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economic problems. All his life since the “sympathetic” incident he had been firmly determined, absolutely set, to distribute the wealth of the country more evenly and raise the standard of living for the working classes. Well, they’d done it and he rejoiced in it, and he hoped they’d go on doing it even more. But a whole batch of economic worries seemed to have come in the Welfare State train. Mr. Arnold, for instance, sometimes said that if wages went much higher, England would price herself out of world markets and lose her trade. Ernest listened sceptically. In the view of his party, the bosses never lost from a rise in wages, they always passed the rise straight on to the consumer, and took a little salary rise themselves on the way. On the other hand, in the thirty or so years he had known Mr. Arnold, he had found him on the whole shrewd, and honest within the code of his class; he was not one given to “sympathetic” humbug, he played the game according to the rules. Mr. Arnold said that the very thought of inflation made his hair stand on end; look what happened to the currencies and trade position of countries with inflation! England might quite simply starve, Ernest, he said, and that’s flat. The young shop steward at Holmelea on the other hand said the Union didn’t mind a spot of inflation as long as wages kept up with it—the worst time the workers had this century he pointed out, was with deflation, in 1931, and Ernest knew this to be true.
    So there was much to ponder and worry about. It was all very well Iris saying “not to worry”; somebody had to worry or where would the working class be? These young peoplenowadays! His mother wouldn’t have demeaned herself by entering a public-house, but his daughter Nora thought nothing of it, went regularly for a drink with her husband. And look at Kenneth’s wages! And his motor-bicycle and his leather coat and that! The young people nowadays had no ideals, thought Ernest sadly; they couldn’t be bothered to attend Union meetings, with them it was all football pools and rock and roll and motor-bikes and the telly. Everything for themselves and let the other fellow go hang.
    â€œA chap’s entitled to a bit of fun, dad,” said Kenneth once, when Ernest expressed these sentiments.
    Entitled? “A chap’s not entitled to anything but what he earns, in my view,” said Ernest slowly.
    â€œOh, go on, dad. Don’t you want us to enjoy ourselves? Don’t you want us to be happy?” said Kenneth, laughing.
    Ernest pondered. Yes, he certainly wanted them to be happy. So it was all very perplexing. The rock bottom of it all was, that nowadays Ernest could not rightly see what was right and what was wrong. So how could he help worrying?
    â€œYou’ll have to try, Mr. Armley,” said the doctor.
    The doctor. Yes. Because for several weeks this spring Ernest had suffered from pain in his abdomen; nausea, vomiting. But he had concealed his distress, he had fought it down as long as he could. Stay away from work? Show a weakness? Lay himself open to sham sympathy, which would lead in some clever fancy way to the sack?
(Finding the work a bit heavy, eh?)
No fear! Ernest endured in silence as long as he could, till he was hardly able to stand upright between his cropping-machines, then secretly, without a word even to Millie, he visited the doctor. Not that one could be very secret nowadays, under the National Health Service; all those queues! Still, Ernest had managed his various medical visits quite successfully; he set off to go ostensibly to a Union meeting, and dropped in at the tail end of the doctor’s evening surgery and hadn’t long to wait.
    The doctor sent him to be X-rayed and he had to go off work in the middle of the afternoon; he lied at the mill and said the trouble was toothache (a thing that might happen to the healthiest person), not wanting to give himself