In the 1970s and 80s the Guardian journalist Tim Radford was a guest on press visits that I organised as head of PR for Thomson Holidays. We visited Moscow, where I helped set up the Guardian’s office, Central Asia, Siberia and Mongolia. Tim was also on one of the first group visits to Mount Athos, in north-eastern Greece, and to China.
To gain entry to the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, Tim produced an out-of-date health certificate and passed it on to other guests in the party. On a trip to Samarkand, in Uzbekistan, fog caused our flight to be diverted to Dushanbe, in Tajikistan, where we were accommodated in beds still warm from hastily ejected Soviet tourists. There Tim read The Travels of Marco Polo to us.
