Dorothy frowned and said she simply couldn’t forgive him [Hobsbawn] for accepting the Companion of Honour: ‘OK for an actor or entertainer, but absolutely not for serious, critical intellectual work – I’m afraid I had to strike him off my Christmas card list.’

Letter: Tim Towers London Review of Books 9^th May 2019 p4

[Both Hobsbawn and Thompson were major British historians in the mid-20th Century]