Hugh Lunghi: Visiting Speaker

It is a rare thing to be able to say that you have met a true piece of living history. However, the 200 or so girls who came to the Lecture Theatre on 5 May 2010 can make that claim.

We were lucky enough to be listening to Mr Hugh Lunghi, who astonished us with his eye-witness descriptions of the Big Three, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at the Yalta Conferences, where he worked as translator for Churchill.

Churchill, according to Mr Lunghi, was inspiring and ‘had the language of an orator’, which presumably cannot have made his job of translating any easier. Stalin proved to be a physically small man, surprising Mr Lunghi who has seen the icons in Red Square which depicted him as a mighty warrior. Stalin was, apparently, quieter than Churchill but with an astonishing knack of remembering facts and figures, never referring to notes.

When speaking to foreigners, Mr Lunghi noticed, Stalin never looked you right in the eye, but looked just to the side of you, with cat-like eyes.

Try as they might, these are the sort of things a textbook simply cannot tell you.  Click here for photo of Hugh Lunghi with Montgomery.

Caroline Beardmore, Year 10