That was a very political year. Mosely brought his Blackshirts to Oxford and we were unable to prevent him hiring an upstairs hall in Carfax for a meeting – to be ticket only. So we all bought tickets. We knew that the Oxford police were sympathetic to Mosely but that the Oxford bus drivers could be relied on. Town and Gown planned together. We were all asked to buy a copy of the Oxford Mail to take with us as we took our seats in the rapidly filling hall. An overflow meeting with loudspeakers was arranged downstairs.

Dons, lecturers and other important people occupied the front ten rows or so of seating – the rest of us sat behind. Uniformed Blackshirts wearing frighteningly large metal buckles to their belts stood, shoulder to shoulder, two deep all round the hall, while, in front of the stage, they were massed three deep.

Mosely kept us waiting. Each time we looked round, the Blackshirts had inched nearer, as if we were playing a terrifying game of Grandmother’s Steps. The atmosphere became more and more electric.

At last and very suddenly, Mosely appeared in uniform from the back of the stage and gave the fascist salute. As he stepped forward to speak all the students raised and opened their copies of the evening paper and rustled them quietly. Mosely waited. As we lowered them he started to speak, at first quietly and seemingly reasonably – but soon he was shouting about “dirty Jews crawling from the gutter with knives between their teeth”. Someone shouted, “That’s a lie.”

“Throw that man out,” shouted Mosely – and his Blackshirts moved in.

I missed the next bit as someone behind me seized my metal legged chair from under me to use as a weapon and I found myself on the floor. By the time a very large bus driver in his uniform had helped me up a real fight had started using the chairs as weapons between the audience and the Blackshirts. I saw one little old lady who had armed herself in advance with a handbag full of coppers running round calling out ”Show me a fascist!” and whenever one bent down to pick up a chair she would hit him over the head with her handbag. Someone shouted “Lead the audience out!” but the overflow meeting downstairs had heard over the loudspeaker what was going on and had decided to storm the stairs, thus adding to the confusion.

Meanwhile, Frank Packenham, now Lord Longford, had made his stately way to the platform and called out to Mosely over the three rows of his Blackshirt bodyguards still in position to guard their leader, “I am a senior member of this University. Call your men off and I will guarantee you a fair hearing” or words to that effect.