Forgotten voices

Saturday night’s Archive on 4 (Radio Four) began and ended with the haunting voice of a Tibetan singer, mourning the loss of her country’s independence.

Saturday night’s Archive on 4 (Radio Four) began and ended with the haunting voice of a Tibetan singer, mourning the loss of her country’s independence. In A Tibetan Odyssey — 50 Years in Exile, the veteran reporter and Sino-Tibetan expert Isabel Hilton recalled events in Tibet since its invasion by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in October 1950. We heard the voice of Field Marshal Montgomery being interviewed by the BBC just after his visit to Mao Tse-tung in 1961. It should be required listening for every politician seconded to the Foreign Office.

Montgomery is asked, with a politeness that now sounds quaintly historical, why he had not gone to Tibet (it was just two years since the Chinese had ruthlessly suppressed an attempt by the Tibetans to regain their autonomy).