1968: THE SNOBBERY IS REVOLTING

Ascot 1968 (Getty Images)

Monday, 17 June

In English we studied ‘Idols’ by Francis Bacon. He was very advanced for the 17th century. Had German and French dictées - both ok. Lucy got an A for the ‘Spring and Fall’ essay, and I got a B. Pretty discouraging. Got in a flap about exams, so I’ve decided to take tomorrow off.

Everyone’s raving about Mrs Morgan’s husband who’s definitely as good-looking as Finklestein. Lucky Mrs Morgan!

In Chump’s form room there are some green tiles on the window-sill. One is loose, and underneath it she and Anna-Marie found a scrap of ancient looking paper with ‘Members of the Green Tile Club 1957’ written on it - it’s been there all this time!!!

Washed my hair. Listened to German. Went down the garden and saw the pool being filled.

Oh dear. What a deadly Diary.

Tuesday, 18 June

At last - the Amitié thing has arrived!! She’s called Marie-Claire and looks awfully sweet. My sort of type. Her father is a ‘medical practitioner’ and she likes sailing, just as well if we’re to go sailing every weekend. Unfortunately she lives in Calais. Paris is 275 miles away.

Pa’s got a ghastly sore-throat and I’m so worried about him. I do wish he’d go to the Doctor’s. He, me and Chump went for a walk round the garden when the rain had stopped. The leaves were covered with raindrops and everything was beautiful - it smelt of wet earth and roses. We went barefoot because the ground was warm and steamy. The pool now has 2’ of water in it!

Wednesday, 19 June

Got up rather late. I was having a day-dream about meeting Pol again. Finished off ‘Andromache’ and ‘Fantasio’, and checked up on iambic pentameters.

Lovely article in the Guardian on Ascot, but the snobbishness shocks me. I didn’t know it existed in such revolting forms. “Ascot is peopled almost exclusively by languid young men at least six feet tall accompanied by fat little dollies who neatly fill all the space between them.” One said, “There’s a damned sight too much hooliganism around. Of course, we used to have a major war every 20 years or so, which got them off the streets and into the army.” Shocking.

Daddy’s going to see the Doctor tomorrow. I so hate him feeling “groggy”.

2020: In my youth, my father liked to discuss the dreadfulness of the upper classes. Although a bit of a posher himself, his background was Dutch and his mother artistic. It was the British upper classes and the British Royal Family that he couldn’t abide; he didn’t get worked up about the continentals.  Being 17 and unkeen on the establishment, I happily followed in his wake.

Unabashed snobbery was alive in the sixties, which made the establishment an easy target. 1968 was the year of the French student riots, an outcry against French autocracy. Change was in the air, as was Lindsay Anderson’s film ‘If’, a thrilling indictment of the British public school system. It had a big impact. We all went to see it. At the end the audience stood up and cheered.

Thursday, 20 June

French was ok. But I thought that before, and got 57%.

English was a disaster - it was the poem. I spent 20 minutes studying it, and about 11.30 started to write, thinking I had a good half hour. I didn’t, I had precisely one minute. I don’t know what came over me - I knew it was only a two-hour paper, and what’s more, I had quite a lot to say. I hardly stopped for lunch. It was agony. Everyone sympathised with me awfully.

Mr Acot, of all people, gave me a lift down to town which was rather marvellous luck because I got a bus immediately.

Saw Top of the Pops. Stuart Henry (as spotted outside Lillywhites!) was DJ-ing. The Stones are No. 1. - it’s the “it’s a gas, gas, gas” one. Another song I love is Lovin’ Things by The Marmalade. The singer is very sweet.

Saw a marvellous film on the Italians, by an Italian. Everything about them is Baroque - “knowing how to draw a straight line but preferring to make it curve!” It’s so funny, apparently the Naples fishermen secretly put frozen fish into their nets every night so that in the morning they can pull in a large haul - the Sea of Naples hasn’t got much fish left in it anymore. I call it crafty but he called it “genius”!

It was a beautiful film; in one part they showed the houses reflected in the water. There were the most fascinating shots of people taken unawares, with their expressions and gesticulations. Italians love to show themselves off, and see others show off. They seldom read - they’re too interested in life. The whole essence of the Italians is that they know how to live life but the funny thing is, their gaiety is a facade. As they get older, their hope becomes disillusionment, their disillusionment becomes cynicism, and their cynicism becomes sadness.

Friday, 21 June

German was mediocre. Went home at 3.30. Didn’t really get down to revision - but I knew I wouldn’t. The turf is almost finished around the pool.

At 9.30 we saw the Gilbert Bécaud concert, from the Berns Restaurant in Stockholm. It was fantastic, we all loved it, Ma and Pa too. He is the most adorable little chap, just like I imagined, on the constant hop, whizzing around the stage, jumping down and leaping back up. So wish Anya could have seen it, she would have been squealing like Chump! His movements are like Juliette Greco’s, only faster. Songs I knew were ‘Natalie’, ‘Et Maintenant’, ‘L’Important C’est La Rose’ and ‘Mademoiselle Lise’ (he danced around his double bass imagining she was Lise!). How I wish I lived in France.

2020: My passion for French music began in the summer of ’66 when a song called ‘Et Moi Et Moi Et Moi’ burst from the radio as we were negotiating a hair-pin bend in the south of France. I’d not heard anything so fresh or exciting since the Beatles’ ‘She Loves you (Yeah Yeah Yeah)’. It was written and sung by the young, talented and impossibly handsome Jacques Dutronc, who became an overnight sensation and went on to marry Francoise Hardy. 

Saturday, 22 June

It rained constantly. Had a log fire in the afternoon. Did Chaucer and finished it, but goodness, it took a long time.

Saw ‘Release’ on BBC2 at 10. It was John Lennon speaking about his book and his play at the Old Vic. It’s called ‘In His Own Write’. I can hardly get over it, but by the end, Ma and Pa were raving over him!

John Lennon is the most marvellous person: intelligent, humorous, and, of course, artistic. But now I feel frustrated. I always do when I’m reminded we’re living among a mass of human vegetables. He was saying, in his gorgeous Liverpool accent, how the world is absolutely insane, and all these nations have insane objectives. Then he said, “I expect half of you listening to me now are thinking, ‘what’s he talking about? He’s insane! ’” Nobody, nobody except the artist, bothers to question what’s really going on. I won’t be able to stand it much longer. As far as I’m concerned, the world is divided into those who see the world and everything clicks into place for them - and those who see the world, and it doesn’t. At least John Lennon is able to tell everybody how he feels. I’ve got nobody except Ma, Pa and Chump (God that sounds naive!).

The thing about John Lennon which is so marvellous is that he’s completely uncomplicated, like Ustinov. Both are serious and both are laughing at the same time. He reminded us all of Polnareff - long hair parted down the middle, long nose, and the sleeves of his jumper rolled up to his elbow. All I want to do is write a marvellous poem on how beauty and truth matters, not the length of your hair.

Sunday, 23 June

Turned up my black and white dress 2”. Did Chaucer till lunch, then Othello.

Parents went to a lunch party at the Goldmans. Mummy said she asked Mark if he knew anything about R.A.D.A.; he didn’t but he knew about the National Youth Theatre. He went for an audition and was accepted - they only take 50 people out of 500! He’s decided not to though, and he’s working for Sydney. Later, Sydney rang up to say they couldn’t come swimming. I answered and Sydney said, “how are you my sweetie,” and referred to Ma as “your mummy”!!!

Even though they couldn’t come, I SWAM! We all did, and Chump and me stayed in the longest. At the end we tried swimming with nothing on - lovely, but you can’t relax: somebody might just come along! I let my hair get soaked - swimming’s nice when your hair doesn’t matter. Then had a glorious cream tea - home-made scones and home-grown redcurrant jam.

General Election in France today, and an excellent article on the student eruptions by Philip Toynbee. He says that although today’s students reject everything, communism, capitalism, social-democracy, racialism and feudalism, and although they won’t describe the kind of world they want, this “student religion” is a noble one, and young people in an age-war are right to shout.

“The world is not alright: it is as bad as Marcuse and Debray think it is. Nor will it be made right by a few minor reforms. The world is unbearably cruel, oppressive, blind and vulgar. The young know this best, just as the middle-aged know that the world could be worse, and that almost any social order is better than social chaos.”

Makes me frustrated about dense people like Laura Newsome.