It was 1968 and the pace of life had certainly quickened. I had a girl friend, we both liked sex, even on a cold floor. Furtive sex, trying not to wake up the other people in the house, had its own special excitement, extra urgency, and desperation. We met whilst canvassing for the Labour Party. In the way of things, I was helping a friend who was hoping to be elected as a city councillor, and she had volunteered as well.
‘Would you like to go for a drink,’ I asked, hoping my voice came out as unbothered as I wished it to be.
It was very easy. Probably because she saw me as a possible recruit more than anything else.
She was a Young Socialist and invited me to attend their meetings, which I did. It turned out that I was a complete innocent in terms of political intrigue. The YS (the youth section of the Labour Party) had been infiltrated by Trotskyites. In the meetings one or two social democrats tried to hang on but everybody else had been turned into banner waving Trots.
When I come to think of it, remembering some of the zealots I met, I realise how close it is to the descriptions of what’s happening currently amongst young Muslims. I remember the sense of being assessed, chosen as a possible candidate and groomed. The relentless ‘evidence’ presented, the arguments that appeared to have no possible counter-argument. Everything was turned to the cause of World Revolution.
But I was a poor specimen for them. The reality was my interest was only superficial. It was more that I was trying on a set of clothes, checking the mirror, getting a feel for them, only to shrug and move on. Other than that I simply wanted a girl friend.
There were other things I was interested in even if I wasn’t too sure what they were. Though they did include poetry and psychology, especially the writings of R. D. Laing who pointed me in the direction of Wilhelm Reich (in a review in New Society).
The local peace movement was also there, through which I met a number of individuals who impressed me with greater solidity, greater depth of intelligence than the polished superficialities of the Trots. Three I will mention. The first was a teacher who impressed me with a discussion I had with him about personal morality. The second was a South African, a lecturer at the university who opened my eyes to the huge possibilities for change within the system as it was without the need for the violent overthrow of the ‘society’, the British government. The third was the local Communist Party organiser, who also ran a small bookshop. He was a rough diamond, hard, with a great sense of humour, who demonstrated to me through the way he was rather than anything he actually said, something of what it meant to be human.
And oh yes I got married.