Читать книгу Sand In My Shoes: Coming of Age in the Second World War: A WAAF’s Diary - Joan Rice - Страница 43

How nice it is to listen in the mornings to the BBC broadcasting physical jerks¹⁷ when one has no intention whatsoever of doing them. Our Annie and I have practically no point of common interest. She's a large strapping woman with appalling legs and heaps of hearty laughter. Her spiritual home is in a damp tent with a smoking campfire and a brood of nasty little Girl Guides. In fact, I believe between being a general's daughter she was once a Girl Guide captain.

I went with Mickey and Frances to the pictures tonight and came back arguing about politics and the future of England. Obviously England is a declining power; obviously Communism has come to stay; obviously the breaking of British class barriers is a long overdue necessity if the country's ever to survive. Do you realise only 3 per cent of our populace, the lucky percentage with a public school education, can ever hope to receive any of the really first-rate jobs? Oh, the colossal conceit of a country, to limit its selection of brain ability from a future 3 per cent. There is so much wrong with the world, so much in a nightmarish muddle. Still there is this consolation: it's a bad world but it's not a dull one. It's got evil and stupidity and muddle but it's also got excitement and adventure and variety. For the cynical, for the without illusions, one can still live zestfully and not yearn too unbearably for Utopia.