Friday January 9th

First thing I gave Deborah her birthday card and wished her happy birthday. I also took the presents and told her that I had them for her and Claire. English first of all, and we listened to a tape of “The Investigator,” a 50s radio play paralleling the McCarthy communist witch-hunts with the ‘Investigators’ anti-satanic purges in Heaven after he has been killed in a ‘plane crash. All the while, my heart was thudding with anticipation of the coming event. I could almost imagine them thinking, wondering over why I’d bought them.

I got to the Common Room just after them and I gave them their boxes of “Roses”; they guessed immediately from the shape of the boxes. They were pleased with them I think. The next three periods were free and we all sat about bored really, tolerating Duncan bleating on obscenely and just feeling fed up. From the little snippets I gathered about their trip to London tomorrow it seems that nine of them are going. Also, whenever M. Barnwell came near Claire, there was much insinuating and rib-digging, causing her to blush and giggle really shyly.

The air of boredom and finality; a kind of winding down; continued all through History as we continued notes on War communism. A new addition to our group is Ruth Fielding – I don’t know how she’ll catch up or even understand it with joining so late on.

The weather was once more unsettled, and half-way through the lesson it began to pour down, this only adding to the weird atmosphere of morose depression about proceedings – a real end-of-term atmosphere.

I got home at 2.40 and rushed around frantically packing and gazing at the clock – I really don’t know why, because the train didn’t leave until 4.54 p.m. I set off by 3.05 and was in Easterby at 3.45. After buying my ticket (£2.85) I had to hang around, shivering in the freezing temperatures, for around an hour.

Train got to Whincliffe fairly quickly and I had no difficulty getting the right connection for Rotherham. The train finally pulled into Rotherham station at 6.50 p.m, and I found Robert waiting in the car outside to pick me up. We got back to Swinton at about seven thirty; Andrew was there. Carol's got a really bad cold or something because she was pale, croaky-voiced, with a red, streaming nose. She looked really bad all evening, which went by listening to records and playing “Othello.” We also went to the ‘pub. Couldn’t help thinking about certain people.