A Chelsea Concerto

by Frances Faviell

  ‘Blood, toil, tears, and sweat’ appealed somehow to the mood of the public and the words themselves caught the public fancy. They were used constantly – in fun, in satire, but also in grim earnest, while the single word VICTORY gave the man in the street a simple definite aim, just as the genius who had used it meant it to.

  Jennie had been telling us for a long time that there were many Nazis in Holland. Somehow it didn’t fit in with my impression of the kindly, tolerant Dutch in whose country I had lived for more than two years. But on May 10th, with another more acute shock – for this time it was much nearer home – the Germans launched, without warning, a land and air attack on the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium, and also on French towns. The Belgian and Dutch troops put up a fierce resistance and fought determinedly in defence of their homelands and at the same time their Governments appealed desperately to Britain and France to come to their aid.

  The next few days were ones of complete horror as we listened to the BBC’s accounts of the bombing of undefended towns and of the slaughter of their innocent citizens – men, women, and children. Rotterdam, where I had painted many Dutch children and still had many friends, suffered a relentless, savage, and persistent air bombardment day and night, culminating in its complete obliteration on May 14th.

  Sitting in Chelsea listening, looking at the Thames, it all seemed completely unreal. Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam, Leiden, familiar homely towns with their flat, peaceful, sleeping landscapes, their canals and medieval buildings, all under the Nazi heel! It was so horrible that it was like some monstrous nightmare – from which we must surely waken. But there was no awakening except to worse news – the proclamation broadcast by General Winckelman that the war – he did not use the word invasion – had ended in the complete capitulation of Holland. By then Queen Wilhelmina and her daughter Juliana, with Prince Bernhard and the two young princesses, had already arrived in England and had been followed by their Cabinet. Refugees were arriving in every kind of vessel, trawlers, small fishing smacks, and every available craft, and both at Dutch and Belgian ports they had been ruthlessly bombed and machine-gunned.

  Chelsea began preparing for refugees who were already fleeing from the Low Countries. We already had Czech, German, and Austrian refugees, but a great many people had evacuated from London and hundreds of large houses stood empty. I heard that interpreters were urgently needed and went to the Town Hall to offer my services. A charming young lady who was taking down particulars of volunteers told me that Flemish, which I wrote down as one of my languages, was of no use – they wanted Belgian!

  In spite of this I was telephoned from Whitehall the next day and asked if I would be available at short notice to interpret Dutch and Flemish (almost identical). I had to collect all kinds of permits and passes, and be interviewed before being given them. No one tested my knowledge of the languages. That was taken on trust! All that mattered before I was given the passes was that I was a hundred per cent British, it seemed.

  Dover was a restricted area under Defence of the Realm Regulations, and it presented a bleak, grim, barbed-wire aspect now, very different to the one to which, like many travellers, I had become accustomed, the white, sunny, welcoming cliffs and the castle, unchanging symbols of home. The journey itself, with the WVS, was a revelation in the thoroughness with which signposts and names of all places had been removed. It was lovely weather and the countryside had a fresh appeal after the rather grim one of London. But Dover seemed bleak, austere, and unfamiliar as we handed in our passes and received fresh ones.

  The WVS and the Red Cross were already doing splendid work there. As the men, women, and children arrived in their fishing boats or motor launches, tired, dirty, terrified, and apprehensive of their reception, there were these splendid women to help them through their police screening, the Customs, and all the extra war-time red tape. The Customs sheds, in which with other returning travellers I had often waited for the inquisitive probing fingers of the Customs officers, were being used now for all kinds of purposes as well as these. The refugees were given hot drinks immediately and their most urgent needs attended to. Clothing and blankets were provided, beds for those who arrived too late to travel. There was no time to think or get upset – they streamed in and each new lot presented a fresh problem before they could be sent to the hostels which had been hastily provided for them.

  I had seen refugees from China only from the distance of the trains and at the railway stations, and in Holland when fleeing from the Nazi aggression. The melee of human misery arriving first in Dover and later in London was close – a contact impossible to ignore, a contact with war – a warning as to the nearness of its approach.

  ‘What will they do with us? Where are we going to live? Are we to stay in London? Do you have air raids here? How are we going to live without money?’ And the ceaseless wail of anguish for those left behind. Almost every family had a member missing and were loath to leave the ports lest the loved ones should turn up in the many vessels constantly arriving. There was a preponderance of women, children, and older men. The young men had all been conscripted and their whereabouts were unknown to their womenfolk, who, frantic at the approach of the German armies rolling over everyone and everything like some monstrous juggernaut, had fled to the ports and begged for places in any vessel which could pack them in. ‘How lucky you are to have the sea! We had nothing to save us on our frontiers,’ they told us. They had been cold, seasick, terrified the whole way, cowering down in the boats from the pursuing German air force. ‘Many boats went down!’ they told us, ‘and thousands of refugees are left behind – there are no more boats.’

  The feeling most aroused in me was anger – furious anger. I know I cursed the Germans in their language and my own – but of what use was it except as an outlet for my torn, outraged feelings? One family had a little Spanish girl with them. This little orphan, Agatha, victim of the Spanish Civil War, had been adopted by a French family and was now for the second time in her short life without a country. There were families who were unhurt and volatile in their abuse of the Nazis – and there were others who, grey-faced and overcome with the horror of their country’s fate, were silent in their suffering.

  And now there was plenty to do in Chelsea, where a large number of the refugees were to be housed. St Mark’s College was turned into a reception station and from there they were sent to Cheyne Hospital, the former children’s hospital on the Embankment, now in charge of Adelaide Lubbock from FAP2. When I went there in answer to an urgent summons for an interpreter I found that the doctor with whom I was to work was Dr Alice Pennell, whose sister, Cornelia Sorabji, the famous Parsee barrister, I had met and made friends with in Bombay. Dr Alice, a well-known Chelsea figure in her lovely saris, was delightful to work with. She had a delicious sense of humour and a mind enriched by travel and study.

  Nearly all the refugees were suffering from some wound, ailment, or shock and exhaustion. The men were mostly those who were either too old or physically unfit for military service.

  In Cheyne Hospital I met another friend from India, Lady Benthall, whom I had last seen in Calcutta. She was established in her small office working for the refugees. Her son, Michael, whom I had also last seen in Calcutta, had been studying ballet, but was now going into the army. He did not mind in the least, but feared the effect of army boots on his feet. A ballet dancer’s feet are his fortune and have to be treated with respect. Ruth Benthall, although fragile in appearance, was astonishingly efficient at her job. Nothing surprised or shocked her. I envied her her calm poise, and the detached dispassionate way in which she tackled some of the extraordinary problems arising from the sudden arrival of all these refugees. Nothing daunted her – she simply found a way to deal with it. It was strange to discuss Calcutta with its brilliant seasons of balls and racing and its endless round of pleasure. How far away it all seemed to us sitting there in that overcrowded hospital by the river.

  It seemed years ago – a world vanishe
d like that last season in London. I discovered that it was she who had asked for me to be attached to the refugees, because of my knowledge of languages, and had got permission for me to do so from my Commandant.

  Cheyne Hospital for Children with its many windows looking onto the Thames was strange bereft of all its small patients, who had been evacuated to the country. I had known it well when the cots had been drawn up to the windows and the little convalescents would be out on the balconies watching the boats. It seemed horribly bare and aseptic for these homeless people – devoid of any comforts or cosiness such as is dear to the hearts of the Belgians. They were miserable – but we assured them that it was temporary and that they would soon be moved to houses where they could live more normal lives.

  Local residents had given clothes, furniture, and kitchen equipment in answer to the borough’s appeal for the refugees. The clothing was laid out on long tables in the dining-hall of Crosby Hall, used formerly for foreign university graduates. Elizabeth Fitzgerald, sister of Denise, with whom I worked in the Control Room, was helping here. It was rather like the scene at a jumble sale at a church bazaar – and the lofty arched roof of the ancient Crosby Hall heightened this impression. Some of the clothing donated as suitable for refugees was truly amazing. Top-hats, dress suits, ball gowns, fans, ancient rubber galoshes and extraordinary undergarments made it appear as if the residents of Chelsea wore perpetual fancy dress, whereas they had probably cleared out all their rubbish before leaving their houses. Elizabeth was in charge of some of the long tables of odd-looking garments. She, and a young man helping her, caused much amusement trying on the clothes. They found a Shetland wool nightgown which someone had obviously washed and stretched so much that it reached from one side of the hall to the other.

  The choosing of clothes was a deadly serious business for each refugee or family. Hats did not come under the list of necessities at all, and the women fell upon the most unsuitable, frivolous hats with shrieks of delight, regardless of the fact that they had chosen nothing else, and not even looked at the piles of serviceable garments described as equestrian hose!

  Some of them were openly contemptuous, saying critically that they had never seen such garments in their lives. Looking at them dispassionately it was difficult to believe that any humans had worn some of them!

  Elizabeth, with infinite patience, kept holding up one extraordinary garment after another for their edification. She seemed to me to have the makings of the expert saleswoman as she pointed out the beauties of the goods and I translated for her into Flemish.

  Some of us had volunteered to scrub out the houses intended for the refugees, and on this job I again met Elizabeth with her teenage brother, Paul, working hard. We were taken to the houses in a borough van complete with pails, soap, and brushes and told that we would be collected later. Sometimes we would wait and wait for the van which was to collect us, sent not because we were exhausted from our work, but to make sure that the cleaning materials and utensils were safely returned! It was dirty work – but we had fun. I had learned to scrub at the FAP where ‘surgical cleanliness’ was the standard which the Sister-in-charge enforced. Now, in these houses, empty since the previous September, and already thick with soot and dust, the knowledge was put to good use. Mrs Freeth, as always, insisted on coming to help, and together we did the best that we could. After working one whole long day Elizabeth and her brother, Paul, took me back with them to the Royal Hospital where their father, Maurice, was Secretary. Their mother, Suzanne, was already working hard helping the French-speaking refugees; she was partly Belgian and the family were bilingual in French and English.

  The lovely Royal Hospital dating from 1684, familiar all over the world because of its scarlet-coated old Pensioners, and also perhaps because of the annual Flower Show there, has always fascinated me. Its history is enthralling, and the beauty of its buildings, designed by Wren, never fails to delight me. Some of the old Pensioners often came to my studio for beer on Sunday after their Church Parade and I had used several of them as models. They liked to sit still, and they liked earning a few shillings for doing so. I had often stood on the Embankment and looked at the lovely facade of the building from the river. Now, for the first time, I saw its interior and soon became a constant visitor there. The wing where the Fitzgeralds lived, on the left of the Governor’s apartments, was lovely.

  I first saw Suzanne that afternoon in the green Adam library which looked out across the grounds to the Thames. It is one of the most perfect rooms I have ever seen. Of a soft apple green, with its Adam panelling, and exquisitely proportioned fireplace, it made a fitting background for the charm of its hostess. I took an immediate and warm liking to Suzanne and Maurice Fitzgerald and their family. The eldest son, young Maurice, was already in the Middle East with his regiment.

  I saw on this first visit something of the graciousness and charm of the building itself, for Maurice took me all over it, showing me the great hall, the dining-room, the chapel, and the strange little cubicles of each of the old Pensioners where his personal possessions were kept and where he might eat if he wished to do so alone. Everything was exactly as it had been when it was built. It was fascinating to stand there looking up at the inscription over the cloisters,

  In Subsidium et Levamen emeritorum Senio Belloque Fractorum, condidit Carolus Secundus auxit Jacobus Secundus, perfecere Gulielmus et Maria, Rex et Regina, Anno Domini MDCXCII.

  and imagine that from here, perhaps, Nell Gwynne had watched the realization of her dream in the building of a home for the old soldiers ‘broken in the wars’, as the words said. Here, perhaps, she had stood with Charles II, who had planned it to please her, and chosen the most renowned architect of the day to design it for her, and surely Christopher Wren surpassed himself in the setting and placing of this noble building.

  The Royal Hospital had been bombed in the 1914-18 War I by a zeppelin, and a tablet commemorated the event. The old soldiers regretted bitterly the fact that they were too old to fight again and many of them had tried to volunteer. I was introduced to one old man of over eighty with an impressive row of medals who had written to the Air Ministry when the War Office had turned him down. He had said that although he could not fly a plane because he had never learnt, he felt sure that he could sit in the tail and work the lever to release the bombs. The Air Ministry had replied with a perfectly charming letter in which they thanked him, saying that should they need him he could be sure that he would hear from them. He showed me this most proudly, and whoever composed it was a most understanding person.

  The Hospital’s chapel was a little gem, and in the late afternoon sun was full of a deep golden light. The whole place had a tranquillity and charm which was entrancing – not even the visible signs of war – the balloon, the sand-bags, the barbed wire entanglements, and the flower gardens being dug up as allotments for vegetables – could take that away. It seemed indeed a place where the old warriors could spend their last days in leisure and content although they indulged freely in the grumbling which is a soldier’s privilege.

  Suzanne and I belonged to a Committee of Women which had been formed to look after the refugees, and which met at Whistlers house in Cheyne Walk. I found it very difficult to pay attention to all the proposals and arguments put forward by the women as to the whys and wherefores of this and that plan. For me it was so exciting to be actually sitting in this historic house which itself was so beautiful that I could not avoid taking in every small detail. Here Whistler had lived and worked, painting his beloved Thames from his windows. I found myself imagining that small dapper figure at the windows or on the staircase and was lost in a reverie of his troublous life, his quarrels, his feuds, his battles, instead of listening to the squabbles of the committee. The house had been lent us for the meetings. It was decided that the women on the committee would each adopt a number of houses and become godmothers, or ‘marraines’, to the refugees in them. The houses allotted to me at this meeting were in Tedworth Square and R
oyal Avenue and the refugees destined for them were all Flemish-speaking ones.

  I was to spend the greater part of my time with the refugees and be available on call for the FAP and the Control Room. Margerie Scott, who had been at FAP2 working with Dr Pennell, was now transferred to the Town Hall where she was to be rehousing manager not only for the refugees but also for possible bombed-out people. Margerie Scott, author and broadcaster, was already doing broadcasts on the North American Service about the refugees who had arrived in Chelsea.

  King Leopold’s capitulation to the Germans on May 28th caused a wave of fury amongst the Belgian refugees. It didn’t seem to occur to them that there was little else he could have done, or that their own mass flight had done nothing to help. The news was the signal for an outbreak of the misery and dissatisfaction which these displaced people were feeling. I had to he called to Cheyne Hospital twice to help quell violent altercations which led to blows. Meanwhile the safety of our own troops was now a matter which tore at all of us. What if they were caught in a net and unable to leave Belgium now that it was to be occupied by the Nazis as Denmark and Holland had been?

  Chapter Six

  WHILE THE FATE of France hung in the balance, many British families were enduring anguished suspense waiting for news of their sons and fathers. Mary Underwood was worried about Garth, from whom she had not heard recently. He was somewhere in France, and had been for the last six months or so. I had had several letters from him but apart from the fact that they were living in a vast forest there was no clue at all as to his whereabouts in France. Leon was doing camouflage work at Leamington Spa with a large group of artists recruited by the Government for this work. The days, warm and still, as they had been both at Munich and at the outbreak of war, continued in a sort of unspoken anguish of tension until we heard that British troops were being evacuated from Belgium.