Thursday 30th
… 3 destroyers and a blockade runner sunk in the bay of Biscay. Enormous Russian breakthrough. I was moved to the drawing room after tea; a Pressed Steel arc welder CP friend of Margaret’s came to supper—is going to put me in touch with some contemporaries in Oxford. … He was extraordinarily nice and interesting. znb zru zil zhy zpm zop
Friday 31st
Up at 11, to spend a very lazy day happily browsing through books, to bed just before next year. Mother went to a Univ. New Year party for which she had made some jellies—she did not stay very long. Funny Louis MacNeice wireless play—wise in parts. zfl zcl zrd zpo
January 1944
Saturday 1st
… there was a Mommy-Margaret scene because Margaret turned on the kettle without any water—fortunately I discovered that it was not burnt out, but automatically switched off. Then we went to see Oxford rep. at the ‘Playhouse’ perform ‘Charlie’s Aunt’—which I did enjoy—Margaret a bit stern, as she is unfortunately apt to be on frivolous occasions. … zag zfl zdq zth zop
[The following day I went to London for the next inter-schools conference (at Central Hall, Westminster), staying with friends of my parents.] zic
Monday 3rd
I am writing this after tea today, having a lot of time before me and no company or other engagements to distract me, and therefore I feel it a good time for stock-taking of myself—a diary being an introspective instrument to avoid the embarrassment from intimacy. zdw
First, however, I must record today’s happenings, which were enjoyable. … I walked down Whitehall to the abbey. Crowds of youth, zic
