by Mary Soames
Though the big house fell silent during the week, it sprang into life every weekend, when a succession of official guests lunched, or “dined and slept,” and the business of the war continued unabated. During the summer months there had been many false alarms about the imminence of invasion, and one such occurred the third weekend of September, when President Roosevelt alerted Winston that “a most reliable source” in Berlin had predicted that the invasion would begin at dawn on Sunday, the twenty-second. Jock Colville was on duty early, and in his diary wrote: “The P.M. was rather sceptical … [but] kept himself busy telephoning to people about it all morning.… I then went and told Mrs C. and Mary who were sitting side by side in the same bed, with trays on their laps, and who treated the whole matter as a most entertaining joke.”3 After luncheon, for those not in conclave, there were walks to the beautiful viewpoints of Beacon Hill or Coombe Hill, and after dinner films were shown in the Long Gallery (they were of widely varying quality and usually too long, and my mother would often escape once the lights were down). Later my father would get back to business with his political colleagues, service chiefs, and planners, working through to the early hours.
At the end of September I was transferred by the WVS from the dramas of billeting to work in the library organized by the Red Cross for patients in the very large hospital at Stoke Mandeville on the outskirts of Aylesbury. The library team was made up of mainly married women with families, working part-time. Our clientele was varied in its tastes and needs: apart from medical and surgical wards with a relatively quick turnaround, there were several big wards of long-term cases, mostly geriatric, evacuated from London hospitals; many of these patients were sunk in torpor or indifference, which we genuinely tried to penetrate. There were relatively few service wards, with cases sent for longer-term treatment from frontline hospitals: these, of course, tended to be the librarians’ favourites—some of the nursing sisters occasionally murmuring that more jolly chat was exchanged than books. The work was quite arduous physically, as the hospital was entirely on one level, with long wards giving off the main corridors “herringbone” fashion. We librarians, having loaded our large, heavy trollies with carefully chosen books and magazines, pushed them for what seemed miles along the brown linoleumed corridors, which were in places on a slight slope, so that braking became a problem. We tried very hard to please our “customers,” but did not always succeed, and one failure prompted me into verse with this limerick:
There was a young man who said ‘Hell!’
when I gave him an Ethel M. Dell‡—
He wanted a tale
by Wren or Taffrail—
And he thought that the Dell was a sell.
In order to preserve and repair the books we also had to learn bookbinding: Nana Whyte, who came quite often during weekdays to keep me company at Chequers, joined our library team, and was a particularly skilled binder.
A feature of Chequers life at this time was the presence of a platoon of the Coldstream Guards, who were responsible for the general security of the house and grounds. They were supplied on a rotating basis from their London depot in Albany Street, where they were mostly waiting to join their regiment in the Middle East; I gathered that the “Chequers detail” was quite a popular respite from air raids, apart from the unusual interest value. The ranks were encamped nearby in Nissen huts, and the two or three officers lived in one of the lodges, their Mess with its kitchen being in a large tent in the field next to the garden. Their living conditions being fairly spartan, my mother offered them hot baths in the house during the week, and quite often at the weekends they would be asked to lunch or dine. The presence of these mostly charming and good-looking young men was very agreeable, enlivening weekday life, and I made some lasting friendships.
Although the tempo of life at Chequers from Monday through Thursday was markedly different from the to-ing and fro-ing of the weekends, even weekdays were not without their alarums and excursions. One evening in October the “young gentlemen of the guard” kindly asked me to dine with them. During the course of dinner our lively conversation was abruptly disturbed by the “swishing crescendoing [sic] clatter of a bomb uncomfortably near. Everyone ducked ineffectually—& waited—it seemed an age—before a comparatively small bump.…” We all went into the slit trench nearby, which was “muddy & spoilt my suede shoes,” I complained to my diary. Nothing further transpiring, we resumed our interrupted dinner. The following morning revealed “a LARGE crater about 100 yds from the Mess,” caused in fact by one of a stick of bombs that had fallen (fortunately) in the soggy field, causing no damage to life or limb. But at the weekend Jock Colville recorded that the company assembled had inspected the craters, and discussed whether “it was chance that they fell so close”; this was his opinion, “but the P.M. and Ismay incline to the view that it was a trial shot and may well have been done on purpose.”4
That week was an eventful one for our family also, as on 10 October Pamela, after her long and tedious waiting, gave birth safely to a boy. I recorded jubilantly in my diary: “4.40 a.m. WINSTON CHURCHILL Junior arrived. Hooray. Pam weak but happy. Baby not at all weak & only partially happy!” Some weeks later Churchills, Digbys, and godparents gathered for “Baby” Winston’s christening on Sunday, 1 December, which was held at nearby Ellesborough—the Chequers’ parish church—after Mattins; many of the congregation stayed on for the christening service. At luncheon afterwards, Winston proposed the health of his grandson and namesake as “Christ’s new faithful soldier and servant.”
It was round now that the feeling among those responsible grew that the clockwork regularity of Winston’s weekend visits to Chequers, when also so many people vital to the war effort were constantly present, was a security hazard—most particularly at full moon, when Chequers could be identified from the air. A solution to this problem was found through the patriotic generosity of Ronnie and Nancy Tree,§ who put their large and beautiful eighteenth-century house, Ditchley, in Oxfordshire, quite near to Blenheim, at the disposal of Winston and Clementine, their official guests, and family. I went on several of these visits, driving over from Chequers to join my parents. Nancy and Ronnie were the most perfect hosts, and the beauty of the house—especially coming into its warmth and glow from the chill, dark outside—remains a vivid memory; the contrast to the drabness and ugliness of wartime London impressed itself upon us all.
Studying the lists of visitors to Chequers or Ditchley, one can trace the urgent preoccupations of the moment—and with hindsight see inklings of what perhaps lay ahead. During August and September 1940, the Air Chiefs predominated—Air Marshal Charles Portal—“Peter”—Chief of the Air Staff; Sir Hugh Dowding—“Stuffy”—Chief of Fighter Command; and, a little later on, Sir Richard Pierce, head of Bomber Command. Leading soldiers were Lord Gort VC; Sir Alan Brooke, Commander-in-Chief Home Forces; Sir Frederick Pile, Chief of Anti-Aircraft Defence; General Ismay—“Pug,” the indefatigable puller-together of so many threads, a great “troubleshooter,” and a great favourite with us all. Among the politicians were Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for War; Ernest Bevin, the stalwart Labour trades union leader and now Minister of Labour; Oliver Lyttleton; Max Beaverbrook, brilliant as Minister of Aircraft Production, a great personal friend of Winston—and always “up to something” (but what? Clementine’s sharp eye was watching!); and Lord Halifax, soon to be ambassador to Washington. There was also a “regular” from Chartwell days—the Prof, soon to be Lord Cherwell and Paymaster General, Winston’s chief adviser. Invariably the weekend parties included family members, and quite often a friend of mine—Alastair Forbes or Robin Maugham; Judy Montagu or Fiona Forbes—came to stay; but any friend staying on at Chequers into the working week had to lend a hand at the library, and keep my hours. The continuous weekend entertaining soon proved too much for the original domestic staff, who in any case were proving increasingly hard to get—and there were also considerations of security: so it was decided that it would be appropriate for C
hequers to be staffed by members of the women’s services, and accordingly volunteers from the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) and the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) presently took over the running of the house.‖
I knew I could be of use to my mother at weekends, and I did my best in helping to look after the stream of guests; although she did not have the burden of running Chequers, the weekends for her were not restful, for she was always “on duty”: her life now, as the wife of the Prime Minister, was increasingly busy, and she was taking on more war work—such as the YWCA (hostels for servicewomen) and later the Aid to Russia Fund—and after a weekend of entertaining, as the war went on she often returned to London as tired as when she had arrived. Needless to say, it was thrilling for me to meet our guests: I got to know the “regulars” quite well—and of course I had my favourites. Although secret business was not discussed at mealtimes, nevertheless the conversation ranged over the war situation—fears for the present and hopes for the future—and it was very exciting to hear of events as they were happening, and sometimes to know a little of what lay ahead. Such was the case on Monday, 9 December, when my father was lunching at Chequers with myself and the Private Secretary: “Papa was worried and preoccupied and told me that at dawn this morning an attack was launched by the British troops in Libya. ‘Pray’ he said ‘for the victory of British arms.’ I prayed most fervently. Very anxiously waiting.” On the Wednesday after I got back from work “… Mummie rang up at about 7.45 and told me our army has had a victory [over the Italians]—Sidi Barrani is taken & many prisoners. Thank God—Thank God. It is too wonderful—after this dreary winter with so many blows—I could weep with excitement.” My parents returned to Chequers on the Thursday evening: “Papa tells us that approximately 30,000 prisoners have been taken!! Our joy and elation however a little darkened by the sudden sad death of Lord Lothian [British ambassador at Washington]. He will be a great loss.” My mother had a sore throat and retired to bed, leaving Jock Colville and myself to dine with my father. “At dinner Papa was pondering who to send to Washington … Papa in very bad mood over food and of course I couldn’t control him & he was very naughty & rushed & complained to the cook about the soup which he (truthfully) said was tasteless. I fear the domestic applecart may have been upset! Oh dear!”
For the sake of my amour propre, I am glad to be able to recount an occasion when apparently my influence with my father was more successful—though I was oblivious of this until sixty-one years later, when Professor Richard Keynes, whom I had the privilege and pleasure of meeting at Churchill College, Cambridge, sent me the story as told in the Royal Society’s biographical memoir of Charles Goodeve.
One Sunday early in 1941 the Prof arranged for Winston to see trials of a new type of anti-tank bomb which were being carried out in a chalk quarry not far from Chequers, and he took me along too. The news of the Prime Minister’s visit reached the ears of Charles Goodeve, a Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve officer and a brilliant inventor whose small team had already produced various effective devices in collaboration with Captain G. Davies RN. Both men were working nearby at MDI, the experimental unit at Whitchurch, Buckinghamshire, commanded by Major Jefferis—whence came the anti-tank bomb which was to be displayed this Sunday morning. Goodeve and Davies were trying—so far unsuccessfully—to gain official recognition and backing for a highly advanced anti-submarine weapon which had acquired the name of the Hedgehog: if only the Prime Minister’s interest—and hopefully support—could be enlisted, the protagonists of Hedgehog were sure its merits would be recognized. They attended the highly successful demonstration of the anti-tank bomb, and as the Prime Minister, after consulting his watch, remarked that it was “time for lunch” and began to walk back to his car, the Prof introduced Goodeve, who hurriedly described the Hedgehog to Churchill. My father listened with great interest, but said that he was sorry there was not time on this occasion to see this new weapon—at which point, it appears, I had caught up with my father and, grasping his arm, begged him to inspect Captain Davies’s bomb thrower, saying there was plenty of time to do so. Somewhat astonishingly, Winston relented, and the whole party proceeded to Whitchurch, where Hedgehog gave a highly convincing display: lunchtime was forgotten, the new weapon received the vital backing it required, and in due course it accounted for a large number of U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. I am of course greatly gratified after all these years to know that I had been a small link in this chain of events.5
Soon after the beginning of the Blitz, No. 10 became unsafe for habitation, and Winston and Clementine with their immediate personal staff moved into what became known as the No. 10 Annexe. This consisted of a series of offices directly over the Central War Rooms (with which they communicated directly by an internal staircase) and looking out over St. James’s Park, which were swiftly converted into living apartments. Winston was very keen on the concept of “business as usual,” and for a time continued to hold Cabinet meetings in the Cabinet Room at No. 10, and to entertain with Clementine in the fortified Garden Rooms there; but towards the end of 1940 conditions were such that it was both safer and more practical to transfer the whole of their life to the Annexe. My mother soon made the gaunt, unprepossessing rooms look almost pretty by painting them in pale colours, hanging many of their own pictures, and using much of their own furniture.
These arrangements had implications for my visits to London throughout the war years. Because the Annexe flat had been planned for Winston, Clementine, and their immediate secretarial and domestic staff, there was no room for a houseguest. Therefore, when I stayed, I was allotted one of the emergency bedrooms down below in the Cabinet War Rooms complex, with which the Annexe flat had direct communication; my clothes, however, were kept (mostly in my suitcase) in a bathroom used by the women secretaries (which cannot have been very convenient for them). At night, I would get into my nightclothes there and make my way “down below.” Passing the sentry on duty at the Annexe front door on my way up and down in my dressing gown and tin hat was a perpetual source of humiliation to me, as I imagined he must think I was the only “windy” one in the family!
In the last week of December there was a strange lull in war activity on land, at sea, and in the air. Christmas saw a gathering of our complete close family at Chequers, and the great gloomy hall glowed with the lighted, decorated tree: “This was one of the happiest Christmasses I can remember,” I wrote in my diary. “I’ve never before seen the family look so happy—so united—so sweet.… I wonder if we will all be together next Christmas?”
* * *
* The German pilot loss was “net,” while many of the RAF survivors lived to fight another day. Figures from Gilbert, Finest Hour, p. 791, n. 2.
† Lady Jane had been the cat’s paw of the Duke of Northumberland and her powerful scheming relations, who had attempted to secure the Protestant succession by declaring Jane Queen on Edward VI’s death in 1553. She was Queen of England for just nine days, until Northumberland’s army deserted him, at which point the Roman Catholic Mary Tudor (Henry VIII’s daughter with Catherine of Aragon) was proclaimed the rightful sovereign, and Northumberland and his associates went to the block.
‡ Ethel M. Dell was a poor man’s Barbara Cartland.
§ Ronald Tree was American by birth, but was wholly brought up in Britain and was a British subject. A Conservative Member of Parliament, he had long supported WSC’s campaign for rearmament. His beautiful and gifted Virginian wife, Nancy, was a daughter of one of the famous Langhorne sisters, and a niece of Nancy Astor.
‖ The arrangement continues to this day.
CHAPTER 10
Decisions … Decisions … Decisions
THE NEW YEAR OF 1941 WAS SNOWY: FIONA FORBES CAME TO STAY at Chequers, and we tobogganed merrily on the Beacon, using a sledge made for us by Sawyers, my father’s valet.
The victorious surge forward of Allied forces in Libya, which had started before Christmas, was marked by the capture of Bardia on Sund
ay, 5 January—a day dominated by news coming through at intervals about the progress of the attack:
After lunch we were in the long gallery. Papa came in & said ‘News from the battlefront’. This telegram said Northern section of Bardia defences pierced by Australians. Large numbers of prisoners. Only perimeter defences now holding out … At dinner came news—Bardia village taken—further advances. After dinner came the final triumphant communiqué ‘All resistance in Bardia has ceased’—2500 prisoners—including 2 corps commanders.
A feature of the early part of this year was the arrival from America of personal representatives of President Roosevelt. The first was Harry Hopkins; he was soon followed by Averell Harriman; and in March Gil Winant arrived as United States ambassador, a welcome successor to the anti-British and defeatist Joseph Kennedy (father of a later President). It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of these emissaries in building up the close relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt which would develop as the war progressed; moreover, they also got to know the War Cabinet and Chiefs of Staff. Winston deployed all his personal warmth and charm to win their friendship, and to convince them both of the firmness and effectiveness of Britain’s stand—and of our dire need for active and material help. He encouraged these important guests to go out and about in the country, and to visit especially the badly bombed areas, so that they could see for themselves what we were going through, and feel the mood of the people. Nearly every weekend one or other of these remarkable and very different men came to Chequers, so that Clementine and our family also got to know them quite well. Gil Winant was of course here on a long-term basis: looking like Abraham Lincoln, he was the most charming man, with an intense manner (and almost “invisible” voice), and he became a close family friend—especially of Sarah, with whom he fell deeply in love.
