Saturday 16th September 1933

Letter arrived from Bradford, enclosing gloves for my interview. I must go on Monday! And take my kit, ready to settle in London if I get the job! This all seems so easy. Makes me a bit doubtful. Marjorie and my Mother are going too. Pity. I would rather it were a solo adventure. Perhaps this is my last week as a Lincoln resident. Thrilling thought! I hope it is – and no wonder! I am in bed – smoking and reading ghost stories. This time last year we were taking a bedtimes stroll at Ullesthorpe.

(2005 The foregoing about the mysterious trip to Bradford needs some elucidation! Which is not in my original journal. Marjorie was my half sister, although I did not know this until my Father died some years later. Marjorie lived at Thornton Hall near Bradford, with her husband, Ted Sugden.

Now here is a convoluted chain of circumstances: Ted Sugden was a partner in a firm of London Solicitors of Harrison and Sugden. At Egham in Surrey was an old established firm of paint manufacturers, Paripan Ltd. A few years earlier the Company had been involved in a dangerous lawsuit, which if lost might have ruined the firm. Harrison and Sugden fought the case using the well known barrister Sir Patrick Hastings, because of their success it made me see that Paripan “owed a favour” to Harrison and Sugden. It seemed that employing me as an industrial student must have been that favour. It was all honestly deceptive, I had never been a butter beater or office boy or railway clerk. Nor had I ever been on the dole. Instead I was vaguely assumed to be a public schoolboy. A year younger than my real age who had drifted about after leaving School. “Doing a bit of writing.” In short, I was to move up into the Upper Middle Class (pronounced Clarse). This deception worked and I was with this firm for 30 happy years.)