The Sandanistas were defying the might of US imperialism, so we had to go and see the revolution for ourselves. Janey Stone and I were there for 17 days. Not long, but we spent all of them tramping around Managua or travelling -- to Granada in the south, to León to north, and a long trip to the front line of the contra war with the International Press Club. That club was handy in other ways: we got to hear Sandinista leader Carlos Nuñez speak, and also Enrique Bolaños (then head of the bosses’ organisation COSEP, later president of the republic).

Elsewhere we met with FSLN cadres and with political dissidents ranging from Trotskyists and Maoists -- right through to the main legal conservative party. I asked Gerardo Alfaro, one of its leaders, what they would do if the Americans invaded. 'We will take up arms and fight them.'

Times were hard due to the US blockade. One day I was sitting in a stationary taxi when a man walked by with tins of powdered milk. ‘Hey, where’d you get the milk?’ the driver called out. Moments later another man walked past, this time with soap. ‘Hey,’ yelled the taxi driver, ‘where’d you get the soap?’

One fellow I met in the street brightly informed me that the Americans were going to 'start bombing us' on 3 July. I dismissed him as a crank until I saw the same story on the front page of a newspaper. They didn’t of course, and we hoped we had made a tiny contribution to forestalling that by joining the weekly picket of the American embassy by US nationals. We also had the privilege of attending a mass rally commemorating the retreat to Masaya -- an event during the 1979 insurrection.

At the rally, President Daniel Ortega appeared as keynote speaker. The slouching, round-shouldered intellectual looking Sandinista president with his glasses and droopy moustache looked curiously appealing next to the ramrod stiff military types who introduced him. During his speech the crowd chanted: ‘Aquí, allá, el Yanqui morirá’ (Whether here or there, the Yankees will die’). The Sandinista anthem included the words:

Ortega emphasized that the reference to enemies of humanity was directed against the US imperialists, not ordinary people. He then asked: ‘Are there North Americans here?’ A scattering of hands went up, including my own. Ortega declared: ‘These are brothers and sisters of the Nicaraguan people.’

Easy to say, but in real life we are tested.

Wherever I travel, I have an unerring instinct for cheap beer joints. Sure enough, I found one in Managua. It had the usual collection of beer joint denizens, some slumped picturesquely in corners. There was also a boy cadging money. Anyone who’s travelled in the Third World will remember kids who look genuinely needy, and other kids obviously just cadging money. You can’t give to everyone, so you try to ignore the latter type; but this one was incredibly persistent. Irritated, I reached out and pushed him away.

One of the beer joint denizens rose unsteadily from his corner. ‘Stop. You cannot treat our children like that, Señor. We did not make a revolution so that you can behave this way.’ And more in the same vein. It would be pretty safe to say I have never felt so mortified in my life, but that’s not the only thing. Here was the ultimate in mixed emotions: I was ashamed of myself, but at the same time so proud of him.