{Dear me}[13th October 1973]

[Redbook2:20][19731013:1835d]{Dear me}[13^th October 1973]

19731013 1835

[continued]

(L)       [….]

[PostedBlogger28022014]

{Film Death?}[13th October 1973]

[Redbook2:20][19731013:1835c]{Film Death?}[13^th October 1973]

19731013 1835

[continued]

(L)       The mistake that most film directors make is to imagine that there is nothing more to it than blood and guts and a gruesome expression.

[PostedBlogger27022014]

{Compromise}[13th October 1973]

[Redbook2:20][19731013:1835b]{Compromise}[13^th October 1973]

19731013 1835

[continued]

(L)       Life is just one long compromise.

[PostedBlogger26022014]

{Toasts}[13th October 1973]

[Redbook2:20][19731013:1835a]{Toasts}[13^th October 1973]

19731013 1835

[continued]

(L)       Long live everyone.

           

Down with everything (etc.)

            The Scottish Toast.*

*‘Here’s to us! Who’s like us? Damn few, and they’re all dead.’ – surely? <870810>

[PostedBlogger25022014]

{The nature of Communism}[13th October 1973]

[Redbook2:20][19731013:1835]{The nature of Communism}[13^th October 1973]

19731013 1835

            From my notepads:

(L)       There is really no such thing as Communism; there are simply people, with leaders and ideals and motives.  Capitalism exists much more than Communism as a reality because, paradoxically, Man has to do much less to attain it:  it is more natural to him, fortunately or unfortunately.

[PostedBlogger24022014]

{Bright Hammer}[15th September 1973]

[Redbook2:19][19730915:1958]{Bright Hammer}[15th September 1973]

1973090151958

            They say that lightning never strikes twice.  From my room I can see an earth-shaker of a thunderstorm with initial squalls, periodic hail or almost continuous rain.  The sheet lightning is all around – we seem to be near the centre of electrical activity, so that every few seconds the fields stand out stark for a flickering second or two.  But the fork lightning seems to strike mostly at some spot a few miles dead South – again and again.  The air seems so charged there that (unless it is some after-image) some strikes seem to hang in the air before disintegrating.  And at one time the lightning seemed to strike several times in quick succession – hardly fading – in that same place.

            Of course we all know it goes up not down – polecat Science – and this is an iron-bearing area; but it is almost as if the proverbial mad scientist was testing his fiendish lightning device again and again from his secret laboratory in the Hills.

[PostedBlogger23022014]

{Dream of [K]}[15th September 1973]

[Redbook2:18][19730915:0602a]{Dream of [K]}[15th September 1973]

1973090150602

[continued]

            I had dreamt – I ought to have put this before the Dawn, where it came immediately – I had dreamt that *K had gone out to walk in the warmth of the Night.  B and I, going to our beds in my room, heard through the open window a voice like hers calling a strange three-or-four-note chant, perhaps from between the [...] and the Farm.  I was chilled.  B was frightened and turned out the light.  The voice stopped.

            I turned on my big torch and shone it out of the window; but we never heard the voice again. 

            (Did we ever see the girl again?)

            (The dream continued but to no apparent purpose, and I got up).

            Now everything outside is light and green, the mists are vanishing, the East is glowing pale green-blue, there are clouds overhead and the Moon is obscured.  I think I am going back to bed.

*[probably K.A, a schoolfriend of S and (for too short a while) a friend of mine [….] <870810>]

[PostedBlogger22022014]

{Morning}[15th September 1973]

[Redbook2:17][19730915:0602]{Morning}[15th September 1973]

1973090150602

            I’ve just seen B and M off to cubbing.

            We caught the Dawn at that most beautiful instant.  In the East the Sky was pink fading to pale blue with snow-white cloud-bellies.

            Directly overhead a single Star still shone in the deep shining dark blue.

            Slightly to the West, in a shining white ring, the Moon still shone bright silver in the Night Sky.

            On the ground the mist still clung to valleys and hills so that the dark trees grew out of a pale Sea.

            Five minutes later, it has gone.  Grey cloud is following the pink and pale up from the East.  I have just seen what I thought was an exceptionally bright star there which turned out to be the headlights of an aeroplane heading for Gatwick.  I can no longer see the Star overhead.  The Moon still shines but more dimly now, and without its ring, in the blue Sky.  Only a huge vapour trail catches the fire of the Sun and sets a flame across the Sky.

[PostedBlogger21022014]

{Autumn}[1st September 1973]

[Redbook2:16][19730901:1332]{Autumn}[1^st September 1973]

197309011332

            From my window I can see that Autumn is beginning to turn the tips of the leaves at the ends of the branches – a beautiful translucent gold-green in the case of one oak(?), which tosses in the wind so that golden waves pour across it.

            The horses have just come thundering down from the other end of our paddock for no obvious reason.

            I am worried about Q.

[PostedBlogger20022014]

{Contrasts}[28th July 1973]

[Redbook2:13][19730728:0044]{Contrasts}[28th July 1973]

19730728.0044

            Today I told M of D’s intention to buy a boat and engine – he had told me a few days before.  Her reaction is to write to the Bank Manager at once reminding him that she is not responsible for the joint account overdraft.

            Walking back along the King’s Road I passed a little blond girl, perhaps eight years old – she had an extraordinary depth of expression and alertness in her eyes:  a compelling intelligence.  Her arm was atrophied, hanging loosely from her shoulder for a total length of about six inches or a little more, to a tiny hand.

[PostedBlogger19022014]

{Winding-up}[25th July 1973]

[Redbook2:12][19730725:1157]{Winding-up}[25th July 1973]

19730725.1157

            On the way to work D told me he intended to give up [his work] and wait for another appointment.

            This evening he said that bailiffs could seize anything in a house except bedding and tools of trade of a debtor and others in the house(?) – thereby making S feel insecure, and self murderous.  I truly think if men demanded my personal possessions for another’s debt I should be prepared to kill to protect them – or would I?  Presumably the real danger is of bailiffs coming in one’s absence. I must look this up.

[My aunt] G sent a young African friend, [O], who stayed to supper – a nice lad, intelligent with a sense of humour.  We operate to some extent on the same frequency.

D seems to have forgotten that he said he would pay half the repair bill on my car.  I suppose I shall have to remind him expressly.

[PostedBlogger18022014]

{Silly Stories}[21st July 1973]

[Redbook2:11][19730721:1359a]{Silly Stories}[21st July 1973]

19730721.1359

[continued]

            I do dislike this habit of leaving wastepaper  baskets at the foot of the stairs, to be carried up.  Coming down the attic stairs I put my foot in a red one and clumped round the landing unable to get it off (… or might have.).

            S reminds me of the time she and B, sleeping in the room beyond the nursery, had a row.  She read in the camp bed; he went to sleep and rolled off the back of the Dutch bed.  She thought he was rowing: ‘Oh shut up, B, and go to sleep’ – and went on reading, as he threshed and mumbled ‘Help me, S’ from down under the bed.

            … Like the time the Danish girl [J-N](?) was trapped, helpless with laughter, when it folded her into the wall.

[PostedBlogger17022014]

{Family Matters}[21st July 1973]

[Redbook2:10][19730721:1359]{Family Matters}[21st July 1973]

19730721.1359

            Shortly before I went to stay with Q on the Tuesday (?) after my last entry, M told me D had brought up the subject of divorce again.

            They had a row on the phone yesterday, between 2 and 3 pm – returning [home], I was depressed then – and he offered her 3 choices: (1) Total division of property  (2) C alternate weekends  (3) ?Separate bedrooms at C (?) – this arising out of not being able to have (3) this weekend ([*]he says he told her he was coming) (This all on her say – except [*above].

            She says [the family doctor] has told her that he and [one of his partners] will testify in Court that [D] is not fit to have the children.

[PostedBlogger16022014]

{….}[6th July 1973]

[Redbook2:8-9][19730706:0009d]{….}[6th July 1973]

Friday

19730706.0009

[continued]

            [….]

[PostedBlogger15022014]

{Old Plots}[6th July 1973]

[Redbook2:8][19730706:0009c]{Old Plots}[6th July 1973]

Friday

19730706.0009

[continued]

            Detail of the old plots is forced together in my mind.  I am sure I could convince others – even myself, on paper; perhaps this is my chance?

[PostedBlogger14022014]

{Possessions}[6th July 1973]

[Redbook2:8][19730706:0009b]{Possessions}[6th July 1973]

Friday

19730706.0009

[continued]

            It is amazing how much one keeps … and goes on keeping (not being able to throw it away).

[PostedBlogger13022014]

{Brickishness}[6th July 1973]

Redbook2:8][19730706:0009a]{Brickishness}[6th July 1973]

Friday

19730706.0009

[continued]

            The texture of brick is very … real? – Brickish?

[PostedBlogger12022014]

{Gone}[6th July 1973]

[Redbook2:8][19730706:0009]{Gone}[6th July 1973]

Friday

19730706.0009

            Q has gone, and I am restless.  Sequitur?  The daily record has already disappeared.  (Funfair on Tuesday – very empty – taken over by non-African, non-Asian Coloureds?; sorted out [basement] back kitchen on Wednesday; Science museum today – full of noisy school parties and (mostly French?) tourists).

[PostedBlogger11022014]

{End of Diary}[3rd July 1973]

[Redbook2:8][19730703:0042]{End of Diary}[3rd July 1973]

Thursday

197307030042

            There appears to be a fire near the gates of Battersea Funfair – with electrical trouble (from the flashes, and the lights going out), and with a possibility of gas explosion (from the radio).

[PostedBlogger10022014]

{Second Degree Day}[2nd July 1973]

[Redbook2:7][19730702:1040]{Second Degree Day}[2^nd July 1973]

Monday

19730702.1040

            Saturday was Q’s Degree Day – I was taken out with her by her parents and her family.  Family seemed to like me but father kept his own counsel most of the time.  We punted on the river in two parties; Q pointed out that I should not perhaps have beaten her father!  Q appears to be her father’s favourite.

            I became entangled briefly with University bureaucracy – no members of the University on the Senate House floor without gowns – but emerged triumphant.

            On Sunday I drove Q back to [her home], arriving late for lunch.  We walked in the woods, and got lost.  I left soon after four, hoping to beat the traffic, and not wishing to miss another supper laid on.  I arrived soon after five.  The family arrived after ten.

[PostedBlogger09022014]

{The […] Movement}[29th June 1973]

[Redbook2:6][19730629:2255a]{The […] Movement}[29^th June 1973]

Friday

197306292255

[continued]

            CB confirmed me as President (non-executive function) of the […] Movement – next meeting outside the National Gallery.

            In the Senate House the bored petrologist and Vice-Chancellor […] got his Latin wrong.  The man with the moo-box changed his mind at the last minute, and I forgot about my owl whistle.  Nevertheless the solemnity of the occasion became awe-ful and inspiring. 

            Film cameras appeared for ED, who grew six inches taller on the spot.  The rest of us cracked nervous jokes (self specially) on the way in, and talked inconsequentially afterwards.

[PostedBlogger08022014]

{Degree Day}[29th June 1973]

[Redbook2:6][19730629:2255]{Degree Day}[29^th June 1973]

Friday

197306292255

            Degree Day – and a slight feeling of redundancy.  [S] on the verge of breaking down – into tears – appeared at lunch in the Fellows’ Garden with his father.  His appeal to the College Governing Body failed.  [BQ] brought his dull English father and proud […]an mum.

[PostedBlogger07022014]

{Post-mortem}[28th June 1973]

[Redbook2:4-5][19730628:1623]{Post-mortem}[28^th June 1973]

Thursday

197306281623

            Yesterday, Q returned at about five, having apparently been warned briefly by her mother not to get hurt.

            In the evening we went to LO’s home made wine party – rather a flop – his spastic (?) sister W, a nice girl, quietened things down.  Everyone tired and dispirited, I think.

            I neglected Q shamefully and talked too often to R(V?); but we walked back together in the rain [...].

            This morning we are better.  I met [EE] [my Director of Studies] and asked if he expected my Third; he had the grace to dissemble.  IB was downright unhelpful and even aggressive, throwing the onus back onto me in his usual rude fashion.  I cannot cope with this in the context of my own failure.  But a nice letter came from M – how splendid mothers can be.

            Neither academic claims to have expected my Third.  I am beginning to wallow in it in a boring way, as Q told me.

            .1940

            EE became my Director of Studies for this last term; IB remained my Tutor.  When I met EE this morning and asked him, he said that of course he did not know for my other subjects but for the two he taught me he had hoped I would get a 2:2.

            It only occurred to me later to wonder why, as my Director of Studies, he did not know about my other subjects.

[PostedBlogger06022014]

{[The College]}[27th June 1973]

[Redbook2:2-3] [19730627:1601a]{[The College]}[27^th June 1973]

Wednesday

197306271601

[continued]

            I do not wish ever to give money to [the College].  I have made some good friends here; but they have not included any of the Academic Establishment.  In my first year I needed help; I was refused it: outright by IB, impliedly by others.  I passed. In my second year I lived out, worked in, hated law and stepped up a class.  I had no help or advice.  In my third year I lived in, enjoyed myself moderately, accepted bad (and sparse) advice and became over-confident.  I slipped to a Third – unnecessarily, and through my own errors of judgment; but better advice might have saved me.

            Outside my room at this moment workmen are putting the finishing touches to temporary fuel tanks to enable the new building to go ahead.  The rubbish grinder under my room grates, and the dustbins attract flies.  Frightful booms and arguments herald the advance of progress.  I wouldn’t mind so much the fact that they restarted work about a week ago had I not spent many hours of worry trying to stop the work of building the substructure from going ahead before my exams – to be told that it had to be done; it was done, and the tanks sat at the bottom of it for three weeks, through my exams, until the May Ball.  I do not blame this for my third; but the noise and anxiety and attitude are inconsistent with a College, least of all in exam term.

[PostedBlogger05022014]

{Diary}[27th June 1973]

[Redbook2:2] [19730627:1601a]{Diary}[27^th June 1973]

Wednesday

197306271601

[continued]

            This Book succeeds my previous journal.  Re-reading it, I notice that it also was intended as a diary – “I chose a big one so that I wouldn’t lose it”: although I never lost it, I feel I lost sight of the original aim.  I find reading it fascinating as to development, but very little use as to developments.  This is another try, after five years, at the beginning I hope of a new ‘episode’.  Certainly the journal will continue; I hope a diary will appear as well.  Whether the diary of current events will also continue here remains to be seen; it has certainly ended in its present form.

[PostedBlogger04022014]

{A Turd}[27th June 1973] [Aged 22]

[Redbook2:(i)-2] [19730627:1601]{A Turd}[27^th June 1973] [Aged 22]

[…][Hunter]

(Book, Volume II)

Wednesday

197306271601

            A clearer, cooler night: I woke up as cold as usual in that bed, but comfortable.  Clearly keeping a diary (as against a journal, which this should also be) needs some care!  Q’s mother arrived at about eleven: seeming a little fierce at first (naturally), she thawed later.  We loaded the car; she seemed surprised at my carrier bagful in Q’s room.  I left them for lunch at One; It is now Four and Q has not re-appeared.  Perhaps the explaining has not been easy.  Q’s mother has a strong personality; Q sees some way into her but (naturally) cannot use the knowledge.  Like most mothers, Q does not let go easily.

           

            I have finished a long and complicated episode (if that is an acceptable expression, which I doubt).  My bid for academic respectability has failed.  While my Third (or Turd) shattered me – particularly in view of Q’s Two (One) – I am not now disconsolate: cross, and a little worried about prospects.  The answer probably is to play it by ear – which I would have done anyway.

            Inevitably I doubted myself at first; but I have finished with that.  In its own way, this could be a blessing in (heavy) disguise, spurring me on to spiteful ambition, and diverting me from more conventional success.

[PostedBlogger03022014]

[The Wind, the Edge of the Sea, and Fusion Child][To 1st May 1973]

[Redbook1:265A,297A-I;2:1A-1G][19730501:0000][The Wind, the Edge of the Sea, and Fusion Child][To 1st May 1973]

(197211041126)

The Wind.

I will go where the wind takes me

I will become a free agent

And when the wind fades into silence

I shall die.

[(PreviouslyPostedBlogger28112013)]

The Edge of the Sea.

(197302070012)Copy

(&197302152222)

Through wet rocks thundering

I came to the last shore:

Standing alone, wind-blown,

Healed with the slow rolling heave,

The shuddering crash of the great breakers,

The endless trouble of the Sea.

Like the fair people of a darker, clearer age

I carry the Sea always with me

My clearest vision of Creation.

At the end I shall come so to the final shore;

I shall stand in the wind of the long strand;

I shall feel the Wind die into silence;

And when the Wind fails

                                    I shall die.

The Sea in my Blood:

And the blood of the land

And the bones of it; turn

From the point of your ending,

The death of your being, the end: from

The edge of the Sea.

Turn to the land

And the blood and the bones of it.

Sea-birds wheeling call my heart

But I will not go back.

This is my land:

Fusion Child.

19730501.1539.

So he took the train;

And whirring through the grey country, felt

The weight of Men, the press of endless years

Upon him.

‘I cannot go back. I cannot go back.’ Still,

As gliding on some empty estuary we

Race our own reflection to the shore,

And scattered gulls wheel crying through the fog:

Still ‘I am lost!’ he cries

And buries half his face within his arms;

So that old ladies turn and stare,

And purse their lips, frowning, and -- turn to look

Out of the window: the old lady, is not there.

‘Is nothing real?’ Out to Sea

A tiny fishing smack charges the waves,

And stoops, and climbs again: charges,

And stoops, and climbs. ‘Is nothing real?’

The fool cries: ‘I am alone!’

‘I flounder in an endless clinging fog

And that is all I have: the Fog.

God help me when the Endless Testing comes.’

Perhaps, is this the endless testing time?

‘God help me when the Endless Testing ends!’

No, no – poor fool, quieten your tiny mind

(He said). This is no time to end.  Look!

All is around you: All is one is all.

Totality’s effects are very strange

But they are true.

                        ‘True? True to what?’

True to Itself.  But Itself is All!

Let’s try another tack, late out of tune:

This is my land.

                        The Sea is gone:

And all around, the fields turn

And pass, turn and pass

And fall away.

Cows chew, sheep graze; more cows

And still more cows huddle under the woodland’s dripping edge

Where the greentrees gathering

            Swell to the wooded uplands’ beckoning murk:

Last remnant of an ancient forest realm

That lay across the land from Lyonesse

Into the icy North --

            Releasing from its heartlands’ rooted grip

Only the Chalk.

                        Now we are all Chalk.

And still I love this country, spite of all:

This country and its chalk-faced, bitter folk

Who have lost more in a lifetime’s silent watch

Than have most peoples in a thousand years:

No, we have not yet finished.  Still we are one,

Spite of everything, and will be:

One with the land,

                        And all that is in it.

So it is with the rest:

                        The Land is just a corner of the World;

The World is little in the Universe…

                        … As Space is in Creation.

All is One.

We clatter past deserted, weed-grown sidings

And rattle through a silent Sunday town.

My friend taps gently on the window-pane.

‘I see – I think I see…. I see, I think,

I know that what is wrong is what I see

Not what I think – I think.  Is nothing real?’

‘Oh yes.’ I say, and snap my fingers, once.

The Child of Laughter comes.

The fair-haired Child who sits beside my friend

And watches him with clear and laughing eyes

Is known to all.

                                    So that makes three of us.

‘Oh God.’ He says. ‘Why did you bring the Child?’

‘I? I brought nothing.  We are all One.

You said: “Is nothing real?”  Why fear these ghosts?’

‘I’m not afraid of ghosts.’ he mumbles; then

‘Is nothing real?’

                        ‘Of course it is!’ I said.

The Child of Laughter smiled, put out a hand:

I held it. ‘All reversed.’  I told them both.

‘All you perceive is real, and all implied,

To its degree; the rest can keep itself.

The whole is subject to the same One Law:

The problem is to find where It’s applied.

We are All One: Creation is All One.

Creation isolates Its Particles

And limits them in opposition vile.

Don’t ask me why – Give me your hand!

                                                            ‘I said

That everything that you perceive is “real”,

And all implied is “real”: it stands as One –

Though not to us: our limited percept

Will corrugate perspective (till we die?).

Now that’s the point: there is one thing more “real”

Than all the Stuff that great Creation springs,

More real (to us, and It) since, less direct.

It is the very structure of Creation –

And since not even All can form Itself

It must through limitation be procured.

So here we are – especially, here you are:

A splinter of the All (as we of you):

A mortal gathering-vessel of the Core,

Immortal form, that we might call – experience.’

He nods.  ‘It has a horrid logic smell.

It fits in with religions here and there.

It gives me back my tottering self-respect.

I’ll buy it.  Good.’  He frowns.  ‘But who are you?’

‘You could have worked it out from what I said.

Dear friend! But tell, me, first, just who you are?’

‘Well… now….’  He smiles.  ‘All right then: you tell me.’

‘I will.  We three are one – within the All.

You are Awareness; and – you kicked us out!

You are the gatherer of the immortal Core.

Apparently it’s all a bit too much:

D’you think it’s time you turned, and took us back?’

He stares, and hardly breathes.  ‘But who are you?’

‘I? I am Reason.  Rather dull it’s been

Alone – but useful.  Still, I had the Child.

You know you need my Rule; you need that Power.

I know we need your purpose and your Core.’

He smiles.  ‘Reason I’ll take.’

                                                Surprise: you have.

But who’s the Child?

                                    The Child is called creation.

creation! (-- breathed)  And that is what I feared!

There is the clearest vision of the All:

There is the closest to the Power of One.

Yours is the Life from All, collecting Mind;

The Child’s is Its Mind, constructing Life.

And yours?

            Oh, Reason guards the bounds – and keeps

The Limits clear – it keeps experience clear:

And disciplines creation – holds it near.

I will take creation.

                                    So the Child

Flings golden arms around his neck – so wild

The love, so close the hold, they seem to turn

To one, the fusion child: the light we burn.

Paddington: and through the echoing crowd

We three walk hand in hand, into the Sun.

And left behind unsatisfied Old Lady

Frowned, and pursed her lips, muttering: ‘Young people!’

(19730501.1953)

[End of Redbook1]

[PostedBlogger02022014]

{Contract and Conscience}[3rd June 1973][Age 22]

[Redbook1:296][19730603:1828]{Contract and Conscience}[3^rd June 1973][Age 22]

(Sat) 197306031828

(L)       Written on jurisprudence lecture notes for 19721027 (VII – ‘Restraining’ – exercise of liberty.)

            Contracts etc.. must be subordinated to conscience.

            Conscience in relation to The People must operate directly in favour of all the people, not any sectional area. (i.e. Union leaders….).

[PostedBlogger01022014]