1951 November

 ^{November. National bankruptcy in sight: travel allowance cut, coal ration cut. "Peace  through overwhelming strength."}

 

^{Saturday, Nov 3rd}

              ^{Met Mary in Castle Street [Reading] and started for Amesbury. I was gloomy about weather as rain forecast. We stayed at Avon Hotel, a huge rambling inn full of excellent old furniture, huge drawing room, and staircase and passages hung with hunting scenes and four-in-hands. It was well warmed with central heating. A peculiar bed cupboard, very long and with a tray top containing the utensil.}

^{Sunday, Nov 4th}

              ^{When woke up it was raining and blowing hard, as B.B.C. had prophesied. At Stonehenge we got a bottle filled with milk at a tea stall as there was no milk in Amesbury. Then to Mere. It rained without ceasing. Fortunately I had brought a primus, but the problem was to find a place where we could light it. Near Stonehead we saw some old military ruins in a field. One had a roof. In a corner we managed to cook a stew of kidneys and potatoes piping hot. After lunch we went into Stonehead church and then into the gardens. Went back to brick ruin and made tea. The wind was now blowing a full gale and rain was driving across the very exposed road. We stayed the night at the Beacon Arms, Newbury, and were very happy at having discovered such a charming example of 18th century taste.}

^{Monday, Nov 5th}

              ^{We reached Reading about 9.45. It continued to rain and was sopping all day. It was unfortunate that our weekend coincided with 48 hours of downpour, but our plans worked out well and we did what we}

had decided to do in spite of this. Good staff work, I said. But I left my pants behind. Very awkward as had given Aunt Alice’s address!

Wednesday, Nov 7th
     Chancellor spoke today. We are heading for national bankruptcy. He proposes to save £350m by cutting non-sterling imports of unrationed and rationed food, slowing down strategic stockpiling, reducing travelling allowances from £100 to £50 a year. Much discussion as to how many Labour got from Conservatives by trying to frighten electors by telling them a vote for Labour a vote for war.

Friday, Nov 9th.

     Went over to Mary and listened to P.M. speaking at Mansion House dinner – for the first time,  as he pointed out, as first the Guildhall had been blown up and then he had been blown out. He said we had let the U.S. establish  their principal atomic base in East Anglia and thereby place themselves in the forefront of Soviet antagonism, so we had every right to receive then fullest consideration of our point of view. He was sure this would not be denied us. “We have certainly been left a tangled web of commitments and shortages, the like of which has never been seen before.” 

     <sup>Coal has been cut. There is very little boiler fuel. When our modest heap is burnt I do not know what we can do at the school. These are only the beginning. We shall have to wait to the New Year to see what the government’s policy really is. The old cries of “setting the people free” from controls, etc, is impossible whatever party is in power.                  Walked up the valley this morning. A good many leaves still on the trees even after the heavy rainfall of the last week. The cherries a crimson lake, the elms chrome yellow, the oaks burnt sienna, the hazels raw amber, and the beeches polished copper - very lovely to see. 
     Wilk and Nora went to see A Sleep of Prisoners at the Playhouse. Wilk told one of Vaughn Jones’s air force stories of a pilot who had an imaginary companion; a chair was placed beside him in the mess, an extra bed was made up for him in his room. Everyone accepted this. He had gone round the bend, like “Harvey’s” owner.

Sunday, Nov 11th</sup>

<sup>Another – one in a long series – offer was made to the Russians at U.N.O. in Paris. This Vishinsky has rejected as rudely and contemptuously as possible. The cold war, no peace treaty, or peace settlement, has gone on for six years. So far we have tried three roads:

1)   A trinity of powers, U.S., G.B. and USSR, working together. This proved in the middle forties a frightful failure. The “settlements” at Teheran and Yalta have resulted in the handing over of the Hungarians, the Poles and Czechs to Russians, have caused immense suffering and not gained, for all the give and no take, the slightest good will from Russia.

2)   A “third force” in Europe between the Russians and American blocs – impossible, economic and military facts are against it. Without American aid Western Europe would be overrun;

3)   “Peace through overwhelming strength”. This means the permanent mobilization of western power and the integration of the non-Russian world into one political, economic and military system. Considering we only got down to this a year ago we have made good progress.</sup>

^{Saturday, Nov 17th}

              ^{Another rainy day. A really wet autumn this year, rain, rain and rain. Thames rising. Everything sodden.}

              ^{Finished an absorbing modern translation of the autobiography of John Gerard, one of the Jesuit missionaries in the 1590’s – a book, as Graham Greene rightly said, ahead rather than behind our own day – a resistance movement with all the features we know so well from Poland, France, Hungary etc – secret landing with death lurking in the quiet countryside; disguise, betrayal, torture, escape, execution and so on. The martyrs must have been some of the best of Englishmen.}

^{Tuesday, Nov 20th}

              ^{Music competition – a young H.M., who had been music master at a grammar school, over to judge from Dorchester Secondary Modern. Very good indeed. Hambleden won it easily with a string quartet and madrigal. Asked Miss Hunter to lunch and she was quite amiable, which was a good thing because she had been annoyed because I hadn’t visited her, I being frightened in case I got a raspberry! Nora home with a portable gramophone for which she had paid £15.}

^{Saturday, Nov 24th}

              ^{A lazy day, breakfast in bed, down town to shops, then house chores and car washing. Nora home about 6 o’clock and had a kind of nervous breakdown. Will try to do too much – did not know whether Mary, me or the dog, which sick in dining room, the cause.}

             

^{Sunday, Nov 25th}

              ^{To Long Dene. Hilary in good form; spent part of day in his cubicle – slum like conditions, I think it is time he moved to a rather cleaner environment, part in Library, a dingy, dark and rather cold room - What you want here is a good fire, I said - and part in Castle Inn where they gave us a very good tea. Gave him back his work on ­The Gun, Henry V and collected Chaucer’s Prologue.}

              ^{[Editor. My Eng.  lit. studies were the upshot of a long dispute, with many letters back and forth between the Diarist and the Long Dene head John Guinness, arising out of the fact that Long Dene had chosen to enter my class for an English literature paper that was designed for sixth form pupils and not O-level at all. An additional complication was that I would be too young to sit O-levels in summer 1952. Hence I was being coached by my father in the standard O-level set books and I did the papers in summer 1952 and were  sent off to Leighton Park rather than the examination board).}