The Red Army Waters its Horses in Hendon - new light on an old quarrel

My jaw dropped when I watched this ancient recording (from March or April 1994) of a conversation I had with my brother Christopher on the worthy American TV station C-Span, moderated by the inscrutable Brian Lamb. C-Span invited us to do this more than once. I’d take the Washington Metro down from Bethesda, Maryland, where I lived, to Union Station and walk over to the C-Span studios. Afterwards we’d have coffee in the majestic station concourse.

 

Most of it is amusingly ancient, and I was still sadly innocent and  naïve about the British Conservative Party and Margaret Thatcher, along with several other things,. Mind you, if I had not changed at all since 1994, I’d have a lot to worry about. The bit that made me jump is more than an hour into the recording.

 

Why?

 

Rather famously, my brother and I had a terrible falling out in September 2001, lasting for several years, after I wrote that he had once said to me that he wouldn’t care if the Red Army watered its horses in Hendon. I recall this moment with great clarity, know exactly where it happened, not just the post code, but the house and the room, and the time of day (late evening). I have a witness, and would date it to some time between March 1984 and October 1986. I could probably date it more precisely if I really put my mind to it. Anyway, here’s the point.

 

While fondly recalling my then-bearded self, and my late brother when he was still in the full vigour of health, and an era of human history which was a good deal less dispiriting than the one we now face, I was amazed to see that I had chided him directly with the ‘Horses at Hendon’ quotation.  And he had responded not (as he did in 2001) with fury, denial and ostracism, but with laughter and a general statement about the Cold War which placed him( at the very least) firmly in the leftist tradition on the Cold War. I wish I had recalled this exchange in 2001, and found some way of getting hold of it then. It might have ended the feud a lot more quickly.

 

 

The lengthy recording is here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XvcxetSN-U&feature=youtu.be

 

 

The Hendon exchange begins at 1 hour, eight minutes and 24 seconds:

 

PH: 1.08.24 ‘I always remember Christopher saying, I think he denies it now, that he didn’t care if the Red Army watered its horses in Hendon (CH laughs) which is a not particularly agreeable suburb of London… and also telling me that the Soviet constitution of 1936 was a document of great moral force…’

 

CH: 1.09.21.  ‘I feel I should clear my name on the Red Army watering the horses (smiles faintly).  It’s certainly true that I used to quarrel with Peter a lot about it. I regard and regarded the United States as at least morally a co-founder of the Cold War and more than a co-founder of the arms race. I didn’t think of it as a battle between democracy and an evil empire and I don’t in retrospect think so either.’

 If that’s a denial at all, I’d say it was a non-denial denial. Alas, we cannot discuss it again.