A nice quote here from Pat Barker’s The Eye in the Door. Time: First World War. The context is about spying on, and fitting up, supporters of the anti-war movement. When he hears someone describe Edward Carpenter as being “of the homogenic persuasion”, Prior is immediately reminded of Major Lode, who

“had once told Prior in, of all places, the Café Royal, ‘This country is being brought to its knees. Not by Germany’ – here he’d thumped the table so hard that plates and cutlery had leapt into the air – ‘NOT BY GERMANY, but by an unholy alliance of socialists, sodomites and shop stewards.’ Prior had felt scarcely able to comment, never having been a shop steward.”

Those were definitely not the days.