SIR,--I share . most of the sentiments and beliefs expressed
by Donald Gordon, and have done since 1945, when.it first became clear that unless the British realised that they roust re-make their national life from the physical and psychological foundations, Britain in two decades would be in the end-of-the- road mess she is in fact In. Unlike Mr, Gordon, who feels alien and can ,go somewhere else where he will be at tome, Britons like Inc feel alien in their own country, and never More so than when reading such pieces as Simon Raven's in the same issue, eloquent as it is of demoralisation in a public school and Oxbridge and perhaps even of that special cut-flower remoteness from life today produced by a classical education. For a man of my age (thirty-six), who does not share Raven's outlook, the eighteen years since left school have been a 'time of teeth-grinding frustration at the sluggishness of British responses to opportunities and challenges, at the. suffocating interest in precedent and tradition, the caution, the
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laziness, the want of ambition, the ghastly cosiness of British life, with its private family jokes and family malice. Returning to Dover by ship, one always has this feeling of returning to a place not really in the active, hard, exciting and ambitious life of the Continent; a kind of old people's home, dull, well-regulated, quiet, an Edwardian house behind high laurels. Don't do anything yourself; ring for the staff. Obey the rules, no noise, good manners in the lounge and lights out at ten. A genteel end of life; not a beginning.
Do you think there is any possibility of our suddenly turning ruthless, ambitious, expansionist, inventive, unamiable, hard-working, socially demo- cratic? Or shall we continue down this contemptible post-war road and become a country as proud and passé as Spain, as harmlessly charming as Ireland, with a capital city with all the sparkle of a certain kind that Cairo had before Nasser set about Egypt?
CORRELL] BARNF.TT
Caibridge House, East Carleton, Norwich
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