In Barnsley, his next stopover, the radio announced the news that Hitler had reoccupied the Rhineland. That evening in a pub, he said casually, ‘The German army has crossed the Rhine.’ The response surprised him. ‘With a vague air of remembering something, someone murmured “Parley-voo”. No more response than that … So also at every moment of crisis from 1931 onwards. You have all the time the sensation of kicking against an impenetrable wall of stupidity.’13 The impression that England was asleep was a strong one and became for him an abiding image of the 1930s.
