Aaronovitch - Party animals: growing up communist

David Aaronovitch is an award-winning journalist, who has worked in radio, television and newspapers in the United Kingdom since the early 1980s. He lives in Hampstead, north London, with his wife, three daughters and Kerry Blue the terrier. His first book, Paddling to Jerusalem, won the Madoc prize for travel literature in 2001 and his second, Voodoo Histories, was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller.

In July 1961, just before David Aaronovitchs seventh birthday, Yuri Gagarin came to London. The Russian cosmonaut was everything the Aaronovitch family wished for a popular and handsome embodiment of modern communism.

But who were they, these ever hopeful, defiant and (had they but known it) historically doomed people? Like a non-magical version of the wizards of J. K. Rowlings world, they lived secretly with and parallel to the non-communist majority, sometimes persecuted, sometimes ignored, but carrying on their own ways and traditions. Where others went to church they went to Socialist Sunday School, societys up was their down and its heroes were their villains. Who wanted American TV when you could have Russian movies?

A memoir of early life among communists, Party Animals first took David Aaronovitch back through his own memories of belief and action. But there was much more to it. He found himself studying the old secret service files, uncovering the unspoken shame and fears that provided the unconscious background to his own existence as a party animal.

Only then did he begin to understand what had come before both the obstinate heroism and the monstrous cowardice. And the elements that shape our fondest beliefs.

This book has consumed half a decade and the patience of almost everyone who knows me. I thank them for never grabbing me by the collar while shouting, Not another word about the bloody Communist Party!

Clearly I owe my greatest debt to my birth family, Sabrina, Owen, Ben and Frances. This is a version of their stories too, but they would almost certainly have told it differently. They have been extraordinarily tolerant. I am grateful too to my aunt Gillian Aarons who gave up the best part of a West Country summers day to help me when her judgement probably was that she shouldnt.

Dan Franklin at Cape and my agent Georgia Garrett have helped me through this with exemplary possibly absurd patience. My friend John Lahr offered hours and hours of advice all taken amounting to the proposition that the more I didnt want to write about something, the more I should. So I did. So its his fault. Without knowing Stephen Grosz I would never have had sufficient insight into my own biases and proclivities to write this book. Jennifer Stahl, from far away, somehow performed the trick of making my words sing. The late Kim James gave me a hilarious and unrepentant afternoon near Northampton and Arnold Wesker a fascinating, literary one near Hay one spring. Two comrades from Sam and Lavenders branch the late Pete Richards and his wife Elvira told me things in their flat in the block where theyd lived for forty years, with its view over the railway. That great East-Ender Bernard Kops allowed me to quote from his wonderful poem. My thanks too to the staff at the wonderful Peoples Museum in Manchester for the assistance with riffling through their archives.

An unlikely source of encouragement (unless you know him) was my colleague at The Times, and Conservative peer, Daniel Finkelstein. When is the book coming out? he would ask me regularly for at least the first three years. I want to understand why they did it! Hopefully, Danny, now you do.

Extract taken from The Waste Land taken from The Waste Land and other poems Estate of T. S. Eliot and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd. Lines from from The Party, first performed 1973, first published by Faber & Faber in 1974. Trevor Griffiths 1973. Used by permission of United Agents LLP on behalf of Trevor Griffiths. Lines from Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East Bernard Kops, used by kind permission of Bernard Kops. Hey Ho! Cooke and Rowe written by Peggy Seeger, published by Stormking Music Inc., administered by Harmony Music Limited, used with permission. Which Side Are You On written by Forence Reece, published by Stormking Music Inc., administered by Harmony Music Limited, used with permission. Alabama 58 written by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, published by Stormking Music Inc., administered by Harmony Music Limited, used with permission. The Banks of Marble written by Les Rice, published by Stormking Music Inc., administered by Harmony Music Limited, used with permission. If You Miss Me At the Back of the Bus written by Carver Neblett, published by Sanga Music Inc., administered by Harmony Music Limited, used with permission. Something in the Air by John Keen 1969 FABULOUS MUSIC LTD. Lines from The Delicate Dictator translated by Robert Bly. Translation Copyright 1971, 1993 by Robert Bly. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., for Robert Bly. Im Gonna Be An Engineer written by Peggy Seeger, published by Stormking Music Inc., administered by Harmony Music Limited, used with permission. Lines from To the Unborn translated by Scott Horton Scott Horton. The Ballad of Stalin written by Ewan MacColl, published by Harmony Music Limited, used with permission. Lines from Chicken Soup with Barley Arnold Wesker, used by kind permission of Arnold Wesker. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.