by Mary Soames
Another woman friend of my parents who was much part of the Chartwell scene in the thirties was Horatia Seymour. When Clementine had made her debut, Horatia, who was a few years older and, like Clementine, both beautiful and badly off, had initiated a friendship that would last their lifetimes; when Clementine married Winston, Horatia was one of her bridesmaids. Winston greatly enjoyed her company, for she was both clever and—a lifelong Liberal herself—au courant with the political events of the day. Despite her great beauty, Horatia never married, but she was always in demand as a guest in elegant social and political circles. In 1931 she took the lease of Wellstreet Cottage, a charming small house along the road from Chartwell, in the construction of which Winston himself took a considerable part: its first inmates were Winston and Clementine themselves (plus Nana and myself), who took refuge there when the “big house” was shut up for the winter months to effect a major economy in the wake of the Wall Street Crash in 1929, in which Winston suffered great financial loss. However, by 1931 this draconian economy had been abandoned, and they were delighted to find an excellent tenant for Wellstreet in their great friend Horatia Seymour, who made a most agreeable neighbour.
“Miss Seymour” (as she was to me) became a great feature of my life: she was exceptionally kind to me, and used to ask me to tea without Nana, which I thought very grown-up. A very good pianist, she introduced me to some of the treasures of music: Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” I first heard played by her, and it became a lifelong joy for me. She may well have thought (and rightly) that while the English language, spoken and written, was well represented in my education, music was notably lacking. Having said that, she also helped to broaden my literary knowledge. Although Nana read so many books to me—and of course, by now I was reading a good deal for myself—it was Horatia Seymour who introduced me to Jane Austen, reading aloud to me Pride and Prejudice. Hers was a wonderfully enriching friendship for a growing girl, and, happily for me, it was one that would carry over into adulthood.
OF COURSE, I ALSO GOT to know all the local “regulars.” Desmond Morton, who lived down in the valley near Edenbridge, came and went frequently, and would be closeted with Papa: as head of the Industrial Intelligence Centre, he was throughout the thirties a regular source of valuable information to Winston about German industry and the covert manufacture of armaments. To this, of course, I was oblivious, but what I did know from the grown-ups was that in the Great War he had been shot through the heart and miraculously survived; that the bullet was still lodged in his heart; and that, if it were to move, he would drop dead. As well as the long sessions with my father, Major Morton played a lot of vigorous tennis with my mother, and I have to confess that this knowledge added (for both Sarah and myself) a certain apprehension or piquancy to watching them play. (I must add that Sir Desmond, as he later became, after a long and distinguished career, died in his bed.)
As Chartwell was only an hour’s drive from London, to the five or six houseguests would very often be added several more for luncheon: Duff and Diana Cooper, John and Hazel Lavery, Lord and Lady Camrose, and Max Beaverbrook were among these. To accommodate greater numbers, Nana and I and any child guest would have our own katzen tisch (cats’ table), and if luncheon was very prolonged, we children were allowed to slip away; but if one was at the “big table,” one had to stick it out. This was not very hard if Papa was in reciting vein, or a row blew up over politics—especially if the argument was with Duff Cooper, the veins on whose forehead would stand out in a most terrifying way! I later learned that this feature, well known to his friends, was described as “veiners.”
Lady Colefax, one of the few London hostesses who was anti-appeasement, and in general politically bien pensant according to the Churchill coterie, also greatly intrigued me, as I heard her referred to by my parents as a tremendous “lion hunter.” Oh, how I longed to hear her no doubt thrilling tales, rather than her political views! But on the one occasion when a gap occurred in the general conversation and I tried to seize my chance to ask her if she’d shot any lions lately, I found myself suddenly, literally, almost smothered by my sisters—and urgently sent on an errand.
My father’s love for, and great preoccupation with, painting, which had begun in the dark days of the Dardanelles crisis in the First World War, led to some of my parents’ warmest and most rewarding friendships. His first mentors had been John and Hazel Lavery (he a celebrated portrait painter, she a considerable artist herself): they were neighbours in London, and had descended on Hoe Farm, the house my parents had taken for the summer of 1915, summoned by Clementine to help and advise when Winston first was gripped by the idea of painting. Starting him off on what was to prove a lifetime passion, the Laverys were indeed his “painting godparents.” A little while later, when Winston was serving on the Western Front, during his periods of leave at home he would spend hours in John Lavery’s studio. That was several years before I was born, but in the twenties and thirties the Laverys were regular visitors to Chartwell; Sir John and Winston would disappear to the studio, leaving Hazel Lavery and Clementine to talk. My mother always emphasized to me what a great beauty Lady Lavery was—and now, from my present perspective, I see from photographs and portraits that she was indeed outstandingly beautiful: of American-Irish extraction, she was a passionate Irish Nationalist, and when independent Eire printed its own first banknotes her striking profile represented the newly fledged nation. All this was explained to me by Mummie, who was very fond of Hazel, but as a child I thought her very odd—wrinkled and wild-looking, with very crudely coloured red hair. Tinting in those faraway days was primitive, and “dyed” hair (the euphemistic contemporary terms of highlighting and lowlighting not having been coined) was not owned up to but mentioned only in hushed tones.
The next major influence on Winston’s painting was W. R. Sickert, who, then at the height of his fame, came into my father’s life in 1927, when Winston was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Sickert had been a friend of Lady Blanche and her children (Clementine was about fifteen at the time) when they lived for a short while in Dieppe, where he was a longtime resident, but Clementine and this friend of her girlhood had not met for twenty years when he and Winston were introduced. The two men took to each other at once, and my father had some long teaching sessions at No. 11; Mr. Sickert also came down to Chartwell several times. I’m sorry not to recall meeting this great painter, who was also an eccentric and fascinating personality: I was only five or six at the time, and had not as yet been promoted to the dining room for luncheon.
The French painter Paul Maze was, for a time, a frequent visitor to Chartwell: he and Winston had met in the war, but it was not until the midthirties that they became close friends. Not only was Maze a stimulating “companion of the brush,” whose advice and ebullient companionship Winston much enjoyed, but—as an ardent Anglophile and follower of political affairs—he saw in Winston the great champion of Anglo-French cooperation, and as the thirties wore on he shared Churchill’s sombre view of the darkening international scene. Paul was, I thought, a very jolly (if rather noisy) guest, and particularly kind to me, giving me at Christmastime in 1933, when I was eleven, a very beautiful charcoal drawing of the Thames near Tower Bridge. (I didn’t really appreciate this extremely generous present then, I’m afraid.) Although I did not sense it at the time, my mother did not care for Paul—I think the dislike was probably mutual—and found his frequently recurring visits tiresome, and so eventually they ceased. However, Paul and Winston maintained their friendship through the ensuing years.
But the painter-friend of my parents who became a great feature in all our lives during the thirties was William Nicholson. He started coming down to Chartwell in 1933—the year of my parents’ Silver Wedding—when a group of their friends commissioned him to paint a conversation piece. Nicholson by then was a highly esteemed artist and at the height of his repute as a portrait painter. Of enormous and idiosyncratic charm, he soon became a favourite with all the Chu
rchill family. Sittings for the picture were a pleasure, not a tribulation, although we all thought it quite curious that he chose to paint Winston and Clementine having breakfast in the dining room à deux, for in the course of their long married life our parents had rarely breakfasted together—indeed, my father specifically attributed the happiness of their union in part to this fact! But this use of artistic licence resulted in a delightful painting, and the artist caught his sitters’ characteristic attitudes and likenesses. For me—then as now—the picture captures all the charm of the Chartwell dining room: it shows a sunny day, with the door into the garden open; through it has strolled one of my numerous bantams looking for crumbs; the newspapers are spread on the table, and on them is lying Tango, the adored and indulged marmalade cat.
Sittings over for the day, William would occupy himself in a variety of ways. He painted many lovely pictures at Chartwell, of the harvest fields, or the black swans; sometimes he and Winston would sit side by side painting the same view—for example, a sunlit scene by the swimming pool (today, their versions of this subject hang side by side in the studio). From my Scottish holiday in the summer of 1934, I wrote:
Darling Papa,
We have just arrived in the ‘Western Highlands’. I wish you and Mr. Nicholson would come up here and paint, as the scenery is very beautiful and wild.
My mother, apart from being captivated as we all were by Mr. Nicholson, warmly welcomed his influence on Winston’s painting, chiefly in the “softening” of his palette.
When not occupied in painting, “S’William” (as we called him after he had been knighted in 1936) would quite often come to the nursery, where we would play a lovely game he had invented: he would cover a piece of paper with oval and rounded shapes—tier upon tier of them—to represent a football crowd, and then we all had to draw in the features and the expressions. He would also draw my pug dog, and he never tired of sketching the beautiful Tango: I have several of these drawings still. And, as I have earlier recounted, my family of ill-assorted dolls were all drawn for me by this charming, eccentric man.
S’William was as much fun as a companion out of doors as indoors, his skill as an expert boomerang thrower (I do not know in what circumstances he acquired this outlandish skill) adding excitement and an element of apprehension to any country walk in his company. Indoors once more, we would all admire (and unsuccessfully try to emulate) his skill with le bilboquet (cup-and-ball). He was sweet and indulgent to me, and on several occasions invited Nana and me to luncheon with him in his enchanting small house, 11 Apple Tree Yard, St. James’s. This was a wonderful treat, with its unvarying menu of two grilled herrings each and mustard sauce.
A regular transatlantic summer visitor in the thirties was the American financier and elder statesman Bernard Baruch, who had started life as an office boy and made a fortune by speculation. He was a near contemporary of Winston, and the two men had met in 1918 when Winston was Minister of Munitions and Baruch a commissioner on the American War Industries Board; they had become great friends, and remained so thereafter. Bernie Baruch was immensely tall—certainly the tallest person I had ever seen—with white hair and piercing eyes: he was extremely benevolent to me, but I was in great awe of him. I told my mother that I was sure Jehovah looked exactly like him; Mummie repeated this to Mr. Baruch, who was not at all displeased.
As well as the regular “stayers” and “lunchers” there were some very thrilling “shooting stars.” On a visit to Hollywood in 1929, Winston had met and greatly taken to Charlie Chaplin; so when the latter was in England two years later, he was invited to Chartwell. His first visit was in February 1931, when Clementine was away in America with Randolph, who was on a lecture tour. Winston wrote her this account of Charlie’s visit:
Last night we had Charlie Chaplin to dinner. Jack [Churchill] and Johnnie [his son] came from London and slept the night. Bracken and Boothby motored down for dinner. Mary stayed up by special arrangement and seemed absolutely thrilled by Charlie. He has been wonderfully received in this country and treated with far more honour than any Royalty. He made himself most agreeable, and with much good nature performed various droll tricks … Diana also came to dinner looking very pretty, and got on very well with the great man.
Among the “various droll tricks,” as Winston described them, was a brilliant impersonation of Napoleon, using a coat and hat snatched from the coat cupboard. Charlie was over in England for the premiere of his film City Lights, which in due course I was taken to see. Later that year, in September, Charlie came to Chartwell again, when a very good photograph was taken: sadly for me, I was not included in the lineup—however, my pug dog squeezed in!
One guest who made an indelible impression on me was Colonel Lawrence—Lawrence of Arabia, who came to Chartwell three times in the thirties. He and Winston had first met and seen a great deal of each other in Cairo, when Winston was Colonial Secretary and the whole shape and future of the Middle East was under discussion. This extraordinary scholar-hero, who had organized the Arab army in its revolt against the Turks in 1916, and had ridden with them into Damascus, had later written the account of his exploits in his celebrated book The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Winston admired and liked him, as did Clementine, and they had all become friends: but Lawrence was not an easy colleague—and, as Winston once remarked, he had a strong propensity for “backing into the limelight.” In 1922 Lawrence had joined the RAF as an aircraftman, under the name of Ross; in 1927 he changed his name by deed poll to Shaw.
My parents had of course told us children about Aircraftman Shaw’s true identity, and about his amazing adventures in the desert, and we knew he was a hero. He would arrive, dressed in his air force uniform, with a great roar on his motorcycle (which would—alas—prove to be fatal), and I always tried to be round to greet him; I liked him very much, and noticed his piercing blue eyes and intense manner. On one occasion when he was staying, my father told me to come down to the drawing room in my dressing gown before dinner, as there was a surprise for me. And indeed there was—for sitting there was my friend, attired in the robes of a Prince of Arabia!
I have a clear memory of a summer’s morning, very early—I had been down to the stables looking after my goats; as I was returning to the house, I discovered my “friend” strolling on the lawn. So I joined him, and together we walked up and down, making footprints in the dew-drenched grass. I wish I could remember what he said: I’m sure I prattled away about my animals.
My parents evidently had guessed at Lawrence’s lonely life, and had invited him to spend the Christmas of 1933 with us all: he wrote a charming letter to my mother on 17 December, regretting that he could not accept her invitation because he was moving into his cottage, Clouds Hill:
Dear Mrs. Churchill,
That was a very kindly idea of yours, but this Christmas is reserved for a most important occasion in my life. In it I inaugurate my cottage.
Perhaps that does not sound important enough to you, so I will explain. Years and years of living in suitcases and barracks eventually gave me the feeling that I wanted a home—and close by the Tank Corps camp in which I then lived (1923) there stood a ruined cottage in a clump of rhododendrums [sic] on the heath. Egdon Heath, Hardy called the district.
It is a heather and copse upland, between Dorchester and Poole. So I bought the ruin … and with the proceeds of my Arabian gold dagger I floored and roofed it. The walls were sound. For the ten years since I have been patching it, and buying equipment for it, and collecting books and gramophone records for its furnishing. I have put in water and a bath (no drain!) armchairs (no bed) a table … There is no paint or paper or plaster, no brass or copper, no cooking place, no grates, no pots or pans. Sancta simplicitas in stainless steel, very labour saving. No gardening: just wild bushes and heath and trees … The intention this Christmas, as I began by saying, is to inaugurate the cottage. I have camped in it, now and then, for odd nights: but this time I have three consecutive days and nights of freedom.
I am going to sit in the finished cottage, and see if it is good.
… So you see, I’m quite exclusively booked for Christmas, upon a vital experiment. That does not lessen your kindness in asking me to Chartwell. Chartwell is a nice name, but my cottage is called Clouds Hill. Good, don’t you think, for an airman’s retirement?
I hope you and Winston are well: and that he is thinking more of Marlborough II than of the House of Commons. I grudge the time he spends on those dull parties. Governing is one thing: politics another, surely.
High time this letter ended. I hope to come to your door, suddenly, one day—and find you in!
Yours ever,
T. E. Shaw
True to his word, Aircraftman Shaw paid Chartwell another visit quite soon, on 25–26 February 1934: this is the last time his signature appears in the visitors’ book. The following letter was his “thank-you.” It would seem he had left in a hurry on account of bad weather conditions (very important if you are on a motorbike!).
13 BIRMINGHAM STREET,
SOUTHAMPTON.
[UNDATED: BUT SOON AFTER MON. 26 FEBRUARY 1934]
Dear Mrs Churchill
This is really to say ‘Goodbye’ to Mary: I missed her at the last moment, as I came down from disturbing Winston out of a wisdom sleep.
Please tell her I’m sorry about it, and also because there hasn’t been any rain out here. The merry little snowstorm that faced me for half an hour on Monday somehow missed Dorsetshire …
