David Holbrook
Letter to ‘Denys’ [Thompson?]
Ashwell, Hertfordshire, 10 March 1966
MS Add. 9750/251/1 recto

Transcript:

DUCKLAKE
ASHWELL
BALDOCK
HERTS
Ashwell 380

10 March 1966

Dear Denys,

Thanks for your letter, which was most encouraging – arriving the same morning as a cool and hostile review in The Times (‘embarrassing … inept’ – the same phrases I’ve come across before: Julian Symons probably).

I don’t think one can ever justify that kind of cruelty of enforcing submission, since it diminishes that independence (and mutuality) on which hope for survival depends. But then, in a war which is forced upon a group (and I think Nazism had to be fought) something of the kind has to be accepted: so, we have to say we’re diminished by it. In battle you’ve got to have obediance (though in fact there comes a moment when even the best disobey – flatly!). There’s a kind of conditioned obediance which is valuable, not least to the good leader who wants to save his men. A well-trained group will simply disappear into the ground at a signal – and so survive. The great enemy in war is muddle, feebleness, slowness of response, and being dirty & sloppy [I still can’t bear this in people (such as don’t wash up promptly etc) because I still feel it is dangerous!)]: there’s such a pressure