by Working
The Churchills moved into the flat at Admiralty House. Weekends at Chartwell would be rare, which had different effects on the Churchills. Hamblin was certain that Mrs Churchill was relieved when Chartwell was eventually put ‘to sleep’ for the duration of the war as
it wasn’t the sort of house she liked. I always sympathized with her as it was a terribly difficult house to run. Piled up high… she would have liked a lovely low perhaps old-fashioned house… so that you could step out into the garden easily. But in Chartwell you had to come right down the stairs before you were anywhere near the garden. And it was awfully difficult for staff… off the bus route. Nothing to interest them at all.
For Churchill closing up Chartwell was more difficult, but ‘he accepted it… his mind was on other things… his great love of Chartwell had to go into the background for a bit.’
Not only was Hamblin to move her work from Chartwell to the Admiralty, she also was to get a new boss. Miss Whyte, a cousin of Mrs Churchill’s, brought a message to Hamblin informing her that Mrs Churchill wanted her to work as her secretary, a job in which Hamblin remained until after Churchill’s death. Hamblin was, writes Mrs Churchill’s biographer, ‘beautiful, funny and astonishingly efficient, and she had a knack of knowing what Clementine wanted even before Clementine herself’.33 Lady Soames, Churchill’s daughter, would later describe Hamblin as ‘a built-in part of my mother’s private and official life, and her devotion, tact, efficiency and charm soon became a byword among all those with whom she had dealings’.34
Hamblin recalls that Mrs Churchill loved living in the Admiralty flat and that she ‘immediately made it look homey [sic] and pretty… as she could anywhere… [Their] elegant office there was very strange… sort of a round room… lit by pictures which intrigued me a lot. The pictures had lights and there were lights all around the room. Quite the smartest office I’d ever, ever been in.’ Hamblin was not quite so fortunate, at least initially. She moved to London, took a ‘poor little room in Pimlico’ and lived there until the building was destroyed by German bombs.
In May of 1940, when Churchill moved to Number 10 Downing Street, Hamblin’s living conditions improved markedly. She and Kathleen Hill (see Chapter 3) were sharing an office when they heard they were both going to Number 10. ‘They formed a ring of roses around the office and gave three cheers.’ They moved into ‘lovely rooms at the top of the house’ at Number 10, a dangerous spot: with the exception of the ground floor, the building was for the most part closed after Number 11 was hit by a bomb, weakening the structure of its neighbour.35 But the two women ‘decided we would rather die straightforwardly than be smothered… we slept happily at the top of No. 10 like two birds nesting.’ §§ She felt no danger because
you’re in very good company and looked after… and it was all so interesting. We were allowed to go into the Map Room if we’d like, to see after a night’s bombing… I remember once it had been very very near my home… a matter of yards away. And I felt very worried so I asked Lady Churchill if I might go down to see… if my parents were all right… I think that was the only time.
As usual, Mrs Churchill made Downing Street and the upstairs apartments, their ‘nest’,
immediately warm and liveable… instead of stately and unliveable… [using] some of her own furniture… Doing the flowers there was always a great thing, she always had flowers, as you would in your own house… She had the pictures lighted… and had a lot of Sir Winston’s own paintings there to brighten it, and always flowers… [She] really had a great flair.
No complaints from Hamblin, who had to add to her secretarial chores for Mrs Churchill the added jobs of organizing the moves and redecoration, a melding of secretarial and personal chores to which she had become accustomed working for the man who was now the prime minister of a country at war.
When the Churchills moved to the safer Annexe36 to avoid German bombs, the ‘two birds’ had their Downing Street nest virtually to themselves, the only other person living there being Winston’s brother Jack.
One of Grace Hamblin’s important new chores was to help Mrs Churchill hire domestic staff. Hamblin didn’t see much of the domestic staff until she went to work for Mrs Churchill, who was ultimately responsible for interviewing and hiring all the domestic staff. Unlike her husband, who simply looked over secretarial candidates who had been recommended to him before having them join his staff, Mrs Churchill and Hamblin wrote descriptions of the household positions available, typed them and had them printed in (presumably) The Lady, checking references for each, a chore later taken on by Kathleen Hill, who found that task among the least agreeable of those she undertook. Many of the maids came from Wales and Hamblin felt they were
quite raw in their first post… poor little things… Chartwell was their home so one had to try to make them feel that it was home and that there were some pleasures in life as well as work. I remember I used to [take] them into dances in Westerham… and sometimes they got back very late and had to climb through a window… I remember taking part in that sort of naughtiness.
Hamblin could not have been much older than those girls, for whom she felt considerable empathy, and whom she treated with kindness.
The domestic staff served meals to the secretaries before their number increased beyond the original two. Nothing elaborate: bites between typing. Later, when there were more than two, Mrs Churchill set up a separate dining room for their own privacy, a few minutes rest and the possibility of making a cup of tea.
Of course, Hamblin was not completely removed from her former boss, who shared every detail of his work with his beloved wife, from whom he kept no secrets. Hamblin often had to interact with the prime minister’s staff on diary items, social and official functions and tours, such as those to bomb sites, which both Churchills toured frequently, with Mrs Churchill taking a special interest in the problem of the shelters.
Once ensconced at the Admiralty and then at Number 10, Mrs Churchill began her war work. She concentrated at first on the shelters provided as protection from the German bombing raids. She and Hamblin toured shelters when raids were in progress, because Mrs Churchill was ‘very worried about the conditions there… hundreds of people underground and the toilets weren’t adequate’. Mrs Churchill spent a good deal of time at different shelters, talking to people and making notes for improvements. Whatever she did, she ‘didn’t do lightly’.
Mrs Churchill also took on the chairmanship of the Young Women’s Christian Association and worked very hard to ensure that hostels for young women were set up all over the country and were properly run, as so many young women had either been bombed out, or were working in factories unable to go home, or, like the Land Girls and Lumberjills, working far from home. Mrs Churchill worked harder and more skilfully than she ever had and ‘became much much more active’. During the First World War, she had undertaken volunteer work organizing canteens for munitions workers, ‘opening, staffing and running nine canteens, each feeding 500 workers’, and ensuring that female workers would also have access to smoking areas on an equal basis with their male co-workers.37 She read all the letters addressed to her, dictating her responses after discussing the nature of that reply with Hamblin, and then dictated a response.38
But Hamblin’s position within Number 10 was odd: she was told by a civil servant that she would not have any official status and ‘to more or less keep her place’. She took satisfaction from Mrs Churchill’s decision to employ her, since Mrs Chamberlain had offered Mrs Churchill her own secretary who knew the Number 10 ropes. But Mrs Churchill: ‘with her usual frankness and niceness [replied] thank you very much, but I have a perfectly good secretary of my own’.
There were significant changes in Hamblin’s position. She recalls that Mrs Churchill was easier to work for and the hours not quite as long. More important, and of enduring significance, were the changes in her standing within the Churchill family. Hamblin notes that the war changed everything:
With the war, cam
e an acceptance of people. I can remember that line quite distinctly. Before the war, secretaries were just secretaries. They were there to work and not ever included in the family circle… Perhaps not unkindly, but it just happened that way. But when the war came, you were all more of family… And you were all pulling together.
They were also establishing far less formal relationships. Mrs Roosevelt visited London in late 1942, bringing along her secretary, whom, records Hamblin, ‘she called by her Christian name and Lady Churchill was obviously quite knocked out by this, because in those days we didn’t use Christian names. I was always Miss Hamblin. Lady Churchill said to me one day: “Mrs Roosevelt calls her secretary Della or whatever it was. I think I shall call you Grace.”’ With this wartime relaxation of some of the formality, it was only natural that Hamblin and her boss should become friendlier, or as close as anyone could get to Mrs Churchill. Churchill never called Hamblin anything but ‘Miss’, or rarely ‘Miss Hamblin’, although he inscribed a photo ‘to Grace from Winston’, but he never said it.
Class barriers were breaking down across Britain. In late 1940 Churchill commented on ‘the disappearance of the aristocracy from the stage and their replacement by the excellent sons of the lower middle class. [And] referring to the RAF pilots, he noted 70% of them came from Elementary Schools and professional classes. “They have saved this country, they have the right to rule the country.”’39
A more exciting change for Hamblin was the opportunity to accompany Mrs Churchill on several overseas trips. When working with Churchill, Hamblin almost had an opportunity to take her first trip out of Britain.
He was very very tired and he was going to rest… going for a holiday in South America and he was going to take me… he wasn’t going to take a valet. He said if I could look after his socks he’d be quite happy. He was going to paint and would I just look after his pallet. No serious work.
Hamblin, still new at her job, probably did not realize the sheer implausibility of that latter statement. Churchill gave her £10 (about £650 today) to buy appropriate dresses – she called it her trousseau – for a trip ‘first class on one of the big liners’. She was then making £3 a week (about £198 today). Alas, it was not to be. The trip was cancelled twenty-four hours before they were set to sail, because of the Abdication Crisis and his work in the House of Commons. But she did keep the £10.
And later she did get to the South of France. Once, in the early days of her working for Churchill, she stayed behind at Chartwell while he vacationed in the Midi. Quite unexpectedly he cabled her: ‘Bring me the papers on India and some cobalt blue.’ She noted: ‘Bring – not send – and I who had never been out of the country had to obey.’40 That is what it was like working for Churchill.
Hamblin’s experience with Mrs Churchill was entirely different. In August 1943, when Mrs Churchill joined her husband on a trip to attend the first Quebec Conference (codenamed Quadrant), Hamblin was ‘lucky enough’ to accompany Mrs Churchill aboard the Queen Mary. It was Hamblin’s first time crossing the Atlantic, and ‘lovely, lovely to go on the sea, zigzag all the way to avoid anything that might be lurking there’. Her enthusiasm was not dulled by the fact that the great liner, built to carry 2,000 passengers in the height of luxury, had been remodelled to handle 15,000 troops: the Grand Salon had been turned into a mess hall to feed the troops in twenty-minute shifts, and the Art Deco pool had been drained to accommodate bunks.41 Her work for Mrs Churchill was not too onerous, although ‘masses of letters to her… telling her to tell the prime minister so-and-so… and all the letters wanted acknowledging… I went sightseeing when other people did and so it was great fun.’ These journeys abroad were ‘breaks… [from] the bombing and the monotony of war’. We know that Marian Holmes (see Chapter 6), who was also there working for Churchill while Hamblin tended to Mrs Churchill, managed to find some time to shop for nylons, clothes and to go dancing one night. It is not unreasonable to suppose that Hamblin joined in a bit of the fun.
It must be remembered that the women were coming from a Britain in which rationing of just about everything was common. Nevertheless, they maintained their senses of humour. In a famous memo marked ‘Most Secret – Burn Before Reading’ (see Appendix 1) addressed to the War Cabinet and labelled ‘Operation Desperate’, the Joint Planning typing pool laid out its requirements for ‘vital commodities’. To avoid ‘extreme embarrassment’ US Resources should be tapped to supply silk stockings (size 10½, Mist Beige), chocolates (large), and cosmetics (powder, lipstick, creams). If those demands are not met, one of the signatories intends ‘to remove all my normal clothing and substitute for it a complete covering of silk stockings’.42
The shortages to which Mrs Churchill addressed her efforts, before and after the Quebec trip, were of a more serious nature. Her war work began with such efforts as organizing the knitting, collecting and distribution of ‘sea boot stockings’,¶¶ a task at which she excelled and would repeat, with greater political complications, when she took over the British Red Cross Aid to Russia Fund in October 1941. But the tasks quickly expanded, which resulted in an expansion of her staff; this made it a bit easier to work at Downing Street and to interact with Number 10 staff.
After Hamblin and Mrs Churchill returned from the Quebec trip in 1943, Mrs Churchill was assigned her own Number 10 staff and Hamblin quickly learned which ‘particular [male private] secretary to go for answers that Mrs Churchill required in order to respond to the thousands of letters she received, championing many causes’.43 But before the year ended she was off again with Mrs Churchill, this time flying to ‘Carthage in 1943 when Sir [sic] Winston was so ill’, and then on to Marrakesh for his convalescence. Hamblin recalls, ‘I was not in his [and Mrs Churchill’s] plane but in the one that the door fell off in the middle of the desert which was a terrifying experience’. Hamblin did manage to have ‘three lovely weeks in Marrakesh, never to be forgotten’ while the prime minister convalesced.
Perhaps the most memorable of all the trips occurred in 1945, when she accompanied Mrs Churchill to Moscow. When Hitler violated the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in June of 1941 by invading the Soviet Union, Churchill famously said of his former Bolshevik bête noire, ‘If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.’ Mrs Churchill threw herself into work supporting Britain’s new ally. In October 1941 the Red Cross established an Aid to Russia Fund with Mrs Churchill as its chairman44 and began raising funds for Britain’s newest ally. By ‘Christmas that year she had already raised £1 million pounds, [recruiting] factory workers, millionaires and widows, she organized auctions, flag days and galas and persuaded celebrity musicians to give concerts’.45 Hamblin was Mrs Churchill’s principal aide, secretary and organizer for all these endeavours. By 1945 the Appeal had raised some £8 million pounds (about £300 million today) and the Russian Red Cross invited her ‘to go and see the hospitals her fund had equipped… and she said she could take me,’ added Hamblin, ‘which was lovely!’## Of course, the Soviets had to approve her travelling with Mrs Churchill. As the prime minister saw them off in his own ‘beautiful’ Skymaster plane, he ‘kissed Hamblin and said to her: “You will take good care of her?”’, surprising Hamblin with that show of emotion.
En route to Moscow, the pair flew south to Cairo to avoid enemy planes, where they stayed with the minister resident in the Middle East, Sir Edward Grigg, whose ‘lovely home and spontaneous welcome… felt like falling into a downy bird’s nest and being fed on peaches and cream’.46 They were grounded by weather and had to spend four days in Cairo, where Mrs Churchill visited local YWCA chapters and Red Cross installations and celebrated her sixtieth birthday with ‘a beautiful diamond-encrusted heart-shaped brooch’ as a gift from her husband. Churchill might have secretly given this gift to Hamblin when they flew out and asked her to give to her boss on the day.
Many surprises were in store for Hamblin during these travels. In a Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engin
eers (REME) camp in the African desert, outside Cairo, she and Mrs Churchill toured a large vegetable and flower garden, flourishing in the desert sands of North Africa.
Here, the Colonel had decided to make a garden for the boys. He had found a man who had had a market garden in Surrey, so he gave him a plot of desert, some seeds and eight natives and made him a Corporal… He had made his own potting shed and greenhouse… a really beautiful garden full of vegetables and flowers.
At lunch, after an Easter service in Cairo’s cathedral, Hamblin ‘sat between the Soviet Minister here [in Cairo] and our own Wing Commander: bliss.’47
Hamblin and Mrs Churchill flew on to Moscow, arriving on 2 April 1945. They settled into their own State Guest House with their own butler, chef and maids. ‘Lady Churchill could entertain as she pleased, and on our first day we had… our own pilot to lunch. Saying goodbye to him was quite emotional… It would be five long weeks before the Skymaster met us once more in Moscow.’48 Joseph Stalin had asked to meet Mrs Churchill in order to thank her in person. Unlike her husband, who rarely if ever introduced his secretaries to the famous people he met (although he expressed regret at having failed to introduce Kathleen Hill to Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Hyde Park meetings; and later introduced Jo Sturdee to President Truman), Mrs Churchill invited Hamblin to join her to meet Stalin in the Kremlin. Unfortunately for Hamblin, she got only as far as the door to Stalin’s office before she was stopped by ‘members of the Red Army Guard, [who] indicated in no light terms by placing their guns across the entrance so that I could go no further’.49 She recalled ‘bayonets across the door’. From then on as they toured the country, ‘we were allocated a train which was equal, I suppose to a Royal train. We had our own bedrooms and sitting room to work in and have our meals… we were [also] allocated a butler and a doctor.’ And, of course, they each had their own interpreter throughout the six-week tour of the Soviet Union, an interpreter who left them only when they went to bed, when he temporarily suspended his work as the spy he undoubtedly was.
