{Country cottage}[12th April 1968]

[Redbook1:24][19680412:2000]{Country cottage}[12^th April 1968][Age 16]

12^th April 1968

8.0 p.m.

           

            I am writing this sitting beside the log fire at C.  (Full address: [...], Sussex -- commonly abbreviated to [...].)  D is still feeling bad, and I had to load the car, etc.  When we got here we found that the water pipe had come apart in two places, so we quickly fastened it together again with a screwdriver and new jubilee clips.  M and S went out to get some logs from the pile in the wood.  After tea I went out in the garden to plan railway lines.  [The black labrador] got over-excited and bit S on the nose, for which I beat him -- not hard enough, I'm afraid, because I was rather worried about S.  In fact all she had was two white marks.  We have had rather a fishy diet today as it is Good Friday -- kedgeree for breakfast and kipper to come for supper.

[PostedBlogger31082012]

{T.V. Violence}[11th April 1968]

[Redbook1:22-24][19680411:1130b]{T.V. Violence}[11^th April 1968][Age 16]

{continued}

            I have just been listening to a marvellous song called "Delilah", sung by Tom Jones.  I only realised what the words were the last time I heard it  "I felt the knife in my hand -- and she lived (?/laughed?) no more".  The people who complain about violence on television etc.  aren't altogether wrong.  I think part of the reason for the violence in the U.S.A.is the attitudes which they have been taught about violence.  When you see all the time brutal gangster-type films, in which the people who are shot are unreal, and documentaries on e.g. Vietnam, you become impervious to it.  In t.v. thrillers, the heroes are the only people who can be built up into real people; it is the "empty" people, who are not built up on t.v. lest the audience should be angry when they die, who are allowed to be killed.  One can see it from the producer’s point of view: the audience will always become involved in someone who is a real character, and they will be hurt and angry if that person is killed -- because they won't see him any more.  They may turn over to another channel.  So only the unreal people, those who don't matter, are killed -- and they are killed as often as is necessary to keep the excitement going.  It is only natural that viewers should make an unconscious assumption that only people who don't matter are killed, and that people who are killed don't really feel it.  When the opportunity comes -- in riots -- to hurt or kill someone, the killer doesn't think twice about it -- because the victim is not a real person.  He is only a subsidiary character, and he has no real meaning in the life of the killer.  Therefore, for the killer, he is not important.  THEREFORE HE IS NOT IMPORTANT.  It is obvious where the gap in logic lies.  The killer fails to see that to other people the victim must be important.  This lack of sensitivity must be attributed to the television in part at least.  After all, the television thriller has a time honoured framework.  At the centre is the hero, who corresponds to the killer in everyday life.  Around him is a close circle of friends and acquaintances who help him in his escapades.  But outside that are ordinary people, who walk about in the streets.  They are just there to provide scenery; they are quite unreal.  When the getaway car ploughs through them they scatter; the camera doesn't pause to see whether they survive or not: they are irrelevant.  The camera takes the normal human and make him see himself from the point of view of the abnormal, anarchic human.  He doesn't recognise himself as one of the crowd; he now sees himself as one outside the crowd.  This attitude gradually takes over his life.  The crowd don't matter; they can be sacrificed to his own needs; they aren't real people, they don't feel as he does.  They can be killed or hurt without conscience.  Of course he doesn't consciously accept this attitude; it creeps up unawares.  This, I feel sure, it's part of America's trouble: partly the repetition of violence until it becomes meaningless, partly the attitude of t.v. to ordinary people.  So far it has not taken over here, but there are signs that it could easily happen.  Our t.v. programmes and films are following the American trend.  Why, as D says, is sex not allowed on films when murder and violence is allowed?  We've got our priorities back to front.

[PostedBlogger30082012]

{Townhouse}[11th April 1968]

[Redbook1:18-22][19680411:1130]{Townhouse}[11^th April 1968][Age 16]

11.30a.m.

            The man D had in last night for a 2-hour conference from 8p.m. till 10p.m. was only a young man who had something to do with the [...] Association [...].  Yesterday evening D had such a sore throat that he could not swallow his supper and he went to bed quite early saying he thought he had got tonsillitis.

            The legal term ends this morning, and we were going to go down to C.  But D is feeling awful and M thinks he has flu.  He is in bed at the moment.  We will probably go to C tomorrow.  O[...], who used to look after L before N came, has come back to help N with L over Easter (they are staying in London).  She is young, Irish, and pretty.

            I have just done 50 more lines of Chaucer's Prologue and read 20 more pages of Powicke’s "Loss of Normandy".  I feel like a boiled owl!  I have also had to clear up my room as O will sleep in it when I am not here.  M wanted me to sleep in K’s room (K is not here) in the basement for one night.  I didn't want to.  I hope I'm not being awkward, but I don't sleep at home very much and when I am at home I think I ought to be allowed a room of my own all the time.  Also, the basement is rather dark and gloomy!

            Our house is not very beautiful from the outside, but I like it very much because I was brought up in it.  It is in what has become a fashionable part of London -- Chelsea -- since we bought the house.  It has six floors (including the basement and the attic).  It runs as follows going up the stairs from the back of the basement.  There is a small garden which is paved in, with two flowerbeds.  Then there is the basement kitchen (coming towards the front of the house) with a built-in cupboard.  The deep freeze lives there.  In the passage outside there are two cupboards, on right and left.  In the right hand one, under the stairs, the suitcases are kept; in the left hand one objects are stored and game his hung.  At the bottom of the stairs in front there are two doors; the one on the left leads to a temporary boxroom, normally a spare room, which is full of things left by my Grandmother (paternal) who died about a year ago.  There is an intercom between the two doors.  Straight ahead there is another spare room, the basement front room, which K is using at the moment.  It looks out onto an “area” with one or two coal-holes under the pavement.  The “area” is reached via a small room containing electricity and gas meters and switches, and which gives access to another cellar under the street.  Back inside: the whole of the basement floor may eventually be made into a flat for me.  Going up the stairs, there is a small lobby in which [the black labrador] is kept at night.  Ahead is the downstairs bathroom with two built-in cupboards.  The ascot in the near right-hand one had to be disconnected when a downdraught blew the fumes back into the bathroom and nearly suffocated our then p.g. (paying guest) [...].  Hot water now comes from the house system.  On the left -- we have now turned round to come out of the bathroom -- is the downstairs loo, a tiny cubicle with a pipe-radiator on which S swears she burns her bottom.  There is a short flight of about three steps, after a lockable door, which leads to the hall.

            The next door on the left leads to the main spare room, in which A is sleeping at the moment.  It also contains the piano and the television.  There is an intercom on the right of the door.  There is a slight zig-zag bend in the passage, then double doors on the left lead into the dining room (ground floor front room).  (It has a telephone socket too.)  This used to be one with the main spare room next door, but the arch between was filled in by a built-in bookshelf.  Coming out of the double doors, we go back along the hall passage and up the next flight of stairs to the kitchen.  This is panelled with vertical wood planks and is full of every modern convenience, most of which don't work very well.  It also contains a gas boiler and an emergency electric water heater encased in wood in one corner of the room.  Other pieces of equipment include a fridge, a six-ring gas stove with oven, a washing-up machine, and electric potato-peeler, an electric hand mixer, an electric grill, and a wastemaster (waste disposal unit) in the double sink unit (anti-clockwise from the door).  There is a telephone socket also, and an intercom, half way along the wall which is to the left of the door.  Turning round to face the front of the house, we come out of the kitchen and up another flight of stairs.  At the top, on the left, is the sitting room/library, with an intercom just inside, and to the right of, the door, and a telephone socket by the window.  Ahead is the drawingroom (1st floor front room) which has large vertical wooden panels round the walls.  The two rooms are normally made into one by folding back the connecting wall-length quadruple sliding door.  There is a balcony outside the drawingroom French windows.

            We turn round to face the back of the house.  Up another flight of stairs, and on the right in the tiny laundry room.  It contains a super 15 guinea Keymatic washing machine which is constantly giving trouble.  Straight ahead is my room, with 1 lot of built-in shelves and two built-in cupboards.  My room has a buzzer in it which can be worked from any intercom set.  Up the next flight of stairs lies a door on the left.  Go through this, and on the left is the study with a hidden safe place under the wooden "platform", and a telephone socket; ahead is M and D’s bathroom (the only one in the house with a shower or a bidet), and on the right is M and D's bedroom.  (It has an intercom in it, by M's bed, with a telephone socket beside it).  It has a built in cupboard.  (2nd floor front room) Up the next flight of stairs lies S's room, probably the nicest room in the house -- but one has to go down about four steps to get there.  It is always untidy -- or nearly always.  It has a buzzer like mine.  Outside it on the right is an airing cupboard.  Up the next flight of stairs is another opening on the left.  Through that and left again lies N's room, ahead is the nursery bathroom, and on the right is the nursery where L now lives.  Out again (An intercom is on the left), and ahead is an almost spiral staircase leading to the attic, which is now B's bedroom -- the nicest room geographically in the house.  It has a good view and is always warm (hot air rises from the rest of the house) and usually light.  French windows (with an intercom and telephone socket on the left) lead to a flat roof overlooking the back garden and the roof of S's room.  It is fenced in with an iron framework and chicken-wire-netting.  (Electricity plug and water-tap).  If one turns round again, there are two gullies at the side[s] of the attic roof.  The right hand one leads round to the front of the attic, with a narrow unguarded ledge high above the street, and thence onto other people's roofs; it is highly dangerous.  The left-hand gully leads onto the roof of our next-door neighbours by a somewhat safer route (in case of fire) -- one hops left over the parapet on to the next-door roof and into their attic window.  But one can also, by putting one foot on the chimney breast and stepping on top of the flat roof, get one of the best views in Chelsea.  That is the Crystal Palace tower, I think, to the south -- but I could be wrong it is rather far west that -- Battersea Power Station, BOAC tower at Victoria, Westminster Cathedral, West London Air Terminal, Stamford Bridge Football Ground, Lots Road Power Station, Fulham Power Station, and the Albert Suspension Bridge.  But there is a very nasty drop indeed on the North side -- facing the square -- and the wind can come in gusts -- so be careful!

            The doctor has just arrived to see D -- I think it is Doctor Macpherson.

            In a way, this book is a successor to the Commonplace Book which [...], the head of the history department at school ([...]) asked my form all to keep up.  In my case it was not very successful.  It is also a successor to the few attempts I made while at prep(-aratory) school (St. [...]), Kent) to keep up a diary in those "Letts Schoolboys Diaries” I used to get at Christmas.  I used to keep it up for a week or so, then there would be more spaces filled with "Nothing Much Happened Today", gradually abbreviated to "N.M.H.T.", and eventually abbreviated to nothing at all.  It is not a successor to my present diary, which is a "future" diary -- an engagements diary, as it were.  This is definitely a "past" and "present" diary -- if by its size alone!  Can you see me carrying this round in my inside jacket pocket?

            The doctor has just left again, and sounding quite cheerful.  M said that she wouldn't pack until tomorrow.

{continued}

[PostedBlogger29082012]

{Secret Committee}[10th April 1968]

[Redbook1:14-17][19680410:1200]{Secret Committee}[10^th April 1968][Age 16]

10th April 1968.

12.00 noon.

Yesterday evening, at a dinner, D disclosed to M and me that the secret committee to oust the government had decided to meet at this house.  Despite D's emphasis on the urgency of the situation -- D thinks that Wilson is now at the lowest point of popularity and that he will rise again quickly -- they had decided not to meet here till after the first of May.  This also means that I shall be at school.  I asked M if she could write and tell me about it, she said yes, but D said probably not.  At that moment the others came in with the second course and we had to stop.  He also mentioned some names of members of the committee.  One, I think, was Michael (?)  [...]; another could have been the Secretary of the Conservative Party, but I am not sure.  I shall report any further developments which come to my ears.

            As my mother has just had a baby, the house is rather full of domestic staff -- that is, the modern polite no-class-nonsense term for what used to be called servants.  There is A[...], the French au-pair girl, who is very pretty but is becoming rather overweight on C[...]’s puddings.  C, who has just finished working for us today, is a cook, also young and pretty but rather reserved and strained, and with little sense of humour against herself.  She has done the cooking for M.  She is, I think, called C[... P...].  Her food looks exotic but turns out often to be rather plain, though her braised liver is very good.  N[...] is the newly-arrived nurse who looks after L.  She is also young, and very nice, but she is not all that pretty.  Mrs T is the daily help, who comes in from 10a.m. to 1p.m. most days and from 10a.m. to 4p.m. on some days.  She does not come at weekends.  She is an invaluable help in keeping the house clean: help?  -- She does it all herself!  She is also very cheerful, very large, and has a nice singing voice.  She is middle-aged and married, and her only son O is [...].  There is a story that her husband, when he saw the pain and mess that was involved in having her son, said “I promise I'll never do it again, I promise!"  -- and he apparently hasn't!  She is the best kind of British working class, and we all like her enormously, though B teases her unmercifully.

            I got up at about 10.30a.m. this morning to find that D had already gone to work -- surprisingly early for him, he must be on something important -- had a bath in potassium permanganate-sprinkled water (I am trying to get rid of Athlete’s Foot, which I have had for about two years now), no breakfast as usual, and did some Chaucer.  Then M gave me a lift to Victoria station on her way to visit Lily, her dress-maker.  I walked down the central roadway on the "Brighton" side where it said "no entry" and bought some Smarties for the Easter Hare to leave in C garden.  Then I got a refund for two of the three tickets to "Romeo & Juliet" (Zeffirelli) which we hadn't used -- the third hadn't been sold -- less 10% fee -- and caught a Number 11 bus from outside the Grosvenor Hotel.  I took a ticket (8d) to the Classic Cinema (King's Road, Chelsea) but jumped off short of Sloane Square because we were stuck in a traffic jam and I was late for lunch.  Lunch was H’s own soup and chops with greens and mashed potato.  After that H left.  M went off to have her hair done, the three children and N went out with [...,] the eleven-year-old golden labrador and [...,] the eleven-month-old black labrador, to the Royal Hospital grounds on the banks of the Thames.  They came back at about 4.30p.m., and we had tea -- I just had a cup of tea and a meringue.  At about 5.30 K, ([... ...], living in our basement) came in and had some tea.  N has just taken L up to the Nursery.  I can hear the television talking downstairs -- I expect S is watching it (she is a T.V. addict).

            I shan't normally write such long accounts, but one or two are a good thing as they may give some idea of my daily life.

            Last night D said he thought that the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in Memphis might solve America's internal problems by making its people taking a new and startled look at themselves.  I know what he means, but all I can say is -- Kennedy's death didn't stop violence and death in the USA.  Could it be an attempt by the Communist Chinese to foment civil war in America and distract them from Vietnam?

            I discovered a way to turn the state plastic tracks of the Triang 'O' gauge railway into the long radius curved tracks -- by cutting them on the outside rail and taking them together with P.V.C. tape, keeping the cut ends slightly apart.  Do this a lot and you've got a rather bumpy curved rail.  I am now soaking the experimental piece of rail and water to see how it stands up to a soaking.  It seems to be O.K. so far after about half an hour.

            I am planning to build a railway in 'O' gauge (Scale: 7 millimetres to 1 foot, Gauge: 32 millimetres) and round the garden at C.  As eventually planned it is quite ambitious, and will cost more than £133 at the present cost of track -- but that is a final plan which may take years to complete.  Thanks to the new taping idea, the track laying itself is easy and quick.  It is the laying of the wood on which it runs (on piers) that is complicated.  I laid a test track last summer which has survived the winter, but it has shown me that I need deeper holes for the piers and only one 6” nail in each pier to hold the planks on -- but larger holes so they will slip out more easily.  I have decided to lay double tracked from the beginning – single track makes life too complicated, and is difficult (on a model) to double afterwards.

            D has just come back.  He says he's going to meet someone here this evening, which is unusual.

[PostedBlogger28082012]

{Introduction}[9th April 1968]

[Redbook1:1-14][19680409]{Introduction}[9^th April 1968][Age 16]

[p(i)]

{‘“In order to be made whole we must first be broken” – Thomas Aquinas’}

[p1]

[Name]

Book, Volume I

[p5]

THIS BOOK IS VERY PERSONAL.

DO NOT READ IT.

 [p11]

Introduction, 9^th April 1968.

            This isn’t exactly a diary, nor is it exactly a commonplace book.  It’s a sort of mixture of the two.

            I shan't always fill in every date, and the entries under a date may be nothing to do with day.  They may be just what I thought on date.  Maybe the book will peter out after a few entries -- but I hope not.  It cost me 13/6d, for thing!

            I am in the odd position of writing for three types of people.  First of all I am writing for myself as I write -- as do all diarists, perhaps.  Secondly, I am writing for myself in the future -- a completely unknown self, who may perhaps recapture some of my present thoughts and attitudes (which seems so important to me now that I cannot bear to think that I might forget them!).  Thirdly, I am vaguely -- or perhaps not so vaguely, as its introduction shows -- I am vaguely writing for posterity (I nearly said prosperity, though the two may not be synonymous).  That is the biggest uncertainty of all.  What is posterity?  Does a black waste of atomic dust lie before us?  Will this book be read by green skinned creatures with tentacles waving eagerly as they try to solve the mystery of my awful writing?  I doubt it, but there is a chance.  I shall probably not reveal this to anyone before my death.  I advise the owner of this, if I don't burn it myself or leave instructions for it to be burnt, to hang on to it -- it may not look much now but it could be worth a fortune in the future.

            Perhaps I ought to introduce myself.  My name is [...].  (My full names are [...], in that order, but I try to ignore the middle [...].  I am sixteen years and ten and a half months old, having been born on [...] May 1951.  I am about 5 feet 9 inches tall, and I don't think I have stopped growing.  I have brown hair and brown eyes, and my feet smell.  I am interested -- to put it mildly -- in railways and also in transport generally.  I would like to learn to shoot but haven't been very successful so far, though I am not bad at it.  I am also interested in coins -- who isn't?! -- but any interest is not in their worth now but in their worth in fifty years time -- in other words, I am a numismatist of sorts, though a true numismatist would no doubt find me very frivolous in my approach.

            The whole idea for this began when Granny -- my mother's mother, Mrs [...], who lives in [...], Sussex -- and my Uncle [Q] -- my mother's brother, who is chaplain to a secondary school in [...] (he was, incidentally, the first chaplain to a secondary school or a state school{?}) came for the afternoon.  We were talking of this and that -- mainly that -- when my mother (M) suggested that Granny write her memoirs and she (M) would type them.  Uncle Q said what a good idea was, and I suddenly had the idea of writing this.  So when they left I nipped out to Smith’s and spent most of my money on this notebook -- I chose a big one so that I wouldn't lose it -- and here I am, on the same day, writing it.

            There are now six persons in our close family.  My father is [D].  He is forty-five.  He is a very successful junior barrister (Junior means that he has not taken Silk to become a Queen's Counsel, which he has not done because it means a drop in income at first, and we cannot afford that at the moment).  He is at the moment engaged on some confidential work, which does not bring in money, however.  He is advising Mr Heath (Opposition Leader) in how to improve his image and that of the Conservative Party generally and that of politics.  He was also on the committee -- and is, I think, on it still if it is still functioning -- which was formed in emergency [....].  But he has hinted once or twice at something even more important -- a secret committee to force the Labour government to resign.  He mentioned it once.  Twice after that I have asked him about it in private, but each time he has changed the subject so cleverly that I haven't noticed -- I think by reminding me of something else which is more important.  He isn't a leading barrister for nothing! 

            My mother is [M], born [...].  She is forty-five also, about two months older than D.  She does all the secretarial work involving the family estates (I don't mean the land kind necessarily) and trusts etc.  She also runs two houses and adds up all the household expenses so as to get maximum benefit from income tax allowances and refunds.  She works extremely hard, and yet she manages to keep her good looks, by careful manipulation, very well (so has my father, actually).  She worked in [...] during the war.  (My father, incidentally, was badly wounded and afterwards became a diplomatic assistant to Churchill and carried out several important missions of which he will not tell even me the precise nature).  Both my father and my mother are very close about their wartime experiences, and don't like telling anything.  She puts up a very well with the irritability my father sometimes shows, which is, I think, due to internal troubles resulting from his wound caused by a hand grenade in the war.

            My sister [S] is twelve, and will be thirteen in [...].  She used to be small and feminine, but has now grown very large.  She is not yet interested in boys, though she accepts that she will become so eventually (she is resigned to it!).  She is very interested in horses -- she is mad about them, in fact.  She is at the moment in the throes of puberty/adolescence -- she sees everyone being horrid to her.  She is intelligent, but does not know how to apply it.

            [My brother B] is seven, and is rather spoilt.  He was expected to be the last child for about seven years, and then suddenly his whole world changed when [L]  arrived.  He is now very jealous.

            [L] is too young to describe adequately.  She is very hungry and cries a lot.  She is about six weeks.

            I have just been talking to S, who is writing a book about some twins who keep a stud farm.  It is loosely based on life at [C], our country cottage.  We discussed the problems of libel -- she wants to have adventures involving the [...]ists, who live near us, and whom I hope to describe later.

            I must now get down to some work on my text of Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, which I am preparing for my English ‘A’ level next term.

[PostedBlogger27082012]

{Quotes}[April 1968]

[Redbook0:25-30][196804ff]{Quotes}[April 1968][Age 16]

(Started in April, 1968)

This book now becomes a book of other people’s quotations, since my own thoughts have gone into the huge “diary” I am now keeping.

 “Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem”

(What pleases the prince has the force of law.)

(Roman legal tag) {Ulpian}

“Remember that the French are discouraged if they do not immediately succeed in anything they undertake.”

(Charles V’s Political Testament

January 18, 1548

(Advice to Philip))

“They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings.”

(Ian Fleming?)

{-- quoted this in “Diamonds are Forever”,

from Emerson’s poem “Brahma”}

Uncle George and Auntie Mabel

Fainted at the breakfast table;

Children let this be a warning:

Never do it in the morning.

“For what man that is entred in a pley

He nedes moot unto the pley assente.”

(Chaucer, “Clerk’s Prologue”)

“Here is set out a long story of the English-speaking peoples.  They are now to become allies in terrible but victorious wars.  And that is not the end.  Another phase looms before us, in which alliance will once more be tested and in which its formidable virtues may be to preserve Peace and Freedom.  The future is unknowable, but the past should give us hope.  Nor should we now seek to define precisely the exact terms of ultimate union.”

Winston Spencer Churchill:

Final passage from

“A History of the English-Speaking Peoples.”

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,

    Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
    One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
    One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
    One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien:

Prelude to “The Lord of the Rings”.

“Thou has lost thy princely privilege

With vile participation”

Shakespeare

Henry IV to Henry (V),

Prince of Wales

{Henry IV Part 1, Act 3, Scene 2}

Skirts are getting shorter,

    said the fairy to the gnome

Two more cheeks to powder

    and a lot more hair to comb.

(Anon.)

“Here I stand; I can do no other; God help me; amen.”

(attributed to Luther, Diet of Worms,

January 18^th 1521, probably mythical words).

(as quoted by Elton , in “Reformation Europe”).

They do say that in New York there are only two kinds of pedestrian – the quick, and the dead.

"What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!"

"Pity?  It was Pity that stayed his hand.  Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need.  And he has been well rewarded, Frodo.  Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so.  With Pity."

"I am sorry," said Frodo. "But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum."

"You have not seen him," Gandalf broke in.

"No, and I don’t want to," said Frodo.  "I can’t understand you.  Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds?  Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy.  He deserves death."

"Deserves it!  I daresay he does.  Many that live deserve death.  And some that die deserve life.  Can you give it to them?  Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.  For even the very wise cannot see all ends.  I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it.... "

Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings.

[End of Redbook0]

[PostedBlogger26082012]

{The Norman Conquest}[18th February 1968]

[Redbook0:21-22] [19680218]{The Norman Conquest}[18^th February 1968] [Age 16]

18.2.68

[Initialled]

THE NORMAN CONQUEST

            “Did they conquer us – or did we conquer them?”

            STOP – Don’t read any further yet, but read that sentence again.  What have you assumed about it?

            “Did we conquer them – or did they conquer us?”

            Does that make it any different?  Have you assumed the same thing about it as in the first quotation?

            Think what you would have felt if you had read the second quotation first, and the first quotation second?  Would you have assumed the same thing about it?

            Are you assimilated?

[Pages 23-24 are blank]

{The TOE Thesis}[18th February 1968]

[Redbook0:13-21] [19680218]{The TOE Thesis}[18th February 1968] [Age 16]

18.2.68 

 [Initialled]

THE TOE THESIS

            I suppose that every person on this earth is responsible for at least one person’s death. Most of us remain ignorant of any such responsibility, but the responsibility is still there. Sometimes many people (who may have no connection with each other) are responsible for one person’s death; sometimes one action by one person is responsible for many people’s deaths. The actions might be good or bad, morally wrong or morally right, thoughtful or thoughtless. The culprit may never hear of the death he has caused, or he may hear of it and not connect it with his own action, or he may connect it with his own action and suffer the full consciousness of his responsibility. For thought the fault is not with the instigator of the train of events, it is his fault that the train of events began. I shall describe one typical, topical train of events.

            “Molly, dear, drop down to Ashby’s and get me 100 Kents.” So Molly goes out, and on the road she is narrowly missed by a lorry driver who, while still shaken by the near miss, takes a kerb too close and causes a pedestrian to step backwards out of his way and knock over an old woman who breaks her leg and is taken to hospital by an ambulance which rings its bells and flashes its light. “Look at the ambulance, dear”, says a small boy’s nurse to her charge; he turns round, slips on the wet grass, and gets his coat covered in mud, and when his mother sees it she is so angry that she has a heart attack and dies. Therefore Molly’s husband has instigated a train of events which has culminated in the death of the small boy’s mother.

            There are four obvious follow-ups to this.
(1) Did the train of events really finish there? It may well have gone on for ever. Someone may have crashed on the way to the funeral which caused someone else to ... and so on.
(2) Did the train of events really start with Molly’s husband wanting cigarettes? Why did he want cigarettes? Who introduced him to smoking?
(3) How many other trains of events led up to the mother’s death? Was she subject to heart attacks for any reason? Was she angry anyway? Was she frustrated?
(4) How many trains of events were started by the mother’s death? Did the small boy receive a shock which influenced him in later life?

            Where did it all start?

            Where will it all end?

            Life is composed of many, many trains of events, all leading in the same general direction (that is, the same direction in Time; they probably all follow the same direction in Time as we do). They cross and recross continually, uniting, dividing, but very rarely, if ever, stopping altogether. The may lapse unnoticed for many years, even centuries; a fossil may lie in rock for centuries, but its discovery may cause the rise to fame of a previously unknown archaeologist. Some trains of events have already been plotted, in the shape of family trees; these provide but a sketchy account of the T.O.E.s they describe. Why was so-and-so conceived at that particular moment? (Socially, I mean, not biologically!) Some fascinating speculations may be raised by this. Did William the Conqueror have anything to do with the nasty taste of the fish I had for lunch yesterday? If I don’t go to school periods today, will I live to be 94?

            Another question raised is: Can anyone start a T.O.E.? This is a difficult problem. They must have started somewhere – unless the Universe is either infinite or circular (in terms of time, that is). If it is infinite, which no human can reasonably imagine – it is something quite beyond our powers of comprehension, surrounded as we are by finite things, though that does not make it any less probable – if it is infinite, I say, the T.O.E.s are stretching on from ever for ever. Q.E.D. If it is circular, which is possible, then the T.O.E.s join up with themselves and also form circles (much interconnected circles at that). This also is difficult to imagine, though nonetheless possible. The most easily understood solution is that of the straight line with a definite end or ends – by which I mean the theory that Existence began somewhere and may or may not end somewhere. This poses the interesting problem of what was there before existence? – but I digress. A Christian dogmatist would believe that all the T.O.E.s lead from God – who created all things – and some may believe that, in the end, God will gather up the strings into his own hands again at the Last Judgement. (What happens after that we don’t know). Personally, I believe in an infinite universe – sometimes. I think it is definitely infinite in the “future”, though it might possibly have been started in the past. But, again, I digress.

            The question was: can anyone start a T.O.E.? I think not. It may depend on individual character, but what is character? A character is formed either by environment or by genetics. Environment is easily shown as part of the T.O.E. line; genetics can be seen as the influence of environments on ancestors. I have heard of genetic throwbacks and so on, but I don’t think even they are by chance; there must be a cause somewhere. There is no such thing as random movement in Nature, although it may seem to be random to us mere mortals who, despite our wonderful science, etc., get a very one-sided view of things. An individual may reawaken a T.O.E. which has been dormant for some time – but another T.O.E. will have caused him to do it. This doesn’t mean that there is no free choice; when we “weigh up the pros and cons”, we are choosing of our own free will in the light of the influences on us which are caused by the TOEs. Therefore each choice forms part of a TOE; but it is still a choice. If the final outcome of the choice had been different, a whole new TOE would have been created. But surely, you may say, if all choices are affected by these TOEs – are indeed, made by these TOEs – surely man has no free will at all? Of course he has free will. I know that when I choose a certain course of action, the choice really does rest with me; it is I who take into account the environmental factors which have been made by the TOEs. My final choice will depend on my own character and mind; that mind has been formed by environmental TOEs, as I have shown above, but it is still MY mind and therefore MY choice. Therefore, I think that although no man can start a TOE, he may be able to influence its course – either fatally or otherwise. Then, you may argue, surely it is not Molly’s husband’s fault that the boy’s mother died? If the boy had not turned round, he would not have slipped over. You’ve missed the point. The boy need not have turned round, but he did; the other TOEs which had combined to build up his character, and still more TOEs which made him have nothing better to do than turn round then, made it pretty likely that he would turn round when his nurse told him to. But if the TOE which caused the ambulance to be passing had turned out differently, and had not caused the ambulance to be passing at that moment, the boy would not have turned round. So we see that there are some TOEs which are more important than others.

            But surely, you may say again, it wasn’t Molly’s husband’s fault – he didn’t start the TOE. No, but he influenced it; if he hadn’t wanted cigarettes, the TOE would have led to something else, possibly something even worse. Lots of other people also influenced the TOE, of course; but that doesn’t take away any of Molly’s husband’s responsibility.

{The Transport Problem}[28th November 1967]

[Redbook0:11-13] [19671128]{The Transport Problem}[28^th November 1967] [Age 16]

28.XI.67

The Transport Problem

            The transport problem as we know it today is the result of a giant planning boob.  I don’t mean that the roads were built wrong, or anything like that (though that is, indeed, true); I am referring to a much bigger boob – or rather, a series of boobs.

           

            The first boob is rather outside our control.  Somewhere in Creation, Someone was drawing up a list of qualities for the New Creation – man.  What exactly happened isn’t quite clear.  Perhaps someone jogged Someone Else’s arm; perhaps a naughty Cherub added an extra line and no-one noticed – or rather, Someone didn’t notice.  Anyway, man was given a new dormant quality (that is, a quality which sleeps until its time comes for waking up): the Desire to Get Away From It All.

            This Desire (I shall call it the D.T.G.A.F.I.A. – for short) is also known as the D.T. Gafia disease, in memory of the man who first found he had it.  Back in prehistory, one of the first Men thought of the very original notion of killing a mammoth.  After all, there it was – five tons of moving meat and bone weapons, just walking about waiting to be eaten.  So D.T. Gafia seized a sharp pole and went out to spear his first mammoth.  When he found a mammoth, he walked round for a bit looking for a place to prick.  After a few circuits he decided to try for the back leg – he was, you understand, rather inexperienced at the time – as this looked the least aware part of the creature which he could reach.  So he stabbed.

            Suddenly, he was seized by a violent desire, which he could not quite put a label to.  However, the desire took over; he found himself running as fast as he could away from the mammoth.  He had, of course, got the first bout of D.T. Gafia disease.  However, he had not long to congratulate himself.  He might have been having a Freudian nightmare; for as fast as he ran, he never seemed to be getting anywhere in relation to the mammoth.  Indeed, the mammoth was drawing nearer and nearer to him at every mammoth stride.

            Let us shed a quiet tear for D.T. Gafia, the discoverer of D.T. Gafia disease.  He did not die unlamented; at least, not by the mammoth, who got a nasty bone splinter in his foot.  In addition to discovering D.T. Gafia disease, he was responsible for the rise of the spectator sports of the period, which led to the later bear-baiting and bull-fighting.  For I forgot to mention that the whole tribe was sitting round the area, watching the effect of Gafia’s actions.

{Lifelike/like life}[6th October 1967]

[Redbook0:10] [19671006]{Lifelike/like life}[6^th October 1967] [Age 16]

6.X.67

            The business of the painter is to make things look larger than life.  If he paints a realistic scene, people will say: “This is realistic, but, of course, it is only a painting.”  So he must add touches of his own here and there, touches which, although they may rarely occur in life, will make people say: “What a clever touch!  Of course that is just what would happen in the circumstances, but could you or I have seen it and copied it down?”  These touches are part of what is known as “artistic licence”, and they are what makes a painting like life.

            To be lifelike is not the same as to be like life.

[Initialled]

           

{as it looks to archy}[28th May 1967]

[Redbook0:8-9][19670528]{as it looks to archy}[28^th May 1967][Age 16][Extract from external source]

as it looks to archy

ants go on their cheerful way

merrily from day to day

building cities out of sand

and they seem to understand

dwelling therein peacefully

disciplined and orderly

and the much lauded bee contrives

for to fill his thundering hives

with a ranked society

based on work and honesty

and a thousand neat examples

could I cite of insect lives

free from much that tears and tramples

human beings and their wives

even the coral in the ocean

throughout his dim and damp existence

scorns political commotion

and labours with a glad persistence

worthy of large commendations

to erect his naval stations

man the universal simp

follows lagging with a limp

treading on his neighbours toes

the way the little insect goes

in a million years or more

man may learn the simple lore

of how bees are organised

and why ants are civilised

may even hope for to approach

the culture of an average roach

if he is humble and not smug

may emulate the tumble bug

DON MARQUIS

archy’s life of mehitabel

{World's End}[28th May 1967]

[Redbook0:6-7][19670528]{World's End}[28^th May 1967][Aged 16]

28.V.67

WORLD’S END

The sun soft warms the waving grass

The shade of trees shifts on the lawn

With perky hop the sparrows pass

Now here, now there, by nature drawn

To search for food, to build a nest

To live from one day to the next

To feed their young, to do the best

They can, is all the world expects.

The bee that hums inside the flower,

The hawk that hangs upon the air

The fox that, conscious of his power

To kill, creeps forth from gloomy lair,

All these, and more, are ignorant

That, as they live and “earn their bread”

And do the things that they are meant

To do, their doom hangs on a thread.

What right have we, who share their world,

To shape their future with our own,

So when we’re from existence hurled.

The must fall too; mix bone with bone,

Their flesh with ours; and so we must

Destroy ourselves with wars and lies

And through the bomb return to Dust;

But why destroy their – paradise?

[Initialled]

5.67

{Adultery for adults}[20th May 1967]

[Redbook0:5-6][19670520]{Adultery for adults}[20^th May 1967][Age 15]

 20.V.67.

            “Strikes me” that half the trouble about divorce, adultery and all the other charming marital problems of today arises from quite a different cause than that which people usually attribute it to. The mouthpieces of the people are very fond of “new lax morals” speeches, denouncing the new generation for being loose and not appreciating. But surely the trouble is that we are taking it all too seriously.

            In earlier times people often married the wrong person, someone whom they later discovered that they didn’t love – sometimes they did it on purpose.  The answer was quite simple: if you were a husband, you took a mistress; if you were a wife, you took a lover.  Husband and wife often knew about the other’s situation, and accepted it quite easily.  Thus divorces weren’t necessary, which prevented all today’s problems like children from broken homes.

            Nowadays, as husbands and wives become more jealous, so it becomes more difficult to hold together a marriage which doesn’t work.  Divorce is simply the only outlet for a couple whose marriage hasn’t “clicked”.  People are drawing much more attention to these sort of cases; “Look”, they say “here are signs of our moral decadence.  These things never happened in the 18^th century.”  I bet they happened then alright, but people had the taste and decency to shut up and mind their own business about other people’s affairs.

{VeryCommonplace Book}[20th May 1967]

[Redbook0:3-4][19670520]{VeryCommonplace Book}[20^th May 1967][Aged 15]

VERY COMMONPLACE BOOK – all the rest of the class has them too!

            So this guy speaks to us, and he says: “There’s an idea I’ve been wanting to put into practice for a long time”, or words to that effect, “and each year I forget to do it.  I want you to keep commonplace books, in which you will record your thoughts, hetcetera.”  Dead silence. He then goes on to say how we will find them fascinating when we grow up, etc., and how HE WON’T WANT TO READ THEM.  So if, “this guy”, you’re now raging at what I’ve written, you’ve only yourself to blame!

            Well, Mr. H~, here is a selection of the inmost thoughts and ideas of your depraved and juvenile (naturally – how else?) youth, interspersed with a few quotations which he found interesting, or even which he thought “this guy” might find interesting when he looked through the book.  i.e. some of these may be what I thought would give him a good impression, if he thought that I was interested in it!  Still, I will try to stop myself writing “to an audience”, as it were.

Started 20^th May 1967.

-- in a feeling of inexplicable optimism.

[196705200000]