on masturbation, supposedly contributed by a doctor. Interlude Romilly used his share of the publisher's advance to open a public schools news agency, "Educational News and Features", but the venture soon collapsed. He then took a job selling silk stockings. His political convictions had meanwhile softened, and he joined the Labour Party. By December 1935 he was selling advertising space on commission, and in March 1936 he took a full-time job as advertising manager of World Film News. Spain The Spanish Civil War began in July 1936. By October, Romilly was ready to join the fight. He gave his employers a week's notice and, on 19 October 1936, took the boat train to Dieppe. Here he acquired a bicycle and set out for Marseilles. The journey through France took him ten days during which he managed to lose both his passport and his money. He arrived in Marseilles penniless but found a charity willing to support him while he looked for a ship to take him to Spain. After five days, he obtained a passage to Valencia on SS Mar Caspio. From Valencia, Romilly and other volunteers were entrained to Albacete, the gathering point where the International Brigades were being organised. For his first few days at the base, Romilly was aligned with a group of Russian emigrés, but within a few days, further shipments from the Maro Caspio had brought a number of English volunteers to the camp. Romilly became part of the group under the leadership of Lorrimer Birch, a Cambridge-educated scientist who, in Romilly's later assessment showed true qualities of leadership and organisation: "a communist first of all, but determined that his communism shouldn't interfere with his fairness of judgement". On 6 November, news reached Albacete that the rebel Nationalist forces had begun their assault on Madrid. Some accounts implied that the capital was on the verge of falling to the rebels. The English group were attached to the Thaelmann Battalion of the XII Brigade, which on 10 November moved to Chinchón, about 50 kilometres south-east of the capital. Two days later Romilly's unit was sent to defend the Madrid-Valencia highway near Vaciamadrid, close to the outskirts of the city. During the next few days Romilly had his first experience under fire in an abortive attack on a supposed rebel-held fortress at Cerro de los Angeles. The action was inconclusive, and on 15 November, the unit returned