at the beef, and dived in. After six huge portions she hauled me back to our hotel room to sleep it off. It was two hours later that we realized we’d completely forgotten the baby. We dashed downstairs to find him still happily sleeping in his basket under the restaurant table.

With another baby on the way – my fifth and Joanna’s first – I regret this won’t be my last trip to Disneyland. I’m not sure I’ll be doing Space Mountain at 65, but I guess there’ll be at least one more of these theme hotels to suffer. Unless someone has the bright idea of creating an adult-friendly hotel at Disneyland, complete with Gordon Ramsay restaurant and a swimming pool they don’t allow children to urinate in. Now that really would be a dream castle.

Tibetan Wedding

I was seven when the Dalai Lama fled to India. With 50,000 Chinese troops surrounding Lhasa, where, as now, unarmed people were in the streets demanding freedom, the 23 year old leader slipped out of the Norbulinka Palace and began his two week icy trek to the Indian border. It was March 17th 1959 – exactly 49 years tomorrow. In exile in the Indian town of Dharamsala he has since watched the systematic destruction of his people’s way of life.

It is significant that he took with him not an army, but an opera company. The Tibetans carried to safety trunkloads of costumes, scripts and musical instruments. For the Dalai Lama knew that the Chinese would wield their brute power by attempting to stamp out Tibet’s culture and religion, and he wanted to ensure that a vital part of Tibetan life, the community opera, would survive.

In Dharamsala, he established a small dance and drama school, now called the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts. I know that little dance and drama school well, set in the village of McLeod Ganj overlooking the main town. In fact, I was married there.

Last year I wrote about my drive across Saudi Arabia to India with my girlfriend Jilly. During our year in India we drove south to Mysore, where a large Tibetan community was based. We’d heard that an opera was to be staged using the original instruments and costumes brought over during the exodus. What we hadn’t expected was the scale. Three days before curtain up, in a huge clearing, thousands of Tibetan families had arrived with tents to claim their spaces. It resembled a giant Glastonbury, with little cafes and stalls, and by the time the opera started, there must have been tens of thousands in the arena.

It was like a continuous Ring Cycle without the intervals. With fantastic colourful costumes and masks, the opera told of heroes and Gods, dragons and evil forces. With an orchestra of drums, cymbals and deep rasping horns, and a chorus of girls with high-pitched reedy voices, it was a cross between Glyndebourne and pantomime. From toddlers to the ancient, the crowd sat transfixed. Tibetan Opera dates back 600 years. It’s a unique form of folk art handed down by successive generations. It was part of the rich culture which the Dalai Lama was trying to preserve, the “genocide” of which he accused the Chinese this weekend.

After the performance, we became friends with several of the cast and, perceiving that we were in the throes of young love, they asked if we were going to get married. We explained that it was tricky as Jilly was still married to someone else. Apparently that made no difference in Tibet. We were in love, so we should marry.

So it was that a month later, we sat next to a photograph of the Dalai Lama in the Dance and Drama School, swathed in little silk scarves (the Tibetan traditional gift of greeting), and exchanged silver rings made by the Dalai Lama’s own jeweller.

The ceremony was simple. Did anyone in the village think these two shouldn’t be married? They all shook their heads. Then applause, the ceremony was over, and a test of virility followed: I was handed an enormous three-pint jug of sour Tibetan rice beer to down in one. Next everyone had to perform a song. I was far too drunk to remember what or how I sang, but I do recall standing with my bride looking out over the Himalayas as the sun set thinking that somehow, someday, the international community had to put pressure on China to cease its brutal repression and grant Tibet some form of autonomy.

I hope the current events, just two weeks before the Olympic torch arrives in Beijing, will mark the beginning of that process.