Authors: Jonathan Coe
In the afternoon they threw me a really super tea party. Binko, Puffy, Meatball and Squidge were all there, as well as one or two representatives of the fairer sex, such as the exquisite Wendy Carpenter, who didn’t speak to me much, alas.
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Thomas was aloof and snooty, as usual. But the real surprise was when Uncle Godfrey turned up out of the blue. Apparently he’s on leave at the moment, staying up at Winshaw Towers, and he drove all the way over just to look in on yours truly! He was wearing his full RAF kit and looked tremendously dashing. He came up to my bedroom to have a look at my model Spitfires and we got embroiled in a pretty deep conversation, all about El Alamein and how it’s provided just the fillip which was needed for everyone’s morale. He was saying that the chaps are already looking forward to how much better things are going to be after the war, and started waxing rather lyrical about something called the Beaveredge (?) Report, which apparently says that everyone is going to have a better standard of living from now on, even the working classes and people like that.
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When he left he slipped a fiver into my pocket without saying a word. He really is about as decent an uncle as any cove could possibly want.
December 15th 1942
The worst day of my life so far, ever, definitely. Frightful scenes up at Winshaw Towers as we came to pay tribute to poor Uncle Godfrey. Nobody can really believe that he’s gone: less than a month since he came to my birthday party.
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The memorial service was bad enough, what with Granny and Gramps looking so wretched, and the chapel being so freezing, with the wind howling outside and all that. But the night before, we stayed in the house itself, where there was the most terrible how-do-you-do. Poor Aunty Tabs has been driven completely bats by the news, and has started accusing Uncle Lawrence of murdering his own brother! She physically attacked him in the hallway as he was coming down for dinner: tried to bash him over the head with a croquet mallet. Apparently this was about the sixth time this has happened. They tried not to let me see what was going on but while we were all having dinner some doctors arrived and I could hear poor old Aunty screaming as they took her to the front door. Then I heard this van driving off and that’s the last we all saw of her. Mater says she has been taken somewhere where she’ll be ‘well looked after’. I do hope she recovers soon.
Mind you, I certainly know how she feels. The service certainly brought a lump to the old throat, and for the rest of the afternoon I was in a pretty sombre mood, full of deepish thoughts about the futility of war and all that sort of racket. As Pater drove us home I started writing this sort of poem in my head:
In Memory of Uncle Godfrey
Weep, yea weep, ye men of War,
For one among you is no more.
The wind that howls round chapel walls,
Each drop of rain, each leaf that falls –
In mourning, all, for Matthew’s son,
So cruelly killed by filthy Hun.
Though fight we must – and not give in –
What bitter joy, if yet we win!
We used to call him ‘Uncle God’,
But now he lies ’neath Yorkshire’s sod,
Never to share in victor’s mirth —
Just pushing daisies through the earth.
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When Pater came up to say good-night I told him I didn’t think I could bear to go to war, the whole idea was just too dreadful. I don’t know what I shall do when my call-up papers come. But he told me not to worry about that and said something mysterious about wheels within wheels. Not exactly sure what he meant, but went to bed feeling oddly comforted.
November 12th 1946
After a decidedly sticky tutorial with Prof Goodman, my new – though in fact rather decrepit – Probability Tutor, went for a walk around Magdalen gardens. Oxford looking very beautiful this autumn evening. Am beginning to feel more at home here. After that, finally decided to attend a meeting of the Conservative Association. Pater will be very pleased. (Must write and tell him about it.)
And now, dear Diary, I am about to trust you with some top secret information: for the truth of the matter is, I THINK I AM IN LOVE. Yes! For the very first time! The President of the Association is a girl from Somerville called Margaret Roberts and I have to say that she is an absolute pip!
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An utterly gorgeous head of nut-brown hair – I just wanted to bury myself in it. Most of the time all I could do was stare at her but afterwards I did pluck up the nerve to go up and say how much I’d enjoyed the meeting. She thanked me and said she hoped I’d come again. Just try stopping me!
She made the most brilliant speech. Everything she said was true. It was all true. I’ve never heard it put so clearly before.
My heart and mind are yours, Margaret, to do with what you will.
February 11th 1948
Uncle Lawrence visited today. This is good news, because we’re only halfway through term and I’m already running out of cash, and you can always rely on the old boy to slip you something on his way out. Gillam was in my rooms when he arrived, at about 12.30, so he came out to lunch with us too. I thought this might cause fireworks, because he and Uncle were bound to get on to politics sooner or later: it was all quite good-natured, however. Gillam is all for Labour – we’ve always tried to keep off the subject, for the most part, but privately I think that most of what he talks is a lot of rot. Anyway, Uncle soon sniffed him out for a hardened Bevanite,
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and began ribbing him about this and that. He asked him what he thought of the idea of a National Health Service and of course Gillam went into raptures about it. But then Uncle said, In that case, why do you think all the doctors are opposing it? – because apparently only yesterday the British Medical Association voted (again) not to cooperate with the whole thing. Gillam said something feeble about the forces of reaction having to be resisted, and then Uncle pulled the rug out from under his feet again by saying that actually, as a businessman, he thought the idea of having a centralized Health Service made a lot of sense, because ultimately it could be run as a business, with shareholders and a board of directors and a chief executive, and that was the way to make sure it was efficient, to run it along business lines, i.e. with a view to making a profit. All of this was absolute anathema to Gillam, of course. But Uncle was in full swing by now, and started saying that in fact the Health Service, if properly managed, could turn out to be the most profitable business of all time, because health care was like prostitution, it was something for which the demand could never dry up: it was inexhaustible. He said that if someone could get himself appointed manager of a privatized Health Service, he would soon be just about the richest and most powerful man in the country. Gillam argued that this would never happen, because the commodity involved – human life – could not be quantified. Quality of life, he said, was not something you could put a price on, and added, In spite of anything Winshaw might say to the contrary. This was a rather flattering allusion to a short paper which I gave to the Pythagorean Society last year, under the title ‘Quality is Quantifiable’ – in which I argued (rather frivolously, it has to be said) that there was no condition – spiritual, metaphysical, psychological or emotional – which could not be expressed mathematically, by some sort of formula. (This paper seems to have made a bit of a splash: Gillam told Uncle, in passing, that its title invariably comes up in conversation whenever my name is mentioned.)
After lunch Uncle and I took tea together in my rooms. I congratulated him on ribbing Gillam so successfully but he assured me that it had all been perfectly serious, and I would do well to remember what he’d said about the Health Service. He asked me what I was planning to do when I left Oxford and I said I hadn’t decided, it was probably either industry or politics. When I said politics he asked which side, and I said I didn’t know, and he said it didn’t make much difference at the moment, they were both too far to the Left, it was a reaction against Hitler. Then he said there were several companies he could find me a position with, if I wanted: there was no point in starting at the bottom, I might as well go straight on to the board. So I thanked him for that and said I would bear it in mind. I’d never cared much for Uncle Lawrence before now, but he really does seem a very decent sort. As he left he gave me eighty pounds in ten pound notes, which should see me through the next few weeks nicely.
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BBC TRANSCRIPTION SERVICE
PROGRAMME TITLE
: ‘Matters of Moment’
TX
: 18 July 1958
PRESENTER
: Alan Beamish
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BEAMISH
: … We move on now to a new feature which we have called ‘Backbencher’, and which we hope will soon establish itself as a regular item on the programme. If we want to know the Prime Minister’s views on any particular issue, or – em – the views of the Leader of the Opposition, for instance, then we all know where to look. We can find them in the newspapers, or we can hear them on the wireless. But what of the – em – ordinary, working Member of Parliament, the backbencher, the man
you
have elected to best represent the interests of your own local community? What does he think of the larger – em – political questions of the day? To help us find out, I have pleasure in welcoming to the studio our first guest in this series, Henry – em – Winshaw, the Labour member for Frithville and Ropsley. Mr Winshaw, good evening.
WINSHAW
: Good evening. Now, what this government fails to understand –
BEAMISH
: Just a moment, Mr Winshaw. If I might just leap in with a little – em – biographical information, so that our viewers at home might know something of the background …
WINSHAW
: Oh, yes, certainly. By all means.