A Gorbals Boy at Oxford

This is an autobiographical account of life in wartime Oxford, focusing on Ralph Glasser who grew up in the slums of Glasgow, and moved to Oxford to take up a scholarship just before the outbreak of the Second World War. He describes here the diametrically different worlds of the characters he met from snooty north Oxford hostesses to "boss class" progressive thinkers such as R.H.S. Crossman, Harold Laski, G.D.H. Cole and Victor Gollancz, and the shady world of Communist Party recruiters - including Philip Toynbee - in search of appropriate "soul mates". This book is the successor to "Growing up in the Gorbals", published by Chatto in 1986.