I was thinking about Chris today as I reminisced about the early nineties.

Thora and I had just volunteered to run the British wing of an obscure French Communist breakaway group, mainly made up of French Maoists looking for a UK distribution network.

We travelled to France incognito, Thora dressed as a London Underground ticket collector and I as an unemployed Littlewood Pools collector.

We caught the early ferry from Dover and had a rendezvous onbaord with two former members of the Kampuchean Workers Party who had fled from their base on the Thai border as finally Pol Pot was losing grip on his remaining enclave at Base number 3.

Our two friends (whose names we never discovered) handed us some fresh fish and the keys to the Party headquarters cum print shop in a rather run down part of Bologne.

Inside the fish were the keys to a Renault motor vehicle parked in a quiet cul de sac not far from Bologne sea port. It was late July and the fish were awfully smelly, so Thora deposited them down her bloomers to mask the awful fragrance.

Our mission was as simple as it was sexually aggressive: We had to convince the Gendarmes parked across the road from the deserted print shop "Des Commuinists" that we were merely two Lithuanina cleaning folk desperate to earn a few French Francs for some bread and a kipper, and not a part of some elite Marxist revolutionary movement.

"Le Filth" had been coming down hard on all us small but dedicated revolutinaries that year. This of course upset Thora somewhat as during the war she had been the heroine of the French resistance, infecting some two hundred Nazi soldiers with the pox from her fanny batter. Short memories those Frogs..

As we entered the small print shop we wedged the door firmly shut with a bust of Lenin. The shop was tiny, the printing machinery had long been moved to a safe house. There was nothing in the shop but a hard concrete floor and a sink which doubled up as a toilet.

Immediately I backed one out. Thora produced the fish for gutting and we waited with baited breath. The stench was sickening. Through the peep hole we could see the gendarmes on their police radio seeking further guidance from their headquarters, unsure themselves of their next course of action. 

Some twenty minutes later they came knocking on the door. As I panicked, Thora let them in and let them both have a sniff of the suspicious fish. They eyed me up-I spoke no French, and they no Lithuanian. Thora translated: She told them I was her lover and I was here to batter her fish while she cleaned this empty shell of a print shop.

As alleged Lithuanians, we were fierce anti-communists merely carrying out a contracted cleaning job.

The police took our details and bid us farewell. We slept on the floor and waited. It was a cold, hard night's sleep. With my dodgy bowels and Thora's rather rancid aroma, we managed to avoid the inevitable, but it was obvious that I, a young and hot-blooded revolutionary, would eventually succum to the wordly charms of a septugenarian with years of experience of fighting the cold face of Capitalism and it's syphilitic companion, fascism.

We both tossed and turned over, before sleeping.

Shortly after dawn I heard the sound of an Eastern European motor vehicle, the dulcid tones of a Lada struggling up the narrow lane into the Cul de sac. Thora heard it too, and moaned softly as if it was the sound of a returning lover.

Back in 1968, Thora had been in Budapest to infect the counter-revolutionaries of the Capitalist Roaders who had risen against the democratic government.

Inside the car was one "Erol Pek", and forty year old Syndicalist Slovakian who had driven for three whole days for his mission. He was a short, unkempt balding man. He spoke neither French or English, but was surprisingly fluent in Lithuanian. We only had the international language of revolutionary solidarity to guide us.

Erol smoked 'Gittanes' an exhaustive brand of French cigarette, as if they were going out of fashion. It was a slightly bourgeois thing to do as a matter of fact, as it was widely known that Slovakian cigarettes were among the cheapest in Europe.

I sat in the front with Erol, whilst Thora aired her fanny against the open window. Thankfully we were down wind. We drove for hours with only the sound of Chairman Mao on the car's audio casette breaking a long a deadly silence. We didn't need to know anything about Erol's life, this was the way of the revolutionary life back then. Despite being a Syndicalist, Erol was rather tight with his fags to be honest. Thora was caressing the battered leather of the back seat, while I sat solemnly awaiting an invite to suck on Erol's fag.

After four hours, we pulled into a small village which was set down at the bottom of a large winery. I had no idea where we were, this was deliberate. As we disembarked we heard the sound of a small brass band playing the International, getting closer. The Red winde makers were coming out to greet us! It was midday almost, the flags were out, bunting was hanging and the entire village were throwing a party in our honour!

We had a fine feast that lasted for hours. Pretty young French Communist maidens served us wine and bread, whille bearded men slapped our backs. The sun was glorious and the comaraderie was second to none.

After a couple of hours we were invited to denounce some random colleagues and make self-criticims. We stabbed a French pensioner who may have once been a Trotskyite. He was grateful for the evaluation.

Still, there was Thora, resplendent with her colostomy on display beckoning me toward the inevitable. We made love until she passed away.

After her burial, I was elected to the commitern of the 2nd International and entrusted with the spread of Maoism throughout the United Kingdom. It was tobe a thankless task, particularly as Thora's parting gift had been a rather nasty and painful does of the clap, but I feel it has been worth it.

Under my revolutionary leadership, the UK is now one of the largest recruitment grounds for red volunteers to go to North Korea and polish nuclear missiles.

I often think about Thora and he wonderful life spreading STD's around the globe in the name of Marx.

I though of her last week, when we celebrated 60 years of North Korean democracy in Pyongyang. How Thora would have loved to have given Kim Jong- Il some of her revolutionary loving, as she had done his father Kim Il-Sung.
 
I thought about that bastard Erol and his French cigarettes and how we had denounced him as a Franco sympathiser and set fire to his car.

I think too of Chris Nurse our new signing, another wonderful Red.

Salud Comrades.