by Working
Anderson feared not only discovery, but that he might be ignoring his loyalty to his service. In typically sensitive fashion, Churchill understood his dilemma. One day, still lying in his bed, Churchill told Anderson: ‘I know what is troubling you. It is loyalty to the Service and loyalty to the State. You must realize that loyalty to the State must come before loyalty to the Service.’ Anderson explained that ‘Churchill brought me into the family life at Chartwell. He did it to protect me. He could then say – he is a member of the family.’28
Recovered from the effects of her fall, and while the covert operations remained in full swing, Pearman returned to work in August of 1936, writing letters under her own name to Churchill’s proof-reading editor Charles C. Wood regarding delivery of the third volume of Marlborough: His Life and Times. Wood was not popular with the secretaries29 and was famous for picky editing and disagreeing with Churchill on the use of commas, rather like Churchill’s friendly, ongoing disagreement over the use of commas with his secretary and friend, Sir Edward Marsh. Because Wood was a superb proof-reader, Churchill had him apply that talent to A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, The Second World War and Marlborough. From then on, Churchill used the phrase ‘wooding’ ‘for the process of proof-reading’30 and Wood’s ‘green pen’ became famous among the teams working with Churchill.31
No account of Pearman’s responsibilities would be complete without reference to the several trips on which she accompanied Churchill, so that work could continue at its relentless pace, even on those billed as vacations.
Pearman accompanied Churchill on his trips to France – where vacations included an astonishing output. Her chores included handling requests that originated with Mrs Churchill, who, while en route by ship to America to visit her son Randolph, wrote one of the detailed letters the couple exchanged when apart, concluding with a request that he ‘let Mrs Pearman copy suitable portions & send them to [their daughters] Sarah at Broadstairs & Diana in London.’32 When they were in the same house such letters were marked ‘via House Post’.33
With Mrs Churchill home from America, the Churchill family decided to decamp to France in August of 1931 for a month-long vacation, as they called the working holidays of which Winston was fond. Then, and indeed until the end of his life, he needed a secretary (or two) along to facilitate his work, which at this time included ‘final proofs of the Eastern Front [a chapter in The World Crisis] and further chapters on Marlborough’,34 the latter a project that was in the process of ballooning from its planned two-volume, 90,000 words to be completed in five years,35 into four volumes containing almost 800,000 words, which took ten years to complete,36 at which time Pearman was still working for Churchill, although at home, from where she organized the final research teams and editing of Volume 4.
And we do have another glimpse of the varied nature of her chores from reports of Pearman’s trip with Churchill to France and on the extensive tour of the Middle East that followed in the summer of 1934. This was only a few months after the letter in which she complained about her working conditions and appealed to Miss Neal to find alternative employment for her. Pearman travelled with Churchill to Chateau de l’Horizon, the home of Maxine Elliott,37 an American actress famous for establishing and funding a Belgian relief barge that fed thousands of Belgians after the First World War. The house ‘was beautifully proportioned, an exquisite white art-deco villa on the French Riviera which acted as a collecting point for a group of people who were often world-famous celebrities, many of whom were able to enjoy a lifetime of unrelenting pleasure’.38 Pearman was in charge of ‘a large collection of boxes and suitcases’, although she undoubtedly had help from Churchill’s ever-present valet Sawyers,39 also along to smooth the way for Churchill, who rarely let the details of everyday life interfere with his work. Or his painting, the pleasure to which he had been introduced by his sister-in-law Gwendoline Churchill in 1915 and which made ‘all his cares and frustrations appear to vanish’.40
As always, Churchill dictated from around 8 a.m. until noon, in this case working on Volume 3 of his life of Marlborough,41 then dressed and went down to lunch, while Pearman transcribed the morning’s output, the correspondence ready for signature, the memos ready for editing at an opportune time later in the day.
On Christmas Day 1935 Pearman accompanied Churchill to La Mamounia in Marrakesh, Morocco, one of his favourite places – ‘The Paris of the Sahara’, as he called it – and to which he would return a mere eight years later with Franklin D. Roosevelt in tow as they took a break from the wartime Casablanca Conference. But in 1935 the burdens to be dealt with at Casablanca were not yet worrying Churchill.42 That left him free to dictate to Pearman ‘three draft chapters of Marlborough, sent back to England with Lindemann [Professor Sir Frederick Lindemann, Churchill’s scientific advisor], seven paintings completed, much brilliant sunshine, translucent air’.43 A letter from Churchill to his wife mentions six paintings ‘[sent] home tomorrow or next day by Mrs P, but do not unpack them till I come; for I want to do the honours with them for yr benefit myself’.44 Presumably the indefatigable Pearman not only had to transcribe and coordinate the delivery of the chapters, along with several newspaper articles, but to arrange the packing crates for the paintings and their transport, plus all the paraphernalia she needed for her office while abroad. Churchill expected a fully functioning office wherever he went, ready the minute he arrived.
Churchill was still in Marrakesh on 20 January 1936 when he received word that King George V had died at Sandringham. That event would test Pearman’s organizational skills. The News of the World, at the time a broadsheet, included ‘prominent political and public figures’ among its contributors. The editor regarded Churchill as ‘the brightest light in a galaxy of star contributors’. He telegraphed, asking for an article on the king for the Sunday, 26 January edition.45 Churchill, whose relations with the king had often been strained,46 immediately began to dictate it, while he and Pearman were en route by train to Tangier for the flight home.47 She typed the article on the Moroccan train and arranged to have it telegraphed from Tangier through Paris to London, where it arrived four days ahead of the deadline. Churchill’s powers of concentration triumphed over the hectic nature of the trip from Marrakesh to London by car, train and plane, and Pearman’s secretarial skills enabled him to meet the deadlines set for him by several media. The editor of the paper wrote to Churchill ‘all Fleet Street… considered it to be the best written on that solemn occasion’.48
Pearman, of course, not only had to handle the chore of taking dictation and transcribing the eulogy; she also somehow had to find time when Churchill did not need her at his side to make arrangements for shipping all the personal and work materials from Tangier to England. No easy task given the inevitable language and customs problems.
In September 1936 Churchill spent several days in Paris meeting with top French military leaders and politicians en route once again to Chateau de l’Horizon. From there he wrote to his wife that ‘I have been painting every day and all day’.49 Pearman was well enough to accompany him. As usual, Churchill was doing more than painting. He also dictated three articles (out of thirteen commissioned) on ‘Great Events of Our Time’ for the News of the World, and an article for the Evening Standard entitled ‘A Testing Time for France’, while finding time to review French military manoeuvres and tour battlefields.
In January 1938 Churchill returned to Chateau de l’Horizon for a month’s rest, at least as Churchill defined that term. ‘The comfort and convenience of this house are perfect,’ he wrote to Mrs Churchill.50 Pearman arrived one week later, on 9 January, to his immense relief. ‘Mrs P arrives here tomorrow so I shall feel less helpless than [when] I am alone.’51 Being without Pearman for an entire week was almost more than Churchill could tolerate, even though he had spent part of that week at the British embassy in Paris,52 where secretarial help was certainly made available. For Pearman, by now accustomed to the routine at Maxine Elliott’s house, the
usual workload began at once: ‘letters, forwarded regularly to France from Chartwell and Morpeth Mansions, continued’.53 She reports in a letter to Lindemann:
Mr Churchill looks better even for this short change… but the sunshine he expected has, alas, sadly disappointed him… He is working very very hard on his book, Marlborough, which he hoped to finish the following month, ‘come what may’54 and has not had time to paint. I am so glad he has come away at last because I think he would have tired himself out at Chartwell. Contrary to our expectations he has not lost a single thing on his journeyings alone and is very pleased’.55
This was to be Pearman’s last trip abroad with Churchill.
In early 1940, now a part-time employee, she wrote to Churchill:
If I wrote to you every time to praise and bless you it would be very often, but I refrain except on special occasions from doing so because your mail is already burdened by such letters. But you know that here in Edenbridge [the village, near Chartwell, where she lived] one humble person follows your joys and griefs with a very full heart.56
Later that year, at the age of only forty, she suffered a stroke, and was told by her doctor to take several months off.57 She did remain at home, but continued to work for Churchill from her cottage. He had her doctor come by Chartwell to give him a full report, and Churchill visited Pearman whenever he could manage it. ‘Do not overdo the homework,’ he advised in a letter in May of 1938. ‘I will try to come and see you again either next week or the week after.’58 Whether Churchill did find the time, we do not know. In 1941 Violet Pearman died. But not before congratulating her former employer on a speech revealing the government’s ‘appalling lethargy over defence preparations’.59
Churchill, who had assured Pearman early on in her illness that she would be paid for the entire year they both anticipated would be required for the full recovery that never came, arranged for her monthly salary of £12 (about £580 in today’s money) to be paid to her eleven-year-old daughter Rosemary, presumably for a year, although that is not clear from available reports. And for a further seven years beginning in 1943 he paid £100 annually (over £4,000 in today’s money) towards her education,60 a posthumous recognition of Pearman’s efforts on his behalf, perhaps tinged with guilt. In a letter to Pearman, preserved by her daughters and eventually turned over to Sir Martin Gilbert, he said her stroke was ‘due I fear largely to yr devotion to my interests & fortune’.61 §
A new secretary, Mary Penman, was brought in and she now ‘did a large share of the night work when A History of the English-Speaking Peoples was being dictated. I made many journeys with Mr Churchill in the brown Daimler, taking dictation as we travelled,’62 continuing the tradition started with Violet Pearman.
* Words from the official march of the Royal Navy.
† Because Violet Pearman died long before the Churchill Archives existed, we have no oral history. Fortunately, other sources provided sufficient material to allow me to include her in this book.
‡ The ‘Flat’ was Morpeth Mansions, the ‘House’ was Chartwell.
§ Pearman’s daughter was not the only individual whom Churchill cared for throughout his life. His former servant in Bangalore, Munuswamy received £5 a year from 1945 onwards, and, after he died, Churchill sent a final £5 to his widow along with a sympathy letter.
2
Grace Hamblin
‘a dynamic but gentle character.’
Grace Hamblin, oral history
‘[if] his public personality was aggressively masculine;
[there] was a softer, more feminine side.’
A. L. Rowse1
‘AT THE AGE of twelve, I decided that I would become private secretary to the Queen,’ Grace Hamblin told the Churchill Archives interviewer. While she understood that she would be a working woman, she was sufficiently ambitious to make that working life a successful one by the standards of her time.2
Born in a village near Chartwell on 1 January 1908, Hamblin was the daughter of a head gardener on a nearby estate.3 She attended Crockham Hill Church of England School and graduated from a secretarial training college. Because she had to care for an ailing parent, her job search was limited to an area close to home. In October 1932 she replied to an ad in the local paper for an assistant for literary work and, to her surprise, got the job, although she had no literary training and was only twenty-four years old. She was thrilled to learn that her new place of employment was Chartwell, which she had known as a child. It had been empty for years before the Churchills bought it and she and her friends roamed its grounds and the house, making the place a sort of private playground.
When Hamblin was hired, Churchill had just returned from a sanatorium where he had recovered from what was diagnosed as paratyphoid, which he described in a letter to the Duke of Marlborough as ‘an English bug which I took abroad with me, and no blame rests upon the otherwise misguided continent of Europe’.4 The hiring process was identical to that used with all of the women whose careers are related here. Hamblin was interviewed by an existing staff member – in this case at Chartwell by Mrs Pearman – and then, as with all the other secretaries, she was sent to see Churchill, who merely said, ‘ “You’re coming to us,” and that was it’.
Although Churchill-style interviews were perfunctory, he had a way of making new employees feel at once part of ‘the Secret Circle’, as Churchill called his staff.5 That, along with the intrinsic importance of what they were doing, explains at least in part why they felt such loyalty to him and to his work; and were so willing to extend themselves on his behalf, even when his demands were what might be considered unreasonable. As Elizabeth Nel (née Layton), one of Churchill’s secretaries during the war, puts it in her wonderfully detailed memoir Winston Churchill by His Personal Secretary, ‘We of the personal staff were called upon to put forth the maximum effort of which our frames, nerves and minds were capable. I do not think this was only because it was wartime. I believe he has always been a fairly exacting employer.’6 As we shall see, she was right.
Hamblin recounts a time when Pearman became ill, and she stepped in to cover the work of both of them. ‘I got awfully tired so I thought I would ask him if I could have Sunday off and he said yes, of course, my dear. You must be very tired. Do get someone down [meaning hire a temporary secretary]’, which she did and spent a day training and working alongside her. On saying goodnight to him on Saturday night, she reminded Churchill that she ‘[would not] be there tomorrow. Miss So and So will look after you, and he was horrified. He said, “oh no”. I said yes, you said I might have the day off. “Oh no [he repeated], I thought I would give you the work and Miss would take it from you”.’ She thinks she had the day off anyway. Hamblin asked for her regular daily wage, 10 shillings (about £1 today), for the extra Sunday work, and Churchill agreed. But he undoubtedly regretted granting that day off. He did not like adjusting to new faces, which Hamblin found odd in a man ‘of his calibre’ who had held so many political offices and responsibilities. Churchill considered new faces as ‘intruders’ into his work/family circle. She surmised that ‘he did not want to expand his horizons’, meaning the inner circle on which he relied to get his work done. That preference for familiar faces would remain with Churchill his entire life, but would have to be subordinated for his need to expand that circle as his workload grew to include the management of a global war.
Holidays were sudden and ‘very erratic, [Churchill would say] “you can take a fortnight’s holiday as I shan’t be here”. But we didn’t seem to mind.’ Hamblin makes no mention of whether she was paid for the time off, or if she ever actually took time off. And of course, during the war, whether working at Downing Street or Chequers, the prime minister’s country house, she had virtually no time off at all, like everyone else. Occasionally, if Mrs Churchill was at Chequers, Hamblin might get a few hours off to go home, which was quite close to Chartwell. In fact, Mrs Churchill was the secretaries’ court of appeal when the workload and hours became intolerabl
e. At such times the secretaries felt they could complain to Mrs Churchill, who might ‘sometimes say to him you keep the girls too late, or don’t be so rude to Hambone. … but we couldn’t [say anything directly to him]’. ‘Hambone’ was the nickname the Churchill children invented for Hamblin, and Churchill, who generally called her ‘Miss’, as he did the other female secretaries, used that nickname at times, much to Hamblin’s disgust: ‘From quite an early stage… he would say that awful name.’
Nicknames were common, as Vanda Salmon, another of Churchill’s secretaries, explains:
Either we would hear the cry of ‘Miss’ from the hall or the telephone would ring and a gruff voice would say ‘Come’. The term Miss puzzled me at first because we were known by our Christian names (unusual perhaps then, though all the Royal staff were called by their Christian names.) One day Jo Sturdee [see Chapter 5] said to Mr Churchill, ‘You know all our names why do you always call Miss?’ Mr Churchill looked over his gold rimmed glasses at her and replied, ‘If I call Jo or Lettice or ‘Chips’ and you are not there no one will come, but if I call Miss then someone will come.’ He gave a satisfied smile and returned to business. He had christened me Vanda the Wandering Salmon. He felt that Vanda should be spelt with a W; he also held that I had wandered into his life – hence Vanda the Wandering Salmon.7
Hamblin had taken a job with an employer who was not entering the best years of his life. Churchill had been ill, which never improved his temper. And there were what Hamblin calls his ‘doom and gloom days’ when he acted like a ‘bear’ to everyone, including family. She attributes this to his worry over the rise of Germany and his inability to influence or make policy, a period we now call his Wilderness Years. He fought losing battles over policies towards India and Nazi Germany, and, according to Hamblin, the 1936 Abdication Crisis was also of grave concern. She adds that Churchill was very ‘tense during that time’. Although he could not see it then, those years he ‘spent in the political wilderness meant that he had been spared the physical strains of office. They meant, too, that he had escaped the need to compromise, to which he would have been subject if he had been a member of the cabinet.’8 But according to Beaverbrook, Churchill also ‘suffered tortures when he thought that lesser men were mismanaging the business’.9
