ABSTRACT
Soon after starting training with the London Fire Brigade, John joined the great crowd in Hyde Park that welcomed the Hunger Marchers but then spent some months experimenting with different modes of thinking and action, including Buddhism and stoicism before definitively rejecting Friends Hall’s Christian pacifist socialism and Gandhian non-violent direct action. He attached himself to Walthamstow’s Communist Party, attended Herman Levy’s lectures on Marxism and disrupted fascist meetings.
