After the Party Trivia Quiz

Answer: Circus clown

Once William, stepson of Johnny Campbell, a founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, arrived in the USSR he was forced to hand over his passport and was therefore unable to leave. Initially employed in an aircraft factory, his theatrical talents led eventually to his touring the Soviet Union as a circus clown.

In 1977 he managed to defect to Britain. His 1981 memoir "Villi the Clown" gives a revealing account of his life in the Soviet Union, where he witnessed among other things Ukrainian famine and rampant official corruption.

Answer: Denis Healey

Denis Healey joined the Communist Party in 1937, but left in 1940 following the fall of France. He sat as a Labour Member of Parliament from 1952 to 1992. He stood for leadership of the Labour Party in 1980 but was defeated by Michael Foot. Initially returned unopposed as deputy leader of the party, he later narrowly saw off a challenge by left-wing champion Tony Benn. Latterly considered to be on the right of the Labour Party, Healey often features in lists of the best Prime Ministers Britain never had.

Answer: Cecil Day-Lewis

"The Mind in Chains: Socialism and the Cultural Revolution" featured contributions by a number of Marxist and socialist writers, including Cambridge spy Anthony Blunt. Day-Lewis left the Party in 1938. His first novel, "A Question of Proof" featuring amateur detective Nigel Strangeways, appeared in 1935 and was followed by nineteen others.

He was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford from 1951 to 1956 and became Poet Laureate in 1968. Actor Daniel Day-Lewis is his son.

Answer: Doris Lessing

The former Doris Tayler met her second husband, Gottfried Lessing, a fugitive from the Nazis, through membership of the Southern Rhodesia Communist Party. The couple moved to London and divorced in 1949, after which Gottfried settled in East Germany. Doris Lessing did not join the CPGB until 1952 and was frequently critical of the Party during her four years of membership. Nevertheless she was kept under observation by MI5 for twenty years.

Her Communist background is reflected in some of her writings, particularly her 1962 novel "The Golden Notebook".

Answer: Arthur Scargill

Born in 1938, Arthur Scargill grew up with a Communist father and non-political mother. He started work as a miner aged fifteen and joined the Young Communist League two years later. Having left the CPGB, he became a Labour Party member in 1962. He came to prominence nationally when leading an unofficial miners' strike in 1969, subsequently being elected President of the Yorkshire Area of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and, in 1982, the union's national president. Scargill was associated with a policy of sending "flying pickets" to close down crucial sites. Following a government announcement of proposed mine closures Scargill announced a national pit strike in March 1984 without balloting union members.

The strike lasted almost a year, but ended in defeat for the miners. Scargill left the Labour Party in 1996, founding the Socialist Labour Party.

He stopped down as President of the NUM in 2002.

Answer: Dan Cruickshank

Dan Cruickshank's father, Donald, reported from Poland during the 1950s, covering workers' protests in Poznan in 1956. He subsequently left the Communist Party and the family had to leave the country. During their time in Warsaw the city was being rebuilt following its wartime destruction.

In 2015 Dan Cruickshank returned to the restored city. As well as covering the story of its architectural renewal he revisited the family's old apartment and was shown his father's Polish intelligence service files.

Answer: Michael Rosen

Michael Rosen recalled his childhood in his memoir "So They Call You Pisher". His parents had met at a meeting of the Young Communist League and taken part in the Battle of Cable Street, a notorious 1936 clash between demonstrators and police who were defending a British Union of Fascists march through a predominantly Jewish area of east London.

When Michael was growing up they hosted sparsely attended Communist Party meetings in their front room, but following a visit to East Germany in 1957 they left the Party. Michael Rosen has written 140 books, the first, "Mind Your Own Business", appearing in 1974. Adapted from an American folk song and illustrated by Wendy Oxenbury, "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" won the Nestle Smarties Book Prize in 1989.

Answer: Alexei Sayle

Alexei Sayle's career has included stand up comedy, a hit record with "Hello John, Got a New Motor", a role in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", TV show "Alexei Sayle's Stuff" and much more. Named after Maxim Gorky (birth name Alexei Maximovich Peshkov), Sayle grew up in Anfield the child of unwavering Communists. "Stalin Ate My Homework" describes a childhood in which he was forbidden to watch "Bambi" but taken to see "Alexander Nevsky" instead, and family holidays consisted of rail trips behind the Iron Curtain.

A second volume of autobiography was entitled "Thatcher Ate My Trousers".

Answer: National Union of Students

Presidents of the National Union of Students serve a one-year term. Sue Slipman was elected as the representative of the Broad Left student faction, which encompassed various political parties. She was a member of the Communist Party National Executive but, moving to the right, in 1981 she became a founder member of the Social Democratic Party and was a parliamentary candidate in the 1983 and 1987 General Elections.

She left frontline politics when the Social Democrats ceased to exist as a separate party.

Answer: Julien Temple

Julien Temple's parents ran Regent Travel, a company specialising in tours to communist countries that was owned at arms' length by the Communist Party of Great Britain. His sister, Dr Nina Temple, presided over the Party's dissolution in 1991. Julien Temple's interest in punk music led to friendship with the Sex Pistols and this in turn led to his 1980 mockumentary "The Great Rock and Roll Swindle". "Absolute Beginners" (1986) is based on a cult novel by Colin MacInnes. Temple is the father of actress Juno Temple.