The 1930's had a radicalizing effect on many of the middle class young men growing up in the early years of that decade. For most boys the central experience of their childhood and youth was the public school where they learned, played, socialized, and lived within a community of men for almost twenty years. The public school became a popular ground for anti-militarist and revolutionary thought and activity in this period, and many boys were attracted by the struggle against conventional values. Indeed, the public schools were also a fertile ground for young fascist sympathisers as well, which provided the opportunity for conflict within schools. Many boys were involved in adventures such as secret distribution of pacifist literature and involvement in London demonstrations, which allowed for dramatic expression often well covered by the popular press. Some of these rebels ended up fighting in Spain where they put their training and leadership abilities to subversive use. There was only so far that their rebellion could go in this context, were they became the soldiers they had been trained to be and reproduced many of the attitudes towards war and make communities which had been an aspect of their upbringing.
Two of the radical public school boys of the 1930's were Esmond and Giles Romilly, the only two children of a comfortable upper-middle class family. They had high connections, as their mother's sister was the wife of Winston Churchill. The title of "Winston Churchill's nephew" was to follow Esmond Romilly around for all of his short life, much to his distaste. It was Esmond, the younger son, who first became interested in Communism and it was he who usually led the brothers into action. As a child he had been a romantic Jacobite with a sentimental attachment to the monarchy, but by his teenage years he was intellectually precocious and had delved into left-wing ideology. According to his account he was sold a copy of the Daily Worker on a vacation to France at age fifteen and being "excited and intrigued" by it, "gave an order to have a copy sent each day it Dieppe whil I was there." From then was always involved with left-wing politics. He returned to his public school, Wellington College, with six copies of the Communist Manifesto to distribute and a bust of Lenin for his room. He made contacts among the radical intelligentsia in London with whom he traded left-wing publications and managed to convert many of his school-mates. As many boys seemed to be open to the idealistic possibilities of Communist ideology as those who were attracted by the impressive sight of Oswald Mosley and his Fascist Blackshirts.
One of the main institutions which socialist and Communist boys directed their attention towards was the much-hated Officers Training Corps. The Romilly boys had persuaded their father, a retired Colonel, to send them to Wellington rather than one of the more affluent public schools because at the time they were attracted by its militaristic reputation. That attraction was to be short-lived and when it was time for Esmond to join the school's Officers Training Corp he got special permission to be exempted from the activity. Giles wrote that it was "owing to personal hatred of the Corps that I became a pacifist, and revolted against the 'military spirit.'" The OTC was officially voluntary, and the pressure for all boys to participate in "playing at soldiers" was one of the main issues the Romillys would protest against for the next several years. Other radicals express extreme dislike of the OTC which succeeded in making pacifists or anti-militarists out of many public school boys. Esmond Romilly organized the distribution of anti-war literature on Armistice Day and persuaded others to wear badges of support. In some ways the OTC, along with sport, was the centre of public school life and if it was equated with militarism in a larger context the it was easy for radical boys to rebel against by becoming part of the British Anti-War Movement. The OTC represented more than just militarism, but was the heart of the institution which was designed to produce the man of "character" who would be an effective leader. In rebelling against the OTC, boys were also rejected some of the definitions of the kind of men they were supposed to be and a military role in society.
Neither of the Romillys enjoyed their school experience, as few political activists and intellectuals did. Giles showed early signs of intellectual promise, a quality rarely encouraged at public school. He was a sensitive boy, who has been described as being "desperately mother-bound." He kept a diary during some parts of his school years and reflected back upon his educational experiences in a book written with his brother. He addressed the taboo subject of adolescent sexuality, commenting on his own ignorance and frustration. Esmond's dissatisfaction was more political in nature. He spent most of his time at school reading the latest socialist and Communist publications, meeting with like-minded youth and trying to convert boys at Wellington. This kind of disaffection with the values being offered by the older generation sent many boys to extreme ideologies in this period, for which they were willing to engage in dramatic action.
T.C. Worsley, who would later volunteer as an ambulance driver in Spain, had been a young Master at Wellington College during the Romillys' attendance there. His memoir of the period, Flanneled Fool, gives a sense of the insularity and restrictiveness of the public schools in the early 1930's. His attempts to have some of the traditional rules relaxed and to have more friendly interaction with the boys were discouraged by the school authorities. Worsley had much more in common with Giles than Esmond Romilly, and they were part of the small group of mis-fit intellectuals at Wellington. Esmond Romilly, on the other hand, had a different personality. "Tough, ruthless, wholly unscrupulous, iron-hearted" is the way Worsley describes him, and notes that he "seemed to spring fully armed with the doctrine [Communism] as if from Jove's head." Given his reputation as a progressive, Worsley was suspected of being involved in the socialist ideas gathering momentum at Wellington, but rather he reports that it was Esmond who introduced radical politics to the school.
Although Romilly's school experience was something of an exception is does highlight many of the issues facing young men of this class in the 1930's. Increasingly numbers were coming into contact with progressive ideas, and were stultified by the stagnant atmosphere which they perceived at their schools. Public school taught a worship of games and preparation for leadership in army, business or politics. It also taught boys to live in a world populated only by men and to think this normal. Even those who rebelled against the militarism in the schools would have found it difficult to erase these experiences from their minds and bodies. They lived in a military atmosphere, constantly paid homage to the casualties of the Great War and more likely than not passing a war memorial every day of their school life. It is not surprising that most had fairly strong ideas about living a military type life, and that a rejection of public school and its values included a rejection of war, though this was often not consciously thought through.
At age fifteen Esmond Romilly dramatically ran away from Wellington College in the middle of the night and set himself up at the radical Parton Street Bookshop in London. This one episode prompted a newspaper furor and more stories of young public school runaways, who were supposed to be a prominent feature of bohemian London at the time. In fact few boys left their schools, though one boy, Philip Toynbee, inspired by Romilly ran away from Rugby only to return immediately and be expelled. With Romilly at the centre there was a group of committed public school boys (and girls) whose main concerns included the mandatory nature of the OTC, the repression of sexuality in schools and the rising appeal of Fascism in public schools. The main result of Romilly's political work in London at this time was the creation of the magazine Out of Bounds, which was a forum for ideas about reactionism and progressivism in the public school. He and Giles co-edited the magazine which received a great deal of press attention, as had Romilly's original flight from school. Four issues were published over two years before the idea lost its vitality. By the time the last issue had come out Romilly was working at other jobs, had published a book with his brother on their educational up-bringing and was already considering fighting in Spain. Other young men, not all from high status families like the Romillys, describe being politicized by involvement with Out of Bounds, and that being the reason for later interest in Spain.
Out of Bounds is an interesting and unique publication, and its content reveals a lot about which issues were considered central by young radicals. Anti-militarism and anti-war sentiments were a crucial focal point but so were the issues of co-education, sex education, and a desire for different kinds of teaching methods. At the time all of these concerns were linked and were all seen as negative aspects of the social and political situation in Britain. The political and social were inextricably bound, and while it was the political issues which would prompt Romilly (and most volunteers) to fight in Spain, his ideas were socially radical as well. The magazine was interested in progressive education, and reviewed the educational systems at various institutions throughout the country. The Romillys opposed the social principles of Fascism, which insisted that "we want men, not eunuchs in our ranks." This equation of male identity with fighting and the Fascist understandings of "real men and real women" were ridiculed in the pages of Out of Bounds. It might have been anti-militarism which provoked the most violent arguments of the day, with an explosive letters page attesting to these differences of opinion, but it was often the Romillys' views of sexuality and class relations which were so shocking as to be too controversial to be discussed outside the magazine.
As the magazine was produced both by and for public school boys there is little awareness of the issues facing working class boys in their same age group. They rarely came into contact with boys from other backgrounds until they were involved with larger movements later in life. One issue which did unite young radicals of all classes was resistance to Fascism. Rallies and marches organized by Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists were a prominent feature on the landscape of 1930's London. It is difficult to recapture the feelings of confrontation in the mid 1930's when extreme political views were at their height in Britain, and the struggle between them was highly visual. Many feared that it might prove as easy for Mosley to gain political control as it had been for Hitler and Mussolini and were committed to oppose the growth of Fascism. Romilly describes crashing a Fascist rally which ended up in fights all around, including one between him and a fellow Wellingtonian. Romilly and Toynbee joined an anti-fascist demonstration against Mosley's massive rally at Olympia. Writes Toynbee, "we bought knuckle-dusters at a drury Lane ironmonger, and I well remember the exaltation of trying them on." This was hardly good form for the young pacifists, but their anti-war tendencies did not seem to extend to avoiding the violence of political confrontation in the London streets. Romilly was also a speaker at anti-Fascist rallies and in activities such as these came into contact with other types of young men with whom he formed networks. It is easy to underestimate the real menace that Fascism seemed to these idealistic young men of the 1930's, but Mosley and his Blackshirts were ever-present in the media, in the popular imagination and in marches throughout the country, and commanded a great deal of public support.
Without the radical turmoil in Britain in the middle of the decade it is unlikely that individuals would have been inspired to fight a foreign war. Young men and women approached this problem with a great deal of determination and the controversy that developed was more serious that it had been in the last decade. Julian Symons posits that it is the passionate fervour of the youthful intelligentsia's criticisms and the "loving hatred" they felt for their school experiences which today seems the strangest. There is a sense that a great number of people of many ages felt that the 1930's was a decade which could change the direction of the world and they felt the decisions they made were an important contribution. Fascism was on the minds of many young thinkers, who all saw a forthcoming war between the forces of socialism (or democracy, depending on their political affiliations) and the dark spectre of fascism.. Many of them had felt frustrated and impotent in their activities at home and the energy of their domestic political movements often seemed to have no outlet.