Class distinctions

Friday, March 24th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

London yesterday. Pamela McKenna handed over a book which Birrell had given me in exchange for "The Golden Remains of the Ever Memorable John Hales", which he bought from me about 24 years ago when I was doing a few experiments in book selling - and never paid for.

On Wednesday night a Welsh vet. officer came here to sleep. 60. Very provincial and polite and talkative. All about Lloyd George and North Wales and Stanley Weyman. Just like middle-class provincials in the Potteries, except for the accent. Speaking of billeting in Manningtree, he said that billetees had to cook for soldiers, while not finding the food. "Now, many of them didn't like it," he said with sympathy and conviction, as middle-class speaking of and understanding middle-class. It was absolute Five Towns. No member of upper middle-class would have said it like that. A member of upper middle-class might have laughed, or said it indulgently, or said it comprehendingly, but not with the same unconscious sympathy.

Made me think about what effect this war will have on the class system. As far as I can tell it is still pretty well maintained in the trenches, but surely close proximity and shared hardships and danger must have some effect? And then at home when it is all over. Will the returning 'common' soldiers be content to revert to the situation as before? I doubt it, and in fact hope not. I think we have seen the end of an era.