There was no change in my working life except , as the years went on , for better positions and more money .sx But there was a great change in my social life , as complete as that from school to the nursery garden .sx Cut off from my old acquaintances , and Slough's mad round of spurious gaiety , I groomed myself for the country life .sx To do this , I threw in my lot ( about +12 ) with my sister's , who had always been so horsey that she might have been a Sellars and Yeatman original .sx With the help of Bertie Barnwell , an old acquaintance of my mother's from Pytchley , we bought a hunter , saddle and bridle for +25 .sx With a slit in the back of my coat and a straw between my teeth , standing with my feet in the fifth position , smelling faintly of ammonia , I could soon talk horse until the cows came home .sx I could talk of the Italian forward seat , the uselessness of hunter classes at horse shows , the vagaries of scent , and I could quote Surtees , Beckford , and the Badminton Library books on hunting and driving , and the Horse and Hound , as if the opinions I expressed were my own .sx My best line was whether it were better to ride to hunt or hunt to ride .sx I was for the former , on account of the fact that I was never a brilliant horseman .sx I read Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man in full , and after that there was no holding me- not with snaffle , gag , pelham , curb , bridoon or universal ( all done from memory , nothing up my sleeve) .sx I hunted on Saturdays in the winter and went to horse shows in the summer .sx I stopped earths , built fences , dug badgers , schooled ponies , drove traps , and became the complete 'unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable' .sx I lost touch with my old friends and their narrow outlook , making new ones with a narrower .sx The local Hunt was the Staff College Drag , which hunted fox on two days a week and ran a drag line for another two .sx What with this and preparing for their annual pantomime , it is surprising that we were as well prepared for war in 1939 as we were .sx But this military atmosphere , and the example of some of my old friends in Slough , persuaded me to apply for a commission in the Territorial Army , and I was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant in the 5th Battalion , the Queen's Royal Regiment , in 1936 , one of the 800 officers to have his commission signed by King Edward =8 .sx This was all part of the act .sx I was beginning to put on the agony of the squire , the yeoman farmer , the old A. G. Street romantic stuff .sx I found out that my family had lived in Chobham ( the parent village to West End ) for over 350 years and that we had been honoured in the district , at some time in the dim past , by having a local common ( Street's Heath ) named after us .sx Students of Surtees will now readily understand that a latent cynicism made me decide then that if ever I should write enough to need a pseudonym , it would be 'Stephen Dumpling' .sx The act was good , but it lacked the necessary backing .sx I soon realized that in spite of my attention to my uncle and aunt I had no hope of joining them at the Nursery during my uncle's lifetime .sx My only possible expectation was that it would be left to me after his death , with some provision for my aunt .sx As they were then aged respectively seventy-four and sixty-eight , it seemed as if I might not have to wait so very long , at that .sx Not that I didn't work hard :sx almost every evening I would call on my uncle at the Nursery , after I had bathed and changed , to have a chat with him .sx I took them both to church .sx Regularly , Sunday in and Sunday out , I went to church at eleven o'clock , to Matins , the service of respectability .sx Nothing so common as Evensong ( the service for the servants after a day's work on the day of rest ) or anything so extravagant and Romish as a regular attendance at the eight o'clock Communion Service .sx Going to church continued to be a habit , one that included a walk round the Nursery with my uncle- and the constant hope that he would drop a hint about my future prospects .sx My uncle had been People's Churchwarden for so long that no one could remember anyone else .sx When he gave up , I followed him .sx It was Trollope , Jane Austen , Angela Thirkell , the lot .sx But I was , in fact , only a correspondence clerk on a nursery .sx Because of my family connections ( everyone assumed that one day I should go into the business ) I could only obtain promotion if it were impossible to find anyone else to do the job .sx I might leave at any moment and take my knowledge and ability to my uncle .sx So , at twenty-two , I settled down to wait , as a Dead End Kid , having learnt all that it seemed necessary to learn to step into my uncle's shoes and a ready-made business .sx Quite apart from this thwarting situation , growing rhododendrons and azaleas seemed , in 1939 , to be a futile occupation .sx Munich and its aftermath made gardening a trap more than an escape , to a young man of twenty-two .sx Even hunting was beginning to pall , and in March 1939 I attended what I thought would be the last meet of the Staff College Draghounds .sx My energies were now directed to the Territorial Army and my reading matter became Field Service Regulations 1927 , Volume =2 , and 'Cassandra' of the Daily Mirror .sx William Connor , who began that column in 1935 , is my favourite journalist .sx My secret ambition was to write a similar column but with a right-wing slant .sx Before the war I seldom agreed with what Connor wrote , but I was lost in admiration for the way it was written .sx And once , about this time , he was so very wrong .sx He wrote a bitter , brilliant piece tearing to bits , with every tooth and claw in his magnificent vocabulary , the comment of some woman in America that , to people doing a routine job , war could be a welcome relief .sx She was right .sx He was wrong .sx For it was a relief to me .sx And if I had still been hoeing , it would have been more so .sx In peace-time I was a single young man waiting for a dead man's shoes :sx in war I should be a keen young officer with a flying start in training and seniority .sx But I never heard a shot fired in anger , which accounts for a lot- particularly for my mental attitude today .sx I was in the war , but out of it .sx My experience is no more than that of the Angry Young Men .sx In 1941 I was dangerously ill with pneumonia in Leeds Castle Hospital , near Maidstone .sx Andrew Smith , a subaltern with me in the same company before the war , was stationed in the town and looked after my mother when she came to visit me as the result of a dramatic telegram .sx Let me be quite fair ; it was Harold Fennell who made all the arrangements for her journey , even providing her with a hired car- not easy in those days .sx It would probably be unkind , I think , to suggest that his motives were no better than mine when I was so regular in my attendance at church together with my uncle and aunt .sx After coming to see me , and learning that I was not reacting to drugs , Mother was sitting in her room at the hotel , feeling sad and close to tears .sx Andrew came to cheer her up .sx 'Don't worry , Mrs Street .sx You'll see .sx John will get better , they'll send him home , he'll meet some nice girl , get married , while I may well be killed .sx ' For some ten days I was very ill , out under morphia most of the time .sx I was well nursed- it makes all the difference in the world when they fill in your next-of-kin as 'Mother' and not 'Wife' .sx But the drugs were not having the right effect .sx Once more , I do not expect you to believe what follows .sx I do not even defend what I am about to tell you .sx I am quite prepared to listen to rational explanations , to be told that it is coincidence , self-persuasion , a triumph of the human will .sx But what happened to me during that long illness must be told , plainly and simply .sx On the second Sunday that I was in hospital , during my morning period of consciousness , just after I had been washed , the hospital Chaplain came to my bed and asked if I would like to make my Communion .sx I said I would .sx The screens were brought round .sx The Chaplain administered the Sacrament .sx He prayed for my recovery and , as far as I was able , so did I. Almost at once , I began to get better .sx And all the argument in dialectic materialism or progressive humanism or applied psychology will not convince me that I was not cured by a near-miracle .sx I had just gone through a bad patch of selfishness and disbelief .sx And I was still a stout Protestant , with no great faith in the mystery of the Eucharist .sx In fact , only a few days before I was taken ill , I had been deliberately offensive to Father Stevenson , the Roman Catholic priest attached to my Company mess .sx I had tried to provoke him about the Anglo-Catholic church in the town where we were stationed .sx Now that it is too late I regret my pride and bad manners and my narrow sectarian insolence .sx But Father Stevenson had more influence on me than he will ever know- coupled with my personal miracle at Maidstone .sx Daily , hourly , I grew stronger .sx As soon as I was fit to be moved , I was transferred to a room on [SIC] my own , and my eating utensils all had a piece of elastoplast stuck to them .sx The nurses would only answer my questions with tactful evasions .sx 'It's rather noisy for you in the ward .sx ' 'It's easier for us to attend to you .sx ' 'There is a larger night staff up here .sx ' But none of them convinced me .sx So it was no great shock when the senior physician told me that I had a spot on my lung , the result of the pneumonia , and that I was to be transferred to the British Legion Sanatorium at Preston Hall .sx Yet it was still bad enough .sx The Army was now my life :sx I had even been accused of out-soldiering the soldiers .sx I had enjoyed every minute , from wet hours in a slit trench to foot-stamping on a barrack square .sx The thought that I might have to leave the Army in 1941 , with the war only half fought , was unbearable .sx In bed all day , on complete rest , I only caught an occasional glimpse of hollow-cheeked men who lived all the year in open huts in the grounds- men who knew only too well that phosgene smelt of musty hay , and mustard gas of garlic .sx For three months I lay on my back with nothing to do but look forward to the morning injections , and pray that I would not be discharged from the Army .sx Then I began to think .sx Not just vaguely reminiscing , or idly speculating , but serious constructive thinking about all sorts of problems .sx A cousin sent me The Weekend Book , and I read poetry for pleasure for the first time .sx And it made me think again .sx Then I began to write spasmodically- odd descriptions of things I had seen , little experiences , brief character sketches of people I had known .sx It was an important time for me , those three months in bed , more important than I have made it seem .sx It showed me that I had , within my own mind , a source of pleasure that had been stamped on in the past by rugger boots or riding boots or 'Boots , brown , Officer's pattern' .sx