Mrs Miles's Diary

by S. V. Partington

  Wednesday, 1 July

  The papers say that children are to be kept at school all holidays, so that the mothers may go on with their war work.

  This great edict must be the work of a purely male mind. Village school children at any rate only go to school for so many hours a day, and their mothers are kept at home keeping house, all of them here, unless there is an aunt or young grannie to supervise. Very bad, too, for the tired teachers. The youngsters are quite conscious that something unusual is on, and take advantage of it. They are as wild and naughty as they can be, eating together at the school kitchen in the village hall, instead of sitting quietly having lunch in their cottages. I imagine the teachers would refuse.

  And from today’s paper:

  ‘Police were called to keep order in Nottingham Street, Melton Mowbray’s main thoroughfare, yesterday, when women in a crowd estimated at 4,000 fought for strawberries sold from two stalls.’

  Thursday, 2 July

  Surely one of the blackest days of the war. Sebastopol has fallen after an epic defence. Auchinleck has issued a manifesto to his men, the tone of which strikes fear to the heart. (Backs to the wall once more.)195

  Lyttelton’s speech of defence seems very feeble.196 We have been making Crusader tanks, which are no use; we have not yet put a big anti-tank gun into production. Nor have we dive-bombers. The muddle seems ghastly. And our men are fighting what may be a decisive battle now in the Egyptian heat, under a sultry sky, out-gunned, out-tanked.

  I cannot think, taking it all in – the fall of Sebastopol, and the fact that we are fighting against heavy odds in Libya – that we can ever have so black a day again.

  Friday, 3 July

  Rather better news, thank God, this afternoon. Rommel has not got through yet, anyway, and has even retired a few miles, and our planes seem to be superior to theirs. I feel slightly comforted.

  The scope of this war indeed is so vast that the average person, busy all day, cannot take it in. I should have liked to have written more about the siege of Sebastopol here, but have had no time.

  Sunday, 5 July

  News from Egypt is still tense. I suppose the strain will snap this week. Strange to think that when my airgraphs reach Basil (as God please they may) he will know the result.

  Tuesday, 7 July

  Watched the pandemonium in the children’s kitchen from my seat at the money table. Grown-ups flying about in the greatest haste; children holding out plates in a desperate manner, as if to say, ‘Don’t forget me.’ I grow very severe these days and insist on ‘please’ before I take their orders. Thirty-two to lunch (grown-ups).

  Letters in from Princeton. Margaret writes, ‘Now that we are in the war, we are certainly taking it seriously, and it is quite amazing to see how many people feel inspired to co-operate, and how few are upset and indignant about restrictions and rationing.

  ‘We have just started on the gasoline rationing and are aware of how spoiled we have been in the past. When we lived at Meadow Gardens we used gasoline at the rate of 250 gallons a month. The card for which we applied last month entitled us to 21 gallons from now to 30 June.’

  Saturday, 11 July

  A cable in. When a voice on the telephone said this, I felt very faint, supposing it was bad news. But they would not telephone that, would they? News was joyful – from Basil in the desert: ‘I am well and safe.’

  Lovely. Of course I don’t know on what date it was sent. But lovely. Now the fighting is starting again. It was a pity, the Times military correspondent says, that we had to pause, as Rommel and Co were so fatigued. But possibly we were too.

  Sunday, 12 July

  D. said that many Wren officers cry themselves to sleep. Being in the Women’s Services is not all joy. A lot of loneliness and hard work.

  We are greatly amused by extracts (given in today’s Sunday Dispatch) from the handbook given to the American troops coming to Britain. Warnings are given about the deadly damp climate, of the reserve and silence and soft deceiving manner of the Briton (but we are tough). ‘The English language,’ says the clever writer, ‘did not spread across oceans and over the mountains and jungles and swamps of the world because these people were pantywaists . . . You will not be able to tell the British much about “taking it”. They are not particularly interested in taking it now.’

  Strong warnings are given against boasting. ‘If somebody looks in your direction and says, “He’s chucking his weight about”, you can be pretty sure you are off base. That is time to pull in your ears.’

  Tuesday, 14 July

  Mr Dodds told me a story. In Aldershot an American soldier entered a pub and said: ‘Some iced beer, please. And fetch it as quick as you can. As quick as you got out of Tobruk the other day!’

  As soon as the sentence crossed his lips a hefty labourer standing by felled him across the counter.

  ‘A very good thing!’ cried Mr Dodds’ wife as we motored along the Merrow road. ‘Excellent, I’m glad,’ I replied from the back of the car.

  One million and a half Americans or possibly two million are expected over here in due course, and Mr Dodds is coping with the hut question. They will not accept our standard of hutment. They want superior washing facilities, more room, better beds, and huts not placed so close together.

  To see Aunt Gerty at Woking. Here is a true story of her today.

  An old lady of seventy-four or so looks out of her window and espies on her quiet road a car containing six men, followed by men with a lorry. One man comes to her front door with a government permit. They had come (without any preliminary warning) to take away the railings that edged the path and the tradesman’s entrance.

  The old lady is not annoyed. ‘If it will help to win the war I am glad,’ she murmurs and as they are working away with a blow torch, she causes the cook to take out cups of tea.

  Strange world; she had gazed at the iron railings placidly that morning, then by noon they had been masterfully removed. (What next?).

  I almost forgot to record my impressions, standing on Guildford Station platform today, and watching a number of passengers walking from the London train to the ticket office and exit.

  These faces, it was clear, did not belong to persons who made wars. On them was no fiery resolution, no concentrated thought.

  I saw the English after a hot hour’s journey from town on a July morning – Hitler’s War 1942; and the adjectives to apply to their countenances were ‘humble, worried, deprecating, gentle, plain, modest’. There was nobody, as far as I could see, who held himself upright in a military fashion. The majority of faces were very tired, and many had a bad colour, and almost all were everyday and homely. The mass of our people are not interested in war, unless they have to be, and then it only fatigues and upsets them. At the same time, behind these nondescript faces, I know there lurks a silent resolve to fight the thing through.

  Thursday, 16 July

  From Phyllis Hazeldine’s letter this morning. ‘I have been in awful trouble since last I wrote, having lost my beloved little sergeant-pilot son. He and the whole four boys of his crew never returned from air operations over Emden on the night of 26 June, and nothing has been heard of them since. It nearly killed me, all the more as the suspense was terrible, waiting and hoping against hope.’

  Basil’s last airgraph, 29 June, runs thus: ‘I hope you have not been worrying about me. There has been no need, but it has been difficult to write. I am well, but rather tired, as we have had a fairly sleepless time . . . You ask me about the heat. I don’t seem to mind it.’

  The Russian news is very grave. ‘They are pushing towards Stalingrad,197 the solar plexus of our country,’ writes a Russian paper, putting the crisis clearly.

  Saturday, 18 July

  No real news of the battle in Egypt yet. This is a great strain on us and I felt suddenly sick with fear yesterday about 6.30; really shivering with vague, sharp apprehension.

  Monday, 20 July

  The eight o’clock news was appal
lingly serious about Russia. They are yielding town after town. I heard it as I hastily tidied the library. Sibyl’s bedroom door was open, and she heard it mournfully, too.198

  Tuesday, 21 July

  I don’t think I convey enough in these pages my belief that We Shall Win.

  Friday, 24 July

  Petronelle, aged eighteen, is doing land work. From her letter:

  ‘We sleep on the ground on straw palliases. Isn’t it surprising how quickly we become accustomed to things? Whereas ten days ago I would have screamed if I saw an earwig, I now nonchalantly pluck black beetles from my sponge, earwigs from my pockets and spiders from my pillow. We go out to work for farmers in gangs. I have now risen to be forewoman of a gang.’

  Girls are the gainers in this war.

  In order to free men for the armed forces, women worked not just on farms and in factories but in heavy industry too, as in this shipyard.

  Photograph © IWM HU36242

  Saturday, 25 July

  The Soviet communiques speak this morning of ‘fierce, bloody battles’ before Rostov. The Germans say they have got it.199

  Sunday, 26 July

  The paper is full of horrors:

  ‘The Germans have just decreed in Belgium, where there has never been a Jewish question, and where equality of race and religious opinion is established by law, a series of new measures against the Jews. In the province of Antwerp Jews are forbidden to enter a theatre or a cinema, to attend concerts or lectures, or appear in any public meeting place.’

  And this: ‘Children over eight years of age are among thousands of refugees from Axis-conquered countries in Europe who have been rounded up in France during the past week and sent to concentration camps. They are to be sent eventually to Upper Silesia. It is the biggest round-up since the Blackshirts took over the policing of France, and was made by French police and German occupation and Blackshirt troops.’ How optimistic we are! Take this advertisement in today’s

  Observer:

  CHANNEL ISLANDS. In response to numerous applications, Jersey and Guernsey Airways Ltd have opened a waiting list for those desirous of returning to the Channel Islands by air as soon as the Islands are free of enemy occupation. Applications should be sent to Jersey Airways, Ltd.

  All the same I am never pessimistic as to the result.

  I have enjoyed, in spite of the Russian news, this quiet Sunday. But it is quite impossible to picture the Russian battle: the look of the terrain, the width and breadth of the Don, the faces of the furious combatants.

  My Don in Aberdeenshire I love better.

  Monday, 27 July

  A postcard from the Scots Greys’ Adjutant’s wife. She says her husband has cabled to her: ‘All merry and bright. Leading a gypsy life. Lovely weather. Little cause for worry.’

  That is good, and there comes an airgraph from Basil, 3 July. ‘You would be surprised how early I get up nowadays, so the days are very long. The great times during the day are the “brew-up”; when a halt is called we all leap from the truck, get out an old perforated petrol can half full of sand, and soak the sand with petrol. This makes a first-class fire – better than a primus, which lasts for twenty minutes or so; then we put on the other half of the petrol can full of water, and when it boils, put in the milk, tea and sugar, and then dip in your pint mug – it is a most refreshing drink. Personally, I’m very confident about the final outcome of this battle. We seem to have a considerable numerical advantage in the air, among other things.’

  Thursday, 30 July

  Just sending Jenny a letter from The Times by a Mrs Spooner, who was in Singapore at the time of its agony. It is about the brave ladies of Malaya, who showed courage and endurance. Many British women were ‘killed at the last, attempting to escape when the Japanese were on their doorstep.’

  Barbara writes from her home in Blewbury: ‘Have now got first part of vast equipment for First Aid Party – gas-suit, service respirator, tin hat.’ She adds, ‘My life is a strange mixture; when not putting dried blood on tomatoes, I’m making a compost heap or new chicken run, or mattocking, or digging, or weeding or nettle cutting. It never ends. I suppose harvesting begins on Sunday, if fine.’

  Goebbels says: ‘We still consider a British-American invasion on the Continent a crazy enterprise, which would be accompanied by the most disastrous consequences for Britain and the United States . . .

  ‘We offer the British a cordial welcome. We hope they will bring some Americans with them. The German soldiers are looking forward with pleasure to making it clear to the Yankees that for them, too, Europe is forbidden territory.’

  Friday, 31 July

  To see my good neighbour of eighty odd. She said she had been awake all night thinking about the Russian battles. When first married she lived in Russia: ‘It was very nice then.’

  Mrs F. said it was impossible to be happy. I agreed, and remarked that the war hung like a burden on all our backs, and was never lifted off for a single second.

  Saturday, 1 August

  Rachel writes from the Links Hotel, Thurlestone:

  ‘We strolled out on the cliffs last night and saw an amazing panorama, a very flamboyant sunset over Plymouth all sprinkled with their balloon barrage, as big as London, I was told. To the left the tiny Eddystone Lighthouse, and a microscopic destroyer in the sea.’

  Cissy has been to Inverness, and there she met a Norwegian officer, who showed her snapshots of his wife and four fair-haired children, and described his escape from the hands of the Gestapo. He said the spirit in Norway is wonderful, even the children turn their backs on the Germans. ‘This coldness is our only weapon, and the Germans hate it.’

  Monday, Bank Holiday

  I hear from Mildred that Rosemary, who arrived in Derby the Sunday before last, discovered that there had been a bad raid the night before, and twenty-five workers in the Rolls Royce works (where she is now attached) had been killed. There was another raid that night, and one the next night. Rosemary has to stand up at her work all day long. Personally I doubt whether her health will stand it.

  Jack, fresh from Malta, talked a little about it. ‘Will they give in?’ ‘Never, unless supplies fail.’ ‘Are the Hun pilot prisoners truculent?’ ‘No. Many are mere boys, not sure what they are fighting for.’

  Wednesday, 5 August

  I went to Haslemere by bus, a lovely journey. Such gracious red houses at Chiddingfold, such golden harvest fields, such leafy ways, such a merry girlish air about the happy bus conductress, singing to herself.

  Found Kitty in the kitchen, putting the last touches to her lunch. The table was set for nine: four little children under six were coming, their fathers two naval officers.

  Looking at the children, three little girls, I wondered what world they would live in.

  Kitty looked exhausted. Two naval officers are billeted on her. And she finished washing up the dinner dishes at 9.20, and her feet just ache and ache. She is sixty, and has angina pectoris, and she is game for anything.

  Thursday, 6 August

  The sunset is radiant pure gold. The garden is full of heavy green trees, and I can see some pale green apples on one of them. Robin is at the D—s, explaining his ideas of having rockets by the wayside for – well, I’d better not write about that here.

  Tuesday, 11 August

  Last night I was sitting peacefully opposite Bey Hyde, about 8.30, hearing all about her temporary postman’s job, when the bell rang.

  Opening the front door I was faced by no less than five men. Colonel B., Mr Leager, head of the Home Guard, and two other NCOs, local Home Guards, and also Major R.200

  He spoke. ‘We want to see your flat. We want an office and a place where the picket can sleep.’

  I suppose my face showed my perplexity, for Major R., straightening his pleasant mouth, added, ‘We’ve got to be very FIRM.’

  I was quick enough to mention that our garage, now stuffed with furniture, was made originally as a bedroom.

  Then they like
d the ping-pong attic and will take that too. It quite shook me up, feeling that they were going to insist on the ground floor flat. In that case I think we should have had to leave.

  Where should we go? The sisters-in-law are too near the coast. The men would inevitably ruin our house. I could not sleep very well. I should hate to leave home, and my pretty cream and blue bedroom, and all the photographs and books in it.

  Colonel B. said rapidly that they would, in a case of invasion, enter the lower flat. And that in any case they might want our garage. And also might require us to clear the luggage loft. (Where should we put our stuff? There is little warehouse room.)

  I am feeling sad about Russia, and about the bad news which we seem to have all the time. I feel the war will go on for another eight or nine years at least, and I feel I may reach my seventieth year before it is over.

  Wednesday, 12 August

  Joan King-George of Hove came to tea and told us that hundreds of invasion barges are lying in the creeks and harbours of the south coast. She described them as painted grey, with seats for the troops round the sides, and room for a tank and gun inside. She said she saw a line of these invasion barges from a hill the other day, and it stretched along the sea as far as the eye could reach. From each barge floated a balloon.

  This is real NEWS to me, and thrilling.

  Joan’s husband is in a high position in the Home Guard. He thinks that the Mayor of Brighton will be unable to fix up the evacuation of the quarter of a million people that dwell in his group – Worthing, Shoreham, Hove and Brighton. The mothers and young children, yes, they can be arranged for – but the whole question of a million – no, it seems impossible. The idea, of course, is to clear the coast of civilians; it is bound to be shelled. Also the soldiers might easily be sheltered in the houses if necessary. Joan, who was looking very ill, can’t make up her mind whether to go away now or to stay. Her son-in-law has flown back from America, and the bomber went up to the sub-stratosphere and the passengers were all in oxygen masks.