April–May 1976

I’d been part of a delegation touring China and had to collect my visa for North Korea in Beijing, but I was not at all well. Taxis were hard to find and I trudged around in a sandstorm. I was granted that visa because, I imagine, I’d been identified as a potential ‘friend’ whom the North Koreans hoped might set up a network of similar allies in Britain.

A few days later, I flew to Pyongyang in a half-empty Air Koryo plane and landed at an even emptier airport, where I was greeted by my minders and a young girl with flowers. We drove into the city along equally empty roads. “There are no bicycles in Pyongyang,” I was told—a veiled dig at Beijing.

I confessed to feeling very ill, and was taken to a hospital where doctors administered some tests and told us to wait. My minders suddenly looked at their watches, exclaimed in alarm and rushed me out of the hospital and back into the car. As we drove off at speed, I saw through the driver’s mirror a doctor appear on the hospital steps and shake his fist.

• Tags: Issue 33, John Gittings, North Korea