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And now this war – with Germany of course. Ridiculous. Why is it that nobody did anything about it while I've been busy getting qualified? Well, thank goodness Mr Chamberlain had the sense to go and see Hitler and it has all been settled.
So I could go for two or three weeks to Church Farm, Happisburgh, in Norfolk, with a party of friends including actor John Glyn Jones and actress Betty Jardine. That at least was a success: Glyn Jones was extremely amusing; Betty Jardine, whom I had seen in The Corn is Green as Bessy Watty and also at the Players Theatre, was not so amusing, nor as attractive as I had expected, but was likeable. She was obviously a very fine actress. Nuisance about Hitler though.
I went on from Happisburgh to the south of France, passing through Monte Carlo which was on the route but otherwise uninteresting; nice petunias in the central square seemed to fill the neighbourhood with their glorious odour. But it was not sufficient to screen the less appealing stench of Hitler and Nazi Germany. It was easy to believe that the stink of the corpse of Imperial Germany mingled with the stink of decay from Imperial Britain was what the athletic perfume of post-war Oxford had failed to disguise in 1919. This was twenty years later and I still could not get the smell of Glory out of my hair. Roquebrune and its orange blossom, a walk to Monte Carlo, a good dinner and not very expensive vintage champagne, the soothing rhythm of the surf below my window – it was very agreeable. But I had no company except my thoughts, and twenty years had not been long enough to establish these with sturdy roots. I cared for nobody enough to form a dense, impenetrable barrier against … but surely I could not be called up to join the dis-armed forces of Very Great Britain? Once you have learnt, have been really taught that you are a
coward, no amount of official certification by the highest authorities is any more use than the first aid bandage slung across the gap where Kitching