A Very Private Celebrity

by Hugh Purcell

  At this time, Robert Boothby was a Conservative MP, until, in 1958, he was given a peerage. He was rumoured to have fathered three children by the wives of other men, one of them with Lady Dorothy Macmillan, whose husband was later Prime Minister (1957–63). Boothby was also a bisexual and, like Driberg, he flaunted his homosexuality at a time when it was illegal. Together in the 1960s they visited East End clubs where, in return for protecting from the law the sinister crooks, the Kray Twins, ‘rough but compliant East End lads were served to them like so many canapés’.16

  In August 1960, Lord Boothby was John Freeman’s guest on Face to Face. This is how Freeman introduced him:

  He is a personal friend of long standing. I’ll tell you how I see him: I think he is one of the most gifted and idealistic and truthful men in public life. I also think he is lazy, self-indulgent and over-generous. They have led to the failure of his public career but the total success of his personal friendships. He’s either in disgrace for having blurted out something indiscreet or else he’s playing baccarat at Deauville. From time to time he denies these charges. You’ll be able to judge if he does so in this programme.

  What are we to make of this? Freeman liked ‘rough company’ all through his life, but there is no suggestion that there was anything sexual to this. He liked people who crossed the boundaries with impunity and entertained him; moral judgements about sexual behaviour were not among his principles.

  Driberg’s diary of these years was published at the same time as the first volume of Dalton’s Memoirs in 1953. This left the reviewer of Truth magazine in a quandary:

  Or instead, shall I read Mr Driberg,

  Whose bright, chatty diary extends

  To back stage accounts of the Commons

  And his cultured impeccable friends?

  Shall I read of his mansion in Essex,

  Of his views on the church (which are high)

  Will he drop me some Bevanite tit-bits

  On the personal habits of Nye?

  About halfway through in a footnote

  I expect he will coyly confess,

  In the gay unregenerate ’30s

  That he wrote for the Daily Express?

  Well, whom shall I go to this evening,

  To seek some enlightenment from?

  Shall I plunge into history with Hughie,

  Or go for a gossip with Tom?

  The more I consider the problem

  The more with this knowledge I’m faced –

  That the journalist’s book, and the doctor’s

  Both fill me with equal distaste!

  Hurray then for personal freedom,

  Which is the Englishman’s right!

  Away with both Driberg and Dalton –

  And would somebody turn off the light?17

  Freeman’s contribution to the transforming legislation enacted by the first Labour government of 1945–50 was slight. During its first two years he was at the War Office – first as parliamentary secretary, then financial secretary and then under-secretary of state to Fred Bellinger, a kindly but ineffective minister who had been an army officer and then an estate agent before entering Parliament. The story of Bellinger’s dismissal by the Prime Minister in 1947 is often quoted as an example of Attlee’s terse, gauche personal relations, here related by Woodrow Wyatt:

  ‘Bellinger, I want your resignation.’

  Poor Fred was aghast. He was not brilliant but there were worse ministers.

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that, Prime Minister. I thought I’d been doing rather well. Could you give me any reason?’

  ‘No good. That’s all. No good.’

  End of interview.18

  In November 1946, Freeman flew off to the Far East on a tour of overseas commands. He had already, according to Dalton, ‘made a most excellent front-bench beginning, both answering questions and speaking on adjournments … an exceptionally promising parliamentarian’. His first stop was the British Commonwealth occupation zone in Japan, where he met General MacArthur and visited the British troops. There was no chance, he told the press, of either bringing the troops home or reducing their numbers. He spent Christmas at the commander-in-chief’s house in Delhi, from where he wrote to Tom Driberg. The flight from Tokyo to Calcutta had been alarming because ‘the flight pilot developed appendicitis in mid-air and damaged the undercarriage when landing’. This must have been the origin of the story Freeman told his children in the 1960s about how he had helped land an aircraft by taking over the controls and preventing a crash.

  In his letter, Freeman told Driberg that, in his private view, the Burmese had to be granted independence after elections, otherwise ‘we should be gradually and ignominiously expelled, probably with casualties. From the soldiers’ point of view, the politician must avoid an anti-British crisis.’19 This comment was obviously an answer to Churchill’s speech in the Commons earlier in December. In response to the Labour government’s plans to make Burma the first independent ex-colony, he had exploded: ‘This haste is appalling; “scuttle” is the only word that can be applied.’

  Driberg and Freeman shared a belief in Burmese independence that was vindicated the next year when power was successfully transferred. It became a model for policies elsewhere and was one of Attlee’s proudest achievements. In fact, Freeman played an important part in this. In August 1947, he led a defence mission to Burma, which agreed, after much argument, to send a combined task force from all three armed services to build up an adequate army, navy and air force. Freeman described the mission in an article for the New Statesman seven years later:

  We were lent a heavily guarded house, surrounded by a 10 ft wire fence, observed in almost every moment by soft-footed guards, battered and deafened by the monsoon.

  As we bargained it became clear that what troubled the suspicious Burmese revolutionaries was the fear that a military mission would infringe Burmese sovereignty, and might even become a centre for insurrection.

  The most formidable of the Burmese delegates was the Finance Minister, U Tin Tut, later, to my great sorrow, assassinated. One afternoon, as we broke off discussions, he invited me to join him for his daily swim the following morning.

  At six o’clock, in the grey dawn of a Burmese monsoon, Tin Tut and I slithered down a grassy bank, through a ring of silent tommy-gunners, and waded into the opaque and stinking water.

  Out of earshot of the shore, Tin Tut explained the Burmese suspicion of the colonial British, and Freeman, panting and spluttering, advanced the true cause of Clement Attlee and his socialists. They attained a degree of candour and from then on the talks changed for the better: ‘This episode must, I should think, rank as one of the more bizarre diplomatic occasions. Certainly, what with shortage of breath, a near certainty of typhoid, and my dark suspicion that there were crocodiles in the lake, I still reckon it among my most hazardous public duties.’20

  Freeman’s mission was judged ‘an important practical step’ in a Times leader. The transfer of power officially took place three months later. It is now, wrote the historian Peter Hennessy, ‘a long-forgotten but highly significant imperial disposal’.

  Two months before, in June, Freeman and several other government ministers had been sent letter bombs by the Stern Gang, an Israeli terrorist organisation. The number one target was Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, whose policy to block the creation of an independent Jewish state in Palestine – to be called Israel – was considered anti-Semitic by many Jews. The mini bombs were intended as the first of a huge strike of twenty-one bombs to be sent to every member of the Cabinet, and others. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Stafford Cripps, was only saved when his secretary threw the fizzing parcel into a bucket of water. Years later, Freeman came face to face with his assailant. He told Catherine at the time: ‘I bumped into a former member of the Stern Gang recently who told me that he had been deputed to kill me. He had red hair too.’

  In 1947, Freeman was appointed vice-president of the army council, of which Field Ma
rshal Montgomery of Alamein, Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), was a member. No respecter of politicians, and increasingly out of sorts with peacetime Britain, Montgomery accused Freeman of being rude to a senior officer when visiting a regiment, and undermining discipline by discussing policy with other ranks. Freeman denied this vehemently. It obviously did him no political harm though, because the next year Attlee consulted him about Montgomery’s successor as CIGS. He suggested Field Marshal Slim, and this was acted on.

  Freeman did not forget. Monty may have called him ‘the best brigade major in the Eighth Army’ but this cut no ice. In the 1960s, Freeman used Monty’s opposition to the common market to put in the military boot:

  It is sad to see how this justly honoured soldier has declined in public esteem – and all for being unable to shut up about subjects he does not understand. Monty was respected and trusted by those who served under him in the war. He seems to have found it more difficult than most of them to resettle in civilian life.21

  In 1947, John Freeman and his wife Elizabeth separated. She remained at Marsham Street and he moved into a flatlet in Threeways – a substantial house on Wellgarth Road at the edge of Hampstead Heath. This was the lively and chaotic home of the remarkable Hubback family. David Hubback had been at Westminster School with Freeman. In fact, David and his mother Eva had visited Russia in 1932 with a party of Fabians, including the headmaster of Westminster, Hugh Dalton and Naomi Mitchison. David went on to fight in the Western Desert before joining the civil service in 1946, where he helped to shape the New Britain. It was Eva, however, living with her son and his family, who had an inspiring effect on Freeman. Now her plaque in mosaic is outside Morley College in south London, where she was principal in the 1920s. She was a member of London county council and an ardent believer in citizenship. Prior to that, she had been a suffragette, a feminist, a eugenicist and the founder of the Townswomen’s Guild. According to Eva’s daughter, Diana Hopkinson, in her last years after the war (when John was living with the Hubbacks) ‘she habitually woke at 6 a.m. and sat outside, even on chilly mornings, considering the philosophical and religious interpretations of existence. She suffered from all the uncertainties about life and death which can beset the bravest of agnostics.’22 I see Eva’s spirit hovering over Freeman’s shoulder in the BBC studios while he conducted his many interviews on those same subjects.

  Before the end of the war Freeman had met Mima Kerr, a journalist writing for Le Figaro and a Free French publication based in Whitehall. She was married with a daughter (Lizi, born in 1942), but had separated from her husband soon after Lizi’s birth. During the war and after, Lizi lived with a nanny in Hove, while Mima remained in London and began a love affair with John. After the war, Mima was appointed royal reporter for Picture Post magazine. She continued to visit Paris frequently, as she always had done since she had been to finishing school there, and enjoyed skiing in Switzerland.

  Lizi remembers her first meeting with her future stepfather: ‘John and Woodrow [Wyatt] came down to Hove. I remember them taking me to the beach and I remember asking myself, “Is one of these men going to be my dad?” And I was very relieved that it was John.’23 Elizabeth Freeman sued for divorce, and Lizi recalls the secretary John shared with Mima, Joan Harper, arranging for him to spend the necessary night in Brighton to provide evidence of adultery: ‘He was somewhere completely different the night before and had to get over there. He said, “I couldn’t be more displeased.”’ Elizabeth was granted a divorce on 19 January 1948 on the grounds of John’s adultery.

  John and Mima (an acronym for her maiden name, Margaret Ista Mabel Abbott) were married at Folkestone registry office on 23 March 1948. The certificate states that she had obtained a divorce from her first husband and John was a ‘journalist and advertising copywriter’ – a curious deceit. Did he want to put off press interest or was it second nature to avoid giving away more about himself than absolutely necessary? After all, he was an under-secretary of state in the Labour government. After the wedding, the Freemans and Lizi moved briefly into a small flat in Spanish Mansions off Marylebone High Street, before moving back to the Hubbacks’. Not long afterwards, they set up home at 8 Heath Mansions in Hampstead, where John would live for seventeen years.

  Mima was a tall, stylish 31-year-old, with a taste for hats and elegant clothes: ‘My God, she knew how to shop for clothes,’ says Lizi. ‘A wardrobe of black, navy and camel would suggest best quality, and all one needed was a simple, elegant line. She would buy a new hat before it appeared in Vogue.’ But she was a hopeless mother:

  John realised that. He said to me, ‘I knew your mother was completely hopeless and I’d have to do something about it.’ So I used to say, ‘Please can Daddy wash my hair because he doesn’t get soap in my eyes?’ And he would pretend to play the piano with me; and he would make tents if I had a cold, to inhale in. I was always impressed at how caring he was with this ready-made child. I’ve always referred to him as my ‘mummy-daddy’.24

  An unexpected perspective.

  On 7 October 1947, Freeman was appointed parliamentary secretary at the Ministry of Supply – a post he was to hold for the next four years, working for the minister George Strauss. Strauss was a Jewish intellectual, a founder of Tribune magazine in the 1930s. He was on the left of the Labour Party in government and was also a friend of Tom Driberg – all of which ought to have commended him to Freeman. Nevertheless, for Freeman this was an increasingly frustrating appointment, because Strauss would not delegate but left him with the rubbish – almost literally. A search of Hansard 1947–50 reveals eloquently how excruciatingly boring Freeman’s work at the Ministry of Supply must have been. In 1948, he made three speeches in the Chamber – on conveyor belting; dumped radio equipment; and disabled ex-servicemen’s cars. He provided a large number of written answers on such topics as: electric light bulbs; bicycle rear lamps; pig iron; zinc prices; and the aircraft establishment at Farnborough. The next year his speeches were up to eleven – aircraft sales (abroad); surplus equipment (handling); stores disposal in Egypt – while his written answers continued in the same vein – hearing aids; Tudor aircraft [?!]; flying boats. No wonder he sought the company of Tom Driberg! Was this what the ‘Battle of the New Britain’ was all about?

  In February 1950, the Labour Party was returned to power after the general election, and Freeman retained his position at the Ministry of Supply. His work continued to be deeply unsatisfying. The following January, he unburdened himself to Dalton on a Sunday afternoon walk in Battersea Park:

  He said he would be quite willing – and, from the constituency point of view, would prefer – to go back to the back benches. Strauss, he admitted, had given him no show at all, not even one parliamentary question to answer during three years. But, very generously, he did not speak ill of Strauss … I like Freeman a lot, and would like to see him climbing. I’ll try again at a good moment.25

  In fact, only weeks later Strauss did give Freeman his opportunity. He asked him to ‘wind up’ the iron and steel nationalisation debate that would bring into effect the bill that had been passed, in principle, in November 1949 (although its implementation had been postponed until after the general election). The Conservative Party decided to make a rearguard fight of it, and the result was a cliffhanger – Labour won by only ten votes. By all accounts, Freeman made up for lost opportunities: ‘Mr Freeman made one of the outstanding speeches of recent years. Labour MPs roared with delight at the spectacle of this red-headed, pink cheeked young minister infuriating the Tories with a stream of brilliant but barbed shafts.’26

  ‘I thought we might easily lose,’ said Dalton. ‘John Freeman wound up very well, and I hope this has renewed a little of his personal reputation.’ (7 February 1951)

  Notes

  1 West Herts & Watford Observer, 8 June 1945

  2 ‘Night Thoughts of an MP’ by John Freeman, New Statesman, 7 May 1955

  3 Driberg, 1968, op. cit.

  4 Hansard, 2 Sept
ember 1945

  5 Fighting All The Way by Barbara Castle, Macmillan, London, 1993, p. 191

  6 High Tide and After: Memoirs 1945–1960 by Hugh Dalton, Muller, 1962

  7 Tom Driberg, His Life and Indiscretions by Francis Wheen, Chatto & Windus, London, 1990, p. 242

  8 ‘Hugh Dalton’ by John Freeman, New Statesman, 9 February 1962

  9 ‘The Windsor Lad’ by John Freeman, New Statesman, 9 May 1953

  10 Quoted in Wheen, op. cit., p. 210

  11 Ibid., p. 226

  12 The Lamberts: George, Constant and Kit by Andrew Motion, Hogarth Press, 1987, p. 245

  13 Ruling Passions by Tom Driberg, Stein & Day, New York, 1978, p. 144

  14 Wheen. op. cit., p. 192

  15 Wyatt, op. cit., 1999, p. 255

  16 Wheen, op. cit., p. 350

  17 Ibid., p. 272

  18 Wyatt, op. cit., 1985, pp. 103–4

  19 Freeman to Driberg, December 1946 (Driberg papers, Christ Church, Oxford University)

  20 ‘A Bit of a Month in Rangoon’ by John Freeman, New Statesman, 23 January 1954

  21 ‘London Diary’ by Flavus, New Statesman, 8 June 1962

  22 Family Inheritance: A Life of Eva Hubback by Diana Hopkinson, Staples Press, 1954, pp. 184–5

  23 Lizi Freeman interview with the author 2014

  24 Ibid.

  25 The Political Diary of Hugh Dalton edited by Ben Pimlott, Jonathan Cape, London, 1986, entry dated 28 January 1951 (all other Dalton diary quotes from this edition)

  26 Daily Mirror, 8 February 1951

  Chapter 4

  Government minister – the fall

  IT WAS 1950 and the fag end of a revolution. The first post-war Labour government – the strongest in Britain’s history – had come to an end. At the general election in February, Labour was returned again, but with a majority of only five. Labour’s programme of social and economic reform, for which it had campaigned for a generation, had largely been carried out. Its ‘shopping list’ for the next round of nationalisations showed that it had run out of steam on public ownership; only the incomplete nationalisation of iron and steel remained among the big manifesto intentions. Labour voters had run out of steam too. The historian Peter Hennessy wrote: