The Boy in the Peking Hotel

Seriously...

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary

4.1 • 885 Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2023

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When 8 year old Kim Gordon set off for China in 1965, it set in train a tale of passion, imagination and still unanswered questions. Kim’s parents were committed communists in the thick of Mao’s cultural revolution.

Kim became a Red Guard, one of an army of children and teenagers marshalled in support of Mao and he had a ringside view of the vast rallies in Tiananmen Square. But when the political tide turned against foreigners, the family was imprisoned for two years in a tiny hotel room, Room 421.

The Gordon family had no contact with the outside world for two years and their families back in Britain had no idea where they were. With only a block of paper and a wild imagination for company Kim passed the time by writing letters that could never be sent, and thrilling plays which he’d act aloud playing all the parts himself. His story reveals much about families and loyalties; on the grip of ideology; and the ingenuity of a child shut in an empty room.

A rich and strange reminiscence not just of China but of the human heart. Charlie Brand plays young Kim in this dramatic, intimate documentary.

Producer: Monica Whitlock Photo by Eric Gordon. 'Kim Gordon in Peking, 1966'

Transcript

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0:00.0	This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box.
0:05.0	The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from.
0:09.0	And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape.
0:12.0	The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape.
0:12.5	The IRA inmates who found a way.
0:14.5	I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path
0:19.5	through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history.
0:25.0	The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them.
0:28.5	Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:35.0	BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts.
0:39.0	Welcome to Seriously from BBC Radio 4.
0:43.2	I'm Vanessa Kasule.
0:45.0	This podcast brings you an incredible selection of documentaries
0:48.3	about everything you could imagine,
0:50.2	and some things you couldn't.
0:52.0	You're about to hear something gripping, extraordinary and seriously unforgettable. For the past two years, Eric Gordon, his wife and son, have been prisoners in Red China.
1:15.0	Free at last they talk tonight about their ordeal.
1:18.0	November 1969, the Gordon family make the headlines Eric and Marie
1:27.5	ill at ease under the TV lights the questions the missing Gordon's the papers called them because the
1:33.0	papers called them because all this time
1:36.0	their family their friends
1:38.0	the UK government had no idea where they'd been held
	...

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