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THE walk to Crowland, the visit to Peterborough cathedral, Ely swimming through the heat of the unsheltered fenland – as I write of them I am distracted, aware of some change which meant ‘nevermore’. In the light of later events it is easy to suppose that it was war that brought about great changes. I do not believe that my sense of loss derived either from changes in myself or the world I knew. The expertise of Will Mellows, the fiery yet controlled patriotism of Colman, the calm security of Hereward the Wake's country – I was dismayed, resentful of a past so filled with renown that it both stimulated and imposed a dead hand on my inchoate ambitions.
The Agadir crisis: what a nuisance these Germans were! “Wake up England!” King George V was alleged to have said. Well, what for? I was awake; so were lots of others. I would soon be going to Oxford or Cambridge – how wonderful it would be if I became an International! Wonderful indeed, but so ridiculous that such thoughts had to be kept secret.
I had no money so, I thought dully, I would have to win a scholarship. I knew no subject in which I could aspire to a scholarship except history – and that I did not like. I wrote half-heartedly to my parents, but I knew the answer so well that I could hardly bother to open the envelope or read their letter. No – I knew it – they had no money, unless £50 a year would be enough. It was awful to think that they imagined that £50 a year would do. Euston at Trinity, I told my father with such civility as I could muster, said I might be able to scrape through with £300 a year. I did not want to scrape through. I wrote, rudely, to my mother to tell her to get some sense into my father. She did not reply; even if the money was available I would need good manners too if I were to ‘scrape through’. To them I could express my
ambitions while exposing the bankruptcy of my equipment; I did not anticipate a welcome from less tolerant observers.
I had to go to sit for scholarship examination