Latest news with #SovietUnion
Fox News
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Fox News
From Soviet refugee to American patriot: Why we must guard against socialism's dangerous creep into our cities
Every July 20, our family celebrates our Americaversary, the day my mother and I arrived in America. My father, grandmother and great-aunt had been let out of the Soviet Union ahead of us so when we arrived on July 20, 1978, they awaited our arrival. We were free, and we were so happy, but the reality of what was going on in America at that time couldn't be avoided. Jimmy Carter was president and would soon give what would be known as his "malaise" speech. Our new home of New York was in chaos. Crime was spiraling out of control and the previous summer's blackout, called "the night of terror" because of the out-of-control crime, had exposed some deep rot across the city. The times were worrying, but our family loved and appreciated the freedom. My parents tell stories about being able to say what they wanted for the first time in their lives. My grandmother and her sister had never imagined practicing our Jewish faith without fear. But the city and the country were in real crisis and even in our new American honeymoon phase it was hard not to notice. Ronald Reagan would be elected two years later, and the country would begin a steady ascent. New York's turnaround would take a little longer. When Rudy Giuliani became mayor in 1994, 1,561 were murdered in NYC that year, on average over four murders a day. The city was a cesspool. I was graduating high school that year and remember a lawless city where no one paid for the subway, drugs were everywhere and there were simply no rules. Our family eventually left New York City in the COVID years because of the city's once again steep decline. We had to go, for our children, and the main question we would get is how we held out as long as we did. The truth was, the eight Giuliani years were a marvel of good government in New York, and they were followed by 12 excellent years of Michael Bloomberg's mayoralty. The NYC blackout of 2003 was nothing like the one from 1977. This time the main story was a city coming together and helping each other. The city had changed for the better. Even after Bill DeBlasio was elected, it took awhile to undo the good policies of those 20 years. In DeBlasio's first term he mostly coasted on the accomplishments of those who had done the work before him. New York seemed unbreakable. But policies matter and so many bad ideas have harmed New York in the last few years. Not prosecuting criminals has led to widespread quality of life crimes. Marijuana legalization means that the whole city smells like weed all the time and other drug use is happening out in the open too. Some of the best public schools in the city were forced to remove their "screens" for admission, such as grades or attendance, and operate on a lottery basis, with predictable results. Now Zohran Mamdani, a self-described socialist, is in pole position to be New York's next mayor. His policy ideas are everything bad pushed over the last decade but on steroids. His grasp of policies is tenuous, such as when he suggested government run grocery stores could lower prices by buying product in bulk. Only someone with extremely limited knowledge of any business could imagine all supermarkets aren't already currently doing this. But the very idea of government-run stores is a bad one. I come from a country that tried this and it led to widespread food shortages. The Mamdanis of the world never quite know how to reach the utopia they aim for and the rest of us suffer because of it. His comments about taxing White people are also very familiar. The socialist cause relies heavily on the idea that there is a class of people out there hoarding more than their "fair share." The cause needs an enemy and Mamdani is ready to turn New Yorkers against each other just like his socialist counterparts had done in places like the USSR. Then there's Mamdani's support for the "Globalize the Intifada" message. This is seen as targeting Jews, and it does of course, but globalizing the intifada means destroying Western civilization. It specifically means bringing "the uprising" to our doors in America. In the four years of the second Intifada against Israel, thousands of people died in suicide bombings and shootings. It wasn't just Jews. Plenty of Christians and Muslims were killed too. A suicide bomber never stops to ask religion of the people he's about to murder. This is what Mamdani will be globalizing. Americans should fear socialism and socialists. The philosophy is at odds with our free country and the equality it pushes never materializes and has failed every single time it's been tried. America is great because of the ideas that make America great. With Donald Trump's November election, we're in an optimistic age similar to the one my family lived through a few years after our arrival. But the lesson of the bad times should be that everything can be undone and broken if we let it. We have a miracle of a country here, but we have to appreciate it and protect it from bad ideas and bad people who seek to destroy it.
ABC News
15 hours ago
- Politics
- ABC News
Mao and Stalin — did they lead the way for tyrannical leaders like Trump?
Books on tyrants, dictators, and authoritarian leaders are suddenly bestsellers again as we all try to make sense of the tilt towards tyrannical leadership around the world, the mass compliance it commands, and its use of terror, fear, and often violence, to govern. Two of Australia's leading scholars on China and the Soviet Union, Linda Jaivin (author of BOMBARD THE HEADQUARTERS! The Cultural Revolution in China) and Sheila Fitzpatrick (author of The Death of Stalin) join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell to consider two 20th Century tyrants whose legacies live on today. Speakers Linda Jaivin Author and China specialist Associate, Australian Centre on China in the World, Australian National University Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick Historian of modern Russia and the Soviet Union Professor, Australian Catholic University and Honorary Professor, University of Sydney This event was presented by Readings Books with Black Inc Books, with thanks to events producer Christine Gordon.
The Guardian
20 hours ago
- General
- The Guardian
In Ukraine's bombed out reservoir a huge forest has grown – is it a return to life or a toxic timebomb?
At the southern tip of Europe's largest river island, the ground falls away into a vast and unexpected vista. From a high, rocky ledge on Khortytsia Island, the view opens on to a sea of swaying young willows and mirrored lagoons. Some of the trees are already many metres tall, but this is a young forest. Just a few years ago, all of it was under water. 'This is Velykyi Luh – the Great Meadow,' says Valeriy Babko, a retired history teacher and army veteran, standing on the former reservoir shoreline at Malokaterynivka village. For him, this extraordinary new-old environment represents more than nature alone. 'It is an ancient, mythic terrain, woven through Ukrainian folklore,' he says. 'Think of all those Cossacks galloping through its valleys of forests so dense the sun barely pierced them.' That historic landscape vanished in 1956, when the Soviet Union completed the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power plant and flooded the entire region. What had once been an ecological and cultural cradle became a reservoir, and its rich, living systems were entombed beneath the water. Water flows over the collapsed Kakhovka dam on 7 June 2023. Photograph: AP Then, in 2023, that water was unleashed as weapon: the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River, under the control of Russian forces, was blown up (Russia denies bombing it). It sent a vast, destructive flood of water and sediment downstream, destroying villages and killing an unknown number of people; figures for the death toll range from a few dozen into the hundreds. Up to one million people lost access to drinking water. Two years on from the disaster, the reservoir's future still hangs in the balance. Scientists say it represents both a 'return to life' for the ecosystem and wild creatures that inhabit it – and an unpredictable, potentially toxic 'timebomb'. It is a case study in the complexity of how nature responds to vast changes wrought by humankind – and what happens to ecosystems in the wake of disaster. In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, Kakhovka reservoir resembled a desert of drying mud and cracked silt. Now, plants grow so thickly you must scythe through the vegetation covering the earth embankment before the basin comes fully into view. The bone-dry former shoreline is studded with husks and shells of aquatic organisms that once lived here. Beyond it, a vast sea of young trees stretches over the horizon towards the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station. The size of it is difficult to take in: the reservoir's surface area was 2,155 sq km (832 sq miles) – bigger than New York City and its five boroughs. The latest report from the Ukrainian War Environmental Consequences Work Group (UWEC) confirms what satellite images, ecologists and field researchers began to observe over the past two years: the ecosystem of the lower Dnipro is not only recovering, it is evolving. The drained reservoir is now home to dense growths of willow and poplar and enormous wetlands; endangered sturgeon have returned to waterways; wild boar and mammals to the forests; and there are signs of spontaneous regeneration across a huge stretch of floodplain. 'We are witnessing the emergence of a massive natural floodplain forest system,' says Oleksiy Vasyliuk, co-author of a 2025 report on the reservoir for the UWEC and head of the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group. 'It is not a managed project. It is the land itself returning to life.' Instead of an artificial lake on their doorsteps, Malokaterynivka residents have a new forest landscape to contend with. Photograph: Vincent Mundy That return is increasingly measurable for ecologists. 'Native fauna are returning to the section of the river freed from the dam and reservoir,' the report confirms. 'As well as a rapid expansion of native vegetation, as many as 40bn tree seeds have sprouted, which could lead to the formation of the largest floodplain forest in Ukraine's steppe zone.'According to Eugene Simonov, international coordinator at Rivers without Boundaries, what is unfolding in Velykyi Luh is not just a local wetland rebound, it is the rare and spontaneous reconstitution of a vast riverine ecosystem, with implications that stretch far beyond Ukraine. 'Prior to the dam, the Dnipro floodplain here hosted huge oak forests and many types of wetlands over thousands of square kilometers, creating a mosaic of biodiversity-rich habitats for hundreds of bird species and gigantic fish such as the Ukrainian sturgeon, which used to come here to spawn,' Simonov says. Clockwise from top left: Critically endangered sturgeon are returning to their ancient spawning grounds; billions of freshwater clams died when the reservoir emptied; young sturgeon at a caviar aquaculture facility – a small wild population is now found in the Dnipro; the fountains in Dubovy Gai (Oak Park), which will not work again now the water supply has dried up, says Valeriy Babko, pictured; the floodplain is littered with the remains of aquatic organisms. Photographs: Vincent Mundy The Great Meadow, he says, also represents an opportunity for Ukraine as it seeks to attract global funds for postwar recovery and join the EU. 'Restoring natural freshwater ecosystems along a 250-km stretch of the lower Dnipro could be the largest project of its kind in Europe and has the potential to become Ukraine's decisive contribution to meeting EU commitments to restore rivers to their natural state by 2030,' he says. Yet, as scientists are quick to emphasise, this recovery is not guaranteed. Much of the former reservoir remains inaccessible due to active shelling and mined terrain. Comprehensive biological monitoring is difficult. Heavy metals and chemical contamination are a growing concern for researchers. And the future of the area remains politically uncertain. Clockwise from top left: trees sprout from the basin of the former reservoir; Vadym Maniuk, ecologist, surveys the dense growth; white willows and black poplars have grown rapidly, turning the area into forest; some of the trees have already grown many metres tall. Photographs: Vincent Mundy and Alessio Mamo While the reservoir forest looks like an oasis, sprung up in the absence of people, it is still marked by the residue of human enterprise. Over time, the banks of the reservoir eroded. Their fine particles of dust sank into a thick layer at the basin's floor. At the same time, pollutants were entering the water – particularly heavy metals from industrial enterprises along and upstream of the reservoir. Oleksandra Shumilova, a freshwater ecologist, says: 'All these pollutants were absorbed into these fine particles that were deposited on the bottom.' The sediment acted 'like an enormous sponge that was accumulated on the bottom of this reservoir. We estimate that it was about 1.5 cubic km of polluted sediments'. The industrial chimneys of Zaporizhzhia tower over the ancient Scythian burial monuments of Khortytsia island. Photograph: Vincent Mundy When the dam was drained it sent an enormous quantity of polluted, potentially toxic waste flowing into the wider area. Its heavy metals could easily contaminate water sources, soil, and be taken up by plants. Even in small concentrations, they can 'have negative effects on various systems of human organisms; for example, they can cause cancer, endocrine disruptions, problems with lungs, with kidneys,' Shumilova says. She compares their effects to radiation: as those toxins move up the food chain, they can concentrate, causing particular problems for bigger animals and meat eaters. 'As for how these pollutants are also transferred within the food web, it's not known. It is not possible to investigate at the moment, because it's dangerous to enter the area. There is no systematic research,' she says. With the Dnipro River's water table permanently altered, the artificially fed ponds in Dubovy Gai are expected to be fully dried out by the end of the summer. Photograph: Vincent Mundy A 2025 report co-authored by Shumilova and published in the journal Science concluded that the pollutants represented a 'toxic timebomb', and warned of significant concerns for animal food webs and human populations living in the area. But, as in other environments – such as the site of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster – contamination and natural regeneration can occur side by side. In the same paper, the scientists concluded that within five years, 80% of the ecosystem functions lost to the dam's presence will be restored and that the floodplain's biodiversity would recover significantly within two years. The UWEC report frames this moment as a strategic turning point for Ukraine's environmental and cultural policy. If left to regenerate, the site could become one of Europe's largest contiguous freshwater ecosystems, rivalling even the Danube delta in ecological importance. But the emerging forest at Kakhovka could disappear as quickly as it emerged. 'If the hydropower dam is rebuilt,' Vasyliuk warns, 'this young forest and all the life it now sustains will be lost again.' The state energy company Ukrhydroenergo has already signalled its intention to reconstruct the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. For some officials, this represents a return to 'normality': a reinstatement of industrial productivity, energy security and geopolitical control. 'Rebuilding the dam the way it was would not be a recovery,' says Vasyliuk, 'it would be an ecocide. It would destroy a young, spontaneous forest before we even have a chance to understand it.' The decision holds significance beyond Ukraine's borders. Roughly 80% of the territory affected by the reservoir's collapse lies within nationally and internationally protected zones, many of them part of Europe's Emerald Network, placing the fate of Velykyi Luh within a larger continental mandate to safeguard ecological and cultural heritage. People fish in the river, which dropped by several metres after the dam was destroyed. Photograph: Vincent Mundy From a climate perspective, the newly forming ecosystem offers significant potential for carbon capture and storage, the 2025 UWEC report concludes. 'This is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss,' says Simonov. 'If Ukraine chooses to protect Velykyi Luh, it won't just be saving a landscape, it will be choosing to believe in its own future.' Vasyliuk adds: 'This is our biocultural sovereignty at stake and that means our nature, our identity, our independence, and a symbol of the kind of nation we want to become.' Across the lower Dnipro, warblers nest in reeds where water once lapped against concrete and sturgeon spawn in shallows they haven't visited in 70 years. The new wetland echoes an ancient rhythm. 'What will happen with this area? We cannot predict at the moment with full confidence, but it's true that it is reestablishing very rapidly,' says Shumilova. 'From a human point of view it was, of course, a disaster for people living there. But from a scientific point of view, it's a very rare event: how an ecosystem [can be] re-established. It is a big natural experiment. And it is still ongoing.' Beyond the riprap (rocks placed at the shoreline to control erosion) of the former reservoir the new forest emerges. Photograph: Vincent Mundy Additional reporting by Tess McClure This article was amended on 22 July 2025. An earlier version mistakenly attributed a quote on biological sovereignty to Eugene Simonov instead of Oleksiy Vasyliuk. Also, Oleksandra Shumilova referred to the 'various systems' of human organisms, not 'virus systems' as stated owing to a mis-transcription. Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage
The Guardian
2 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
In Ukraine's bombed out reservoir a huge forest has grown – is it a return to life or a toxic timebomb?
At the southern tip of Europe's largest river island, the ground falls away into a vast and unexpected vista. From a high, rocky ledge on Khortytsia Island, the view opens on to a sea of swaying young willows and mirrored lagoons. Some of the trees are already many metres tall, but this is a young forest. Just a few years ago, all of it was under water. 'This is Velykyi Luh – the Great Meadow,' says Valeriy Babko, a retired history teacher and army veteran, standing on the former reservoir shoreline at Malokaterynivka village. For him, this extraordinary new-old environment represents more than nature alone. 'It is an ancient, mythic terrain, woven through Ukrainian folklore,' he says. 'Think of all those Cossacks galloping through its valleys of forests so dense the sun barely pierced them.' That historic landscape vanished in 1956, when the Soviet Union completed the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power plant and flooded the entire region. What had once been an ecological and cultural cradle became a reservoir, and its rich, living systems were entombed beneath the water. Water flows over the collapsed Kakhovka dam on 7 June 2023. Photograph: AP Then, in 2023, that water was unleashed as weapon: the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River, under the control of Russian forces, was blown up (Russia denies bombing it). It sent a vast, destructive flood of water and sediment downstream, destroying villages and killing an unknown number of people; figures for the death toll range from a few dozen into the hundreds. Up to one million people lost access to drinking water. Two years on from the disaster, the reservoir's future still hangs in the balance. Scientists say it represents both a 'return to life' for the ecosystem and wild creatures that inhabit it – and an unpredictable, potentially toxic 'timebomb'. It is a case study in the complexity of how nature responds to vast changes wrought by humankind – and what happens to ecosystems in the wake of disaster. In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, Kakhovka reservoir resembled a desert of drying mud and cracked silt. Now, plants grow so thickly you must scythe through the vegetation covering the earth embankment before the basin comes fully into view. The bone-dry former shoreline is studded with husks and shells of aquatic organisms that once lived here. Beyond it, a vast sea of young trees stretches over the horizon towards the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station. The size of it is difficult to take in: the reservoir's surface area was 2,155 sq km (832 sq miles) – bigger than New York City and its five boroughs. The latest report from the Ukrainian War Environmental Consequences Work Group (UWEC) confirms what satellite images, ecologists and field researchers began to observe over the past two years: the ecosystem of the lower Dnipro is not only recovering, it is evolving. The drained reservoir is now home to dense growths of willow and poplar and enormous wetlands; endangered sturgeon have returned to waterways; wild boar and mammals to the forests; and there are signs of spontaneous regeneration across a huge stretch of floodplain. 'We are witnessing the emergence of a massive natural floodplain forest system,' says Oleksiy Vasyliuk, co-author of a 2025 report on the reservoir for the UWEC and head of the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group. 'It is not a managed project. It is the land itself returning to life.' Instead of an artificial lake on their doorsteps, Malokaterynivka residents have a new forest landscape to contend with. Photograph: Vincent Mundy That return is increasingly measurable for ecologists. 'Native fauna are returning to the section of the river freed from the dam and reservoir,' the report confirms. 'As well as a rapid expansion of native vegetation, as many as 40bn tree seeds have sprouted, which could lead to the formation of the largest floodplain forest in Ukraine's steppe zone.'According to Eugene Simonov, international coordinator at Rivers without Boundaries, what is unfolding in Velykyi Luh is not just a local wetland rebound, it is the rare and spontaneous reconstitution of a vast riverine ecosystem, with implications that stretch far beyond Ukraine. 'Prior to the dam, the Dnipro floodplain here hosted huge oak forests and many types of wetlands over thousands of square kilometers, creating a mosaic of biodiversity-rich habitats for hundreds of bird species and gigantic fish such as the Ukrainian sturgeon, which used to come here to spawn,' Simonov says. Clockwise from top left: Critically endangered sturgeon are returning to their ancient spawning grounds; billions of freshwater clams died when the reservoir emptied; young sturgeon at a caviar aquaculture facility – a small wild population is now found in the Dnipro; the fountains in Dubovy Gai (Oak Park), which will not work again now the water supply has dried up, says Valeriy Babko, pictured; the floodplain is littered with the remains of aquatic organisms. Photographs: Vincent Mundy The Great Meadow, he says, also represents an opportunity for Ukraine as it seeks to attract global funds for postwar recovery and join the EU. 'Restoring natural freshwater ecosystems along a 250-km stretch of the lower Dnipro could be the largest project of its kind in Europe and has the potential to become Ukraine's decisive contribution to meeting EU commitments to restore rivers to their natural state by 2030,' he says. Yet, as scientists are quick to emphasise, this recovery is not guaranteed. Much of the former reservoir remains inaccessible due to active shelling and mined terrain. Comprehensive biological monitoring is difficult. Heavy metals and chemical contamination are a growing concern for researchers. And the future of the area remains politically uncertain. Clockwise from top left: trees sprout from the basin of the former reservoir; Vadym Maniuk, ecologist, surveys the dense growth; white willows and black poplars have grown rapidly, turning the area into forest; some of the trees have already grown many metres tall. Photographs: Vincent Mundy and Alessio Mamo While the reservoir forest looks like an oasis, sprung up in the absence of people, it is still marked by the residue of human enterprise. Over time, the banks of the reservoir eroded. Their fine particles of dust sank into a thick layer at the basin's floor. At the same time, pollutants were entering the water – particularly heavy metals from industrial enterprises along and upstream of the reservoir. Oleksandra Shumilova, a freshwater ecologist, says: 'All these pollutants were absorbed into these fine particles that were deposited on the bottom.' The sediment acted 'like an enormous sponge that was accumulated on the bottom of this reservoir. We estimate that it was about 1.5 cubic km of polluted sediments'. The industrial chimneys of Zaporizhzhia tower over the ancient Scythian burial monuments of Khortytsia island. Photograph: Vincent Mundy When the dam was drained it sent an enormous quantity of polluted, potentially toxic waste flowing into the wider area. Its heavy metals could easily contaminate water sources, soil, and be taken up by plants. Even in small concentrations, they can 'have negative effects on virus systems of human organisms, for example, they can cause cancer, endocrine disruptions, problems with lungs, with kidneys,' Shumilova says. She compares their effects to radiation: as those toxins move up the food chain, they can concentrate, causing particular problems for bigger animals and meat eaters. 'As for how these pollutants are also transferred within the food web, it's not known. It is not possible to investigate at the moment, because it's dangerous to enter the area. There is no systematic research,' she says. With the Dnipro River's water table permanently altered, the artificially fed ponds in Dubovy Gai are expected to be fully dried out by the end of the summer. Photograph: Vincent Mundy A 2025 report co-authored by Shumilova and published in the journal Science concluded that the pollutants represented a 'toxic timebomb', and warned of significant concerns for animal food webs and human populations living in the area. But, as in other environments – such as the site of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster – contamination and natural regeneration can occur side by side. In the same paper, the scientists concluded that within five years, 80% of the ecosystem functions lost to the dam's presence will be restored and that the floodplain's biodiversity would recover significantly within two years. The UWEC report frames this moment as a strategic turning point for Ukraine's environmental and cultural policy. If left to regenerate, the site could become one of Europe's largest contiguous freshwater ecosystems, rivalling even the Danube delta in ecological importance. But the emerging forest at Kakhovka could disappear as quickly as it emerged. 'If the hydropower dam is rebuilt,' Vasyliuk warns, 'this young forest and all the life it now sustains will be lost again.' The state energy company Ukrhydroenergo has already signalled its intention to reconstruct the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. For some officials, this represents a return to 'normality': a reinstatement of industrial productivity, energy security and geopolitical control. 'Rebuilding the dam the way it was would not be a recovery,' says Vasyliuk, 'it would be an ecocide. It would destroy a young, spontaneous forest before we even have a chance to understand it.' The decision holds significance beyond Ukraine's borders. Roughly 80% of the territory affected by the reservoir's collapse lies within nationally and internationally protected zones, many of them part of Europe's Emerald Network, placing the fate of Velykyi Luh within a larger continental mandate to safeguard ecological and cultural heritage. People fish in the river, which dropped by several metres after the dam was destroyed. Photograph: Vincent Mundy From a climate perspective, the newly forming ecosystem offers significant potential for carbon capture and storage, the 2025 UWEC report concludes. 'This is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss,' says Simonov. 'If Ukraine chooses to protect Velykyi Luh, it won't just be saving a landscape, it will be choosing to believe in its own future.' 'This is our biocultural sovereignty at stake and that means our nature, our identity, our independence, and a symbol of the kind of nation we want to become.' Across the lower Dnipro, warblers nest in reeds where water once lapped against concrete and sturgeon spawn in shallows they haven't visited in 70 years. The new wetland echoes an ancient rhythm. 'What will happen with this area? We cannot predict at the moment with full confidence, but it's true that it is reestablishing very rapidly,' says Shumilova. 'From a human point of view it was, of course, a disaster for people living there. But from a scientific point of view, it's a very rare event: how an ecosystem [can be] re-established. It is a big natural experiment. And it is still ongoing.' Beyond the riprap (rocks placed at the shoreline to control erosion) of the former reservoir the new forest emerges. Photograph: Vincent Mundy Additional reporting by Tess McClure Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Cyril Smith, the postwar pianist who played with one hand
An interesting article by Nicholas McCarthy, a left-hand-only pianist, on Paul Wittgenstein (Left turns: How a terrible war injury led to the birth of one-handed piano music, 16 July). Wittgenstein was perhaps one of the first performing pianists using only one hand, but there was a one-handed pianist in Britain in the years after the second world war. Cyril Smith and Phyllis Sellick became a piano-playing couple in 1941. They performed at the Proms and toured widely. They used all four hands, sometimes on one piano, sometimes on two. They were touring the Soviet Union in 1956 when Cyril had a stroke that paralysed his left arm. Just as Wittgenstein had experienced, Smith and Sellick had music written or arranged for them for the rest of their careers. How do I know this? They came to play at the University of Liverpool in 1962 and I was the student given the task of looking after them and was their MyttonDorking, Surrey Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
