then suddenly realised its falsity. Such realisations lead me to question my present beliefs, which is right and proper, I only hope I do it enough. … zpn
Tuesday 4th
… The morning lectures were first international co-operation, which was only fairly able; the barriers put up by capitalism are I think a very important subject, which the speaker ignored; an uneducated but highly relevant socialist-to-be (hark at the mature old man!) asked a question on this, but was largely evaded. zic zlu zrc zpn
… the secretary of the National Union of Students gave an extraordinarily good talk—briefly on what we (Youth) have got to do. Then Tom Elkins of Willesden gave a good sort-of-an appeal for a fund in schools for rebuilding schools in Europe—a good idea and a good morning. zic zrc
The papers have fully covered this [conference], and we’re to be featured in Picture Post; the News Chronicle reported our commission—when I’d asked for a vote on the banning of anti-semitic propaganda (unanimous against) and then on the desirability of government sponsored anti-anti-semitic propaganda (wrongly reported unanimous for, actually only about 60%). The ‘Sketch’ had awful blurb on ‘these young Atlases bearing with a worried frown all the troubles of the world’, and regretted that we preferred this to pantomimes. oof. zic znw zra zpg
Our commission was lead by an army lieutenant (at 10 mins. notice)—again rather woolly, the group is too big and people are continually irrelevant, but eventually we reached one or two conclusions—a good discussion, if unorganised. zic
I then took Elizabeth out to tea … I learnt this much about her today: (1) name is Zaiman, came from Russia two generations ago, Irish mother; (2) Medical student [prospective], exactly my contemporary ? Oxford; (3) Father has gastric ulcer, doesn’t like her going to theatre or being out late; she is a complete balletomane; (4) she remembers more about me at [the] Queenswood [conference] than vice-versa; (5) as much as I know her, I like her a lot. zfr zop
