The release of the Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky was something that the British actor David Markham, a conscientious objector during the second world war, had campaigned for tirelessly.
Every year on Bukovsky’s birthday, David stood outside the British Medical Association with a placard of Bukovsky round his neck, urging the BMA to intercede on his behalf.
At first Markham was alone, but gradually he was joined by others, including Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter. Together they set up the British section of the Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse. Markham also put on a transcribed account of Bukovsky’s trial at the Young Vic with Paul Scofield.
When Bukovsky was finally released as part of a prisoner exchange, David met him at the airport and sat beside him at his first press interview. From there he was driven straight to David’s East Sussex house, Lear Cottage, where hordes of reporters were waiting. David’s wife, the poet Olive Dehn, threw her arms around Bukovsky and ushered him into the house.
To the disappointment of David, a proud anarchist, the two men’s politics later diverged, and Bukovsky got involved with friends of Margaret Thatcher. The dissident never really appreciated how many years David had spent drawing attention to his plight.
