Links with the past

Polly's father George Elvin was the first General Secretary of the UK film union, ACTT. We were friends because my father belonged to the same union, and they and our mothers were all active in the Labour Party in the early sixties. My memories of Polly's dad are of a very tall, brusque man - always kind, if rather scary, who always seemed to be smoking a fat cigar.

After the revolution in Cuba (which took place in January 1959), Polly's dad George went with a Labour Party delegation to visit Cuba. He was shown round Havana by Che Guevara. The delegation was supposed to meet Fidel Castro, but it got to the end of their stay, and the meeting hadn't happened. George was drinking late at night in the bar of his hotel, when the door suddenly burst open and in came Fidel, saying "Where's the British delegation? I want to take them to a night club!" And off to a night club they went... I think this friendship, forged no doubt over cuba libres and maybe some salsa, explains the boxes of Romeo y Julieta cigars that always decorated George's desk at home... 

So for Polly and me to be standing at the Che memorial together in Cuba almost fifty years later - well, it was a powerful moment.  Polly told that story to the extremely handsome man from the Central Committee who came to speak to us. She got to the part about George drinking late in his hotel, and said maybe it was around eleven or midnight when Fidel arrived. The handsome Central Committee man grinned and said it could just as easily have been one or two a.m., knowing Fidel....