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The Complexity of My Attitude to the War
I come from generations of Quakers who were, of course, the founders of the war. And my father was tormented by the fact that he was torn between his desire to fight and be a conscientious objector. So there's this double attitude to ancestry. Yes, there is genuine sense of ancestry, the great sense of noble lineage. But I'm still aware of that corner of my mind that gives me an intense ambiguity. England is a society open to talent going back to the Middle Ages. The origins of most of the great leaders of the English church are not nobles. They're people usually of modest, middling background. By the time you've got to my own period of