Jill [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION A, .n American critic recently suggested^ that Jill contained the first example of that characteristic landmark of the British post-war novel, the displaced working-class hero. If this is true (and it sounds fair trend-spotter's comment), the book may hold sufficient historical interest to justify republication. But again, if it is true, I feel bound to say that it was unintentional. In 1940 our impulse was still to minimize social differences rather than exaggerate them. My hero's background, though an integral part of the story, was not what the story was about. As a matter of fact, the Oxford of that autumn was singularly free from such traditional distinctions. The war (American readers may need reminding) was then in its second year. Conscription had begun with the twenties and upwards, but everyone knew that before long the nineteens and the eighteens would take their turn. In the meantime, undergraduates liable for service could expect three or four terms at the most : if they wished then to become officers, they drilled with the un-uniformed Officers' Training Corps half a day a week (later they got uniforms and drilled a day and a half a week). Life in college was austere. Its pre-war pattern had been dispersed, in some instances permanently. Everyone paid the same fees (in our case, 12s. a day) and ate the same meals. Because of Ministry of Food regulations, the town could offer little in the way of luxurious eating and drinking, and college festivities, such as commemoration balls, had been suspended for the duration. Because of petrol rationing, nobody ran a car. Because of clothes rationing, it was difficult to dress stylishly. There was still coal in the bunkers outside our rooms, but fuel ^^^^James Gindin, Postwar British Fiction (Cambridge University Press, 11