Introduction

Abstract

It is 1961. In a small, spare auditorium a man is sitting behind a glass screen and speaking into a microphone. His voice is sharp and scratchy. He looks nondescript: middle-aged and balding, he is dressed in a tidy but dour suit, and his thick black-framed glasses give the impression of someone in the civil service, or a university lecturer perhaps. While he speaks, a group of people in the gallery hurriedly scribble into their notes. One of these is a lady somewhere in her 50s; with owlish features and penetrating, dark eyes — she squints in concentration as she tries to better make out the person doing the talking.