It is not a term in widespread usage – rustication. It was the punishment that some tyrannical governments inflicted on dissidents who might challenge their authority.  It was a mild punishment compared with the Gulag incarceration which Stalin imposed. Victims were banned to remote rustic villages among strangers.

    The Greek colonel’s dictatorship banned the popular Communist songwriter and singer Mikis Theodorakis to a remote village in the Peloponnese. However, they permitted him to take his guitar and a recording machine.As dictators go, they were not very fierce.

     I was, at that time, the BBC’s Greek Programme organiser.I spoke to Bruce Page, who then ran the Sunday Times Insight team.  This was, at the time, the best thing in British journalism and – in my view – has never since been surpassed.  “It should not be impossible to send someone to interview Theodorakis.”

    Bruce detailed one of his journalists – a good walker – to try. My Greek colleagues and I briefed him. We even taught him a few Greek phrases to be able to ask directions.After him  we also directed a lady admirer to do the long march. It was the cold season and the lady wore a winter coat with large buttons. She got on well with Theodorakis and he gave her a tape with his latest songs. She wound bits of his tape round behind her buttons. Guards made her turn out  her pockets but did not spot what was hidden behind her buttons. She brought the tapes to me and I spliced them together — crudely. I was not very good at it but it was good enough for one of our staff, John Theocharis,  who had once been a choirboy, to learn the new songs and to perform them in our broadcasts, The composer was delighted.

I was promoted — to jobs that were a lot less fun,