'The Red Guards Burned My Toys'

My first memory of the cultural revolution was a big plume of smoke that I saw on the way back from school in 1966. I was seven so didn't know what it was at first. But when I reached home I saw the Red Guards taking the furniture out of our house and throwing it on to a bonfire. What shocked me most was seeing them burn my books and toys.

In the space of a week three senior officers in our compound committed suicide and another was killed when Red Guards put him inside a cage and rolled him down a steep hill near our house. My father was arrested in front of me. He was multilingual professor ... his father had been the Asian manager for Britain's GEC. That was all the evidence they needed to accuse him of being a spy. It was 10 years before his release, but the Red Guards used to take me to visit him in the labour camp so I could see how he was being punished. Soon after, my mother was also arrested and kept in a camp for 10 years.

The Red Guards told me I came from a "black family". They took me and my two-year-old brother into their care. By the time they had finished even I started to believe that my grandfather used to drink Chinese people's blood as if it were red wine. I can understand why no one wants to talk about this. But we should.