Gap Year

At some point after his return to England in early 1937, he visited Germany and possibly Austria, perhaps for a holiday, or perhaps out of curiosity as to the nature of Nazification and remilitarisation there. I do remember him remarking that it was an altogether scary experience and that he was glad to leave.

He also reminisced on another occasion that his father – a man with a very real social conscience and a deep Orwellian sympathy for the working man's travails – had for some time been impressed by the way that the totalitarian European nations were getting their economies in order – making the trains run on time, building autobahns and autostrada, all that sort of thing – and at one point had even flown the swastika from the roof of the house in support of that very efficient and thoroughly admirable technocrat Mr Hitler. Actually he wasn't alone in his enthusiasm – Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail, was a friend of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, and ensured the Mail's editorial favour towards them throughout this period. It was a most unwholesome and spooky era in England, let alone the Continent, much of which was just as Fascist as Germany, Austria or Italy.