A.J.P. Taylor

In the days of my youth I kept a diary – not occasional reflections set down at the instruction of an editor but systematic jottings recording the events of each day. The diary became a slavery. Not a day passed without my sitting down to write in it. I imposed events on myself so that I should have something to write about. Passages were inserted in order to please or sometimes to offend my friends and relations. In fact, there came a time when the diary existed more than I did. When I reached man’s estate I ceased to write in my diary and destroyed all the previous volumes. I have never regretted this decision. All that remains of my diary-keeping is a reading-list in which I have recorded the titles of all the books I have read from 1926 to the present day. This comes in useful to remind me of books I had quite forgotten. It also fills me with shame to discover the amount of time I wasted on books not worth reading. But this is a habit that still persists.

The public opinion polls telling us which political party will win the next general election are rarely right and I don’t much care whether they are right or wrong. The census every ten years of film critics naming the world’s ten best films is a different matter and stirs my zest for controversy. The most recent list has just been published and I am glad to report that it contains no film less than 19 years old. The critics are becoming as conservative as I am, though they do not show this with some of the films they have recently recommended. I will not mention any that would have fallen under my ban except to remark that, in my opinion, neither persistent sexual intercourse nor lesbianism is a suitable subject for general exhibition.

The last few months have produced a fine crop of books by or about prime ministers: some are biographies, some are diaries and some collections of letters. I have read so many of these books that I now feel I have been living with prime ministers in a familiar way. Six prime ministers have made their appearance, often bearing with them the promise of further volumes to come. Maybe I have missed some prime ministers from earlier centuries, but then the species was only in the process of evolution. Prime minister Attlee, after reading a life of Walpole, reflected: ‘I wonder who really ran the country in those days.’ The remark is relevant for later centuries.

E. H. Carr died on 3 November last. I am inclined to say that he was the greatest British historian of our age: certainly he was the one I most admired. Ted Carr had a long run, varied enough to provide half a dozen careers for any lesser man. He started with twenty years in the diplomatic service, including membership of the British peace delegation to Paris in 1919. After a few years as a professor at Aberystwyth, he was assistant editor of the Times for much of the Second World War, when according to Churchill he turned the paper into a tuppenny edition of the Daily Worker. He published his first masterpiece, a life of Bakunin – a book I hailed at the time as a masterpiece – as long ago as 1937; he published Volume 14 of his History of Soviet Russia shortly before he died and had already made arrangements for it to be carried further by another hand. It is extraordinary to reflect that he began his great work when he was already over sixty and that the latest volumes show no sign of age, except perhaps that they were clearer and more effective than ever.

I am just returning to normal life after some weeks in Hungary. Not that life in Hungary is abnormal. Indeed, when asked what conditions in Hungary are like I always reply: ‘Much as in England.’ I was told that there was less unemployment. On the other hand, prices have recently gone up more. But, in general, life in Hungary is much as in any West European country. One English visitor gave me a fearsome account of the Russian occupation, which he assured me was still at full strength. I can only report that during my visit I did not see a single Russian soldier and never met anyone who knew whether there were still any in Hungary. Certainly the American presence is more flagrant in England than the Russian presence is in Hungary. As to the Hungarians, they are more frightened of American nuclear missiles than of the Russian Army.