The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990

by Benn, Tony

  During the war also, his father, at the age of 63, joined the RAF for the second time in his life, and his mother, Margaret, taught at a girls’ boarding school – Blunt House – much to the delight of her young sons.

  Westminster School Report 1940

  Wedgwood-Benn A Age: 15.8

  Greek: Place 18 No. in set 22

  Does not work hard enough in school or out. He prefers to think Greek is too difficult and therefore not worth attempting to master.

  French: Place 24 No. in set 25

  His learning French is really a quite unsatisfactory performance. He could do very much better but it would now cost him a great effort.

  History: Place 14

  Lively and intelligent, as always. He is keen to get on and works hard and I think he ought to do well in the Certificate. His knowledge is patchy, e.g. he will sometimes take a political allusion which no one else in the form sees, and at other times he is ignorant of commonplace matters. He still has a rhetorical style of writing which is unsuitable for history essays.

  Buckenhill

  Bromyard

  Hereford

  [Autumn 1941]

  Dear Mike

  How are you? The ATC uniforms arrived the day I arrived back here. I was promoted that afternoon to one stripe. I hope to get my corporal’s stripe before the end of term. Tonight I go on a Home Guard patrol. From 10 to 6 in the morning there are patrols of two in two-hour shifts in the church tower and the streets.

  Your affectionate brother

  L/Corporal Benn ATC

  Buckenhill

  Bromyard

  Hereford

  12 March 1942

  My dear Mike

  What a good weekend we did have. My first exploit on the motorbike was entirely your fault! When I join the RAF proper I shall probably see even less of you than I do now.

  I am so glad that I found that you have the same view about females that I have. It is the only major omission that the parents have made in our upbringing. I suppose if we had a sister we should have met her friends. I don’t know anything about them. I don’t know what they are interested in, what they think about, and when I do meet them I feel most embarrassed.

  We are having lessons in unarmed combat and I have bought an instructional book on the subject.

  New College

  Oxford

  29 January 1943

  My dear Proff

  Just a line to let you know how I’m getting on.

  Last night we had another debate about helping the Jews in Europe. The motion was ‘that this House urges that a more energetic and practical policy be pursued by the Government towards the rescue of Jews in Europe’. At the beginning of the debate there were an equal number of people for and against the proposal. But after Victor Gollancz had spoken, everyone supported the motion, including those who had spoken against it. The motion for helping the Jews was carried by 188 votes to 21.

  Much love

  James (Tony)

  Extract from the Oxford Magazine on the visit to the Oxford Union of Richard Acland:

  ‘The speech of Sir Richard Acland, who was making his first visit to the Union since founding Common Wealth, enlivened the proceedings which culminated in an equal division of 82 votes for each side. The President gave his casting vote for the motion.

  The Hon A.N. Wedgwood Benn proposed the motion, and began by maintaining that the prevailing popular distinction of domestic from international problems largely rested on false assumptions. The economic system at home was dependent upon the conditions of our foreign trade and both involved the fundamental issue of capital versus socialism. The natural outcome of industrialisation had been amalgamation and combination among capitalists, the essence of whose system was to restrict output and so increase prices . . . which had helped to force Germany into Nazism. He concluded by referring to the Malvern Conference, which emphasised the ethical and religious arguments against capitalism . . .

  ‘In reply, Sir Richard Acland Bt MP contrasted the political crisis at home, where the Government was being conducted by an eighteenth-century aristocrat in uneasy partnership with a sorrowful ruling class, and the outside world, where the war was being won by the forces of common ownership . . . Our need was to combine political with economic democracy, since the country that first did this would lead the world . . .

  ‘Capitalism could not meet the crying needs of Europe for food and fuel after the war. In England it would be nonsense to raise again the objection that it ‘doesn’t pay’ when we had men, machines and materials enough to meet all our needs . . .

  ‘Mr C.A.R. Crosland (Trinity), ex-Treasurer, ably endeavoured to refute the argument that work is less well done by the State’s employees than the capitalist’s, though admitting that he found himself in uneasy partnership with Sir Richard Acland.’

  Blunt House

  Oxted

  Surrey

  31 March 1943

  My dear old Mike

  On Monday night I bought eight bottles of fizzy drinks, some chocolate, cigarettes, rock cakes and buns, costing 6/6, in all and got two half tins of salmon. I woke Lesley, Linnet, Barbara and Fiona at midnight and they all came into my room in their pyjamas. After eating we tried a game. I suggested that we should play a game where we gambled our clothes. I couldn’t find any cards, so we decided on a spelling game. Barbara is very bad at spelling . . . I think I can say that a good time was had by all.

  Mike, what do you feel about Fiona?

  Now to politics and the Beveridge Report. You wrote to the effect that you didn’t think that the Beveridge Report solved anything. I don’t agree with you there. Remember that Beveridge was asked to make a report on ‘The social insurance and allied services’, and an idea sprang up that it was a complete plan for post-war reconstruction. I absolutely agree with you that socialist planning is necessary. Capitalism is obsolete. It has ceased to perform the function for which it originated. It is not possible for a man to set up a business in competition with say HMV or Imperial Chemicals or the Nuffield combine. They can afford to push him out of business because of their superior capital.

  Out of 32,000,000 men and women who are employed in this country – 14,000,000 work in factories, docks, railways and other big privately owned concerns. They must be enlisted on our side and as is quite evident from their membership of the trade unions, they want national control. It ought to be quite evident by now that a changeover to nationalised industries and services is necessary. What part does the Beveridge Report play in this changeover? I am myself against a sudden breakaway from things as they are today. The new must evolve from the old and the evolution must be accomplished with as little fuss or disruption as is possible with the needs of the moment.

  Well, Mike, I feel that this letter is some sort of compensation for a week’s neglect.

  Your most devoted and affectionate bro.

  James

  Wednesday 9 June 1943

  I regard my death in the RAF as very possible. I am aware in vague bursts that entering the RAF is a great and dangerous venture. When I think of the technical knowledge necessary before I can fly and the number of things I will have to think of and do it fills me with foreboding, but I suppose that all can be done if I work hard at my training. That is only the learning side; it is the problem of judging the exact moment for flattening out and worse still the problem of whether I can keep my nerve in a spin or when the flak is at me. I am filled with depression and then I cheer up and say, ‘Well, what if I do get killed? I shall be a hero and I won’t have to plan my life which I realise will be an almost impossible task.’ I think my new and most earnest wish is that Mike should survive the war unhurt.

  Why am I fighting? In short it is because I think there is something worth fighting for. If I think that it is worth fighting for – it is presumably worth making any sacrifices possible?

  I shall be terrified most of the time but the conquest of cowardice is a personal struggle and I can say that
it will never be my policy to be a coward. I can’t guarantee that in a panic I shan’t give way – God preserve me from doing so – but I can’t do anything now about it except prepare myself and train myself.

  RAF Elmdon

  Birmingham

  September 1943

  My very dear brother

  In case you haven’t had my last two air letters let me congratulate you on (1) your DFC and (2) your 22nd birthday. A junior brother and friend is very proud of you.

  At last I am at an aerodrome and I am happier than ever before in my life. We are only here for three weeks but in that time we are really taught to fly Tigers – and go solo – I simply can’t believe it. We wear blue battledress and with my pipe I really look quite operational. We are called ‘pupil pilots’. On Sunday I shall have my first lesson. Details of the ‘drome I can’t give you by letter but I know you will understand how every little aspect of this sort of life appeals to me.

  1850035 AC2C BENN ANW

  Hut 41

  F Flight

  No 1 Squadron

  RAF Station

  Heaton Park, Manchester

  [December 1943]

  Dear Family,

  Here is my address. I am almost certain that I have been selected for pilot training. This will be overseas though I cannot say where. On the nominal roll prepared by the RAF we are divided into two groups – potential officers and NCOs. I am in the first group. The prospects of leave are uncertain.

  Conditions here are dreadful. Rains all the time. No baths, and no hot water. There are twenty of us in a Nissen hut which is unheated. But I mustn’t go on. I came into Manchester today to have a bath and write some letters. The latter is almost impossible in a crowded canteen and there isn’t a bath in the city.

  Love James

  Friday 14 January 1944 –SS Cameronia

  I woke up occasionally but it was not until about 6.15 that I began getting up. A quarter of an hour later we stopped at Glasgow.

  We moved off again at about 1430 and about half an hour later came aboard the SS Cameronia. I went down to our mess and attempted to settle in. We were situated on D4 Mess Deck where in an area not more than eighty feet square and not higher than six foot five, 296 of us were accommodated. There we ate, sat and wrote. At night the space above the floor and tables was crowded with the hammocks slung from bars on the ceiling. Our kit was stored on wooden racks above these bars and the crush was incredible. Many had to sleep on mattresses on the tables. The first few hours were desperate – you could not be certain what was yours and where were your possessions. However, after the evening meal it was more tolerable and I went on deck. Four enormous cranes were at work loading the ship, two powerful lights shining on each crane, illuminating the decks like the streets of London before the war.

  I slung my hammock at 8.30 and slept soundly.

  Friday 21 January

  I didn’t get out of bed till ten to seven. I felt weak with the stink of 300 bodies in so confined a space. We have nothing but artificial light twenty-four hours each day on our mess deck and the fresh air comes through air conditioning vents.

  Tuesday 25 January

  I went along to a lecture on aircraft recognition which later turned into a discussion of the colour bar, and instructions on how to behave towards negroes and half-whites. We had a few phrases of kaffir language. I went downstairs and started an argument with Stan, Ken and Johnny on the colour bar and whether the Christian church could sanctify marriage based on the love of a black woman by a white man.

  Wednesday 2 February

  A tanker came alongside of us and while it was filling us up the mechanics on board the tanker sold us handbags, wallets and bracelets, which they sent by rope to the ship on previous receipt of money sent down in a tin.

  We are more cramped now. There are twenty-eight on a table designed for eighteen as two tables have been given over to the army and there are a number of stories about women coming on board – WRNS, WACS, ATS and so on. I must say that I hope that they are true.

  The Tannoy played music by Victor Sylvester and I lay watching the moon and stars and the lights of Suez.

  Wednesday 16 February

  A ground staff RAF fellow died this morning in sick quarters of heat stroke. He was evidently working in the bakery where there is a constant temperature of 115 degrees. The flag is at half mast and he is being given a military burial tonight. We were also told that a sailor has gone blind from the sun.

  After pay I got dinner and read, showered and talked. Then I attended the funeral of the airman. It was quite impressive though, despite the fact that it was the first funeral, I didn’t feel at all spiritually or emotionally moved. It was rather cheap and everyday in a way. In the first place I think his life could have been saved and then the funeral arrangements weren’t quite perfect and it went off rather like a parade not quite up to scratch, with all the shabbiness that that involved.

  I slept on deck again.

  [No date]

  My Dearest Dad

  Just a very short note to tell you that I have arrived at my port of disembarkation. I don’t know where you are or how you are so I am sending this to your ME address.

  I was addressing a meeting on Saturday on board ship. The subject was ‘War Aims’. It is very different from the Union and my first experience of an ordinary public political speech with heckling and cat calls.

  You’ve no idea how much I’ve thought of my Pa these last weeks on board and missed him.

  Ever your loving son James

  Thursday 24 February

  Johannesburg 10.50 – great mines and piles of slag. We passed on today through more of the bush country. The gradient was sometimes as steep as 1:4 and the train went on so slowly that some people jumped off it and ran beside, stopping to pick wild peaches and jumping on again. At one station some kind ladies distributed tea and grapes etc. free. At Mafeking (where I relieved myself!) there were a lot of natives though no town to speak of. Periodically we would pass through native settlements or villages and very rough they were. Mud huts made of lumps of clay hewn in brick form, with hay rather than properly thatched roofs, and very often no windows but a wide space for a door. The natives were sitting around quite lazily outside watching, although I fancy their men were railway workers, leaving only their old, infirm, children and womenfolk at home in the daytime.

  Friday 25 February

  In the afternoon we passed from Bechuanaland to Southern Rhodesia and by 7 o’clock we were at Bulawayo where we disentrained and were marched to Hillside Camp. There we were issued with bedding, given huts and a meal, and left. The camp had been a dairy farm and the buildings were originally cattle sheds.

  Saturday 4 March

  It is very amusing to hear the natives in the compound in the morning. A native comes in about 0615 and shouts in Bantu, interspersed with the emphatic imperative ‘WAKEY, WAKEY’. There is more shouting and laughing followed by silence when the ‘waker’ departs as sleep regains its prey. This continues until the man returns and reawakens us, which he may have to do two or three times.

  Monday 10 April

  Today I was very depressed indeed. I think that the boil on my face, the sore on my behind, and the blister on my toe tended – if anything – to worsen things. This depression squashes life itself and any interest in it. Anyway this evening I saw Rita Hayworth in Strawberry Blonde and this cheered me quite a lot.

  Wednesday 26 April

  We were woken this morning at 03.30 hrs but as I had gone to bed early I didn’t feel too bad. We were issued spats, maps and compasses and we boarded the lorry just as the dawn was lifting. The lorry moved off and the flight began to sing as we drove through Bulawayo, the old sentimental soldier songs which in these surroundings were very pleasant. The sky in the east was yellow and orange and above a bank of black cloud shone Venus, the morning star. We were dropped at a gate with a course of 168 degrees and fifteen miles of rough bundu ahead. I pushed on and gradually as
the heat increased and the country grew more difficult I stumbled more often, and began to swear under my breath.

  We had lunch at a hotel and the lorry came back at 2.30.1 had a deadly headache and I felt pretty ghastly but some Anadin soon put that right and despite my sore feet, I went into town to see Gloria. She was there and I noticed a definite difference. She was dressed very much more attractively and when she came over to the table she was much sweeter and her earlier chilliness had completely vanished. I went to bed tired but happy with feet that hurt like the devil.

  Thursday 4 May

  In the evening Noel Coward came to the camp to give his one-man show. John, Les, Ken and I queued up between 6 and 6.30. The doors opened at 7.30 and from then until 8 the ‘Hillside Scamps’ played. Then the great moment arrived and Coward came on with his pianist Norman Hackforth. He was very smartly dressed in a khaki shirt and tie, light brown soled suede shoes. His programme which lasted a little over an hour long was absolutely first rate. I admire Noel Coward for being so low despite the ladies present. He used the words ‘bloody, bitch, Christ, bastard, short arm inspection, sexy’ and so on despite them.

  Sunday 21 May

  In the evening I went to the Services Club and Gloria was there. She was very sweet and charming to begin with – in fact extremely so. All the signs were OK and Les Boughey came over to my table and said that she had been miserable until I came in and then she had cheered up like billyo. This optimistic statement I should have taken with a pinch of salt, but anyway she did appear to be favouring me so I determined to say something tonight. Unfortunately I found that my heart was throbbing so fast and I felt so hot I was blushing a deep red.

  Stubborn in my determination to get somewhere I asked her to ‘come and sit at my table and make the last evening of my leave gay’, but she turned scornfully away and said, with a sting in her voice, ‘I think I’ll get you a glass of water to recover.’ That finished me. I got up and left at once, muttering to myself and fuming with rage and almost self-pity at this sudden humiliation which had fallen so swiftly after my seeming victory.