Charles Snow - Last Things

Spontaneous. Rising against grievances not attended to for months. Complaints not recognised. Student rights. Participation. He gave us all that, as his face became familiar on the screen. He wasn’t smooth. He had what had come to be called a classless accent, meaning one which could belong only to a small but definable class. He had the gift of speaking like a human being, who believed what he said and wanted you to believe it too. He didn’t appear clever, and sometimes not coherent. Several of my acquaintances said that, if he joined either of the major parties, he would get office before he was thirty.

‘Tell me, Antony,’ said one of the cordial television interviewers, ‘do you expect to get most of your demands?’

‘We can’t help not get them.’

‘But what, I know you’re explaining what the students are insisting on straight away, what do you really expect to get?’

No smile. ‘We shall get what we take.’

He wasn’t hectored on the screen, as the national politicians might have been.

‘Yes, I understand, but that isn’t your basis for negotiations, is it, Antony?’

Long, disjointed, sincere speech.

‘You mean, do you, Tony, that you want to establish rights for all students everywhere?’

‘We’re not only struggling for students, but for everyone who’s not allowed to speak for himself.’

‘That means, doesn’t it, that even if and when you reach a satisfactory settlement at the college, you’ll still go on protesting–’

‘The struggle will go on.’

The principal of the college, interviewed in the same programme two nights later, wasn’t so comfortable, nor so respectfully treated. He was a man in his mid-forties, with a neat small-featured face. I hadn’t met him, but as he was a physicist and a good one, the Getliffes knew him well. He was said to be fun in private, and to be conscientious and open-minded. Why he had given up science and taken to university administration, none of his admirers could understand. Perhaps he couldn’t, as on the box he gave an impression – so unjustified, that he ought to bring a slander action against himself, someone said – of being irresolute and even shifty.

Yes, he was in favour of student participation at all levels. They would be welcome on suitable college committees.

‘But aren’t you on record as saying, Dr Dinshaw, that the students’ claim to a place on appointments committees–’ Dinshaw. That, of course, was a special case: it wasn’t considered in the students’ interest to take part in appointments of lecturers or professors.

(Why the hell, said Margaret, doesn’t he say that they’d be totally incompetent to judge?)

But didn’t Dr Dinshaw agree that the students felt it was very much in their interest? Dinshaw. There were two views about that, after all, there were students and students. The students with whom Dr Dinshaw would have to negotiate, however, had only one view? Dinshaw. The real academics among the students, the ones who would really understand about academic excellence, and that was the important thing about a place of higher education, didn’t take part in this kind of student activity.

Of all his remarks, that one sank the principal into most trouble with the press. From then on, the interviewer was needling him. What did the principal understand by the students’ wider aims? If they reached a settlement with the college, then Mr Ollorenshaw had pointed out there were claims on behalf of others? At last, badgered, Dinshaw broke out that it wasn’t his function to negotiate for the entire human race.

For us, a few minutes’ diversion. Each night for a week, there was something about the students. When Charles came round one morning to fetch some clothes, I mentioned that, to begin with, we didn’t like to miss the news. But, as a spectator sport, rioting became monotonous. We were getting tired of it. He smiled. I didn’t think of asking him whether he knew any of the participants. Instead, he mentioned that he had seen Francis Getliffe, who was off to spend the summer at the house outside Montpellier, which, with his usual decision, leaving me out of it, he had bought that spring.

It might have been two or three days later when, not on television, but in The Times , I saw an item of news. One headline ran:

STUDENTS CHARGE COLLEGE WORKING ON GERM WAR.

That was it. I needn’t have read any more. Angry that I had seen so little, I still didn’t see all the connections, or even most of them: but I saw enough. Enough to be waiting for what was coming next.

Actually, the students’ announcement was, like most of their official utterances, discreet. It was issued as one of their communiqués from the principal’s office, said simply that documents had been found demonstrating that the college microbiological department was under contract to the Ministry of Defence, through the MRE at Porton. The students would insist that all work on biological warfare should be stopped forthwith.

That was ingeniously drafted, I thought. Unless it were a sheer invention, which seemed unlikely, they had got hold of some papers, and the authorities wouldn’t know which or how much they gave away.

The signatures, as with all the previous communiqués, were those of Olly and his two adjutants from the college.

Apart from the headlines, the newspaper wasn’t spending much space on the announcement. Nor did any of the others that I read. In one leader it was referred to, in an aside, as another sign of ‘immature thinking’. The leader went on to ponder whether the grants of student protesters should be withdrawn, and rather surprisingly used this example of immature thinking to conclude that they should not.

There was no reference anywhere to collaboration from outside, or to any Cambridge group. For some reason, perhaps technical, they were being kept in the background, and I was asking myself how much respite that would give.

MARGARET was already going to bed when, late the following night, the front door bell rang. I had been sitting in the drawing-room, not certain how much longer I could bear to wait: whether it was wise or not, I should have to talk to Charles. For an instant, I thought this caller might be he. Opening the door, I saw – with disappointment, with let-down – that it was Nina. Rain was trickling from her mackintosh cape and hood.

‘I’m so sorry, Uncle Lewis, I don’t know what the time is–’ she said breathlessly.

‘Never mind.’

‘But Daddy asked me to give you a message, without fail, he said, tonight.’

‘Come in.’ The let-down had vanished. I couldn’t delay in getting her coat off, bringing her into the drawing-room, meanwhile answering a call from Margaret about who it was.

‘Well?’ I asked Nina, pressing a drink on her which she wouldn’t take. Just then Margaret, in her dressing gown, joined us, kissed Nina, interposed another wait.

‘What did your father say?’

Nina swept dank hair from over her eye. She said: ‘I tried to tell him something on the telephone this morning–’

‘What was it?’

‘Give her a chance,’ said Margaret. Nina smiled at her, and then at me. She was shy but firm and self-possessed.

‘I told him I’d heard something about people making enquiries at Chester Row, but he stopped me. He wouldn’t let me speak on the phone. So I had to go to Cambridge. Then he wouldn’t ring you up either, so I had to come back and see you tonight.’

‘Yes,’ I said, restless with impatience, ‘what was this message?’

‘He said to tell you – it looks as though someone like Monteith is already on the job. You must advise them straight away .’

I glanced at Margaret. It was all plain. Too plain. Martin’s precautions about the telephone had probably been automatic: he had lived with security all through the war and after. So had I, for longer. I had had dealings with Monteith myself, when he was number two in one of the security services. I had dropped out of that claustral system, but I remembered hearing that he had been promoted.