Side 1: Michael Young moving to London and living at Toynbee Hall in the East End; working at McKenna and Co, Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst's firm of solicitors in the City, presided over by Fred Gwatkin; moving on his own to a rented flat in Bloomsbury; membership of the Holborn branch of the Labour Party and standing as a candidate for the Council in Holborn and St Pancras; moving in with his mother, Edith Young, in Bloomsbury; studying for the Bar at Gray's Inn; taking an evening course at the LSE and then switching to study Economics, Politics, Social History and Law full-time there; being elected Secretary of the LSE Students' Union; going to anti-Fascist demonstrations in London with his mother, Edith, during the Spanish Civil War; his first girlfriends; travelling around on his motorbike and visiting Dartington; his continuing relationship with Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst; qualifying as a barrister; working on a plan for wartime manpower policy for Max Nicholson at PEP (Political and Economic Planning); recruitment by Lord Perth to a Civil Service unit making preparations for wartime and the withdrawal of the offer because he had been identified by MI5 as a student Communist; joining PEP as a research officer instead; the post-war reconstruction group set up by Max Nicholson and their discussions of future plans for Europe. Duration; 47:04 minutes. Recorded on 29 May 2001.
Side 2: working at PEP on post-war reconstruction on the domestic front and how to pay for the war (pamphlet titled "Financial Mysticism"); meeting John Maynard Keynes to talk about the latter; his report on preparation for the emergency response to the bombing of London (pamphlet titled "London Under Bombing"); leaving PEP to work in a marine munitions factory in Swindon; joining the Home Guard and training with Tom Winteringham at Osterley Park; becoming the labour manager for the munitions factory, recruiting women workers, liaising with the trade unions, distributing the petrol ration, and progress chasing orders supplied to shipyards around the country; boarding with the Palphramand family in Swindon; meeting Joan Lawson, who later became his first wife; returning to PEP as director; moving to head the Labour Party Research Department at Transport House; the 1945 General Election campaign; Peter Willmott's letter about "Small Man, Big World", meeting each other, and recruiting him to the Research Department; the 1950 and 1951 General Elections; Michael Young's idea for a consumer advice service; his world tour to India, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and a narrow escape from a plane crash; his lifelong friendship and working relationship with Peter and Phyllis Willmott; leaving the Research Department and spending time at the Tavistock Institute; starting a PhD on the extended family in Bethnal Green supervised by Richard Titmuss and based at Oxford House. Duration: 36:34 minutes. Recorded on 10 July 2001?