My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyfor most of the time; if the speaker should lose command for a moment, it would beinstantly communicated to the stewards in a loss of confidence and to the generalaudience in alarm and disturbance. I developed the habit of complete impassivity,while giving clear instructions to the stewards, and asking the audience to remainseated as it would soon be over. This was one of the occasions when above all theprincipal must be calm.How then did I feel before, during and after; inside myself, as they say? Here again Iwas fortified by a diverse experience. Waiting in a small room before a meeting likeOlympia, when I knew a battle long organised by opponents was bound to take place,was a strange experience, and similar though less exacting was waiting before the1939 meeting at Earls Court. In the first case there was an audience which I had toconvince, but first a fight which we had to win. In the second case, at Earls Court, allthe fighting was over, but a huge audience was assembled, all of whom I must try toconvince and some of whom I must lift to further heights of enthusiasm. It would be atremendous effort of the mind, will and spirit for the sake of the cause in which Ipassionately believed. That period of waiting is a time of awe.In the end, the moment comes and you go over the top. All the intellect, the faith, thepreparation of the spirit, is then of no avail without the effort of the will. The act ofstarting is that of an automaton, moved by will alone. If you sit down in that littleroom with introspective questioning—can I really go on to the platform under thosespotlights, speak for over two hours, convince them, move them to a passionateenthusiasm, possibly after keeping command through all the squalid necessity of adirty, unpleasant fight? —clearly the answer is, no, it is quite impossible, out of thequestion.These thoughts intrude in many situations, small and large. In the boxing-ring ofyouth, looking at that strong boy in the opposite corner, who is bound to beat you;then the bell, you are at him, and sometimes, to your astonishment, you win. Lookingat that big fellow at the other end of the piste in a world fencing championship,introspection can quickly summon the same inhibitions. Sitting inertly in an earlyaeroplane while the engine is ticking over and the riggers and mechanics are givingtheir last attention, it is clearly impossible to take the flimsy contraption off theground, through a long and difficult experience, and then to put it safely back on thesame small patch of earth—if, that is, you question capacity closely and anxiously.Give all high tests the utmost preparation of mind and body, the closest attention toessential detail; yet the final act in all real things is will; you open the throttle as youswing it into the wind, you are off and the sky belongs to you.Our whole situation was governed by the fact that for all practical purposes we wereengaged in a military operation against the highly trained guerrillas of communism,who were prototypes of those who have since appeared in many different parts of theworld. It was in one way a more exacting occupation than ordinary war because theenemy was armed and we were not. He was allowed a strange latitude by the law,which he openly and obviously broke, while we had to be scrupulously careful tokeep within it, as even a suspicion of stepping outside it brought immediateprosecution. Our final victory was no doubt confirmed and established by the death inthe Spanish Civil War of some of the most redoubtable of our opponents, but we hadwon decisively before that. Many of the typically English characters among the257 of 424