My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleywent like wildfire, but we were all much too slow-witted to make any money out of it.In fact, the whole family felt an acute embarrassment at the publicity, which I haveseldom since experienced in this sphere; the exception was my grandfather who tookthings as they came in his robust fashion.Otherwise Rolleston life was remote from the world, a remarkable, truly feudalsurvival. Like medieval life, the economy was practically self-contained. Farms, thegarden, shooting and the large and well-stocked cellars satisfied most needs; the samewagon which took our produce a few miles to be sold in Burton-on-Trent wouldreturn well loaded with a fine variety of the best beers. There was little need to gooutside the closed and charmed circle, and we children never did. Our time wasdivided between farms, gardens and carpenter's shop, where the bearded Pritchardpresided over a corps of experts who kept all things going as their forbears had donefor generations. I learnt then to work with my hands both in farming and carpentry,and must admit that I was better at shovelling muck than in the fine work of joinery;both aptitudes have their use in political life.Again in feudal fashion, the warmest and most intimate friendships developedbetween us and these people, so characteristic of traditional England, not only in theirdaily occupations but in the strong bonds of mutual sympathy in life's events, birth,marriage, death, occasions sad and festive; this was really a classless society. Thisearly development was one of the three very diverse experiences which wove me intothe warp and woof of English life. The second was the army - not only in regimentallife, though the relationships of officers and men in the great regiments developed anextraordinary intimacy - but still more in army athletics where an absolute equalityprevailed between all ranks. The third experience was very different: when I joinedthe Labour Party I spent two months touring the country each autumn to make dailyspeeches.Every night was passed in the house of a different member, nearly all manual workers,from the mines, steel works, shipyards, farms and all the diverse industries and tradesof English, Scotch and Welsh life. The wife cooked and looked after us, gave the verybest they had, and I have never been better cared for and made to feel more warmlywelcome and accepted into the intimacy of family life. I owe much in knowledge andin sentiment to that wide range of cherished memories.These experiences helped me in the days of class to become a classless man, and laterto devise a type of political organisation which at least eliminated that archaicnonsense. At Rolleston the class values only emerged strikingly at the strangest point;in church. The habit must have developed over generations or centuries thateverybody waited until the family took communion; it afforded them no practicaladvantage, because in any case they had to wait until the service was over. Thiscustom was probably never by their volition, but for some odd reason at some point intime they had established the principle of roping off an aisle of the church. It waspeculiar, because they only used one or two pews and the aisle would accommodatetwo or three hundred people. It did not much matter as the church was never anythinglike full. Yet even to my childish eyes it looked rather an affront to man, and soon anew uncumbent took it as an affront to God. The clergyman was a Royal Chaplain, byname Canon Tyrrhitt. He was uncle of Lord Berners, the gifted writer, composer,artist and wit who was a friend of ours when my wife Diana and I were living in12 of 424