Circumstance

Today has been a miserable struggle through wind and incessant downpour: snow has been predicted in the next few days. I slogged to and fro on the mundane errands I had set myself, huddled and bent against the sodden skies.

I put my name down for the newly-formed Revolutionary Communist Society, which Lindsey and Liddy have organised. There are eleven people interested, mainly second, third and fourth years. I signed on the dotted line with mixed feelings. Some would say ‘why sign at all?,’ if this is my attitude, but it can’t do any harm to participate in the promised reading groups . . . I don’t want to commit myself to marches, demos and paper sales I’m not prepared to give that sort of 100%.

The term is finished – things have been winding slowly down in the usual inexorable way for a week now . . . This is my problem: I’m trapped within circumstance and allow myself to just drift through life, without seizing hold of chances. Too often I’m dictated to by circumstances. This was the premise put forward to me when I went to see Don Carwardine to get my end of term report.

I received a 2/3 for ‘Romanticism,’ and a 4 from Ted Coates for ‘Black Americans.’ The latter slated me for my lack of participation in the seminar, a failure to follow ideas through and persistent absenteeism and lateness. Mr. C’s report dwelt on my lack of drive in his tutorials; he said that too often I sit back and seem to let others do the work, and when I do make contributions I won’t (or can’t) elaborate on them further. He also said I was reserved, with an attitude that was “not quite laid-back, and not quite good old diffidence” . . . It was somewhere in between, and he used a particular word that I can’t now remember, but it struck me as odd that I couldn’t see these traits for myself. I thought I’d made quite a fair contribution in his tutorials, and so his comments were all the more surprising. He likened getting information from me to getting blood from a stone, and as he spoke I remembered Mr. Ingham’s sixth form report comment about my “lack of ambition.”

Afterwards, Lee and I expropriated more products from the cruel grip of the bosses (ha); two torches from Sainsbury’s, and a book on ‘Modern Music’ from the University bookshop.

Today too I finally severed myself from all possibility of going to University in America. I went to see the Dean, Mr. Hass, and I told him briefly of my money situation. He listened silently, nodding his assent occasionally and opening his mouth only to ask the infrequent question in a trace of a Germanic accent. He said he'd write a letter to all the people that mattered and notify me of my release. I came away from that room knowing my future course for the next eighteen months at least.

Yesterday I wrote and sent a letter to Mum and Dad reassuring them again about the bloodied clothes and sending a photo' of Lee as evidence. When I got back from University a letter waited from Dad, which was much more cheerful and gay in tone than his last; it cheered me up to read it.