tea. Wandered about Truro eating chips. … Saw a bad case of rickets—horrid. zil zwk zfd
… debate ‘Little boys should be seen and not heard’. 1st K—poor; 2nd B—good; 3rd M—good speech, reactionary and irrelevant; 4th F., then G, H, me. My first speech. Probably inaudible. I said that M’s conservative ‘good old days’ policy was OK—if you’re the gentry. I also said that you did not learn self-mastery by being mastered. … zdb zpn
Sunday 18th
… Misty damp morning, with blue sky forever showing through the mist, but never coming right out. We saw the first waders arriving—redshank, ringed and grey plovers. zwr zwl
… three M of I [Ministry of Information, or MoI] films—’Silage’ (good), ‘Stretcher Parties’ and ‘SDS’. Then RJC and I went up to the Biology lab. and dissected rats. zfm zpg zsa
Rather a good sermon by a German pastor, who, however, was convinced that a new world could be built only by Christians on Christian foundations. On Christian principles, yes, by the present usual type of Christian, no. … zrl zpn
Max said to Roger that my only common ground with AWW was Benenden—I wonder. Actually I often find him very aggravating now—he’s so damned superficial in everything he says or does, that one never knows whether to believe him or not. zfr zop
However, he’d thought a little about some things. zfr zop
Monday 19th
… Began reading Aldous Huxley’s ‘Ends and Means’—he takes a very gloomy view of the USSR today (written during Moscow trials). The terrible developments he mentions are (1) Vested interests in rulers and (2) Militarism in schools. I think the first is probably rather exaggerated, and the second, though partly necessary, worries me. He sees it as wide self rule under Lenin, and iron discipline under CP and Stalin. zru zbp
Things to avoid here—where, with our tradition of the principle (if not practice) of freedom, it should be easier. The conservative plan [for zpn
