Saturday, 6 April
Basil came last night straight from Reading to Gomshall. He looks extremely well, save for the ever-weary aspect of the eyes, got from late nights. He is more resigned to the army forms, fills them in in a more obedient way and says it can’t be helped – ‘This is a paper war.’
Spoke with old Fellowes, a village workman, for long without regular employment, now at seventy-four pitched into the job of Church Clerk, since the youth who held it has volunteered as an army baker, and has been snatched into the gunners as an artillery-man.
I heard some of our naval prisoners of war speaking from Germany on the German wireless. Their voices were broken and lifeless, as if somebody was standing over them, poor chaps.
We are all waiting, waiting for a spring offensive, but none of us seems to expect the British to do anything but sit tight, and many expect a quiet summer.
Sunday, 7 April
Have just come in from seeing Basil off – Gomshall to Reading. We walked up to Netley Woods all among the bright green yews and glossy hollies this afternoon, and he told me a great deal about the re-grading of the men from a medical point of view. He considers this a great improvement – so many more categories than there were – and the power to grade entirely his at first. He described the case of a young man who was afraid to kill anything. He got him boarded out, after a bit of an argument with the Adjutant. He says the fifty-year-olds are not really much use, and he is pretty well convinced that those who fought through the last war are not very happy in this, among the young recruits.
‘Today over eighty million Germans,’ interrupts a voice from Bremen, ‘are willing to carry out the wishes of the Führer.’
The voice from Germany now says that we in England are in despair. I don’t think we are! There were so many cheerful hikers strolling through the Park today, under an azure sky, and cars galore going cheerfully along the road.
Monday, 8 April
‘Those Germans are downright cruel on the sea, not saving the drowning. Did you read about the U-boat in the paper today?’ asked an old fellow serving me out with my weekly sugar ration for Robin and me this afternoon. ‘I couldn’t hurt a cat myself.’
‘Specially not a cat,’ I said, remembering how devoted he was to his huge puss out in the warehouse.
Two bulky parcels arrived for me today from New York. Some caster sugar was trickling out of one. Great merriment on the part of the postmaster. ‘They think we’re starving there, madam.’
Surely our propaganda service should put through to the Americans the news that we are not short of food? I am sure the German propaganda must have seen to it that America thinks we are suffering more than we do suffer.
Just had a friend to tea who has had two children, boys, aged nine and nearly thirteen, as evacuees from Fulham for the seven months of the war. The youngest had never seen a lamb before – there are so many in the fields now – and he came home in great excitement to tell Mrs Turner: ‘It was a little animal, no larger than the Daily Sketch!’ She says they say they go either to the swimming baths or the cinema every night at home. When they are cross here, they sit together on the staircase calling out, ‘Shan’t we be glad to get out of this blinking house!’
Tuesday, 9 April
One o’clock. Astounded by the wireless news that the Germans have occupied Denmark and landed in Norway. This indeed sets the chariot wheels of war, long inactive, rolling round.90 What will it mean to Basil? Will he have to go to Norway? Will troops selected for Finland be landed there?
Six o’clock. The wireless tells us that there is a naval battle raging. It is hard to listen to Vanity Fair; and a sonata by Lizst merely makes one feel terrible.
Wednesday, 10 April
The dentist told me he had heard from a friend that Norway has capitulated to Germany this morning. A horrible moment! This war is so paralysing in its complexity, that one had never thought of this very likely surrender. If it takes place, what will happen?
Is our army already on the way? As I write, the cold April weather dismays us with its sharp, unfriendly wind. The garden looks dumb and stricken. Probably there is a naval battle waging now, and in any case the hearts of the mothers and wives of the men in the Hunter and Hardy are beating wildly, hoping and fearing and waiting for the truth.91
Thursday, 11 April
‘Lots of young Nazis are busy learning Welsh,’ says Robin, ‘preparatory to coming to rule over Wales,’ and he doubles up with laughter, he who, half-Welsh and very proud of the fact, knows no Welsh.
Friday, 12 April
Very cold today. Relinquished very sadly the idea of going to be near Muriel in her caravan. The news is too serious to be parted from Robin just now.
Madge and Edie left for Eastbourne with carefully saved petrol. Could just get a small piece of liver for Robin’s dinner tonight in the butcher’s – ‘no pork’.
Saturday, 13 April
The war is now on our doorsteps. Nothing stands between us and the Germans save the British Navy. Nora W. says people are going about again with gas-masks in London. To me, the spirit appears very firm and cheerful.
‘My sons,’ says the local builder, ‘are over thirty. They don’t care whether they do ’ave to go.’ This queer, lackadaisical English speech of ours is just a disguise for something quite different. He would rather have died than have said, ‘They are mad keen to save their country’, and how embarrassed we should have been if he had put it thus.
King Haakon says he has not had his boots off for days, is worn out, but will never leave Norwegian soil. In Denmark some of the Danes are hitting their own soldiers with missiles, so disappointed that they have not resisted the Huns.
Sunday, 14 April
Alice’s birthday, Sibyl’s birthday.92 Alice has a son in this war, Sibyl nobody much to care about. What a sharp difference that makes!
Monday, 15 April
Had an early lunch of cold roast beef and then off to Reading and Pangbourne. Much enjoyed the drive, though it was cold and thundery. Basil was waiting, very well, very young, beside the pretty George Inn.
I sat in the George talking to a young officer’s wife who was unsuccessfully looking for lodgings. How well I remembered the familiar quest! She was thankful to leave Edinburgh as it had been so full of air-raid warnings, and ‘the German planes flew so low over the house-tops’.
Thursday, 18 April
The British Weekly, already very thin indeed, announces that it will get thinner yet. Will they cut away my competitions? If so, I shall lose three guineas a month.
To Guildford. Spent about ten shillings – long envelopes (up fifty per cent) ninepence a packet, mackerel one-and-seven for four fillets, threepenceworth of cat’s fish, very rare indeed.
Friday, 19 April
The papers give an alarming account of the German thoroughness in Norway. Their blowing up of bridges is complete. Villas on the cliffs are full of gunners ready to bombard any of our troops that try to land. They have instructions as to how to deal with the Norwegians.
Joy comes in and tells me that I have not grasped that the head of the Norwegian Church is pro-German, and many high officials also.
Sunday, 21 April
Basil’s birthday. He is twenty-six. What will have happened by his twenty-seventh birthday? I feel he may be ordered overseas at any time, and it may well be Norway.
Shadows darken over the war horizon. The great chain stores are being affected by the difficulty in getting goods in great quantities. You would have said six months ago, watching the high price of the shares, that it would be everything to have an investment in Woolworths. It will struggle, though.
The idea that the Germans might try out an invasion by parachutes on Britain is more likely to be grasped when the Hun sets foot in Holland. At present we do not seem to realise that troops could be moved into Britain by air.
Glorious sunny day. In church this morning during the communion service, the parson’s voice was drowned
constantly by the odious drone of aeroplanes.
Monday, 22 April
This evening I went into the Forrest Stores, and feeling sure that there would be a new tax on spirits in tomorrow’s Budget, I asked for a bottle of whisky. There was a long, reluctant pause. The manager was then called, who immediately gave me one of the very few he has left. I said I wouldn’t have it if he would rather not, or if it weren’t right for me to get it, but he was very hearty about it. I will put it away for the winter days. Today has been joyously warm, and I have had a little posy of the very first pansies given to me, dark deep purple, pale yellow and velvety mauve, and it is as if Summer herself had come into the room.
Tuesday, 23 April
Overjoyed to have a cable from Harry, announcing in suitably veiled language his departure. We ought to get him in five weeks’ time, anyway.
The shadow of the Budget lies heavy and ominous on us all today. ‘I do think they should keep the postage low on the letters to the troops,’ says the shopkeeper, ‘to make the parcels worth sending.’ It was interesting yesterday to hear Mrs Norton, aged about eighty, telling of the lack of men in Shere in the last war. ‘They even took the village idiot, and he came back.’
Wednesday, 24 April
Am rather staggered at all the new burdens, including the Property Tax.
Sweden is very much alarmed, and Germany is using most abusive language to her. Malmo is being evacuated. Poor mothers, poor wives and daughters!
Just heard the Admiralty’s account of how our old friend, Geoffrey Stanning, dragged himself with one wounded foot to take charge of the Hardy when everybody was wounded or killed. He did magnificently. What a quiet, earnest schoolboy he was, so kind, beaming behind his spectacles. There must be great joy in the Rectory at Meonstoke.93
Thursday, 25 April
Went to London. At Waterloo young airmen with bundles labelled Capetown bade farewell to wives and sisters.
In St James, Piccadilly, a young curate conducted a short serice at noon, the church empty save for two women and the sacristan. Behind the altar Wren’s church is hidden high up the wall by massed sandbags, over which somebody has hung a large piece of red damask.
Friday, 26 April
‘Why doesn’t Sweden call in our aid at once?’ complained Mr Pethick-Lawrence today, ‘and let us get her airports. I can’t quite understand it.’ Mrs Pethick-Lawrence is the kindest-hearted woman; she looked tired, I thought, but her lovely blue striped velvet coat was becoming. She took a great part in the matter of women’s votes.94 This is not much use as yet. We can’t yet stop war.
‘The war gets one down,’ he observed. ‘Intangible things . . . the feeling of such an accumulation of hatred. Yes, it presses in even on one’s quiet moments.’
Sunday, 28 April
The Shrappies95 to tea. He has at last got a London job. ‘I found it myself,’ he said, with his bright, alert look. He is in control of the National Savings Association poster distribution. But he does not get a salary, and has to pay his own secretary. Also, the Paper Controller himself 96 has recently said that there would be very little paper left soon, so the job may vanish. Meanwhile, he is pleased and satisfied at having occupation. I so wish Robin could get something that really suited him.
The Shrappies are camping out, as it were, in a corner of their large historic house, and Mrs S. is doing a lot of their cooking. How common this is just now all over England. Such a lot of weary women!
Monday, 29 April
My wedding day. Thirty-one years ago I was married at St Andrew’s, Frognal, Hampstead.
On the radio tonight a comedian reported that the cuckoo had been heard in Berlin and had been arrested for insubordination.
Robin in a tone of malicious triumph reads out of the Evening Standard that various celebrated young men crooners have been called up.
Tuesday, 30 April
Tomorrow letters are to cost twopence halfpenny each. Everybody, I think, will use the twopenny postcard at first.
Very little news comes out of Denmark, It is reported to be fairly full of Nazis, but thousands must hate their guests.
Wednesday, 1 May
Today bought five shillings’ worth of the expensive new letter stamp – the bright blue twopence-halfpenny. It seems an enormous sum for a letter. This morning’s news about Norway not good. Hitler issues a manifesto crowing with joy at the Germans’ advances.
As I write (9.30 p.m.) the Lord Chancellor is explaining to us that Germany is uneasy, because opinion in other countries is hardening against her.
Thursday, 2 May
Nine o’clock. Mr Chamberlain warns us that the Germans may make a lightning attack on our country.
To Guildford this morning – dazed by the high prices in the cheapest food shops. Tomatoes, mushrooms, cauliflowers etc. out of my reach. Got three herrings for Robin’s supper – I shall have a bowl of bread-and-milk.
Robin visited the Air Raid Precautions office in Guildford, talking about the importance of arming men in villages. Two colonels there appeared rather surprised; they may be less so after Chamberlain’s admission tonight.
Stavanger has been bombed again. The Norwegian woods where German aeroplances were hiding were set on fire too. How can these young airmen stand all this? It beats me entirely.
Mr Eden has been saying our resources and those of our Allies and the Dominions are infinitely greater than those of our enemy. But nothing less than the greatest effort of which our people are capable can ensure victory.
People got used to long queues every day to buy basic foodstuffs. This queue is at a greengrocers in Wood Green, North London.
Photograph © IWM D25035
I see Hess97 says the German dockyards are filled with U-boats.
Every now and then one has a shrewd suspicion that the Germans are really revelling in the war, that it is their natural element. I say this to Robin, who contradicts me at once.
Saturday, 4 May
I am afraid this has been rather a dismal week for the journal, and our spirits have been none too good over Norway. Robin fears that the German airplanes will give our troops at Narvik no rest.
Monday, 6 May
‘Women,’ says a book on psychology I have just opened at random, ‘specialise in feeling; men rather in thought.’
How gloomy the papers are. Thus yesterday’s Observer on Norway: ‘We know of no parallel for this collapse of a military expedition, like a castle of cards.’98 This sort of talk is perfectly useless.
The German wireless last night, by the way, was curious. The speaker – new to me – announced with joy that a bomb had fallen straight on a British battleship, destroying it completely, carefully mentioning no name – liar!
Thursday, 9 May
The debate in the House last night must have been electric. It is evident that many people were so anxious over Norway that they lost their self-control and shouted. It must have been horrifying for Neville Chamberlain, our Prime Minister, who is a sensitive man, tired and seventy.
Winston Churchill, I think, touched the heart of the whole matter in his speech. Why did we not get hold of Norway. Why are the Germans in triumph there today?99
The reason for this serious disadvantage of our not having the initiative was one which could not speedily be removed, and it was our failure in the last five years to maintain or regain air parity in numbers with Germany.
He ended with a great plea for unity. Let all energies be harnessed; let the whole ability of the nation be hurled into the struggle. At no time in the last war were we in greater peril than we were now.
The pity of it is that this debate, with its wretched recriminations, had to take place.
Mr Pethick-Lawrence, I hear, has come back to Peaslake for the weekend, thoroughly sick and ashamed. What is going to happen is not clear.
To tea with Miss M., who sometimes lectures on relaxation. She looked as if she could not relax any more; wrinkled and anxious and grey. The young Lieutenant at tea
was happy and carefree, just off to an unknown destination. This is a queer war.
Friday, 10 May
Comes the awful news that Germany has invaded Holland and Belgium.
We had no idea of it until pretty Nancy came in to my kitchen and told us. We listened in at eleven and were told of invasion in the early hours of this morning, parachute descents in Dutch uniform, and so on. Brussels, it seems, had an air raid. Antwerp also, so prosperous and so fine. Will they bring down my belfry at Bruges?
Basil wrote saying how he was looking forward to a tiny walking tour in the New Forest. He has been working fourteen hours a day. Shall I see him before he goes into the unkown?
Afternoon: If we must drop Chamberlain as Prime Minister, I hope we may get Churchill.
Later: Mr Chamberlain has just broadcast a message to tell us that the Labour party will co-operate in a Coalition Government ‘provided I am not Prime Minister’.
Saturday, 11 May
Churchill has slipped into the Prime Ministership in a very quiet atmosphere. Public attention is completely arrested by the progress of events in Belgium and Holland, and there is only the most meagre amount of space in the papers devoted to the new regime.
I cannot help thinking that the children and mothers will soon pour again out of London.
Vernon Bartlett says that Hitler boasts he will have his men in Great Britain by the end of June. One fact keeps emerging – that in Holland we have a doughty ally, one we can respect and trust with all our hearts.
Robin hears from a man just back from Norway that the Germans shot Norwegian prisoners and fired on women and children. The Norwegians begged that we should shoot the German prisoners we took.
Later: very delighted to hear that Tony Dodd has gone to Iceland. A great relief to his parents.
Saw Mrs P., who is very anxious about her husband in France. She has been polishing furniture hard to take her mind off her worried thoughts.
Mrs Miles's Diary Page 9
