Maybe we could go to the pictures together one day, if there’s something you might like to see? I could call for you after work one Saturday.

*

Yes, it’s been a long day already. I came up first thing in the morning on the train and I go back this evening. But it’s good to see everyone. It’s getting harder now.

*

There is a Carnegie library at Lea Bridge, covenanted as a library evermore. There are commons here, where there would have been enclosed and private land. Walkways and bridle paths maintained. School boards better than they were. I am content.

That’s your trouble, that is – contentment.

You’re a bachelor, Ambrose. I’m a grandfather.

*

A gang of us took hold of the railings and we heaved and we heaved like a tug o’ war and on the third or fourth heave they came away, and Bill here fell into the barbed wire. Still got the scars, ain’t you, Bill?

*

Parliamentary Socialism is a contradiction in terms.

*

Dad. Dad! Oh, he’s miles away.

*

What we need to talk about is the moral turpitude of Capitalism.

*

Here, Peggy. You can help me hand round the buns.

*

On your way, Musgrave. I thought it was you. You’re the only one who’d come here dressed in a white tie and top hat. Oh, is that Humphreys there with you too? I thank you for your sense of occasion, but it’s time for you to go now. We’ve got half the Secularist Society here. Don’t want to shake their conviction now, do we?

*

My father was a Chartist, back home in Northamptonshire. He thought Parliamentary democracy would solve it. But where are we now? No further.

*

Back went the lines. Back went we.

*

The Nazi party is holding its rally today in Nuremberg. They say tens of thousands will march.

*

I was always at home on my own with three or four children while Edward was out agitating for a library or writing minutes for the ratepayers or whatnot. So I saw none of it.

*

All true Socialism is international.

*

Edward was quite confident he wouldn’t go to prison. If he had, I would have killed him.

*

Morris was rich, yes, but he wasn’t in it for entertainment or personal glory. He believed in the League. Worked harder for Socialism than anyone else I knew – and I knew them all, in those days. Oh look, oh look! Comrades! I see the gentlemen of the press approaching! It is time!

*

The silver band came up the lane, playing a marching tune, and we all followed in procession towards the manor building. Presently, the Mayor arrived with some of the aldermen.

Ah, just in time to get his name in the papers.

Hush, Ambrose.

Oh, I was forgetting. These are your cronies now. I shall become obsequious. Take your coat, sir? Whose bag may I carry?