Wicked Little Joe

by Joseph Hone

  What is perhaps more extraordinary – given that Hubert was a pacifist and a regular subscriber to the War Registers International magazine – is his reply to my father, dated the following week, 8 December 1954:

  Dear Nat

  I quite agree with you and Biddy that it would be a great mistake for Joe to try and dodge the authorities about military service. I was over in London and spoke to him about it all last week, but I found him, as did the Cooke-Smiths, very determined to go his own way, and I’m not sure what impression my arguments made on him.

  He has not and does not have any moral scruples against military service. It is merely that he considers it a waste of time and an unnecessary obstacle in the way of his project for a training in film technique.

  Personally I don’t hold any very strong views about the disciplinary value for Joe of military service. I think he would probably quite enjoy it, being of a convivial turn of mind, but that he’s probably right in thinking that the ordinary training of sloping arms and bayoneting sandbags would be a waste of time and not particularly elevating to his character … So I am not thinking of it in terms of ‘DUTY’, stern daughter of the voice of God, but as a piece of legislation that Joe can’t infringe without disaster to himself and which he had better therefore turn to his own advantage if that is possible …

  With this in mind I made enquiries about an interpreter’s course when I was over in London and found out that these did exist within the military framework and also that Joe was ready to be interested in them. One does a few weeks ordinary military or naval service and the rest of the time is spent as an ordinary student of some language that the War Office considers valuable … The most valued language now of course is Russian, and there is a course at Cambridge under a Professor Hill with whom I have good contacts. I am not sure how easy it is to be taken onto this course. I believe that Joe could, but that he would be much more likely to be taken on if he had already shown an interest and had some knowledge or experience. It’s impossible to get into Russia but the day before I left I took him round to the Yugoslav Embassy and found that they were quite willing to consider the idea of an exchange. We would take a Yugoslav boy here for two or three months and Joe would go out there for a corresponding period. The only financial costs would be his fare to and fro … With some experience of Slav languages and countries behind him he would be in a very strong position to be taken on for this interpreter’s course, which would be of permanent value to him, and would rank equally with other forms of military service.

  As regards his Irish passport, I certainly think he ought not to be encouraged to take out this simply as a way of dodging his obligations in the country where he works. Yet of course he is Irish, both by parentage and upbringing, and if he feels himself Irish, and is ready to accept some of the obligations and some of the privileges of belonging here, I don’t see that he could be refused his passport …

  I hope in the meantime you will give your support to this interpreter’s course idea, as frankly it seems to me the best way out. I think it appealed to Joe’s imagination and while he wouldn’t admit that he was ready to embark on it I felt I had broken down some of his resistance to the whole idea of the two years’ service.

  I would wait to decide about his passport until you see what his reaction is. I suppose when he gets to twenty-one he will be able to decide his own nationality himself, will he not? – provided the Irish government is willing to admit him to citizenship. So I would be inclined not to make too much of an issue of this, do you not agree?

  Good wishes to yourself and Biddy.

  Yours,

  Hubert.

  Another long and thoughtful letter (what a time Hubert spent writing letters on my behalf!). The reason for Hubert’s stalling with my father on the Irish passport and citizenship business may be that, with his own linguistic gifts, and his study of Russian at the London School of Slavonic Studies before the war, he hopes that I may follow in his footsteps, and benefit as he did in doing this Russian course with Professor Hill at Cambridge. It doesn’t strike him that I had little gift for languages, least of all the difficult Russian language. This Cambridge Russian interpreter’s course, as emerged later, was in fact as much for the training of spies as for interpreters, a course which people like Michael Frayn took at the time. I don’t suppose that Hubert had any idea then that the course was an entry stage for work in the British Secret Service and that, had I taken it, I might have ended up being shot by the Ruskies against a wall at the back of the Kremlin.

  Meanwhile, as well as canvassing Hubert, my father had been agitating about my doing National Service with the one person who had been willing to help get me into the film business, Tony Guthrie. Nat writes to him from Cheltenham:

  Dear Mr Guthrie,

  I understand through Peggy Butler that my son, Joe, is going to see you about getting a job in the film industry. He is apparently keen to get in on the technical side and possibly has a superficial knowledge of it. I do not wish to put obstacles in his way, nor will I. On the other hand it would be utterly disastrous for him if people to whom you may introduce him were, out of kindness, to say ‘Maybe – I’ll drop you a line sometime.’ He is older in sophistication than his age (sixteen and a half) but younger in learning and discipline. Though he may tell you otherwise he will have to do his National Service in this country if he is going to live here. (He is a British citizen, born in London, and the Irish authorities have refused him an Irish passport).

  I think myself that the proper procedure for him is to join the army on a three-year contract, and to pick a trade relevant to the film industry. He would thus learn discipline and technical knowledge which he so far conspicuously lacks.

  He would have to add a year to his age to join the army but there is no difficulty about that. If he did this he would be at least a year ahead of the other boys and would have fulfilled his obligation to the State.

  Yours sincerely,

  Nat Hone.

  PS: Of course you will not show, or communicate the contents of this letter to Joe. Though you may send it to Peggy if you think that worth while.

  Which Tony duly did, almost immediately as is clear, since he hadn’t yet taken me to see his agent:

  Dearie,

  Thought you’d be interested to see this. I have replied saying, yes, I take his point about Joe doing his National Service, and as regards the film industry have said that the man I’m taking him to see is likely only to offer the most vague general ‘advice’. I’ll endeavour to make clear to Joe, if not clear already, the difference between this and any concrete offer of work …

  Nat’s letter to Tony continues his sporadic, cheeky and lying interference in my life. There are three or four examples of this in the letter. First because he says he’s not going to put obstacles in the way of my getting into pictures, but then insists that I have to do National Service first, which would be the biggest obstacle to my getting into them. And then there were no National Service courses, apart perhaps in aerial photography, which would help me get into the film industry. He then says that I can lie my way into the army by saying I’m a year older! Well, lying about my age would surely have been tantamount to my lying to the Queen, which might possibly have resulted in my being put in the glasshouse for the duration. And certainly I wasn’t going to lie to her, or indeed join her army. Then he says that I’m a British citizen, which I wasn’t, and then that the Irish authorities have turned me down for a passport, which they couldn’t have done since Nat hadn’t as yet given me his consent to apply for one. Nat’s whole letter is thus one of devious special pleading to Tony, so to persuade him to get me into the army. What possessed Nat to write such a farrago of fibs? Was he making a very late start in being ‘responsible’ about me?

  In any case Hubert persists with me and with Nat in his idea that I should do my National Service, but first go to Yugoslavia to get the lie of the Slav and Croat land and its language. So Hubert writes to Nat again on th
e theme late in 1954, in a letter as ambivalent as his previous one to my father:

  Dear Nat,

  I heard from Joe this morning. He has been round all the various offices enquiring, and I gather that his view is that he would stand a chance of being accepted for the Slav languages course if he had some previous experience but not otherwise.

  But if he registered of his own accord as an Irish citizen he would of course be in a much stronger position. As he has not registered already, he would, as an English citizen, start with a black mark against him.

  That is why Peggy and I have decided to ask you to support Joe’s application for Irish citizenship and I am making it clear to Joe that I am only asking you this on the strict understanding that he registers for military service (or ‘volunteers’ as the case may be).

  I think if he got Irish citizenship as soon as possible he should then go to spend two months in Yugoslavia as I have been able to arrange for him, in Belgrade; then when he comes home he would be in a far better position to impress the authorities … I have two or three friends who possibly might be influential enough to help, once it appeared that he knew something about the whole business.

  I forget if I told you. Zvonimir Petnicki to whom he would go is a school teacher whom I first met in 1934 … He speaks English perfectly and has latterly been employed as an interpreter for the various Yugoslav delegations abroad and has accompanied them quite often to London, New York and Paris. We would take his boy aged thirteen for a couple of months here to perfect his English as a pay back to them for having Joe. Joe would be staying with Petnicki’s wife in Belgrade who I gather looks after the family and is amicably separated from Zvonimir. I liked her very much when I saw her. I have a good many other friends in Belgrade and Zagreb, mainly bourgeois like myself! – but sufficiently varied for Joe to have a wonderful opportunity of learning something about the place. And of course he would have to work hard at learning about the place. I am going to suggest to him that he tries to write about it while he is there and I will make an effort to get his stuff put into shape and printed.

  How is his fare to be paid for? That is a problem we’ll have to face. As it seems such an opportunity for Joe I am ready to take responsibility for collecting the money which will be at least fifty pounds even if it means sending the hat round among the relations. It will always be something for him to look back on and should be a real education as well as a way out of the present difficulty.

  I think a friend of mine is still in the British Embassy in Belgrade. If I find he still is, I will ask him to give an eye to Joe now and again.

  Yours ever,

  Hubert.

  However there was only one problem in the whole scheme, which Hubert doesn’t mention. I was all on to go to Yugoslavia and stay with these interesting people, see the sights, learn a bit of the language, broaden my outlook and all that – but I still had absolutely no intention whatever of doing National Service or taking the Russian interpreter’s course. Perhaps, for the sake of the Yugoslav trip which I was looking forward to now, I didn’t mention this crucial factor to Hubert.

  Nat meanwhile writes to me in mid-December 1955:

  Dear Joe,

  News that I have received from Hubert this morning inclines me to alter my decision about your passport. Subject to one or two conditions I am now prepared to give my support to your application.

  The conditions are (1) that you register on the 18th at your local labour exchange (claiming exemption on the grounds of Irish citizenship) and (2) that when your passport is issued it will be held in my custody except at such times as it is required for the purposes of foreign travel. When I have evidence that you have complied with the first condition and that you are agreeable to the second I will give my formal consent to the issue of the passport.

  Love from Mummy,

  Yours, Daddy.

  Another impertinent letter, and pompous in its legalistic, courtroom phraseology. Where did Nat get these phrases from? He may have remembered them from his time in 1930s Dublin, as a supporter of the Irish fascist Blueshirts, shooting the tops off the Brandy and Benedictine bottles in the Wicklow Hotel, when he was probably arrested and ‘held in custody’ for his bibulous target practice. And he must have unearthed them again so as to impress on me his stern and dutiful interest in my future. And it may have been that he actually thought I would comply with his conditions. In any case there was a delay in the whole passport matter, and Nat writes to Hubert, late in January 1956:

  Dear Hubert,

  I have been telling Joe ever since your pre-Christmas letter on the subject that I will endorse his application for an Irish passport if he sends me the forms properly completed. I did make and have made the stipulation that he should confirm that he is obtaining the passport for the particular purpose of carrying out your excellent idea. He knows this but we have not had a letter from him yet.

  I am grateful to you for all the help you are offering him in this matter and I do hope if it can be arranged he will take proper advantage of your kindness.

  His fare to Belgrade could be a difficulty. We are even more hand-to-mouth than usual. (My Mama might cough up his fare – twenty-five pounds return if he goes via Ostend and Salzburg) and I daresay he has some money of his own. An approach from you would, I’m afraid, be more likely to succeed than one from me.

  Yrs,

  Nat.

  Hubert must have made the approach to me, and I must have agreed to Nat’s conditions (though I never later fulfilled them) for I got my Irish passport, and the money for the return rail ticket was somehow raised, and Hubert gave me fifty pounds cash for expenses for the two months’ visit, along with a small notebook in which he stipulated I must account for every penny of the fifty pounds when I got back. He also gave me half a dozen packets of Players cigarettes and bars of chocolate for me to give to his friends in Zagreb and Belgrade. And several rolls of lavatory paper. Such things were in short supply in Yugoslavia, he told me. And off I went, on my first real trip abroad, eighteen years old and fancy free – with Hubert’s cigs and choccies and the fifty pounds of his money.

  I can appreciate now, as I didn’t then, Hubert’s generosity towards me. But I see his careful financial mind too, in giving me the little account book. Hubert was still the pennywise Victorian and I was still the spendthrift, unreliable boy, likely to run amok with his money. It didn’t strike him, I suppose, that I might perhaps fiddle my expenses, filling the account book with sensible costs, like Zagreb museum tickets and Serbo-Croatian grammars, when I had spent the money on movies and beer. On the other hand this may have struck him. But he was an honourable man and had the same hopes for others. And so I took the train, several trains, across Europe, and arrived in Zagreb in the summer of 1956.

  I first stayed with Dr and Mrs Curcin, old friends of Hubert’s, in their large, bright, modern apartment on the hill overlooking the cathedral. Dr Curcin was a great friend and admirer of the famous Yugoslav sculptor, Ivan Mestrovic, then living in America, and the flat was crammed with his work, which Dr Curcin was keeping for him – a petrified forest of heroic statuary, mostly in the Great Mother Earth department.

  And it was here, lying out on a steamer chair on the sunny balcony recovering from a bout of ’flu, that I first met Marija, a friend of the Curcins, who happened to visit one morning. Marija was an art student, with long blonde Rapunzel-like rings of braided hair, wound round and round her head, until it formed a honey gold crown on top, a retroussé nose, high cheekbones, flawlessly pale skin and a look both virginal and provocative, making haughty distances with her big blue eyes one moment, filling them with scandal and mischief the next.

  When I was back on my feet she showed me round the city, particularly the old medieval and baroque town on the hill, where we took the little funicular railway up, buying paper cones of hot chestnuts next to the ticket kiosk at the top, before wandering off along the pastel-washed streets with their sugar-stick churches, candlelit shrines and s
udden leafy vistas over the later Hapsburg city far beneath. And it wasn’t long before I was pretty well in love with Marija.

  One day we learnt that President Tito was due to visit Zagreb, and we went downtown for the great event. Tito arrived in a huge American limousine, at the head of a long motorcade, resplendent in a white suit, streaming through the wildly cheering, waving crowds in Republic Square.

  There was genuine delirium and tumult. It was my first taste of what was Yugoslavia’s most obvious quality then – a sense of tremendous optimism among the people, a sure belief in their ability to create a new and united country out of that previously so divided and battle-scarred land; to forge a middle way between Marx and capitalism. These were days of hope in Yugoslavia, when young people from all over Europe came out to spend working holidays helping on various construction projects such as the Zagreb-Belgrade motorway. For many at the time Yugoslavia was the promised land, offering a way out of the impasse of conflicting East-West ideologies, a country where communism had a human face. And what with Marija’s sensuous company and all the buoyant political enthusiasm of the time, I became a Titoist myself.