When We Were Orphans

It was the summer of 1923, the summer I came down from Cambridge, when despite my aunt's wishes that I

return to Shropshire, I decided my future lay in the capital and took up a small flat at Number 14b Bedford

Gardens in Kensington. I remember it now as the most wonderful of summers. After years of being

surrounded by fellows, both at school and at Cambridge, I took great pleasure in my own company. I

enjoyed the London parks, the quiet of the Reading Room at the British Museum; I indulged entire

afternoons strolling the streets of Kensington, outlining to myself plans for my future, pausing once in a

while to admire how here in England, even in the midst of such a great city, creepers and ivy are to be found

clinging to the fronts of fine houses.

It was on one such leisurely walk that I encountered quite by chance an old schoolfriend, James

Osbourne, and discovering him to be a neighbour, suggested he call on me when he was next passing.

Although at that point I had yet to receive a single visitor in my rooms, I issued my invitation with

confidence, having chosen the premises with some care. The rent was not high, but my landlady had

furnished the place in a tasteful manner that evoked an unhurried Victorian past; the drawing room, which

received plenty of sun throughout the first half of the day, contained an ageing sofa as well as two snug

armchairs, an antique sideboard and an oak bookcase filled with crumbling encyclopaedias - all of which I

was convinced would win the approval of any visitor. Moreover, almost immediately upon taking the rooms,

I had walked over to Knightsbridge and acquired there a Queen Anne tea service, several packets of fine

teas, and a large tin of biscuits. So when Osbourne did happen along one morning a few days later, I was

able to serve out the refreshments with an assurance that never once permitted him to suppose he was my

first guest.

For the first fifteen minutes or so, Osbourne moved restlessly around my drawing room, complimenting

me on the premises, examining this and that, looking regularly out of the windows to exclaim at whatever

was going on below. Eventually he flopped down into the sofa, and we were able to exchange news - our

own and that of old schoolfriends. I remember we spent a little time discussing the activities of the workers'

unions, before embarking on a long and enjoyable debate on German philosophy, which enabled us to

display to one another the intellectual prowess we each had gained at our respective universities. Then

Osbourne rose and began his pacing again, pronouncing as he did so upon his various plans for the future.

'I've a mind to go into publishing, you know. Newspapers, magazines,

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