to visit the Parton Street bookshop in West London, where he had arranged to meet one of his communist correspondents. The Parton Street premises, part bookshop, part circulating library, partly a centre for radical intellectuals and poets, was run on a philanthropic basis by David Archer, a Cambridge graduate and former Wellingtonian with whom Esmond struck an immediate rapport. Among the habitués were the poets John Cornford, Stephen Spender and David Gascoyne, the budding actor Alec Guinness, and the soldier-diplomat and writer T.E. Lawrence. The Parton Street Press was Dylan Thomas's first publisher. Whatever the outcome of the arranged meeting, Esmond had, as Ingram remarks, found a new spiritual home in which to revive his flagging spirits. His mood was further improved at the start of the summer vacation when he attended a communist demonstration at Deptford. Returning to Wellington for the 1933 autumn term, Esmond became the leader of a small group of followers, none of whom he found particularly inspiring. On 15 October, at the Wellington Debating Society, he proposed the motion that "In the opinion of this house the political freedom of women is a sign of a civilized society". Giles led for the opposition, and the motion was defeated by 29 votes to 9. A month later he was involved in perhaps his most direct act of rebellion against the College ethos, when in advance of the Armistice Day commemorations he distributed a consignment of badges from the Anti-War Movement, to be worn in addition to the venerated poppy. From the same organisation he acquired anti-war leaflets which he and a confederate inserted into the hymn-books from which the hymn O Valiant Hearts would be sung at the Armistice service. Esmond was again forced to apologise, this time under direct threat of expulsion, and to provide an undertaking that nothing similar would occur in the future. Although often at odds with each other, the Romilly brothers were capable of working together. In January 1934, after Esmond had addressed a meeting of the Federation of Student Societies (a university-based Marxist organisation that co-ordinated left-wing student activities), the brothers decided to launch a new magazine, Out of Bounds ("Against Reaction in Public Schools"). A manifesto was prepared and circulated among interested parties: the first issue would be in March 1934, it would appear twice termly (cost one shilling); among the problems the first issue would discuss was "the