Hello Goodbye Hello: A Circle of 101 Remarkable Meetings

by Craig Brown

  In a letter to his brother Gummo describing the evening, Groucho says that Eliot and he have three things in common: an affection for good cigars, a love of cats, and a weakness for puns. The Marxes leave reasonably early, as ‘we both felt he wasn’t up to a long evening of conversation – especially mine’. The poet, adds the comedian, is ‘a dear man and a charming host’.

  T.S. ELIOT

  PROVOKES GIGGLES FROM

  QUEEN ELIZABETH THE QUEEN MOTHER

  Aeolian Hall, 135–137 New Bond Street, London W1

  April 14th 1943

  T.S. Eliot has agreed to take part in a grand wartime poetry reading at the Aeolian Hall, ‘to keep the arts alive’. Organised by Osbert Sitwell, it is in aid of Lady Crewe’s French in Britain Fund. Early on, Sitwell has persuaded Queen Elizabeth to be patron; he has been keeping her abreast of developments for some weeks. Her Majesty has even promised to bring the two little Princesses along with her.

  A formidable line-up of poets has been assembled, among them C. Day Lewis, Louis MacNeice, Vita Sackville-West, Walter de la Mare, John Masefield and Osbert’s sister Edith, who has helped to organise the event. The Sitwells have jointly directed rehearsals, timing the poets with a stop-watch so as to be sure they do not go on too long. Edith invites her fellow poet Dorothy Wellesley to join in, for two reasons: a) she is a woman and b) she is sure not to outshine Edith. But Edith almost immediately regrets asking her, as Wellesley starts ‘being beyond any words tiresome ... Practically every day I get letters worrying me about something. She sends me all the tripe she writes.’ Why on earth, she wonders, did W.B.Yeats include her in his last anthology of poetry? ‘The old man’s mind must have been going for him to think her any good at all as a poet.’

  On the big night, the hall fills up. Queen Elizabeth and her daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, both wearing mittens, are each presented with a programme by the celebrity programme-seller, the comic actress Beatrice Lillie, before being escorted to the front row. The recital kicks off with John Masefield, the Poet Laureate, paying tribute to Laurence Binyon, who died in March. Queen Elizabeth and her daughters look duly grave. From then on, the poets take to the stage in strict alphabetical order: Edmund Blunden, Gordon Bottomley, Hilda Doolittle. Each of them stands behind a Victorian lectern, picked up by Sitwell in the Caledonian market, so large that only the heads of the very tallest poets can be spotted above it.

  E is for Eliot. At five feet eleven inches, he is clearly visible. He has chosen to read the final section, ‘London Bridge Is Falling Down’, from The Waste Land:

  I sat upon the shore

  Fishing, with the arid plain behind me

  Shall I at least set my lands in order?

  Queen Elizabeth is certainly no highbrow – decades later, the socialite Nicky Haslam recalls the choreographer Frederick Ashton doing ‘a brilliant imitation’ of her ‘having to sit through a Wagner opera and wanting to go to the lav’ – but she has always tried to maintain a healthy interest in literature.195 Nevertheless, she and her daughters find it hard to keep straight faces through Mr Eliot’s more outlandish efforts:

  London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

  Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina

  Quando fiam ceu chelidon – O swallow swallow

  Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie

  Almost half a century on, Queen Elizabeth – now the Queen Mother – sits next to the novelist A.N. Wilson at a private dinner.196 They have been talking about literature. Wilson has asked her what she reads for pleasure. ‘I am very fond of detective stories. I like P.D. James, but it takes me about two months to finish one of her books. I really prefer Dorothy L. Sayers. Oh, and Barbara Pym I love.’197

  The Queen Mother asks Wilson if he can get his daughters to read. ‘Difficult to stop them, ma’am,’ he replies.

  ‘I remember dear Osbert – did you know him?’ says the Queen Mother.

  ‘Alas not.’

  ‘I thought the girls ... you see, they were marooned in Windsor Castle for most of the war, and I was not sure that they were having a very good education, and kind Sachie and Osbert said they would arrange a poetry evening for us. Such an embarrassment. Osbert was wonderful, as you would expect, and Edith, of course, but then we had this rather lugubrious man in a suit, and he read a poem ... I think it was called The Desert. And first the girls got the giggles, and then I did, and then even the King.’

  ‘The Desert, ma’am?’ asks Wilson. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t called The Waste Land?’

  ‘That’s it. I’m afraid we all giggled. Such a gloomy man, looked as though he worked in a bank, and we didn’t understand a word.’

  ‘I believe he DID once work in a bank, ma’am.’

  Following T.S. Eliot’s reading, Walter de la Mare takes to the stage, but is too small to reach the lectern. W.J. Turner is next up, but his reading greatly exceeds his allotted six minutes, and he is heckled by some of his fellow poets. Then comes the interval; the Queen mixes informally with all the poets in an ante room. But outside in the hall, an unfortunate incident is taking place.

  Dorothy Wellesley, never easy, has had too much to drink, and is creating a disturbance. Earlier, she informed Osbert Sitwell that she was too drunk to read, but she has now changed her mind, and is determined to perform an impromptu recital. The ever-game Beatrice Lillie has put down her programmes and is struggling to enfold her in a jujitsu grip. Stephen Spender leaps to the aid of Lillie, and tries to pin down the errant poetess. Harold Nicolson steps forward to help; Wellesley promptly whacks him with her stick, mistaking him for Osbert Sitwell. At last the critic Raymond Mortimer lures her outside onto Bond Street, where, according to Edith Sitwell, she sits down on the kerb, bangs her stick on the pavement and uses ‘frightful language about a) the Queen and b) me’.

  The whole evening provides a conversational ice-breaker for the royal family in the coming months. They have always delighted in extracting merriment from things that go awry. Soon afterwards, when Rex Whistler comes to stay at Sandringham, Queen Elizabeth talks about ‘that fantastic poetry-reading orgy’ and simply cannot stop laughing.

  QUEEN ELIZABETH THE QUEEN MOTHER

  TALKS KITCHENS WITH

  THE DUCHESS OF WINDSOR

  Windsor Castle

  June 5th 1972

  They have met perhaps half a dozen times in the past thirty-five years, and have never got on. Some suspect the awkwardness between them has festered into something closer to hatred.

  The little Princesses’ governess Marion Crawford is at Royal Lodge in April 1936 when the new King and his American lady friend Mrs Simpson drop in for a visit. She finds Mrs Simpson bossy and tactless: ‘I remember she drew him [the King] to the window and suggested how certain trees might be moved, and a part of a hill taken away to improve the view.’ This goes down badly with the then Duke and Duchess of York, as the Duke has had a hand in the garden’s design. ‘The atmosphere was not a comfortable one,’ concludes Miss Crawford.198

  Later that year, when the Yorks go to dinner at Balmoral, Mrs Simpson extends her hand, but Elizabeth brushes past her, announcing brusquely, ‘I came to dine with the King.’ The dinner is sticky, with the Yorks the first to leave.

  Over the next few decades, relations between the pair go from bad to worse. In 1938, when the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, as they now are, plan a tour of America, King George VI is determined that they should not be allowed to stay at the British Embassy, and the new Queen is even more adamant. ‘When the men spoke in terms of indignation, she spoke in terms of acute pain and distress, and deeply felt ... All her feelings were lacerated by what she and the King were being made to go through,’ the British Ambassador recalls. Their proposed tour never takes place.

  A year later, the Duke of Windsor is not invited to the dedication of the tomb of his late father, though he himself paid for half of it. When he reads of the ceremony in the newspapers, with no acknowledgement of his own half-share in the costs,
his fury boils over. ‘I greatly regret that it should have taken so sacred an occasion to disclose so much that is unpleasant, and to destroy the last vestige of feeling I had left for you all as a family,’ he writes to his mother.

  And so the feud bubbles on: later that year, the Windsors visit England, but they are not invited to the Palace. ‘I had taken the precaution to send her a message before they came, saying that I was sorry I could not receive her,’ says Queen Elizabeth. ‘I thought it more honest to make things quite clear. So she kept away, & nobody saw her. What a curse black sheep are to a family!’ In 1940, she attempts to block the Duke of Windsor’s appointment as Governor of the Bahamas, arguing that the Duchess ‘is looked upon as the lowest of the low’.199

  The two women do not meet again for a quarter of a century. Absence makes neither heart grow fonder. The Duchess tends to call Elizabeth ‘the fat Scotch cook’, ‘the dumpy Duchess’ or just plain ‘cookie’. James Pope-Hennessy notes her ‘facial contortion, reserved for speaking of the Queen Mother, which is very unpleasant to behold, and seemed to me akin to frenzy’. The Queen Mother is more tight-lipped in her dislike, but no less passionate. If ever the forbidden topic comes up, she refers to the Duchess of Windsor only as ‘that woman’.200

  They meet, briefly, at the dedication of a memorial plaque to Queen Mary in June 1967. At first, the Queen Mother refuses to attend if the Duchess of Windsor is to be present, but she relents. The Duchess fails to curtsey to her; the two women shake hands but do not exchange kisses. ‘How nice to see you,’ says the Queen Mother, moving smartly on. After the ceremony the Queen Mother says, ‘I do hope we meet again.’ ‘When?’ asks the Duchess, but no reply is forthcoming.

  Five years on, in 1972, the Duke of Windsor dies of throat cancer. Throughout his final illness, the Queen Mother fails to make contact, but when the Duchess arrives at Heathrow Airport for the funeral, she is greeted by Lord Mountbatten, who delivers the message, ‘Your sister-in-law will receive you with open arms. She is deeply sorry for you in your present grief and remembers what it was like when her own husband died.’ According to Mountbatten, this ‘comforted her a lot’.

  After the funeral, there is a reception at Windsor Castle. ‘It’s so difficult, because she hardly knows anyone,’ says Queen Elizabeth II as everyone shuffles in.

  Before lunch, the two old enemies, both in their seventies, sit side by side on a sofa. The Duchess is showing signs of losing her mind. Princess Margaret eavesdrops on their conversation.

  ‘Do you have an upstairs or a downstairs kitchen?’ the Duchess asks the Queen Mother. The Queen Mother is nonplussed: Princess Margaret thinks she might be unsure as to her kitchen’s exact location. But the Duchess tactfully fills the gap in conversation by replying to her own question. ‘We tried both,’ she says, ‘and I prefer the upstairs as there is so much less moving about. Naturally it depends upon how many guests you are entertaining.’

  At lunch, the Duchess sits between Prince Philip and Lord Mountbatten. ‘Well, what are your plans?’ asks Prince Philip. ‘You going back to America, then?’ The Duchess feels like saying, ‘Why should I?’ Instead she says, ‘I won’t be coming back to England if that’s what you’re afraid of, except to visit the grave.’ She is determined that the royal family should not see her grieve, and amused by the gusto with which they all tuck into their puddings.

  When lunch is over, the two women again sit side by side. After a few drinks, the Queen Mother is more talkative, and expresses her sympathies. The Duchess pauses awhile, and seems to be searching for a suitable topic. At last, she finds one.

  ‘Do you have an upstairs or a downstairs kitchen?’ she asks.

  THE DUCHESS OF WINDSOR

  TAKES TEA WITH

  ADOLF HITLER

  Berchtesgaden, the Bavarian Alps

  October 22nd 1937

  ‘The two people who have caused me most trouble in my life,’ recalls the Queen Mother in her old age, ‘are Wallis Simpson and Hitler.’

  Her two principal troublemakers meet just the once. Adolf Hitler feels the Duke and Duchess of Windsor have been ill-treated by the British, and invites them to Germany. ‘The real reason for the destruction of the Duke of Windsor was, I am sure, his speech at the old veterans’ rally in Berlin, at which he declared that it would be the task of his life to effect a reconciliation between Britain and Germany,’ the Führer explains to dinner guests; ‘... the subsequent treatment of the Duke of Windsor was an evil omen; to topple over so fine a pillar of strength was both foolish and wicked.’

  Together, the Windsors accept Herr Hitler’s invitation. ‘His Royal Highness wanted to see honour and glory paid to the woman he adored,’ explains his equerry, Sir Dudley Forwood, years later.

  The Windsors’ train pulls into Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse station on the morning of October 11th. No effort has been spared to make them feel at home. The station is decorated with strings of Union Jacks neatly alternating with swastikas. As the Duke and Duchess alight, a band strikes up a hearty rendition of ‘God Save the King’, and the crowd cheers ‘Heil Edward!’ and ‘Hoch Windsors!’

  Dr Robert Ley, the leader of the National Labour Front, presents the Duchess with a box of chocolates, complete with a card saying ‘KÖNIGLICHE HOHEIT’, or ‘Royal Highness’.201 A few minutes later, the Third Secretary from the British Embassy hands the Duke a letter explaining that the Ambassador has been called away unexpectedly, and the Embassy is taking no official notice of their visit. The Windsors interpret this, quite accurately, as a slight. ‘Both the Duke and Duchess were very, very hurt,’ notes Sir Dudley.

  They leave the station in a black Mercedes, with four SS officers hanging on the running boards. A specially invited crowd welcomes them to the Kaiserhof Hotel with a merry song specially composed by the Propaganda Ministry, under the aegis of Dr Goebbels. The next few days are spent in a whirl of guided tours. The Duchess is taken around a Nazi Welfare Society workhouse, where she watches women sewing clothes for the poor; the Duke is guest of honour at a concert given by the Berlin Labour Front Orchestra, ending with lusty renditions of ‘Deutschland Über Alles’, ‘The Horst Wessel Song’ and ‘God Save the King’. Nazi newsreel cameras catch the Duke raising his arm in the Nazi salute. He will execute the same salute several times before he leaves. ‘Nothing more than good manners,’ explains Sir Dudley.

  Their first evening is spent at a party at Dr Ley’s country estate. Guests include the SS leader Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess and his wife, Ilse, and Josef and Magda Goebbels, whom the Duchess describes as ‘the prettiest woman I saw in Germany’. Ilse Hess remembers the Duchess as ‘a lovely, charming, warm and clever woman with a heart of gold’.

  The sightseeing continues: here a visit to the training school of the Death’s Head Division of the elite squad of the SS, there a trip to Goering’s country estate, where they admire the lavish model railway he has assembled in his barn. The Duchess is impressed by ‘the deftness with which the Field Marshal directed the trains up and down the tracks, opening and closing switches, blowing whistles, and averting collisions’. In turn, Emmy Goering is impressed by the Duchess. ‘I could not help thinking that this woman would certainly have cut a good figure on the throne of England.’202

  On October 22nd the Duke and Duchess are welcomed by the Führer himself. Herr Hitler’s private train whisks them to Berchtesgaden; from there, they are driven in an open-topped Mercedes up the mountain at Obersalzberg to Hitler’s Berghof.

  As they admire the view over the Bavarian Alps from the large drawing room, an aide appears and whisks the Duke off to meet the Führer. The Duchess feels peeved at being left out. She has to make do with Rudolf Hess, who vainly attempts to break the ice with small-talk about music. After an hour or more, Hitler and the Duke return, and they all have tea in front of the fire.203

  ‘I could not take my eyes off Hitler ... at close quarters he gave one the feeling of great inner force,’ the Duchess remembers, thirty years on
. ‘His hands were long and slim, a musician’s hands,204 and his eyes were truly extraordinary – intense, unblinking, magnetic, burning with the same peculiar fire I had earlier seen in the eyes of Kemal Ataturk. Once or twice I felt those eyes turned in my direction. But when I tried to meet their gaze, the lids dropped, and I found myself confronted by a mask. I decided that Hitler did not care for women.’

  At one point, though, he does make a memorable remark. The Duchess has just complimented him on the splendid architecture she has seen over the past ten days. ‘Our buildings will make more magnificent ruins than the Greeks,’ he replies, eerily.

  On their way back to Munich, the Duchess waits until they are alone before asking her husband whether he had an interesting talk with Hitler. ‘Yes, very,’ he answers, riffling through the pages of a magazine. ‘Now darling, you know my rule about politics. I’d certainly never allow myself to get into a political discussion with him!’

  ‘You were with him one hour. What did you talk about?’

  ‘He did most of the talking.’

  ‘Well, what did he talk about?’

  ‘Oh, the usual stuff. What he’s trying to do for Germany and to combat Bolshevism.’

  ‘What did he say about Bolshevism?’

  ‘He’s against it.’

  For his part, Adolf Hitler comes away with a high opinion of the Duchess of Windsor. ‘She would have made a good Queen,’ he remarks later that day of their fleeting one on one.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Special thanks to Robert Lacey for his patience and expertise and to Gervase Poulden for help with digging up information. Thanks also to my US agent Zoe Pagnamenta and my UK agent Caroline Dawnay and to Bob Bender, Johanna Li, Olivia Hunt, Nicholas Pearson, Johnny and Mary James, Robin and Liz Summers, Francis Wheen, Susie Dowdall, Hugh Browton, Susanna Gross, Clare Gittins, Terence Blacker, Matthew Sturgis, Andrew Barrow, Anna Herve, Ian Irvine, Rebecca McEwan, Jonathan and Kalyani Katz, Hugo Vickers, the late Hugh Massingberd, and to everyone who remembered, however hazily, once reading something about someone meeting someone else.