Before Wallis
Page 25
When the Battle of Britain started in 1940, Churchill was advised not to go to Chequers, his official country residence, as when the moon was bright it was considered a target for bombing. Churchill invited himself and his War Cabinet to Ditchley for the weekend of 9 November 1940. He then returned for a futher twelve weekends up to September 1942. As a junior minister in the Ministry of Information with the task of encouraging American relations, Ronald Tree invited many of President Roosevelt’s inner circle to join them at Ditchley.5 Freda was there at an important moment in the war. The American diplomat and foreign policy adviser Harry Hopkins was visiting the prime minister on behalf of President Roosevelt. The Churchills were trying to win him over and gain American support for Britain. It seems that Freda was part of the charm offensive; the guests had been carefully selected, and another of Winston’s favourite women, Venetia Montagu, was also invited. Over a series of weekends, the strategy worked and the early stages of ‘Lend-Lease’ were agreed upon in the Trees’ country house.
Dinner at Ditchley was in a dining room displaying Nancy Tree’s impeccable taste. It was lit only by candles and a large chandelier. The table was simply decorated with four gilt candlesticks with tall yellow tapers and a single gilt cup. Despite wartime rationing, the food was excellent. After dinner, the party watched a film called Brigham Young, which emphasised the value of simple faith and the nobility of refusing to compromise your principles. Following the film, some German newsreels were played; the absurdity of the Nazi salutes and goose-stepping parades made everyone laugh. The prime minister’s young assistant private secretary, Jock Coville, sat next to Freda. Afterwards, he wrote in his diary that he understood why the Prince of Wales had felt as he did about her.6
The next day there was a long lunch. The British physicist and scientific adviser Professor Lindemann, Churchill and Mr Justice Singleton discussed the strength of the German air force. While the conversation continued, other guests went for a walk in the grounds. At dinner, there was just the type of stimulating discussion Freda relished. They talked about how America coped with unemployment by providing work instead of a dole. The evening ended with another film show. While the guests were watching Night Train to Munich, the phone rang with the news that HMS Southampton had been destroyed by bombers in the Mediterranean. Churchill stayed up until the early hours of the morning, smoking a huge cigar and pacing up and down in front of the fire in the library. For Hopkins’s benefit, he gave his assessment of the war so far.7
After her visit, Freda sent Churchill a ‘health-giving lamp’ or ‘sunlight machine’, which she had told him about during the weekend. She suggested he should use it for three minutes on his back and three on his front every other day. She told him that she used it and it made her ‘feel like a million dollars’.8 Winston warmly thanked her and said that he would try to fit it into his routine.9 Freda was a regular guest of the Churchills because she was so good at entertaining the prime minister and so discreet. In May 1944 she was invited to lunch by Clementine, shortly before the D-Day landings. She wrote to Duff Cooper that ‘the atmosphere seems charged with suspense and waiting’. She added: ‘Our friend [Churchill] was in the most fascinating form, and seemed in the gayest of moods – I wish I could tell you about it because I think you would enjoy it – but I suppose I had better not.’10
Another long-term friendship which flourished in the war years was Freda’s with Duff Cooper. As he travelled around the world in various diplomatic roles, he sent her gifts of nylon stockings and lipstick. Duff wrote to her from Singapore in 1941 that he would like to be lunching with her at the Bon Viveur or dining with her at the Coq D’Or. He wrote: ‘I often think of you, always with love and passion – Darling – Duff.’11 When Freda was ill two years later, Duff sent her a large bouquet of flowers. Freda thanked him, saying: ‘It is lovely to be remembered and thought about – especially by people you love.’12 Freda was ill for some time but characteristically, she made light of it, telling her friend that ‘I shan’t be able to keep up this dame of the camellias stuff much longer I’m afraid as it ill becomes me as I look and feel so well’.13
In the war, Freda’s marriage to Bobby de Casa Maury was beginning to fail. He was a compulsive womaniser and they spent increasingly long periods of time apart. Throughout her life, Freda had been surrounded by admirers, but she admitted to Duff that she seemed to be ‘bereft of gentlemen friends just now’. In her late 40s, she was feeling her age. She added that everyone she saw was ‘either too young, or too old; either too grey or too grassy-green’.14 Freda and Duff enjoyed flirting with each other and exchanging gossip but there was also a deeper bond because they both missed Michael Herbert; he had been one of Duff’s closest friends.
The war was a worrying time for Freda and her family. Angie’s children were sent across the Atlantic to join their grandfather Duddie in Canada. He had moved to Alberta after his divorce, but had remained on good terms with Freda. When he came to England, they continued to see each other for family occasions and they even holidayed together. It was thought that Angie’s children would be safer in Canada than England during the war. Angie took them across the Atlantic but crossing the ocean in wartime was dangerous and both Freda and Bob Laycock were relieved to hear that they had arrived safely.15
During the Blitz, the houses Freda had built at Wells Rise, Regent’s Park, were destroyed by bombing. In a letter to Duff Cooper, she described the bombs thundering over her head ‘on their deadly destructive way’. Imagainative and entertaining even in adversity, she wrote that it had been like a fairy tale:
In each little house was one little maid dusting and polishing and burnishing on each little top floor – The wicked bomb came roaring and hurtling overhead and each little maid took her little heels and scurried downstairs at a terrified breakneck speed just in time to reach her little basement kitchen as the bomb tore through the six little houses, taking their tops off like the lids of biscuit tins; but the six little maids were safe and unhurt, without even a scratch! – I think that story has the Big Bad Wolf and the six little pigs licked to a frazzle.16
After the bombing, Freda went to the bombsite and picked through the rubble. There was little left of what she had created. She told Duff that she was ‘defiant and challenging’ the enemy. She wished that she had ‘some sort of new metal-obliterating spray gun that I could take some pot-shots with, in a sort of roof-top guerrilla warfare, and see them disintegrate in the air as I obliterate them one by one with my deadly marksmanship!’17
Freda’s former lover’s attitude could not have been a greater contrast. In the Second World War, when Britain’s future hung in the balance, Edward and Wallis’s behaviour could at best be described as naïve, at worst, treasonous. While they were in Spain and Portugal in 1940, they were breathtakingly indiscrete and defeatist. According to Germany’s ambassador to Portugal, the Duke said that if he had been king it would never have come to war. Apparently, Edward believed that continued severe bombing would make England ready for peace.18 It was at this stage that the Germans hatched a plot to kidnap the Duke and set him up as a puppet king if Hitler invaded Britain.19 Fortunately, this nightmare scenario never became a reality. Instead, an exasperated Winston Churchill sent Wallis and Edward as far away as possible to govern the Bahamas.20
Freda and Angie’s husbands both played important roles in the war. Known as ‘Lucky’ Laycock, Angie’s husband Robert was often in the right place at the right time. He had two powerful patrons, Lord Mountbatten and Winston Churchill, who rated his abilities highly.21 His most important role was in the creation of the commandos. In 1940, when he was just 33 years old, Laycock became commanding officer of 8 Commando, a new ‘crack’ unit which was formed on Churchill’s order.22 Once they had been trained, a number of commando units were sent to the Middle East under Laycock’s command and they were called Layforce. However, all did not go to plan in the early years. When in May 1941 Crete fell, many of the commandos were killed or taken prisoner b
y the Germans. Later in the same year, against his better judgement, Laycock took part in Operation Flipper, ‘the Rommel Raid’ in North Africa. The abortive raid on Rommel’s headquarters was carried out mainly by men from No. 11 (Scottish) Commando. The operation failed and all but two of the British commandos who got ashore were killed or captured.
Freda’s husband was also involved in a controversial operation. At the beginning of the conflict, Bobby de Casa Maury had been working as an air intelligence officer in the West Country, then, to many people’s surprise, Lord Louis Mountbatten gave him a high-powered job. The Mountbattens had been friends with both Bobby and Freda for many years. As the chief of combined operations, Mountbatten asked the marquis to head the Intelligence Section. It was a very controversial appointment; many military men opposed a racing-driver chum of Mountbatten’s being given the crucial role, particularly as he was an unqualified amateur.23
Once at COHQ, Bobby was put in charge of military intelligence for a raid on Dieppe. Its aim was to find out whether a major port on the continent could be captured quickly in close to working order. It was doomed to failure from the start. There was imprecision about the objectives and too large a committee was involved in planning it. It went disastrously wrong with a massive loss of British and Canadian lives. In August 1942 Operation Jubilee, the seaborne assault on the beaches of Dieppe, met far greater resistance than expected. Many of the Canadians in the landing craft were killed before they even got on shore. The men and tanks that managed to land were pinned down and never reached the town. By the end of the day 20 per cent of the commandos and 68 per cent of the Canadians who had landed were dead or wounded. Almost 1,000 men died and 2,000 were taken prisoner. The raid proved how hard an invasion would be.24
Many leading figures in Britain were furious, particularly the Canadian press baron Lord Beaverbrook. The Dieppe raid had handed the Germans a major propaganda coup. The underestimation of German fortifications at Dieppe was considered a failure of British intelligence. Although it was debatable who was most at fault, Bobby took the blame and resigned.25 He returned to the film industry and was soon working for Rank on the production side. One of the first films he was involved in was Caesar and Cleopatra, starring Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains.
As Bobby de Casa Maury’s military career came to an end, Bob Laycock’s was taking off. After his escapes from Crete and North Africa, in the middle of 1943, Laycock had a very successful period commanding the Special Service Brigade in Sicily and Italy.26 While her husband was busy with his new post Angie stayed in London at the Berkeley Hotel with her mother. She ran the canteen at COHQ in Richmond Terrace with the help of Freda. She also supported the Commando Benevolent Fund which provided assistance to the wives, widows and children of men who had served in the commandos. Following in her mother’s fundraising footsteps, she organised dances, concerts and a premiere of Laurence Olivier’s film of Henry V for the cause.27
In October 1943, Laycock was chosen to take over from Lord Mountbatten as the chief of combined operations. His youth made him a surprising choice; he became the youngest major general in the British army. In his new position he attended most of the important Allied conferences. He was head of an organisation which played a key part in making possible the Allied landings in Europe.28 Recognising his role, in the New Year’s Honours of 1945 he was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath.29
Freda was very proud of her son-in-law. She wrote to Duff Cooper that while she was staying with Angie she had found a leatherbound book in which Bob Laycock wrote his favourite quotations from authors. Several passages from Duff’s writing were among them. She explained: ‘I thought the whole book very touching – It was written in very lately and the great General obviously regards it as his Bible.’30 In another letter to Duff she told him that her son-in-law’s ‘beautiful Chinese eyes were aglow with enthusiastic fan-like love and admiration’ for Duff’s work.31 Bob Laycock was equally fond of his mother-in-law, he always wrote to her as ‘my darling Ma-in-law’.32
At the end of the war Freda and her family began to piece their lives back together. The Laycocks’ children, Tilly and Joe, had returned from Canada in 1944. They had been away for four years and were now aged 5 and 7. At first it was hard for them to readjust; they had not seen their mother and father for years and they resented coming back to the austerity of post-war Britian.33 Freda described them as ‘radiantly beautiful’ but she felt they needed some discipline after their years away from their parents. Perhaps making up for lost time, they never stopped talking day and night. Freda joked to Duff Cooper that she had suggested to Angie that she should have them taken to a psychoanalyst to have them ‘impregnated with a few inhibitions’. However, she admitted that she might just be ‘bitter’ as, at first, they preferred their other grandmother, Lady Laycock, ‘because she has a wooden leg which fascinates them – and the other day they were found hurrying off to the woodshed […] with it to chop it up for firewood!’34
In 1947, Bob resigned from the army. He wanted to spend more time with his growing family. In the years immediately after the war Angie and Bob had three more children, Ben, Emma and Martha. Only in his 40s, Bob was ready for a new challenge. Freda did everything she could to help him. In 1952, she wrote to Winston Churchill asking him to consider Laycock for the new chief of police.35 For a time he did not take on a full-time job. He accepted some non-executive appointments; he became a director of Lloyds Bank and chairman of Windsor Hospital management committee.36 He also helped Freda with her charity work, serving as president of the Feathers Club Association.
From 1954 until 1959 Bob Laycock was Governor of Malta. He held the position during a period when tensions were high on the island. The Maltese politician Dom Mintoff, who was leader of the Labour party, was leading a campaign for full integration with Britain, while the Nationalist party wanted Malta to become an independent dominion in the Commonwealth.37 Before going to Malta, Laycock was knighted by the queen. The posting was a new adventure for all the family. They moved into the governor’s residence, St Anton Palace. When the children were home from school on holiday, there were trips in the governor’s barge, a former picket boat with a cabin, and bathing in the palace’s swimming pool. Angie kept a sailing boat at St Paul’s Bay and Bob took up snorkelling. The Laycocks had a hectic schedule. While he grappled with the complex political situation, she relished her role as hostess. There were frequent cocktail parties and dinners for visiting guests. The Queen Mother, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duchess of Kent and the Mountbattens all visited.38 Each year, Freda came to stay for a month. While she was there, in the evenings after dinner, they would play her favourite card game, canasta.39 Angie used to like filming the family on her cine-camera. Although she was by this time in her 60s, there is some film footage of Freda looking incredibly young and glamorous. She can be seen sitting on the rocks, looking out to sea, wearing big sunglasses, a scarf and shorts which show off her slender legs.40
The only visitors Angie was not happy to receive in Malta were the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. When they arrived in Malta aboard Loel Guinness’s yacht, Calisto, Bob Laycock had lunch with them but Angie decided to be away.41 Edward’s callous rejection of her family still hurt.
Pempie’s life also changed after the war. In 1944, she divorced her first husband, Anthony Pelissier. Carol Reed had found it impossible to remain married to his wife, Diana, when he was still in love with Pempie. As soon as regular civilian air services to America were reinstated, he visited Pempie in New York. Separation had made their love for each other even stronger and they resumed their affair. Once Pempie returned to England, Carol divorced Diana. He married Pempie in January 1948 in a civil ceremony at a registry office in Windsor. Their son Max was born later that year. Until they found a suitable house, the family lived in a flat in the same building as Freda, in Albert Hall Mansions, Kensington. Pempie gave up acting as soon as she married Carol. She became a devoted wife and mother. She spent the rest of her life
supporting her husband’s career and creating a happy home life for her family.42 Freda got on very well with Carol and was very fond of him.
By the early 1950s Freda’s marriage to Bobby was coming to an end. He was serially unfaithful, often with her friends. In 1954, she divorced him on the grounds of adultery. Ironically, the woman he had been having an affair with was Laura, second wife of Eric, Lord Dudley. Eric had married Laura in 1943. The granddaughter of Lord Wemyss, she was twenty years younger than him but there was an intense physical attraction between them. Laura described Eric as ‘fantastically attractive’ and ‘all-powerful’. Many women in his social circle pursued him. However, Laura recognised that he had never got over Rosemary’s death and that he was still very sad deep down.43 Young and inexperienced, she had found Rosemary a hard act to follow. In her autobiography, she described her experience as a young bride coming to Himley Hall as being like the heroine in Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca, who was overwhelmed by the legacy of her husband’s charismatic first wife. Everyone still loved Rosemary and, unlike Rebecca, she had deserved that adoration.44
Eric and Laura often socialised with Freda and Bobby. There was a complex dynamic between the two couples. According to Laura, Eric still loved Freda, but Laura recognised that it was not in the same way that he loved her. While Lord Dudley was infatuated with his old friend, Bobby turned his attentions to Laura. She found him good looking, but she complained that he had limited conversation.45 Eric dismissively called him ‘that Cuban motor car mechanic’.46
As the Dudleys’ marriage deteriorated, Bobby and Freda were invited to stay more often. Inevitably, Bobby’s flirtation with Laura turned into an affair. Laura explained that he had a real ‘reverence for sex’, treating it like going to church. He was such an ‘ardent and single-minded lover’ that no jokes were allowed.47 They used to meet in London, but Laura had no intention of leaving her husband for him. Bobby told her that Freda was bored with him and that she now wanted to marry Eric.48 It was a messy situation, and both couples were very unhappy. Freda employed private detectives to track her husband. When she found out the truth she moved Bobby out of their flat in Albert Hall Mansions. He claimed to have no money, but he managed to move into the Berkeley Hotel.49 For several years, Freda agonised about what to do. She did not want to precipitate a row which would involve unpleasant publicity and damage everyone’s reputations. Her solicitor told her that it was also possible that Laura and Eric might have a reconciliation and by acting too soon they could put everyone in a difficult position. However, remaining in limbo was not a permanent option either, so eventually both Eric and Freda decided that divorce was the only solution. Bobby wanted Laura’s name kept out of court, but Freda’s solicitor said that the judge would want her to give him a truthful answer and she should not say anything that was not right to protect other people.50