YURI GAGARIN, the first human to travel into outer space, was born on March 9 1934, so let’s celebrate his birthday by remembering the time he embarrassed a British Tory government simply by being charming.

The Soviet Union’s achievement in April 1961, in sending a crewed spaceship into orbit and bringing it safely back to Earth, was greeted worldwide as the start of a new scientific and historic epoch. Humankind had entered the space age, and as the cosmonaut at the centre of it, Gagarin, this humble, smiling son of a carpenter and a farmer, overnight became the word’s biggest celebrity.

He was sent on a celebratory world tour, which reached Britain in July. This was a political headache for the British government; the cold war meant that Britain, as an ally of the US, was reluctant to give a hero’s welcome to a representative of the enemy. It was particularly embarrassing to do so at a time when the US’s own space programme was struggling, and failing, to catch up with the USSR’s.

Anything which gave a positive impression of the Soviet Union was considered a serious problem in Washington and Whitehall. During the second world war, while the USSR was our most important ally against Germany, a section of the Ministry of Information called Home Intelligence had closely and constantly monitored public opinion throughout Britain. Many of its findings were of considerable concern to those hoping to maintain the pre-war social and economic order in post-war Britain.

People of all classes and prior party allegiances were said to be in favour of “a kind of home-made socialism” which included “a resentment of the system which has given so much power to so few people.” Everywhere, the researchers found a determination that “things are going to be different after the war.” Rule by the privileged had had its day and would no longer be tolerated.

Meanwhile, “the gratitude and the admiration for the great fight of the Russians far exceeds the feeling for any other foreign country.” There was widespread suspicion that the Soviets were not being given the support they needed against the Nazis, because of anti-communist obsessions in powerful circles. Perhaps the two most astonishing notes to modern eyes, given how attitudes were to change during the cold war period, concern Stalin: “Greater faith is placed in Stalin’s word than in any other statesman’s,” and “Stalin is still the most applauded figure on cinema screens.”

Having survived the immediate post-war threat to its existence, Britain’s ruling class clearly worried that Yuri Gagarin’s visit might reignite dormant pro-Soviet and pro-socialist feelings. On the other hand, the authorities could hardly refuse to receive Gagarin altogether. Public opinion, internationally and domestically, would have seen this as unacceptably petty and hostile.

After much diplomatic toing and froing a minimal programme was agreed for Gagarin’s British visit. But the general public had different ideas. Wherever he went, Gagarin was greeted by large, enthusiastic crowds. People who were there remember him as handsome, dignified and genuine. In speeches and interviews he spoke of the need for peaceful co-operation; if the USSR and the West were to work together on the space programme, he asked, what wonders might they achieve?

In Manchester, in pouring rain, he insisted on opening the roof of the car and standing up. If so many workers had come to shake his hand, “The least I can do is get wet too.” The whole nation fell in love with the cosmonaut who had done something so extraordinary, and was yet so down-to-earth.

Faced with this tidal wave of Yuri-mania the government had to retreat. Gagarin was treated to a no doubt tedious, but ceremonially significant, programme of official engagements, and was formally received by the Queen and the prime minister Harold Macmillan.

Of course, Yuri Gagarin was merely the first human being in space. Laika, a stray mongrel from Moscow had orbited the Earth in 1957, her life sacrificed mercilessly for science. After Gagarin’s visit, worried British diplomats warned that the West Germans and the US were furious at the scenes from back home: “our reputation for reliability” had “undoubtedly suffered” as our allies watched the British people “rave over a Bolshevik on a propaganda mission.”

Harold Macmillan, insouciant as ever, refused to panic. “It would have been twice as bad,” he said, “if they had sent the dog.”

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