In 1938 came the big crisis in which the country prepared itself for a war. Conscription was introduced in a limited form in which you could do your military service by training wth the territorial army. You did your training and got paid as well, consequently most lads in their upper teens opted for this, as did those in their 20s. My sister’s boyfriend (and later husband) at that time was Len and he took this choice.
Its effect on the school was not great. The German teacher left under a cloud after falling out with the headmaster and I have a feeling that politics were involved as he had been teaching in Germany for some years prior to coming to Leicester. Politics were not taught but involved us a great deal, The two sides being Fascism and Communism, and all news was biased towards these divisions. Rival gangs of teenagers and older men held meetings in the town supporting these ideologies. The blackshirts under Sir Oswald Moseley were the fascist supporters and Communist supporters were a part of Labour. Most of the boys looked on it as perhaps finishing the job their fathers had started.
Most lads of my age saw fascism as a sort of glory that Britain was not achieving. Most newspapers and newsreels on the cinema showed in great detail the splendid schemes that were being achieved in Germany and Italy. It showed motorways and building and rallies and parades and a progress that England seemed to lack. The best we could do was to send the unemployed to Spain to join the International Brigade or join the Palestine Police to control what is now Israel. There were a lot of refugees from Austria and Germany, but not much reached us or affected our way of life. It did have one effect in that my trip to Germany in August was cancelled and it was not until 1964 that I made my first trip abroad at the age of forty.
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