Very much love.
E.R.M.
Do you see The Listener? How rude Chesterton is in his letters to his critics!101 Almost incredible.
6 November, [1935]102
… I’m glad our foolish broadcast103 came over well. I was rather alarmed on Sunday at being rung up by... the Express, asking me if I would ‘like to mike a stitement’ about my mention of various advertised products, which the B.B.C. has a rule against mentioning (which I quite forgot when speaking). I said the Debate was unrehearsed, and that I had made whatever jokes came into my head. They obviously thought I had taken bribes from Kruschen and Lux. They said they were going to ‘feature’ it, but fortunately they didn’t—perhaps I persuaded them it was too silly… anyhow I was much relieved…
Much love,
E.R.M.
7, Luxborough House, Northumberland St, W.1 10 November, [1935]
Dearest Jeanie,
… My reason for voting for the Labour candidate in Marylebone is to increase the opposition to the Conservative candidate,104 who is a safe winner... It is very bad for any member to have a safe seat. So I am urging my fellow Marylebonians to vote for Dr Elizabeth Jacobs, the Labour candidate, on these grounds. They are all Conservatives, but quite see my point, and agree with me that a few more votes against our member would do him no harm, but stir him up. I agree with you that I don’t want Labour in at present. For one thing, I don’t like any of their leaders much. And their policy of nationalizing the Banks would send down our world credit, and make trade recovery harder. I am all for Socialism later, but not yet. Though really, what all the parties promise us is so much the same that it doesn’t seem to matter who gets in. Of course the National Government is safe to win as a matter of fact... (I am voting for A. P. Herbert for Oxford.)105
Their cry of armament increase is very cunning, as working men hope it will mean employment for them, and they are far more in number than the taxable classes, who know it will mean higher taxation. Baldwin is very shrewd, I think.
I feel Abyssinia is abandoned to her fate. Sanctions will do no good at this date, and the Italian army seems to be strolling unopposed over the land (fortunately). If there is no more bloodshed than this, it won’t be too bad a war. I suppose Italy will be allowed to settle there in peace. It is all very, very wicked, but I hope the climate won’t suit them and they will get tired of it soon…
Very much love,
E.R.M.
7, Luxborough House, Northumberland St, W.1
15 December, [1935]
Dearest Jeanie,
… Everyone is delighted that Hoare has broken his nose skating, and we all hope it hurts.106 I should like to be in the House of Commons for the Thursday debate, and see him face his angry foes. There is nothing he can say which can make it sound better. Even if he and Baldwin tell us that they were frightened of Mussolini bombing Malta unless they bribed him off with half Abyssinia, it will sound very poor and cowardly. The Times says the only way we can recover our lost prestige in the eyes of the world is to repudiate the suggestions at once, and apologise for having made them. I expect Hoare will have to resign. I hear that M.P.’s have never had so many angry letters from their constituents. I wonder if they have to answer them all. I suppose so, if they want to get in again next time. This must make them very much annoyed with Baldwin and the Government, and is enough to make them vote against the Government on the Vote of Censure. I’ve not written to my member, as I thought he was probably getting enough without me, and I had no time, and would have also found it difficult to think how to put it.
I notice that disapproval vibrated in the voice of Mr [Stuart] Hibberd when he gave the news to-night; the B.B.C. voices are not at all impartial.
I don’t quite agree with you about ‘how can babies die better’ etc. When killed by gas or bombs, their death is a sin on someone’s part, and it is better they should die without malicious intent. If gas is ever dropped here, I shall feel it a bad way of dying…
Very much love,
Your loving E.R.M.
7, Luxborough House, Northumberland St, W.1
18 December, [1935]
Dearest Jeanie,
… You got me wrong on death. To be gassed for peace would be a good death for me (though not for babies, who don’t care about peace) but a bad action on the part of the gassers, so not on the whole a good human performance, any more than martyrdoms were…
I don’t believe Hoare did (or does) feel like Judas. I believe he thought he had done quite right, though now we have all told him, it must have dawned on him that he hasn’t. I should like to have heard what passed between him and Baldwin and the rest of the Cabinet before he resigned to-night. I wonder if Baldwin will pretend to-morrow that he disapproved all along. The Times prophesied only this morning that he and Hoare would justify the Proposals. But now is Hoare’s chance for the speech of repentance that you want—only he won’t make it. Baldwin, I suppose, can’t, without resigning himself.
We really have done very well, making ourselves felt like this. I feel very proud. They know now that we are their masters, and that what we say goes, so long as we have the chief newspapers to speak for us. I hear that M.P.’s got thousands of letters, and felt they had to answer them. I heard of a very good man, who said to some one I know that he wishes he had died before all this happened, he was so ashamed. I don’t wish I had, do you? I am enjoying it…
I quite agree with you about Lord de Clifford’s trial. A disgusting exhibition, and so expensive.107 And what did his Counsel mean by saying that driving on the wrong side of the road was no proof of negligence? It seems to me one of the most negligent things a motorist can do.108 Haste for post.
Very much love,
E.R.M.
3 June, [1936}
Dearest Jeanie,
Thank you so much for your letter. I had to meet my black Emperor,109 so asked Canon S.110 if he could give me another date, and he offered next Wed: 10th. As he kindly put it ‘Sheppard is always here, Haile only once,’ so I see him at 5.0 next Wed:, which gives us a week more to think of further things to say to him. I must say them quickly, as I think his time is as full as a dentist’s, he has to look in his book, and puts down names for every hour of the day. So I must get down to the agenda quickly: first, Peace; then Stewardship;111 then Any Other Business, so send any along that you think useful. Shall I leave him the Church Assembly Report? I expect you want it back, and he probably has one.
I shan’t ask him about Danger, as I can think of that for myself. There are any number of dangerous sports. Some, of course, are only accessible to the well-to-do, such as flying, ski-ing, mountaineering, polo, punting, exploring wild lands, shooting lions, speed-racing, etc. All these are largely done by both young men and young women who can afford it (young women of the well-off classes enjoy danger as much as their brothers, I think, though not, for some reason, in the poorer classes. This seems to me a real class difference). Of course poor people can’t do most of these things; but they can climb anything handy, sometimes ride motor-bicycles very dangerously; or even pedal-cycles can be made dangerous by any rider who likes to; or walk in the streets; tease bulls and savage cows and horses; swim far out to sea; sail in storms; all kinds of things.
I remember getting lots of thrills by walking along high walls, climbing to the tops of difficult trees, etc. when young. I don’t myself believe that liking for danger as such does play much part in causing wars. You should see Things to Come,112 in which special mention is made of the dangerous and exciting sports they had after war was banished.
I quite agree with you about controversy. I said that, in the comments I sent the B.B.C. on their Peace Week programme that they sent me a memorandum on. I’m not quite sure it was a great success last time we had foreigners here for the purpose, as the Nazi Jewish persecutions made the Englishmen too cross, and besides, the Nazi, instead of standing up for them and discussing them, only said there were none, which made the discussion abs
urd. Which is, I’m afraid, what Mr Thomas would say to Lloyd’s about his Budget disclosures,113 and the non-stop driver to his victim. One must have frank admission, of course, before a discussion can begin. One might stage one this week between the Negus and Signor Grandi114 or some other Italian. Only Haile can’t talk English, I think. He had a black interpreter at Waterloo, who translated to him the address he was given, and translated to the givers his thanks to the English for their sympathy. He had a great reception from the public to-day, though only met by an inferior Foreign Office official, which I thought a shame. The King went to Devonshire for the day.115 Eden should have come to Waterloo, I think, and one of the Princes. I am afraid the Government has decided to snub and keep him under, to please Mussolini. Nearly all the papers (not News Chronicle and Herald) are ignoring him now, and accepting ‘Italian East Africa’ as a fact. The Council meeting116 on 16th will be most awkward. Haile says he will be there, and won’t leave England and Geneva until something is done about it! He is in for a long stay, I fear, poor man. I think it is a horrid shame, the way governments all behave. Cum-mings117 says we are preparing for an Anglo-Italian pact, and I expect he is right. Though I can’t see what good any pact with Mussolini can do, as he doesn’t keep them…
I will write to you after my Sheppard interview (of which I really ought to take notes, I feel) and tell you what he says. I have a crowded day—a literary prizegiving in the afternoon,118 then dash off to St Paul’s by 5, then dash back to a Liberal reception, home & dress, then to the Opera. Everything has got crowded onto that afternoon. The evening before, Margaret comes up and goes to Scotland by night train. I’m so glad I don’t.
Very much love,
E.R.M.
11 June, [1936]
Dearest Jeanie,
... I think you had better become a full member of the Brotherhood119… But find out more about it first. You could ask Sheppard... He is certainly a most friendly and interested person, and extremely easy to talk to. We didn’t really nearly finish about Pacifism, as he talked so much about other things, and told me so many stories. I was there an hour, and alone, but must go again sometime, he says, and finish discussing Peace. He quite sees the dilemma, and is torn in both directions himself, but always, he says, comes back to the view that Christ would say we mustn’t attack and kill one another. This doesn’t dispose, as he knows, of the bully who is attacking and killing the weaker power, and what line we are to take with him; but there seems to be something called non-violent resistance (see Aldous Huxley, enclosed) which they think would work. When you meet him you can go on discussing it. I think I never met a clergyman so genuinely and pleasantly interested in people and their affairs. I had to try not to waste time answering his questions about when and how I worked, my sisters, where I went for my holidays, did I go to church much (No, was the answer to that), were you Church, what kind of nursing did you do, etc. etc. I don’t wonder people find him sympathetic and nice…
I was amused by his view of Kenneth Mozley which is also mine (they live next door, being both Canons of St Paul’s). He thinks K. has ‘a medieval mind’, and lives 600 years too late. He has seen him address a service for working and other men, all in the mood for some live religious teaching, and give them a doctrinal address on the Atonement etc. They looked entirely blank and uninterested, of course. It really is dreadful how the clergy go on. Canon S. thinks it is bad for them to become bishops and archbishops, and that both Canterbury120 and York121 have become conventionalized and timid. However, he still has hope for the Church. I told him I had too, despite its curious and disappointing history.
I’m sorry you think Cecil wrong. I think his letter is very useful, so do most pro-Leaguers.122 If the public manage to make enough fuss now, we may save the League still; if not, people seem to think it will just collapse into being an instrument for doing nothing, and the Covenant will lapse. The Times has gone most disappointing; I was shocked at that leader on Cecil, so were many people.123 I was told by Sir Walter Lay ton (one of the directors of the News Chronicle) that the Times Editor124 has changed his views and is going antiLeague and antisanction, owing to the influence of [Lord] Lothian and the Astors on him. He spends week-ends with the Observer Astors at Cliveden, and is influenced by them, as well as by the Times Astors. Canon Sheppard is much disappointed with him, so is every one of our way of thinking. The Italian Press, on the other hand, says that The Times ‘has at last, though late, turned to realism’. Realism always means something bad, I notice. I am very sorry, as it was the only non-Opposition paper that took a right line, and it has so much influence. I hope the phase may pass, but it is a bad moment for it. Did you see Cecil’s letter yesterday?125 I enclose it in case you didn’t. I think it is good.
Margaret and I had a nice evening on Tuesday. First we went to the Negus’s garden party,126 for which I had an invitation. We didn’t talk to him, but saw him. Then we saw The Littlest Rebel, a very nice American-Civil-War film, with Shirley Temple. You should see it.
Just off to the House of Commons, for which I have been given a ticket, and I hope to hear Thomas & Butt on their iniquities.127
Very much love.
E.R.M.
I enclose a rather nice cartoon of Dick Sheppard and Lansbury, by Low, which well puts the dilemma.128 He quite agreed with it.
17 June, [1936]
Dearest Jeanie,
… I’m glad you had a nice letter from Canon Sheppard... I think he may be really keen on the Stewards, it is quite in his own line of thought, I gathered. It will be fine if he takes it up. You would like him very much, he is so friendly and enthusiastic and has such a live idea of Christianity. It is wonderful how he has won the respect of his intellectual superiors, such as Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard….
The Government has obviously quite decided to abandon sanctions. Eden will say so on Thursday, I expect. Lord Cecil was very bitter about it, speaking yesterday at a lunch given to the Negus. He says the new French Government would be willing (he thinks) to go on with them if we were.129 Vernon Bartlett is, I am sure, correct in prophesying the end of them. The weak point in keeping them on is that they are such poor ones that they make no real difference to Italy, and are only slightly inconvenient; they certainly wouldn’t ever ‘bleed her white’. They would really only be a gesture. The only one which would have been good was oil. I don’t feel I know what we ought to do now. The Abyssinians are anxious, of course, for help, and say it is not too late, and that at least we can try and prevent millions of Italian immigrants turning the natives off their land to starve, which they say will happen, and they are probably right, as the colonists will all be given land, and all the cultivatable land belongs already to Ethiopian peasants. I doubt if the Emperor has much hope now of getting back. I am told he is getting very bitter… There is a strong popular sympathy with Haile. People line up and cheer wherever he is known to be going. I think they feel they are trying to make up for the rudeness of the government to him. I feel ashamed when I think of him myself. The Cabinet are now longing for him to go away, he is so embarrassing. Baldwin hasn’t seen him, either, and Eden only for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, the King goes to Ascot and all about, and has a good time.
Later. I heard the Times correspondent who was in Addis Ababa just now, giving an account of things. He is very interesting. He said the Eritrean troops were the only good soldiers with the Italians. He thinks Abyssinia will be made very uncomfortable for the Italians, for many years. If only we could keep them from trying to colonise it!…
Did you see A. P. Herbert’s little verse130 in to-day’s Times? It is bad verse, but may have a popular appeal, I hope. I enclose Gilbert Murray on the hopes for the League. He is still hopeful, I see.
Very much love.
E.R.M.
7, Luxborough House, Northumberland St, W.1
10 August, [1936]
Dearest Jeanie,
... I was sorry you missed Dick Sheppard on the wireless. We thought him excellent; qu
ite the best wireless sermon I have ever heard, very stirring and keen. I wish more sermons were like that. He really did make goodness sound like an urgent and desperately important job to be tackled; his idea was that we should all tackle it for 24 hours, on Monday, just to try it. I wonder how many people did! And what were the results. Perhaps huge gifts of money to useful things; perhaps businesses ruined through a day of honesty, or quarrels made up, or crimes confessed. We shall never know. He said that if we most of us cared twopence about the wretched conditions so many of our fellow-creatures lived in, they could be ended. When the sermon is published in the St Martin’s Magazine next month, I will get it and send it you. It was a great change from the usual conventional maunderings of the clergy….
Your loving E.R.M.
I am asked to sign a petition for voluntary euthanasia. Is this right? No hurry; send a p.c. sometime, yes or no.
1939–1941
In the autumn of 1936 Jean went to South Africa as a missionary nurse, accompanied by her friend Nancy Willetts. Early in 1939, however, Jeans health gave way and they returned to England. By the summer she had taken a District Nursing appointment at Romford, Essex.
None of Rose’s letters to Jean written during this period have survived; the correspondence now begins again during the week before Britain declared war on Germany. By this time Rose had already volunteered—with ‘Elk’, her beloved Morris car—as an emergency driver for the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service.
Flat 7, 8, Luxborough St,1 W.1
28 August, [1939]
… This suspense is very trying.2 6 o’clock News just over, and Henderson just flown back to Hitler with reply—I suppose he’ll fly back to-morrow with Hitler’s. How long can they keep it up? The longer the better. But I can’t feel much hope. Meanwhile, we are all blacking out, stuffing up cracks, laying in sand, etc. I think this is a good thing, as it gives people something they feel useful to do, and may actually diminish effects of raids, and therefore lessen fear and prevent collapse of nerves in crowded districts, and prevent a bad raid being a knock-out blow. Of course the front will be far worse, but there’s nothing people in general can do about that, unfortunately. My ambulance shifts will be every night 10 p.m.-7 a.m. for a week, then day shifts for the next week. But, as I am only part-time, I shall suggest that I go home to bed at 3, not 7, when there’s no raid on, so that I can get some sleep and be fit for writing next day. The first 24 hours I am to spend evacuating patients in Elk3 from St George-in-the-East, [the hospital] down by London Docks. The hospitals are very short of cars for this. The idea is to clear out beds for raid casualties. I expect the patients will be very cross & disgusted. I hope they’ll all know where they live, and that I shall be able to find their homes easily. I’m so glad you have found a nice flat—sorry it’s ground floor, as it’s not so good against burglars, and you’ll have to bolt the windows when out. I feel we are living in a very bad dream, and still hope to wake before too late. But I fear Hitler daren’t recede now from his claims, he would be afraid of losing face…. Yes, I will carry my carte de visite about with me always.
Letters to a Sister Page 6
