The obituary of the film-maker and TV producer Peter Adam (7 December) rightly identifies his generosity of spirit, and his autobiography represents a who’s who of postwar European culture. But his love for his adopted UK was proper tough love: “London to me was like a bastion of the civilised world … However, I soon discovered that much of the tolerance was based on indifference and an inbred lack of curiosity.”
He noted a sense of mythical grandeur and the notion of a democracy superior to any, “until I realised that they were talking about the past rather than the present, and that this belief in the uniqueness of the English had something to do with an astonishing ignorance of what went on in other countries”.
