Mrs Miles's Diary
Page 15
Wednesday, 15 January
Heard that Harry had safely arrived in Cape Town. Oh, the relief! Immediately felt freer and gayer.
Thursday, 16 January
Bey came in to tell us about her time at a Rest Centre. She brought a gay scarf to knit, perching on a tiny chair in her scarlet jersey. She had a week to spare, so presented herself at the LCC hall and asked to help in the raids. They let her go to Southwark Rest Centre, where there is always trouble.
She said there were various conscientious objectors among the staff. At this Robin remarked in a cross, muffled voice, looking up from the Evening Standard, that since London Bridge was so near, he thought they might have well been dropped in the river.
Bey said the behaviour of the bombed-out ones was wonderful. One or two nights the blitz was really dreadful. Some women came in tears, but very few. They were offered a wash in warm water immediately, tea, and then other food. One old chap, quite bald, had got soot completely over his pate. He submitted to a child trying to write ‘Grandad’ on his head with laughter. Wonderful London! They are many of them shaken in nerves after their experiences, but there is not one touch of defeatism, Bey reported. One woman cried a good deal, ‘because my little shop has gone, and I was so proud of it, and we were beginning to build up the business ever so nicely. We can never begin again.’
Bey said that one on occasion she was doing office work with two men (they had to check up literally thousands of blankets) when the crumping and Molotov bread-baskets136 came so near that between whiles the men ducked under their desks, and she lay flat under a kitchen table. Then out they would crawl, and proceed, till blast, bang again, and they would once more throw themselves on the floor.
She said that it was an awe-inspiring sight standing on London Bridge after the Jerries had gone one bad night. The flames leaping over some warehouses by the docks were twice the height of the buildings – red and gold – and they were reflected in the dark water of the Thames. Little figures were silhouetted against the dim sky, the firemen rushing out with hoses. One or two air-raid wardens in steel helmets received the fitful gleam of the moon on their tin hats, parading the deserted bridge. I wish I had stood at her side.
Wednesday, 22 January
Biscuits, chocolate and sausages are on British minds just now. The grocer’s shop has many slabs of chocolate, but a shilling each for what is worth about fourpence.
Mrs V. said various English people she knew who had not been able to leave Paris had been left free at first, but were now put in concentration camps.
Robin went to the local ARP chiefs this morning with a clear-cut scheme for a Roof-Spotting Centre for the village. This was turned down immediately, and all its ramifications at once dismissed. Robin suggested that ladders and stirrup pumps should be easy of access by night. ‘They would be pinched,’ was the quick retort. ‘Could not the police look after that?’ ‘Impossible!’, etc.
Thursday, 23 January
Tobruk has fallen!137 Glorious. I heard it on the eight o’clock wireless.
Picked up at the bus stop by Mrs C. in her car and got a lift to Guildford. There began a long, arduous shopping. I feel sorry for those elderly, dutiful men behind the counter, eternally besieged by questioning matrons. The ration books having to be stamped with tiny stamps, and people all being put in their places: ‘Are you registered here? No? Then I can’t let you have any biscuits,’ etc.
Met Mrs H., who wishes to find two paying guests for two bedrooms and a sitting room, all found and no extras, and even hot milk at night, five guineas each. I waved the ninepenny Woolworths saucepan I had just bought, without wrapping, at her, and she told me she met a woman the day previously bearing a skinned rabbit in her hand.
Robin and I took shilling seats at the Odeon. The news film showed our King decorating airmen. He looked very much older. The Polish General kissing our airmen after giving them medals was amusing. The stolid English airmen did not move reciprocally an inch, and obviously hated it!
Miss Scott came up, and we began to laugh a good deal over absurd happenings in the day. She has a keen sense of humour. We laughed at my getting a lift in a car which had just conveyed a goat to the railway station. ‘It’s a little goatish; do you mind, Mrs Miles?’ The truth is we were tired of the war-stress, and wanted relief, and to gain forgetfulness of what Churchill calls ‘the dark and deadly valley’.
Saturday, 25 January
A dull, quiet morning. No air raids. Last night I went down in the dark arm-in-arm with my wealthy, dutiful old neighbour, to the local inn to attend a meeting on Night Watchers for Shere. Our Head Warden, who is dry as the sands of Arabia, was in the chair. A handful of people were there, representing the particular district of the village, about forty-three houses, to be dealt with.
No advice was tendered to us, nor information as to what the rest of the villages were doing. One old inhabitant sprang to his feet, and started talking of the night when we had a shower of incendiaries on the village, explaining how he and a squad of friends had extinguished this and that, ‘but have been ignored by the ARP ever since, and not invited to any meeting’.
This grief our pale president did not assuage at all. He looked up gravely and turned it all off, by talking languidly about something else. What a pity! One warm word of apology, a hearty sentence saying they were so glad of his help, would have sent that man away ready for more service.
Resolved to have watchers in shifts. How or where to watch? Undecided. Whether to watch fully dressed or to be allowed to sleep if quiet? Undecided.
Sunday, 26 January
The Sunday papers are as full as ever of remarks about invasion. Certainly things are stirring in the Mediterranean. Malta holds out in the most amazing way.
When one thinks of Dunkirk and the miracle there, when the little ships – Auntie Gus, Bull-Pup, Dinky, Folkestone Belle, Skylark and the rest – got away with them, one can hope everything. It will always be a big regret to me that Robin was not there, to bring some of our men home in any possible craft he was given, for he happens to be able to handle any.
Tuesday, 28 January
It is terrible to be missing all these joyful weddings of my friends’ daughters – Dulcie’s in Edinburgh, Phyllis Anne’s in the Isle of Wight, now Celia Anne’s in the Saltmarket, Glasgow. Then there will take place, I suppose, all among the crocodiles and red kopjes, Harry’s wedding, in early spring in Rhodesia. If only Jenny gets her boat from Singapore!
Wednesday, 29 January
Mrs B. rang through to say that her only sister’s boy had gone down in the lost submarine Triton. She has been up to Rothesay to try to comfort the young widow. There is a baby a year old, a darling. What a good thing! For life will be long for that young girl.138
Thursday, 30 January
Olive has just remarked in the kitchen that some of the soldiers in Aldershot have been caught stealing margarine, to put on the toast they make themselves every night for supper (since they are not given that meal). ‘You would think they ought to have butter.’
They haven’t a wireless either. ‘It isn’t fair,’ says Olive.
‘People subscribe to give the army wireless sets and the officers keep them for their mess.’
At this onslaught I can only feebly murmur: ‘Are you sure? It doesn’t sound to me like the officers . . .’
Downstairs our dear old man (over eighty) is agitated because his sister and family, now next door, may move to a house in Worthing, and if they do, they must make him go too. They were bombed out of Folkestone, and the old lady is very nervous indeed after severe bombardments and shivering by night in the garden dug-out. It seems to me rather crazy that they should shift their furniture simply along the shore, to another house by the waves. The little cook, keeping her birthday sorrowfully enough, with a high temperature, says nothing will induce her to move southwards again. We shall see. The old man ought not to have to take any decision at his age.
Friday, 31 January
Cis says no potatoes could be got in Glasgow last week. They lived on oatmeal and butter beans.
Monday, 3 February
I went down the village shivering after tea, holding in one hand a bundle of Harry’s cast-off clothing, in the other a pudding bowl into which I had put two eggs, some dripping, a shower of sugar from my rapidly declining reserve, all the sultanas I had, and I took it all to the Widow G.
She had already made Robin’s birthday cake and accepted what I brought, together with two-and-six.139 She said, ‘I saw some peel in the shop, and they said, “There’ll never be no more”, so I took it.
‘I heard from my Ted, what’s joined up. He says, “It’s not too bad, Mum”, but he’d never worry me if it was.’
Wednesday, 5 February
To the Valley Hall to see the Ministry of Information films. A group of village boys about eleven stood behind me, exclaiming, ‘There’s a beauty!’ when we had the aeroplane films. A timid young farmer explained later to us that poultry clubs were to be formed everywhere, for those of us who had less than fifty.
Monday, 10 February
Went off to Farnham – a glorious spring day, suddenly. We were all so cheered with the Prime Minister’s speech. Every single person I met going down the village spoke of it with admiration. ‘Give us the tools and we will finish the job’ was on every lip.140
Inspectors have called on May’s workroom, to see what girls could be taken away to munitions factories. ‘Two could be spared,’ they said. But you cannot conscript unwilling girls. It is absurd, as every woman knows.
Thursday, 13 February
My idea of earthly Heaven, on this cold and fortunately still February night: a) to talk to Basil after armistice, about some happy plans for his work and our moving near him, or b) to walk up the little flight of steps just inside the Hotel du Grand Monarque at Chartres, May Sinclair at my side. We are beginning a long peaceful holiday there, and it is spring, and we have light pretty clothes and laugh together.
Monday, 17 February
Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the world’s greatest architects, American, writes of his plans for a reconstructed London.
London should be a motor-car/aeroplane city, ‘the spacing all laid out upon a new scale of human movement, set by car and plane’. He advocates elevated railways with continous storage space between the tracks, lorry traffic set low on one side.
‘There should be no traffic problem . . . Make broad streets concave instead of convex, with underpasses for foot travellers. No street lights, because roads themselves would be low-lighted ribbons.’
A hideous drawing heads the article, showing the curve of the Thames by Charing Cross with a line of ugly skyscrapers like pillars at intervals all round the bank.
Glamorous Soviet-style artwork exhorted women to contribute to the war effort. Similar posters encouraged them to join the WAAF, the Wrens, the WVS or the ATS.
Photograph © IWM MH4735
Wednesday, 19 February
The old gentleman below has just returned from a trip by car down to Hythe, to see his burgled house. Two really good bottles of claret he had jealously preserved had been found by the intruders and drunk to the dregs. Mr Stevens said he was much struck by the small number of people about in Hythe. One nice little arcade there full of shops had entirely vanished.
Canary seed is to be stopped. What else can they eat but grain? More racing carrier pigeons are wanted to work in the war.
Robin entered after the Red Cross lecture shuddering with cold. The second time this has happened. We have soup always now at night, and he was glad to gulp some down.
It was grand to get a letter from Harry this morning posted in Cape Town. He had been for a walk in the shadow of Table Mountain. He also writes from Salisbury, Rhodesia, where he had been met.
An SOS comes from an old and clever artist in his ninety-sixth year, wishing to sell us two paintings for £4. I fear he is struggling along on very little. What a world this is for the artist and the musician!
Saturday, 22 February
A letter in from Margaret written from New York. It has taken five weeks to come! She says, ‘You would be amazed to know how many blind people there are still amongst us who won’t see things as they really are, and don’t want to. They accuse B. and me of being war-mongers, and still think a negotiated peace is to be desired. But those of us who feel that it is our fight are deeply fortified by all that is now transpiring, and feel more optimistic and less ashamed than in some time.’
I see that you can now buy large metal buttons in New York bearing the words ‘To Hell with Hitler’ to pin on your coat lapel.
Irving Berlin’s new song about Hitler, ‘When That Man is Dead and Gone’, is selling phenomenally.
A judge in America has given sympathetic consideration to a Mr Ribbentrop in Connecticut who would like to change his name.
Sunday, 23 February
So many buses full of troops went past that I wondered if there was an invasion scare. As I went up the hill with Miss Scott, I said I thought we might each have a knapsack and know what we wished to pack in it. I was pleased to remember that I had a very thin light Jaeger blanket, which went with Robin through the last war and might be squashed into the knapsack.
I am hating very much the thought that the Germans are in Sofia. What next?
Monday, 24 February
Mr Wright, manager of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation, in an interesting article in an American paper, Aviation, puts Germany’s absolute total of aircraft of all types at 35,000, and British absolute total at 25,000. He estimates that the absolute totals (with American help) will be equal by July.
Friday, 28 February
Rendel, our Ambassador to Bulgaria,141 has spoken severely to the Bulgarians. Far too late! He knows that Bulgaria is actively helping the Axis and that the country is flooded with Germans wearing plain clothes for the moment (oh, honourable army!).
The plain truth is that all Europe still feels Germany is winning.
Heard from my Scotch cousin, a minister in Edinburgh. His pretty young daughter is just engaged. He speaks sadly of ‘these young people, through no possible fault of their own, cast into the maelstrom. It is we older ones who should be fighting, not they, the mess we’ve made of things. And quite ready to make another mess of it, once the young ones are all dead again.’
Saturday, 1 March
Basil writes from Kent this morning that he has to teach 1,000 soldiers First Aid and is exhausted with it.
This evening I tried on Robin’s old haversack, having packed it with essentials, if compulsory evacuation comes to our village: night clothes, a pair of house shoes, a tube of Horlicks milk tablets, a brandy flask, stamped postcards and a pencil, extra pair of stockings, soap and towel, washing things, aspirin, brush and comb, handkerchiefs. I could not carry more than this, but I have included a beloved, shabby, small fat copy of Wives and Daughters.
The news is grave: Bulgaria joins the Axis. We lose a destroyer.
Monday, 3 March
In the post office here today I saw a woman who has many loved relations in Jersey. There is absolutely not one line coming through from the Channel Islands.
‘I know they are desolate and oppressed,’ she said sorrowfully to me, repeating ‘desolate and oppressed’.
I took my evacuation haversack to Mrs R. for more strong fastenings to be made. The wild little evacuee boy exhausts that poor, hard-working woman, who is dying for a week’s rest.
Tuesday, 4 March
To the kitchen. Soup and potatoes and carrots in it and a host of little suet puddings.
‘This is a very nice meal for fourpence,’ remarked a big little girl. The babes at their table were busily engaged in trying to scoop up their soup with forks.
Reading a book by Mrs Nicholson, Norney Rough. It is all about a real house near Godalming and the struggle
of a retired officer and his family to live decently in England.
‘Women of every sort,’ she writes, ‘are learning to live without relaxation. They seem tougher than ever before. How can they enjoy dining out in warmth and comfort when their men face the North Sea’s cruel cold?’
Wednesday, 5 March
Walked up the hill in the windy March evening with Mrs M. She has been given a new pale blue jumper and it is put in the ‘bolting box’ all ready for hasty evacuation, and kept quite near the front door.
The Germans have fined the town of Hilversum in Holland (gay, geranium-clad, beautifully built town) £350,000 as a punishment for having shot one German soldier.
Friday, 7 March
Went to call on Freda T., who told me that in Folkestone yesterday, when getting into her train for Redhill, a Dornier plane began machine-gunning, and the women porters shut the carriage doors briskly, as spatterings of bullets rained down on the glass roof of the station; and the train moved off, but not before the passengers, hanging out of the windows, saw a Spitfire rise and give chase. The Dornier eventually fell into the sea.
Saturday, 8 March
Basil came about lunch-time, bringing a young RE subaltern (whose people are in Jersey – he hears nothing).
Bertie came to tea, an old, old Scotsman, and I thought again how hard this war is on old people. He never goes anywhere or sees anybody.
The great news of the week is that in the USA the Lease and Lend Bill is passed.142
Will the Germans enter Greece? This seems to be expected. We shall be there, I think, also.
We are on the edge of tremendous events.
Sunday, 9 March
Prices go up. There is an increase of 26 per cent in the cost of living from September 1939 to January 1941. Coal is 41 per cent dearer.