£75
Quarto feint-ruled notebook, pp. [14, blank], 15-43, [1], [c. 150 blanks]. About 30 pages neatly filled in blue, black, and blue-black ink, most entries dated though the precision drops off towards the end. Original green textured paper boards backed in red cloth. Spine a little sunned. The author identified in pencil on the first leaf by the bookseller who acquired his collection of books.
Geoffrey Berrington Jones took his BArch from Liverpool in the 1940s, was elected ARIBA in 1950, then in the late 1950s moved to Edinburgh, becoming ARIAS in 1960. While studying for his degree (taught by Herbert Thearle) he kept this short journal, which happens to coincide with the final months of the European front of the Second World War. Most of the entries are social or academic in nature: on Jan 13 a group of students and friends gathered for a party in Upholland where they 'started with an "improve on this" to warm things up and went on to spinning a bottle for kisses, Murder, Hyde Park Corner, etc, all of which ammount [sic] to the same thing' (p. 17). But the war intrudes in places: 'Bartlett told us about Dave Annison giving instruction at the Air Sqdrn on the Browning. They had it dismantled and couldn't get it together again and had to fetch the armoured. Then Annison remembered he'd the firing pin in his pocket' (p. 20).
Jones frequently bemoans the absence of potatoes, and a number of days (and lectures) are 'dull'. He seems to abandon the diary towards the end of February, in 'glorious weather, much too good to work', after an account of a meeting to discuss the fates of six students sent down 'for a rag at Rankin Hall'. But he resumes writing on the following page early in May, perhaps because of the significance of the news: 'Holiday today, announced yesterday. Tracing working drawings very busy so not excited. Heard Churchill at 3 and then we all went down to New Brighton'. The following day Jones goes to Vale Park for celebrations, and later in the week 'came home to see mob burning down huts at Ack Ack battery. Poles not so excited'. The final few days of entries are dated again, though Jones mistakenly writes numbers in the 20s (26th, 27th, etc.) when he means 16th, 17th, and so on. On May 16th, he writes 'Heard de Valera's speech, very statesmanlike and a perfect rebuke to Churchill'. Matters conclude with a rumour that the President of RIBA will be visiting, after which no more entries.
