Farming, Fighting and Family

by Miranda McCormick

  She could hardly have made a more sensible suggestion. Using the stub of a pencil and one of my old exercise books, he scribbled out a thousand word counterblast.

  He then gave it to my mother to read who told him that if he took out all the ‘damns’ and ‘blasts’ and ‘bloodies’ she thought it wasn’t too bad. Quietly, he acted on her advice …

  I suppose my father must have got it typed somewhere, because in those days a typewriter was an unheard-of thing in our house. It was then posted off to the Daily Mail. By return came an acceptance and the offer of three guineas. I think he thought that to earn that amount of money in so short a time, without any outlay of capital or physical energy, was not only a miracle but somehow immoral.

  The article in question was entitled ‘Handicaps on Agriculture’ and began in Arthur Street’s typically forthright style:

  Most of those who are writing about the present depression are suggesting that somebody or other should do something for agriculture, never that agriculture should do something for itself. A generation of farmers must arise who can get a living as farmers in spite of any Government, rather than with the aid of any Government’s intervention …

  Pamela went on to explain what happened next:

  So, having tasted blood, having, as it were, tapped another source of income, he ‘played his luck’. He was no gambler but he certainly believed in luck. He went on. He bombarded Fleet Street with articles, as well as local papers. He received many a rejection slip but, gradually, his pieces on farming and the countryside saw print, until the editor of the Salisbury Times asked him to write a weekly column, for which he paid my father seven shillings and sixpence, rising to seventeen and six as time went by.

  Arthur’s literary luck was to continue. One day a piece of his in the Salisbury Times on ploughing caught the eye of a well-known local novelist, Edith Olivier, whom Arthur would later refer to as his ‘literary fairy godmother’. The daughter of the former Canon Olivier of Wilton, Edith was evidently something of a force to be reckoned with. Amongst the local residents she had acquired a somewhat ‘fast’ reputation. Between the wars she became a familiar figure in London literary and artistic circles, befriending such ‘bright young things’ as Rex Whistler, Stephen Tennant and Cecil Beaton. When not in London she constantly entertained such friends at her home, the Daye House, in the grounds of Wilton Park. Arthur Street described her as ‘a rather volatile lady who seemed to dance as she walked’. One day Edith ‘danced’ unexpectedly into the Street household, waving a cutting of Arthur’s article in her hand: ‘This is charming, Arthur. You must write a book. I insist.’ Completely taken aback, Arthur asked with what subject any book of his might deal. He described the way she answered thus: ‘Edith waved her cigarette airily – even when she is sitting down her hands talk expressivley in the language of Editian swoops … “With the one thing you know something about, of course, farming”.’

  The seed was sown: Arthur began writing Farmer’s Glory that very same evening. When, some weeks later, Edith telephoned for a progress report, Arthur had already written the first three or four chapters. Edith asked if she could borrow them for the weekend as she would be having a publisher friend to stay, to whom she wanted to show Arthur’s work. Somewhat reluctantly – Arthur being ashamed of the messy state of his typescript – he took round what he had written so far and beat a hasty retreat. The result was that later that weekend Richard de la Mare of Faber & Faber called on Arthur to say how much he had enjoyed the early chapters, and made an offer to publish Farmer’s Glory once it was completed. Though flattered and tempted, Arthur refused to sign a contract then and there, on the basis that he was not prepared to sell something he did not yet have, and would prefer to wait until he could hand in the finished product. But the offer was all the encouragement he needed to carry the project to fruition, and Farmer’s Glory was duly published by Faber & Faber in January 1932. Soon afterwards a complimentary review appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, quickly to be followed by any number of favourable reviews in both the local and national press; A.G. Street had become something of a celebrity. He would not allow success to go to his head, however, and carried on with his daily milking and milk rounds, frequently being brought down to earth by the good-natured ribbing of his local farming friends.

  The publication of Farmer’s Glory made little impression at the time on his daughter Pamela. She was now attending the Godolphin School in Salisbury to which, despite financial hardship, her parents had somehow managed to send her. The significance of her father’s success only dawned on Pamela when a school friend made a comment about it on the bus to school one morning. She later recalled: ‘I was surprised to hear our doctor’s eldest daughter saying my father would now be famous. The thought had never occurred to me, but I could see that interesting developments might possibly take place.’

  Following the publication of Farmer’s Glory, Arthur Street found himself deluged with requests for articles from editors of newspapers and magazines both local and national. Shortly afterwards he was asked to start writing a weekly column in a new farming magazine, Farmer’s Weekly, a task he kept up for the remainder of his life. His publishers signed him up for a couple more books, and in March 1932 he received a letter from the BBC proposing that he deliver a series of talks on country matters. In a later autobiographical book, Wessex Wins, he describes with modesty and humour how, with the aid of his BBC producers, he mastered the art of broadcasting, and thus embarked on the third strand of his threefold career as farmer/author/broadcaster.

  It was perhaps inevitable that before long Arthur found himself wooed by politicians of all hues. He was invited to speak at the Bonar Law College, Ashridge, at the time very definitely a Tory – though, as he found, generously open-minded – debating forum. He described this as an intimidating experience; that his efforts were well received, however, can be judged by the many times he was asked to return. Nonetheless, some of his views on agriculture were unpopular even amongst his fellow farmers – in particular his reasoning that in times of peace and competition from cheap corn imported from overseas, British farmers should grass down their arable fields and go in for livestock farming. Thus in a time of war there would be a wealth of fertile soil for when the same pastures required ploughing up again and Britain could become self-sufficient in corn production – a major contribution to any war effort. That Arthur Street was correct became more and more obvious as the international situation deteriorated towards the end of the 1930s.

  In the summer of 1937 Arthur was invited by Douglas Marshall, the then Canadian Minister for Agriculture, to address a series of farmers’ meetings at agricultural colleges in the Canadian and American Midwest, a part of the world in which agriculture was experiencing a financial crisis following several successive years of drought. A shocked Arthur returned home to record his impressions of the ‘dustbowl’. His views were met with both praise and criticism, but as always he put the interests of the land ahead of any political vested interests.

  Arthur Street was now a seasoned and respected broadcaster, and needing a London base, he was encouraged by his publishers to join the Savage Club, subsequently befriending fellow members in all branches of the arts. In the early days of television it was only a question of time until the BBC invited him to take to the screen. On his first attempt, in the summer of 1938 – a ten-minute performance in a series entitled Speaking Personally – a fierce thunderstorm was raging; lightning struck the building, causing one of the studio cameras, inches from Arthur’s face, to explode. He won many plaudits for the unflappable way in which he continued with his talk, so that despite the lack of picture, the sound carried on uninterrupted. Arthur went on to make several more television appearances before the war put a temporary halt to that form of broadcasting.

  * * *

  What was happening back at Ditchampton Farm whilst the ‘Guvner’ was immersed in his new occupations? One consequence was a marked improvement in the Street family f
inances, to the extent that Arthur Street was soon able to employ a foreman, thus liberating himself from much of the day-to-day running of the farm. He also arranged for Peggy Boon, Vivi’s sister, to help with typing his manuscripts and dealing with the farm paperwork and wages. In 1935 he was able to give up milk retailing altogether. Farming pupils – another source of income in the lean years – were no longer needed. Vera Street, with the help of the indispensable Vivi, frequently found herself playing hostess when Arthur’s new friends in the literary and broadcasting worlds came to visit. Despite her comparatively modest background, Vera Street was a keen homemaker with innate good taste, and now that the financial situation had improved she was allowed – and indeed encouraged – to indulge her passion for antique collecting.

  In her early teens Pamela was diagnosed with progressively poor eyesight and advised to spend time away from school in order to rest her eyes. To keep her occupied, her parents gave her a pony called Toby, with whom she instantly became besotted, spending all her daytime hours either riding or grooming him, only returning reluctantly to the farmhouse when summoned at mealtimes or bedtime. As her riding skills swiftly progressed, it became clear to Arthur Street that she would need to spread her wings beyond the boundaries of the home field, so he bought himself a horse in order to accompany Pamela further afield. Father and daughter grew particularly close as a result of their joint riding activities. By 1937 the Streets had acquired no less than five horses, and had taken on a groom-gardener. Before long, Arthur took up hunting once again, with his now proficient daughter in tow. Pamela later wrote of the magical early mornings when the pair would depart en route to a local meet:

  Early in the season we would sometimes set off in pitch darkness, clattering down the silent streets of Wilton. We went single file, although at that time and in those days we never met any traffic. I can see the sparks from Peter’s [her father’s hunter] hooves now as they struck the tarmac in front of me. Not a soul was about; just occasionally there was a light in an upstairs window, where, perhaps, someone was sitting up with a sick child or an elderly parent …

  One aspect of hunting that both father and daughter appreciated was that it was by no means the province of the privileged few, as Pamela emphasised when writing about her hunting experiences many decades later:

  At the appointed place, sometimes high above the little village of Broad Chalke, there we would meet the Master, Colonel Llewellyn Palmer, the handsome amateur whipper-in, a sporting parson, the Reverend Mr. Keating Clay, George Spiller, the dealer who sold us Toby, with his granddaughter Mavis, on a leading rein, a girl from the Godolphin, Sybil Edmunds, who was to become my best and lifelong friend, the devastatingly glamorous young woman who ran the Pony Club, the son of our local blacksmith and so forth …

  It is somewhat ironic that many decades later Pamela became virtually ‘anti’ blood-sports, and was clearly ashamed of her youthful enthusiasm for hunting – rather a harsh judgement on herself considering the milieu in which she grew up, when hunting was an unquestioned normal country pursuit.

  * * *

  Pamela started keeping a five-year diary in January 1937, when she was nearly 16. Reading the entries for 1937 and 1938, it seems that her day-to-day concerns were those of a typical teenage girl of any era. Although riding comes across as something of an obsession in the early part of the diary, it also records details of her school days, visits to and from family and friends, anxieties about teenage acne, and a burgeoning interest in the opposite sex. They contain virtually no evidence of teenage rebellion; hardly surprising, perhaps, since there was precious little against which to rebel. For example, no eyebrows appear to have been raised when she spent whole or large parts of days in bed, recovering from a previous evening’s function. On the other hand Pamela held her parents in deep and automatic respect, particularly her father. Depending on circumstances beyond his control, such as poor harvesting weather, Arthur Street was liable to descend into morose, angry moods, causing the rest of the household to tiptoe round the home, speaking in hushed whispers. If her father laid down the law, Pamela would obey unquestioningly. Despite this, there is no doubt that theirs was an exceptionally affectionate and loving family. Writing many years later about her father’s lecture tour of the American and Canadian Midwest in 1937, when the whole family were driven down to Southampton docks by the groom-gardener to wave Arthur goodbye and then again to greet him on his return, Pamela wrote: ‘I suppose we must always have been an emotional and rather tender-hearted family.’

  To demonstrate the point, Pamela goes on to relate how on his return, Arthur had been so keen to see his family and get back home that he pulled strings to be allowed to leave the boat on the evening of its arrival rather than the following morning as the rest of the passengers were obliged to do:

  Although it was the summer of 1937, there were obviously some far-sighted people acutely aware of the political situation, because Southampton was having a mock black-out that evening. Hibberd, a conscientious but rather nervous man, had the greatest difficulty in finding the correct dock. In the all-pervading gloom, I remember my father, all alone, bolting down the gangplank, like a large hunter desperately anxious to get out of its horse-box.

  The year 1937 was Pamela’s last at the Godolphin School, during which she worked – with increasing apprehension – towards her School Certificate. It was not until 30 August, whilst on holiday with a cousin in Jersey, that she received the longed-for news, recorded thus in her diary: ‘I have PASSED School Cert!!!! Never been so surprised!’ It seems that the Street parents held out hopes for Pamela to gain a place at Oxford, so when she returned to the Godolphin for the autumn term, the school started taking the necessary measures. Pamela clearly had somewhat ambivalent feelings about this decision, as she reveals: ‘Mumsie and Daddy have horrible idea of my taking some exam for Oxford so am in the most frightful muddle about forms and everything.’ One of the prerequisites of Oxford entrance was a knowledge of Greek, which Pamela had never previously studied. It seems she was not a natural pupil: ‘Have to do Greek for responsions! So had first lesson – absolute double dutch.’ It quickly became apparent to the school that Pamela’s heart was not in the academic life; on 18 October she writes: ‘Apparently aren’t OK enough to go on with Oxford unless really want to …’ Pamela’s real ambition was to go on to art school, eventually in London. To their credit, instead of showing their disappointment at her choice, Arthur and Vera Street supported Pamela in her application to the Salisbury College of Art, which she began attending for two days a week in January 1938.

  Pamela’s first entry for 1938 marks the beginning of this new phase of her life: ‘Started own dress allowance!! £26. So as have left school feel very grown up.’ Pamela’s parents had evidently decided that since their daughter was not destined for an academic career and would be unlikely to be able to support herself, efforts must be made to increase her social life in the hopes that she would eventually make a suitable match. In October 1937 she started ballroom dancing lessons at Miss Pinniger’s school in Salisbury, an institution which taught several generations of young Wiltshire men and women. Pamela’s diary records the various dances she attended during the 1937–38 winter season. On 7 January 1938 she wrote: ‘Am now allowed to wear a little (and only a little) lipstick.’ However stamina was never one of Pamela’s strong suits, and as much as she enjoyed social events such as pony club or hunt balls, these took their toll. There are several references in the diaries to Pamela spending whole days in bed recovering from a previous night out. On 13 January, following two evening engagements in a row, she wrote: ‘I really don’t think that the gay life is suited for me. Feel awful.’ This lack of stamina was later to prove a considerable handicap when it came to war work.

  Two other recurrent health problems during this period were teenage acne and eczema in her ears, which caused them to run, and which sometimes prevented her from taking part in outdoor activities. One rather self-pitying entry for 2 Ap
ril 1938, reads: ‘My ears are just frightful … Oh drat everything … I am a poor fish what with eczema in the ears, one of them a bit deaf, eyes, one worse than the other, spots etc etc oh my hat …’ Just what a sympathetic and indulgent father Arthur was can be judged from the birthday present he devised for Pamela’s 17th birthday on 3 March 1938. Unable to be with her at Ditchampton Farm owing to a broadcasting engagement, he instead wrote her a letter to be opened on the day, enclosing the following spoof legal document:

  THIS is an AGREEMENT made on the third day of March in the year 1938, between ARTHUR GEORGE STREET of Ditchampton Farm, Wilton, in the county of Wilts, hereinafter called the PARENT, and PAMELA STREET of the same address, hereinafter called the DAUGHTER, which shall be implemented by the said PARENT, when and how the said DAUGHTER shall direct, as follows:-

  THE PARENT AGREES:-

  1. On or before March 3, 1938, to instruct William Vincent Moore of the Garage, Ditchampton, Wilton, to begin on March 3,1938, teaching the said DAUGHTER adequately to drive a motor car, to provide the necessary L placards, and to continue such teaching until the said DAUGHTER shall have passed her driving test to the satisfaction of the authorities responsible, and to pay the said William Vincent Moore the customary fees for such services and tuition, the first lesson to take place on March 3, 1938.