Q&A
What has Ho Chi Minh got to do with Sussex?
• SHORT ANSWER
Before he was the founder of modern Vietnam, he was a pastry chef on the Channel
• LONG ANSWER
Ho Chi Minh ruled Vietnam for more than two decades, stood as a communist figurehead around the world, and opposed the US in the Vietnam War. But in May 2013, a memorial stone dedicated to ‘Uncle Ho’ was unveiled in Newhaven on the East Sussex coast. This was to mark how, a century earlier, he had lived in England as a young man, including, he claimed, a spell as a chef on the ferry between Newhaven and Dieppe. The Vietnamese ambassador to the UK also presented a statue of Ho Chi Minh to a local museum, where it still resides today.