ABSTRACT
I think it was the very next day after the general election that it all started to go wrong. That day John walked proudly into the 1917 Club, where he was welcomed like a conquering hero, and sat in triumph with some of his friends, and also a fat man whom Ernest Hunter introduced as Colonel Harry Day, a wealthy variety agent who had won Southwark in South London for Labour. In came Labour’s leader, Ramsay MacDonald. John wrote:
MacDonald . . . at once engaged Day in animated conversation. I have rarely seen him so anxious to please. He had not greeted me; and someone reminded him that I had just returned from my constituency. He turned briefly in my direction. “Oh, yes, Beckett,” he said, “weren’t you fighting somewhere? How did you get on?” Stifling the thought that the leader of the Party should know something of the very few victories gained under his leadership, I could not resist thanking him for the warmth with which he had recommended my candidature to the people of Gateshead a week before. He smiled coldly, and returned to an animated discussion of some antique furniture
he had seen, but could not afford, with which he regaled Mr Day’s wealthy and receptive ear.
