lt was just the paper

By HONOR ARUNDEL

HE only reason I started

to read the Daily Worker,

way. back in 1936, was
because it sounded to me like
a Wicked Paper.

At the time I was at a
small, rather. select girls’
boarding school where we
were taught how to make
polite conversation, to modu-
late our voices and cultivate
a sense of repose.

At mealtimes we were
seated at little tables, with six
or seven girls at each table,
and if we were silent the
headmistress used to send a
message, saying:

“Miss Cox says will you
please make polite conversa-
tion,” or if we -were talking
too loudly. “Miss Cox says
will you please make less
noise.”

I was always having re-
ports saying, “Honor must
cultivate a shade of deference
in her voice,” or “Honor lacks
repose,” or “Honor must learn
control.”

Before mealtimes the ~re-
poseful, modulated - voiced
girls used to forgather to read
The Times—usually for the
cricket scores—so naturally I
didn’t.

At home my mother read
the Daily Mail, which de-
scribed Franco as a Christian
gentleman, praised Mussoli-
ni’s punctual trains and ac-
cused the unemployed of wil-
ful laziness. So I didn’t read
that either.

‘ So the only thing I knew
about socialism was that if
you gave five men five pounds
each, by the end.of the day
one would have £25 and the
rest nothing, which meant
socialism was impractical.

But when I discovered one
of the staff, a young teacher
recently down from Cam-
bridge, reading a strange pa-
per called the Daily Worker,
I instinctively knew it was a
Wicked Paper and therefore
probably Socialist.

“Is that a Socialist paper?”
I asked delightedly.

“It’s. worse than Socialist,
it’s Communist,” the teacher
replied; ironically, though I
was not old enough to appre-
ciate irony. I immediately de-
termined to buy it.

So I used to take quick—
out-of-bounds trips — across
Hayes Common to buy the
paper, fold it up and put it
in my knickers (we all wore

erey- woollen knickers with

for a girl who lacked repose

A reader of the London Morning Star, and its predecessor
the Daily Worker, tells how she became introduced to the

working-class press.

elasticized legs) and read it
in whatever privacy could be
obtained.

I read Harry: Pollitt’s re-
ports of the war in Spain and
for the first time realized that
there were things happening
in the world that I ought to
understand and be responsible
for.

I read accounts of the Hun-
ger Marchers and gained a
wonderfully distorted view of
a world in which there were
always masses of demonstra-
tions of workers with banners
who would bring in the revo-
lution probably a week next
Tuesday. :

Naturally I had to share
my new enthusiasm with my
friends. I acquired Left Book
Clubs, copies of Left Review
and contemporary Soviet nov-
els which I lent around.

One girl unwisely copied
out a particularly bloody pas-
sage from “And Quiet Flows
the Don,” and sent it to her
grandmother, who complain-
ed. And I was brought before
the head-mistress, a tall grey-

hound-Jike woman who read
the New Statesman and kept
an opera mind, for reprimand.
The Daily Worker adver-
tised meetings and my most
enthusiastic friend and I de-
termined to go to one.

We invented a mythical

-aunt in London who had in-

vited us to spend the day with
her, and after a Jittle trouble
with the District Line, turned
up, about an hour too early,
for a mammoth rally in the
People’s Palace, Stepney.

After the meeting a lad
from Stepney, seeing perhaps
our youth and our enthusiasm
and our sober school uni-
forms (grey coats, grey felt
hats and grey lisle stockings),
invited us back to his home
for tea.

We were thrilled to the
marrow. Up till then my only
-contact with the working
class had been with domes-
tic servants and the school
gardener and now, for the
first time, I was-invited into
a proper worker’s home.

When we got into our train

eh
at Charing Cross we sae
International and th oices I
Flag at the tops of out ‘i in bb
and only just return’ ofa
time for Sunday supP®
cold ham and beetroot: read
Funnily enough I havé
the Daily Worker — my
Morning Star—ever sine “old
I understand that wy ut
school is now the neat
ters of the Electrical
Union, who probably tha?
more important things on
the art of polite convers reat
But I wonder if, whe? | of
ing the Morning Stat # to.
them get that delicious, ing?
bidden feeling of Te |
Wicker Paper?

MOVIES

La Guerre Est Finie
. /
‘treasured experience

HE world-wide discussion
and exchange among film
makers and film enthusiasts
gets a new fillip with the produc-
tion of La Guerre Est Finie. It is
great proof for those who argue
for the selection of subject -mat-
ter for movies with a basis in
reality, and refutes the insist-

ENT

ence by some artists that inspira-
tion for great heights of creativ-
ity flows from sourres too ab-
stract to explain, or just from
epic historical events.

Guerre is an outstanding ar-
tistic achievement because it
conveys successfully the subject
of revolutionary tactics and stra-

ey Pah ik wa Zig

tegy, which it would be safe to
assume is familiar to an infinit-
esimal percentage of the world’s
population. The film’s characters
are all intimately involved in the
full-time occupation of changing
the world. Location is France
and Spain, and we meet (pre-
sumably) the Spanish Commun-
ist Party in exile giving guid-
ance and sustenance to the re-
sistance of the Spanish peoples
in their struggle against the op-

pression of Fascist Franco.

The story unfolds around the
decision to call a general strike
on May Day (1965), and our
hero Diego, played brilliantly by
Yves Montand, short circuits his

last assignment to smuggle an-_

oiher revolutionary over the
French-Spanish border (which
the tourist trade makes simpler
than in the days when the route
was over the mountains.) He re-
turns to warn them of the arrests
and offensive of the state, which
he is sure dooms the directive
for mass action to failure. And
he argues for the postponement’
of the directive.

The dialogue and argumenta-
tion in these meeting scenes are
all extremely vital and genuine.
He is told that he has been too
close to the operation to have
an objective view . ... that he
cannot see the woods for the
trees. He questions how much
more clearly they can see the
facts from Paris.

The effect on him and his

comrades from decades (in fact .-

since the defeat of the Republic)
of this kind of difficult, arduous
and detailed work are portrayed
by Montand and the entire cast
with such depth and penetration,
as to leave the viewer completely
gripped by the immensity of
their kind of responsibilities. The
stresses are balanced by the ‘‘joy
of action.”

The unfolding of this personal-
ized story in no way detracts
from its historical setting. In
fact, the brilliance of the film
lies in the skillful integration of
the personal lives of these revo-
Jutionaries with their ideological
committment. Are there any
signs of disillusionment? Of
course. Is their patience ever
taxed? A precious and credit-
able exchange is portrayed in
an encountér between Diego and
a group of young plastic explo-
sives-carrying “Leninist Youth!”
Their impatient view of the Com-
munists’ work to help Spain star-
tled our hero because they re-
echo some of his own arguments
to his committee.

However, their sneering atti-
tude to mass working-class
struggle and their conviction
that explosives will put an end
tc the oppression, quickly re-
minded him that his kind of ef-
fort is indispensible. :

June 9, 1967—PACIFIC TRIB

tau
Would you not ee yi
ing for a “normal a of
wife, children an@ | peityp
existence? There '* “piegut
relationship betweer ite" ah
Marianna, Diego’ | anda
ed by Ingrid Thulin) * gly
sions, growing SUP
spect for his faith mn ne
of the future. Thus siden”
cision to take uP renave ned
agai Fi ea
for him by the Suds at
one of his comrades 18 OD
weeping and wailin a)
anna’s part. Rathe® peti
closing scenes show asst
izing the passwol : watt él
border into Spat” the
of a trap, and thu ur
renewing “stru,
Don’t postpone a
It will be a treasur pe at
experience. Should nals
liar with the sub}? 086

will be much mu¢ a