Mrs Miles's Diary

by S. V. Partington

  Friday, 14 August

  What a wonderful country is England! Edna writes that she is going to the Federal Union Summer School at Dartington Hall in Devon. In spite of government entreaties that we should not travel – in spite of the crowded trains, in spite of rationing trouble, in spite of the fact that nearly everybody is working from morning to night – the Summer School will be held!

  Two conversations in the bus today:

  The wife of the Angel of the Catholic Apostolic Church: ‘The war is all over the world now. It is Armageddon – it is the judgement. But people don’t realise it.’

  Then: ‘I had nothing in the house to give my husband for dinner yesterday, so he had vegetables. And do you know, in the evening, he was quite limp! Hadn’t had his proper dinner, you see.’

  Sunday, 16 August

  The lonely soldier came – he had some of Barbara’s honey for tea. He thinks the Second Front will open soon. I wonder.

  The effect of hearing of Russia’s slow retreat morning after morning has spoiled this lovely part of the summer for me, and already Netley Woods show faint hints of autumn gold.

  Monday, 17 August

  I went to see Mrs Rayne, who has two sons missing. She said she had been in Swansea, and that was the most blitzed place of the many bombed towns she had seen. She described it very well. She said, ‘It’s like a film.’

  Her missing airman son had told her that if they land in occupied territory they have full instructions as to how to proceed. Robert seemed to know that there is a set of people in France who work to help the English and to get them back.

  I returned down the sunny hill, but first of all my hostess took me over the golden harvest field, and began to talk of her lost boys. Wilfred – supposed to be drowned. Robert – where? Had he come down in ‘the drink’? She explained, poor thing, with haunted dark eyes, that she was not going to allow herself to hope, only perhaps to be disappointed. Far better not. She was glad she had all these land girls, one from a big draper’s shop, one an heiress. One fair-haired girl I saw reading on the terrace was studying Othello, hoping to go up to see the Czech who takes the part. All the girl workers are conscientious and tireless. (‘Would you like me to go out again and help you? Shall I? What field do we cut tomorrow?’)

  Robin told me that he had just heard over the wireless that Churchill had been to see Stalin in Moscow and was just back. Mirabile dictu. What did they say to one another?201

  The Germans tonight claim the whole of the Don bend.

  Tuesday, 18 August

  Mayo writes: ‘Yesterday had a horrid experience in Salisbury. I was quite near the bomb and in the street and saw the smoke from what they hit. People were very calm, but I didn’t feel at all so. I saw the girls fire-watching on Woolworths’ roof, as cool as cucumbers during the raid.’

  Irene came to tea. She and Robin disputed the idea of the Second Front; Irene thinks it is all bunkum, but that we and the Yankees will bomb Germany to blazes and stop the war.

  Robin au contraire says in prophetic mood that the Second Front will open in early September: we shall land in Brittany, the Americans will land at Bordeaux.202

  Wednesday, 19 August

  Much excited by news of our commando raid on Dieppe.203 With what light hearts did Robin and I motor out of the town, towards the south, in the winter of 1938!

  Thursday, 20 August

  The Home Guard has seized our garage now. Inside is our car jacked up for the duration, and a stock of winter logs. The car may find room next door, the logs will go – where?

  What is happening to certain old people in this war? I heard today of two very dear to me who are grown shaky and very old and feeble and do housework as well as they can, often walking from the room hand in hand to fetch the dishes for their meal. To my horror I am told that the old darlings stand in queues for their provisions.

  They have an invincible dislike of the idea of going to a hotel. Were they but established here in our local guest house all would be peace and they could live a little. It is tragic.

  Sunday, 23 August

  Spent much of the day hotly criticising the government’s fuel plan.204 Gazed at the elaborate target advertisement. Robin declared it was the work of a ‘robot in an office who knows nothing of practical facts.’ He kindly wished to find him, execute him and throw him on an ant heap!

  Monday, 24 August

  The Germans have got across the Don at last, and are nearer to Stalingrad.

  This is very terrible. Every day during this summer we have listened to doubtful news about the Russians, but I hope against hope.

  Tuesday, 25 August

  From Cis’s letter: ‘My dear Connie, Christine (18) is looking so pretty now, why oh why can’t she be living a normal life, and meeting men of her own class? But I suppose we must forget all about class now, and our girls must work as hard as men and fight too and still with the feminine handicap. Let us hope it will be a more settled world for Baby Gillian.’

  From May Sinclair’s letter this morning: ‘This last week I have never left the office (Bush House, European Broadcasting) before 10.30 and have been there before 9.30 in the mornings . . . I have taken Luminal every night to ensure sleep, and to stop the stupid dreaming which attacks me when I am tired.’205

  This is surely the most amazing thing we shall ever see in print (consider its implications):

  ‘By a special decree issued in Berlin yesterday, Hitler has appointed Thierack to be Minister of Justice, with power to set aside all written law.’

  Thursday, 27 August

  Feel very pleased to see Mother yesterday.206 It was like old days, and she looked so pretty and alert for seventy-nine. The war has not really touched her.

  Saturday, 29 August

  We have awakened from the nightmare of feeling our flat below might have to be cleared for the Home Guard. Maurice’s letter tells how his delightful furniture was treated by the troops who entered his Essex house. It was commandeered by the army early in the war. The men smashed up the chairs and tables for firewood.207

  Bey called later, and told me the harrowing story of Hazel Hill, where troops were billeted. They smashed the linen cupboard open, and sent the sheets and towels home to their wives. The CO discovering that told the men to ask their womenkind to post back the stuff, and no questions would be asked. I spent the evening gazing at my precious things and imagining them broken and stolen by a band of brigands.

  Sunday, 30 August

  We read of Mr Henry Kaiser claiming a world record for speedy shipbuilding with the launching of a 10,000-ton Liberty cargo vessel twenty-four days after the keel was laid.208 The harvest in Holland is bad because the Dutch farmers know that the Germans will take it. The poor little French Jewish children are being herded off into camps, and their identity cards are being got rid of. Some little things will perhaps never know who they are. This seems diabolical cruelty.

  Monday, 31 August

  Today I’ve been to London. I happened to have to wait for May for some time and to study the faces of the crowds was very absorbing. Oh for a paintbrush! To record the anxious downcast looks, the strained glance, the hurried step. What thousands of dowdily dressed men and women. What inadequate-looking boys with mild faces, for officers.

  I liked the rude health which exuded from the Mercantile Marine, standing drinking tea at a very ramshackle counter.

  Wednesday, 2 September

  Walked up in the evening to see the Raynes, as I had heard the night before that a prisoner of war postcard had come from the despaired-of son, Pilot Officer Robert, lost in the dark night as they flew over Hamburg.

  What joy, after the deepest despair. There has been a six week pause. All Robert’s squadron felt he was gone! ‘He will organise and cheer the whole camp and will get up classes,’ said his fond mother to me (he was a schoolmaster). ‘He does not care for external things, so will be as content as he can in Germany.’

  The joy of this family would be now com
plete if their second missing son was accounted for, but we think Wilfred (last seen leaping from the deck of a torpedoed ship) is drowned.

  Saturday, 5 September

  Joy came and told me Basil has sent her from Cairo some turquoise stuff for a house coat.

  Negley Farson writes warningly in the Mail about Russia. It is in a very serious situation. They are so hungry.

  Monday, 7 September

  Yesterday I saw the most appalling thing about the Germans that I’ve yet read. In Paris they hounded the Jews even out of the hospitals. The police waited while one poor woman had her baby and then turned her out. God punish them fully, as they deserve!

  Tuesday, 8 September

  There is much talk in the press about a State Medical Service.209 From Mrs Hopgood’s talk at a tea party here yesterday: ‘I don’t believe men take the faintest interest in what we women talk about.’

  Marna, her daughter, is very much overworked in the ATS. She is the only officer in a remote country paratroop camp, and has seventy girls to look after.

  Thursday, 10 September

  Mrs Rayne came to tea. She had a prisoner of war postcard from Robert in Germany telling her all his crew were killed. They were three. She had to tell the mother of one and the fiancée of another the sad truth.

  She mentioned in her first letter to him that Lord Haw-Haw (of whom we are very tired) had mentioned his name among those of British prisoners. Her letter was returned by the censor’s office after ten days, with a note gently pointing out that we did not want the Huns to know that we listen in to the German broadcasts.

  Alice writes that Dulcie heard, through a friend of her husband’s, that he was almost sure he saw Jim’s plane flying below his, that fatal night of the raid, but not flying out of control. Dulcie wrote back to ask more questions – but by that time, alas! the airman was himself missing. It is horribly sad.

  A glorious evening sunset glow beams over the green lawn, and the mauve daisies are all shining in the light. I wish every day was like this as regards weather. Mother has arrived safely in Aberdeen; I’m so thankful.

  Thursday, 17 September

  A letter-card from Basil written 4 September, speaking of the recent battle in Egypt. He says we had a real victory.210 He is unhurt, ‘but had several near misses’. The regiment did well and Montgomery himself came to congratulate a sergeant (anti-tank) who shot four tanks.

  No extra sugar is to be allowed for jam-making. The countryside is thick with blackberries.

  Monday, 21 September

  This afternoon to the film The First of the Few, about R. J. Mitchell, designer of the Spitfire. Admirable.

  Women and children have left Stalingrad. All must be over soon.

  Tuesday, 22 September

  To the kitchen. The faithful workers are all present; little Mollie B. with her neat golden head, and W. H. with an air of desperate energy. At the door, at a card table with a money box sits C. M.,211 rather distracted and feeling the cold. At long tables, friends instinctively cluster together: the garage hands in their dungarees (who May said looked exactly like Russians); the stores assistants, pretty, fair girls, looking rather impudent; a Jewish woman and her grandchild. At one table sits the Squire’s sister, very determined and ruthless under a blue hat, who kisses no-one, but does kiss her clever old black poodle; at another an exhausted mother of three, without help, begins to shake her head slightly, which shows how real is the strain on her nerves.

  When the kitchen, which is in the Scouts’ Hut, is left empty, it is like a battlefield.

  Thursday, 24 September

  Petronelle, a newly joined Wren, writes: ‘We are already steeped in naval terms and traditions. This building is HMS Pembroke III. I belong to Effingham division and sleep in No. 20 bunk, Cabin 3, Suffolk deck. It’s fun.’

  From an airman’s mother – he is lost: ‘I am still,’ she writes, ‘in the depths of misery over my little baby son, and time seems to make it worse. The Air Ministry is simply ghastly about everything, absolutely no system, and half of all their letters to me appear to have been lost. They even told me he had gone to Dunkirk, when they meant Emden, and I should never have found out the mistake, had I not, after the greatest difficulty, got in touch with the rest of the crew’s parents. Now I find half his things have been stolen. His expensive Leica camera, and about £20 in cash. His brand new bicycle was returned, minus all the gadgets, and bent and broken to pieces. I have not yet succeeded in obtaining any of his private papers, so I don’t know if he left behind any letters or last wishes.

  ‘He flew on the most appalling night, as regards weather, of the whole year.’

  Florence writes: ‘Bournemouth is full of Americans, looking very bored. They look too well-dressed, have well-fitting uniforms, too tight, I should think, to be practical. They won’t take houses unless they have got central heating, which does not say much for their toughness.’

  Sunday, 27 September

  Lord Hankey,212 whose opinion I think very valuable, writes in today’s paper:

  ‘The prospect of a few more years of war should not dismay us. We have powerful allies, and vast reserves of strength well advanced towards development. We are already dealing our enemies heavy blows, the weight of which will increase. Above all, we have those unlimited reserves of spiritual strength . . .’ The prospect of a few more years of war should not dismay us. Alas! I want to see my children!

  Monday, 28 September

  The Belgians seem to be half starving. They never see a potato. Thus says the News Chronicle. And we have sacks, a bumper crop.

  Tuesday, 29 September

  To the film Mrs Miniver. Just before the first Blitz scene, the lights in the cinema went out, and a voice from the stage said that there was an air-raid warning, and anyone who wished could leave the building. Nobody stirred, so far as I could see. It made the picture much more thrilling. An ‘all clear’ was sounded about ten minutes later.

  The sun is shining bravely in the autumn garden, and we are listening to the six o’clock news, which announces that the Hun panzer divisions are pressing into the city. The Volga crossings are under fire.

  Saturday, 3 October

  May S. came down by tea-time, and we sat on the lawn in the mild sunshine. I asked her what was the prevailing mood of the many people she meets, and she said it was cheerful, and that Stalingrad was a long way off, and so people rather forgot it.

  Sunday, 4 October

  Mr Brook arrived from Exeter.213 He could not get even a cup of tea at Salisbury Station, nor at Woking. ‘People are not supposed to be hungry on a Sunday,’ he said.

  At tea there was a very bright interlude indeed. Somebody mentioned Sark,214 and May and Brook and I all broke out in warmest praise. Mr B. has camped out with his son (now dead, killed in the air) at the Silver Mines, a gorgeous bit of shore. We all love the steep cliffs of the island, and the quiet out-of-doors days we spent there. Brook declared he would never, never forget them, so long as he lived. He has kind eyes and a little pointed beard and a very great mass of luggage.

  He told us that on the occasion of the Exeter raid (‘We were six miles away and the city was lit up like a fine palace’) some Home Guards captured three German airmen who had crashed. Their manner was extremely arrogant. All spoke English. One said eagerly, ‘Oh, have we hit the cathedral?’ The other two young men rubbed their hands together and said gleefully, ‘At any rate, it’s been a good raid, we’ve done a lot of damage.’ All this so incensed the Englishmen that they killed all three there and then with their bayonets.

  Wednesday, 7 October

  ‘Have you worked out your fuel target?’ was the question put in the latest Gallup Poll. Eighty-four per cent of those questioned replied ‘No’.

  Stalingrad holds out. More and more Romanians are pushed into the battle, and rearward troops have been pushed by the Hun into the front line.

  To the Women’s Institute. I was vexed by the lecturer’s failure to mention any brave acti
ons of our sailors, so impulsively offered our President a lecture on ‘Brave Deeds of the War’. I hope I can do it.

  From Edna’s letter from Haywards Heath:

  ‘When I hear of other women who have to pay £4 10/– a week in these boarding houses where there is no comfort, where they make their own beds and do their own fireless rooms, I think we are very lucky. I have a pathetic picture of an elderly worker of mine, who was dragging a skirt from shop to shop to get it ironed, as she wasn’t allowed to use an iron in her boarding house, where she is perfectly wretched, with no other place to go to. Everything is full up and the landladies all arch tyrants.’

  Friday, 9 October

  The scene at the communal kitchen today was really very nice. Five strong soldiers were eating the meal of mince and mashed potato. Robin talked quietly to the local stores assistants opposite him and the land girls in their breeches ate with relish. ‘The brotherhood of men,’ I thought to myself, for the children there were actually being quiet, and not spitting out damson stones, or chucking the cutlery at each other and screaming.

  Tuesday, 13 October

  Curiously enough I received this morning two letters from two very old friends of my girlhood. I think women tend to cling together and to avoid any sort of estrangement in these difficult days.

  I question myself closely and ask, ‘What is the difference this afternoon in our little village from days of peace? What do I see that has changed?

  (1) I see many army lorries packed with soldiers. Many army waggons. Often a tank and many motor cycles.