Tuesday, March 1
School. Miss H back full time, but seems to me very little better, poor woman, and position full of difficulty as cannot suggest she should give up myself or any of the staff either [arthritis was crippling Miss H].
Wednesday, March 2nd
Listening to-night to Mozart’s Violin Concerto no. 4 in D. “Music clear but indescriptive, precise and definite but about realities that have no name. A music with a spirit of Mozart’s, delicately gay among the constant implications of tragedy.” Words from Aldous Huxley’s latest book, Ape and Essence, which have just been reading, a book written by a mind full of disgust with the human race and disgusting in itself, by a mind full of fear, perhaps a mind that hates itself, by a mind fascinated by evil and getting from it a kind of prurient satisfaction. Yet by a man who loves beauty intensely – Shelley’s
A mortal shape indued
With love and life and light and deity.
For love and beauty and delight
There is no death nor change; their might
Exceed our organs, which endure
No light, being themselves obscure.
Announced this morning that Vishinsky has succeeded Molotov. Much speculation as to what this means…. I don’t think it sounds like much of a change for the better myself. Speriamo!
Sunday, March 6th
Did not know whether to give Open Day at Long Dene a miss but in the end woke up at about 5.30, got up at six, breakfast at 6.30, started off at 7 through the snow to Reading. Felt a bit doubtful if I should make it up the hill [probably refers steep, short hill from School House garage to road], but managed to get up, nearly missed the train as the booking clerk was late. Well wrapped up in duffle coat and rug and with small bottle of brandy. Train fairly warm. Reached Penshurt at 10 and walked across the muddy but less snowy hop fields to the school. Too bitterly cold to have a meal outside so had basic soup with parents after visiting various parts of the farm with Hilary. A party the previous day had visited a coal mine, but as he had not had mumps he did not go, though he remarked to me that ”nationalisation would be a good long-term policy”, and he knew what he meant! Had been playing hockey as well a football and on cross country runs. Went to tea at the pub and walked with me to the end of the road and then we parted. He climbed the hill back to the school, a sturdy figure in his bright blue duffle coat and hand-woven scarf. I walked across the fields, occasionally turning to wave until I reached the footbridge over the stream. Our parting seemed to symbolize the difference between our two generations and as I crossed the bridge I thought of the hymn line – “The narrow stream of death”
The Observer gloomy about defence. We have committed ourselves to defence of Western Europe, but we don’t seem to be planning a force to resist a sudden and violent attack on the Rhine, but one that will be built up after Europe has been lost…. The army is supposed to have only 3 or 4 operational divisions, less than in1914 or 1940….
Tuesday, March 8th
A rather tiresome day. However an army lecturer came with a good film, The Infantryman, and we used our projector for the first time and felt it was a worthy occasion. Otherwise Miss H a nuisance, "would I do something" about this or that. Reading my 1940 Diary see she was on then about my "doing something" to prevent children going out into the street to watch air battles, so she hasn't changed much!
Sunday, March 13th
Margaret Burton down for night. Margaret obsessional about socialist government, cost of living and Russia, in ascending order, and she and Nora nearly came to blows over the trial of the Cardinal. As Timothy Auty came down for lunch, felt there could be murder done, but Timothy neglected openings presented to her and all went off amicably.
Every time I read The Listener I am weighed down by the mass and bulk of information and think: too much knowledge and not enough enjoyment.
Monday, March 14th
Reading a report of a conference on leadership in a free society. The religious hymns of Akhnaton contain seven abstract nouns which seem to hang together to represent the needs of the human heart - Light, Life, Health, Joy, Truth, Love, and a word which means Beauty-Goodness. There is a need for ideas with immediacy. One speaker said that when men of good will look to Christianity for help, all they find is a mass of complicated theories about the universe, which ordinary people regard doubtfully anyway. The view of the Sixth Form about the Bishop’s book!
Tuesday, March 17th
Clothes rationing ended to-day – see June 4th, 1941. Cost of clothes so high that has not affected me for some time, except perhaps in the matter of shirts.
Debate in H of Lords on artificial insemination. Archb of Canterbury, when there is no husband, wants it made criminal. Considering how this would have been viewed even a few years ago, the government’s attitude is non-committal and shows how rapidly opinion changes. More common in U.S.A., but will increase in this country undoubtedly. Women who become mothers this way miss a lot of fun, sez I.
Friday, March 18th
Visit from a general, cod-eyed, pop-eyed, wheezing, to see playing fields, following a meeting of old governors. Ernie Bevin announced Atlantic Pact, or “Pak”, as he called it.
Saturday, March 19th
A terrific libel action going on in Paris brought by Kravchenko, author of I Chose Freedom, against a communist paper. Real defendant is Soviet communism. Some eyewitnesses: German communists imprisoned by Russians in Siberia, then brought out on Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and handed over to the Gestapo in Poland. A pretty piece of work !
Sunday, March 20th
N.A.T.O. “a gigantic work of constructive statesmanship”, the whole power of the western world, no American isolation, no western disunity but a pooling of defence. An attack against one of the western powers while still weak will be an attack against America. This will, we hope, give time to build up a combined European and American power. This great task has now been given to the Council of 12 established under the Treaty.
Some signs that the Russian government is coming to the conclusion that the western economy is not going to go bankrupt and that they must draw in their horns in the west and perhaps seek a face-saving solution of the German problem.
Thursday, March 24th
Over to Reading, but a second quarrel with Mary over my going to Switzerland; think I ran over a cat on the way home, so the end, you might say, to a perfect day.
Monday, March 28th
Great preparations for school play, The Rivals. Am doing a little exhibition of Bath in the library
No comments:
Post a Comment