[George Bilainkin, English journalist.] Typescripts of three articles, two in the form of diary entries (one on an Egyptian Embassy reception and the other on an international conference on crime); the third a dialogue between monks and journalists.

The three items derive from the Bilainkin papers. Each is separately paginated and stapled, with the text on one side only of the leaves. All three in good condition, on lightly-aged and creased paper, with rusty staples. Item One: Titled 'ADD 1960 DIARY. Saturday, July 23.' 7pp., foolscap 8vo. With carbon copy of the same. The entry describes a reception at 'the imposing and out of date house in South Audley Street, Mayfair, where this evening three to 400 hundred [sic] leading diplomatic social military and other notables of London, gathered to celebrate the 8th anniversary of the July 23 revolution in Egypt, with the handsome charge d'affaire, [sic] and Madame Kamil Eldin Khalil, a strikingly handsome brunette, the height of Princess Margaret.' A gossippy account, with reference to Katsumi Ohno of Japan, the Burmese Ambassador, Harold Walton, Laurence Cadbury, 'Miss Schofield', Tom Bairstow. 'To the Bairstows I recalled the many occasions when, as wife of the Foreign Secretary, Florence Bevin would suffer the humiliation of walking up 3 and 4 times an evening to the one time lorry driver for anaerated water co. in Bristol, and plead in the presence of other guests, "Ernie, Ernie you have had more than enough . . . I am going home now . . . Do come. Ernie, Ernie you promised 10 minutes ago you would come along." All to no avail. I remembered particularly one occasion at the Iraki Embassy when Bevin snuggled his huge paws round the gulf of the waist of the Princess Zaid Al-Husseini and another round the slim red haired wife of the arabist, St. John Philby, and resist the blandishments of his wife.' Item Two: Titled 'ADD DIARY 1960. Thursday, August 18.' 10pp., foolscap 8vo. The first sentence explains the context: 'Hundreds of delegates, from governments, international organisations, private societies, and individuals interested in dealing with crime, and juvenile delinquency, crowded Church House, Westminster, when I returned today to chat with many of my friends from a dozen foreign lands.' These include the 'dynamic' and 'heavily-built vice-chairman of the supreme Soviet Court, Smirnov, with his charming, thoroughly official interpreter, Mrs Stepanova.' There are also reminiscences of Maisky, Churchill, 'the restless Nancy, Viscountess Astor, of Cliveden', the Japanese4 ambassador Baron Tsuneo Matsudaira, 'a fresh-faced youthful Argentine delegate', 'a French missionary', Senor Sir Roberto Pettinato, and Judge Almeda Lopez; also a reference to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound's 'mental illness' and the fact that 'he had often been asleep during sessions of the British Cabinet'. The article concludes: 'Moments of self satisfaction came to me as I waited in the corridor to see Professor Manuel Lopez-Rey, chief of the Section of Social Defence, United Nations, head of the Conference. Spaniard from Madrid, he is thin, medium height, looks as though he has lived principally on mushrooms and herbs. By my side were two or three white delegates who changed with chameleon speed from Russian to German, from English to French, from Polish to something Scandinavian, or maybe Finnish. I smiled to myself with all the vulgarity of that great sin, pride.' Item Three: Titled 'MONASTERY'. 5pp., foolscap 8vo. Incomplete (breaks off suddenly). Written in the form of a dramatic dialogue, beginning: 'Christmas morning in the Monastery. | Scene: Cistercian Monastery in England, early morning of Christms Eve, sitting room for guests visiting in the heart of a Midlands forest. | Time: At present. | Dramatis Personae: Abbot of Monastery, 55, mathematician from Scotland; | Sub-Prior, 70, native of Midlands; | The Rev guest master, 55, School teacher from Dublin; | Lay Brother of the door, 50, former tailor from York; | Instructor of the novices; 45, solicitor from London; | Editor of Daily Newspaper, 45, ex-Public school London; | News Editor of local Daily Paper, 40, half timer in Lancashire cotton mills. | Act 1, Scene 1: - Journalists are approaching the Monastery which stands in its own grounds in a forest. They are walking from the taxicab which was to have taken them for a game of golf but the snow is too thick in the ground, and they have decided on first visit to the remote home of the Order of the Cistercian Monks, first known 800 years ago.' In the dialogue the journalists ask the monks about their practices. It ends: 'News Editor: - And if someone does speak, what happens, is there any punishment? | Sub-prior: - Once a week the Community meets in Chapter, when all lie down, stretched out, facing the Abbot. We then get open confession. Thus a member may say, "I have to confess that on Tuesday I spilt the salt carelessly," or [...]'. Also present is the last foolscap 8vo page of a fourth extract, paginated 13 and headed 'ADD DIARY 1960. Thursday, July 28.' It concerns 'Kennedy' and 'his son Jack', and in it Bilainkin refers to his book 'Diary of a Diplomatic Correspondent' (1942): 'the record of day to day conversations, criticisms, praise, the fearful agony of wondering what America could give us when she had so little to spare'. It concludes: 'And I should be less frail than I am were I not inwardly to feel minute satisfaction that fortuitous fate favored me with the pleasure and privilege of knowing Ambassador Kennedy so well, so closely, in those perilous months of 1939 and humbling 1940.'