The Chairman's Thoughts

Posting this 51 years late during the 2018 Labour Party Conference led by Comrade Corbyn. Jez would be proud of me, I'm sure.
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"Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse Tung was first published in Chinese in 1964 and the English version known as "The Little Red Book" appeared in early 1967 and became a cult. Nobody knows how many copies in all the various versions and formats were printed, one estimate is 6.5 billion.

The great thing about it at that time was that by sending a request to the Chinese Embassy in London, you got a free copy by return. My school chums and I all did it. The chapter about "Paper Tigers" became infamous in everyday talk.

At some point, I must have become scared about being arrested for something I had written in it as the first page has been torn out. I can only think I might have put my name and address on it. Perhaps sometime later I did have my complete name, address and telephone number on the outside cardboard cover and which can perhaps just be seen under the star on the outer slip over vinyl cover.

It was all one big joke, a status symbol, as I don't think we understood a word.