A Daughter's Tale: The Memoir of Winston Churchill's Youngest Child

by Mary Soames

  Harry Hopkins quickly became a general favourite. The son of a harness maker in Sioux City, he was a social worker and administrator in New Deal days, and through Averell Harriman became close to the President; after his wife died in 1937 he lived in the White House. He was seemingly a most unlikely person to take to the British—our far-flung imperialism and class-oriented society being anathema to him—and indeed he anticipated personally disliking Winston: but mutual liking was instant, and the firm and lasting friendship which soon followed included Clementine and our family.

  Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt had first met briefly in London in 1917 when the former was Minister of Munitions and Roosevelt U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Navy. The meeting was not a success: Roosevelt took an active dislike to Churchill, who later actually forgot that they had met at all! But early on in Churchill’s time at the Admiralty, the President had initiated a correspondence between them which created a new and important link. Now, by sending Hopkins—his close confidant—the President was seeking to learn more about the man who had rallied his country in its hour of danger, who now held such a dominating position, and who was so obviously keen to establish a closer relationship with him.

  Harry Hopkins gave at first a somewhat dour impression, from which soon emerged great personal charm; he was painfully thin, with wispy hair, and he struggled with ill health, which he never allowed to deter him from his work. Poor Harry found Chequers very cold—we would discover him reading official papers wearing a heavy overcoat huddled in the downstairs men’s cloakroom, which was beautifully warm as all the hot water pipes ran through it. He had a delightful sense of humour. One day, taking a stroll in the grounds, he approached one of the Coldstream Guardsmen on patrol: “Are there many of you boys around here?” he enquired. “No Sir, only Guardsmen!” came the immediate reply—Harry was delighted.

  Whatever his original doubts about Winston, his colleagues, or our country, when Hopkins left us to go back to Washington, at a farewell dinner held for him he said: “I suppose you wish to know what I am going to say to President Roosevelt on my return. Well, I’m going to quote you one verse from that Book of Books … whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest, I lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” Then he added very quietly, “Even unto the end.”1

  In March the U.S. Congress passed the Lend-Lease Bill, which was of vital importance to us; and shortly afterwards Averell Harriman, the President’s personal representative, arrived in London to deal with all matters concerning the operation of Lend-Lease, and to recommend “everything that we can do, short of war, to keep the British Isles afloat.”2 Averell was also a colleague and friend of Harry Hopkins, to whom he was a strong contrast in every way: son of a fabulously rich American railway king, Averell had also made a fortune for himself as a banker and businessman; at forty-nine, he was good-looking, urbane, and full of charm. He came very often to Chequers—a popular guest, and soon a real family friend.

  I also got to know our Commonwealth guests. The South African Field Marshal Smuts, with his calm demeanour and wise judgement (so much valued by Winston), came from time to time; also Mr. Mackenzie King, the Prime Minister of Canada—very nice indeed, but a bit of a “maiden aunt”! A great favourite—and so nice to me—was Mr. Robert (Bob) Menzies, the Prime Minister of Australia. Later, in peacetime, he would bring his charming wife, Dame Pattie, with him, and also his delightful daughter Heather, with whom I would make a long-lasting friendship.

  Interspersed with our American and Commonwealth guests, of course, were our own team of political colleagues and service chiefs. Looking back now at the list of Chequers guests, it seems that 1941 was a bumper year—weekends often bringing two waves of guests to lunch or to dine and sleep.

  Early in this new year I made another visit to Petworth House, Sussex, for a dance given by Lord and Lady Leconfield. Leaving Chequers early on an icy Saturday morning, I took the train to London. It was the first time I had been in London since the previous August, and I was shocked to see the effects of a winter’s bombings: yawning gaps, boards replacing blown-out windows in many surviving buildings, apparently abandoned shops declaring in large letters “BUSINESS AS USUAL,” and many entrances shored up by sandbags. This visit also gave me my first view of the No. 10 Annexe flat, where I much admired how my mother seemed to have waved a magic wand over formerly unprepossessing offices. Arrived at Petworth I found an “enormous” house party assembling—some of whom I knew already, including Lucia Lawson and Penelope (Popey) Jowitt;* of the latter I would write in my diary that, as we were supposed to look like each other, I “spent my weekend saying what a charming pretty girl she is!” My hostess’s mode of dress again attracted my attention: “Violette [Lady Leconfield] was in excellent form dressed in a pale blue V-necked jumper—loaded with jewellery & wearing scarlet corduroy slacks!!”† The dance itself was “nothing short of heaven. Positively pre-war. Oh the glamour of not having tickets—& its not being in a hotel. [It is] my 3rd private dance!… Retired footsore & weary but very happy to bed at 4.30 a.m.”

  Two months later I came up from Chequers for another party of a very different character—none other than that hardy perennial, Queen Charlotte’s Annual Birthday Dinner Dance for debutantes, at which I and my co-debs had made our debut the previous year. This year my mother, Lady Jowitt, and Mrs. Lawson, with their daughters and attendant young men, made up a large table in the vast (underground) Grosvenor House Ballroom. At the rehearsal for the cake-cutting ceremony in the afternoon, we of the 1940 vintage rather patronizingly agreed, as I noted in my diary, that “this year’s debs aren’t much to write home about”! Just as we were going down for dinner an air raid began, but we only heard odd bumps and thuds above our chatter and the music. Emerging from the ball in the early hours after the “All Clear” had sounded, our party heading for nightclub life met barriers and closed streets, with ambulances and fire engines clustered round the Café de Paris in Coventry Street, near Leicester Square, which had received a direct hit: it was a place we all knew well, with a famous band, and it was always crowded. Recalling it now, I am a little shocked that we headed off to find somewhere else to twirl whatever was left of the night away.

  The changing of the Guard at Chequers brought some delightful friends into my life, and some quasi-romantic interludes—the latter of short duration, as the young gentlemen were in the queue for the Middle East and sterner warfare. One could always hear news from overseas—good and bad—through the regimental tom-tom service: thus I learned that Andy Drummond-Hay had been killed, and that Peter Cooper, to whom I was much attached, had been taken prisoner: I mooned about playing the record he had given me of our “theme” song, “All the Things You Are,” and writing unsatisfactory letters to which at long intervals I received similarly unsatisfactory answers. Tom Blackwell and Tom Egerton became good and lasting friends; but while they would survive the war, Tony Coates—Jock Colville’s first cousin, handsome and debonair—a real chevalier sans peur et sans reproche—would be killed in action in Normandy in August 1944. But that was all to come. Meanwhile these young men lunched and dined with us at Chequers when on duty there, and we saw each other on and off in London—leave and air raids permitting: the uncertainties of our lives undoubtedly heightened feelings.

  Local dalliances apart, in a period of two months I became engaged to be married—and then disengaged. At the end of March I was invited by Lord and Lady Bessborough‡ (longtime friends of my parents) to spend a weekend at their home at Stansted Park near Chichester in Sussex for a dance given by the RAF at nearby Tangmere airfield. During that visit I got to know their children, Moyra Ponsonby and Eric Duncannon. Eric, the younger of the two, was nine years older than I; an officer in his county regiment, he was extremely intelligent and cultivated, and much given to dramatic art (he was a near-professional amateur actor). I noted that he was “good looking in rather a lyrical way—very beautiful grey, wide set eyes, melodious voice. Cha
rming & easy.…” During the course of dining and dancing and walking and talking we got on well, and “he said as he left ‘May I ring you up?’ I do hope he will.…” Well, he did—and during April he courted me elegantly: a few letters, long telephone calls, an evening or two dining and dancing, and John Donne’s Collected Poetry and Prose, all of which predisposed me in his favour.

  During these weeks the war news was for the most part bad. By the first week in April we had evacuated Benghazi, which Wavell’s army had so triumphantly reached in February, and would soon be back in Tobruk, with all the ground we had gained lost to Rommel’s advancing German army; British forces sent to help the Greeks in March were evacuating by the end of April. These reverses led to a parliamentary debate culminating in a vote of confidence: the government won overwhelmingly, but still … Coventry was savagely bombed on 8 April, and London continued to suffer heavy night raids.

  My father, who was Chancellor of Bristol University, decided to award honorary degrees to Mr. Menzies and Mr. Winant. The degree ceremony was planned for 12 April, and in the event we travelled to it via Swansea, which had suffered a heavy raid. The party, which included also Averell Harriman, “Pug” Ismay, Jock Colville, my mother, and myself, travelled overnight by special train, arriving at Swansea early on the morning of 11 April—Good Friday. The devastation was fearful: the centre of the city had not a house standing. The morning was spent inspecting detachments of civil defence workers; Winston drove round seated on the back of an open car, and “wherever he went [people] swarmed around Papa—clasping his hand—patting him on the back—shouting his name.” Later that day we travelled on, spending the night in a railway siding not far from Bristol. During the night Bristol docks were heavily bombed: from our safe siding we could hear the distant bombardment, and when the train drew into the station at about eight a.m. fires were still smouldering and wreckage was everywhere. The Lord Mayor and officials who came to meet my father had been up all night; driving to the university we saw devastation even worse than at Swansea. We visited rest centres, and people surveying the still-smoking ruins of their own houses came running to cheer Winston—it was unbelievably moving.

  A building next to the university was still in flames, but the degree-giving ceremony went ahead. It was quite extraordinary. People kept on arriving late with grime on their faces half washed off, their ceremonial robes on over their firefighting clothes which were still wet.3 Afterwards, when we all came out onto the steps of the university, a huge crowd had gathered—“men, women & children—laughing—cheering—waving. And the sun had come out.” We went on to Cardiff, where again my father had a “stupendous” reception. By the time we got back to Chequers late that night we were exhausted, and wrung out emotionally by all we had seen in those two days.

  During these spring weeks Eric continued his courtship and I certainly became much attracted to him. At the beginning of May, he and Moyra came for the weekend to Chequers, and on the Sunday, in the White Parlour, he asked me to marry him. I must surely have seen which way the wind was blowing, but my diary shows me as being taken by surprise: “This evening Eric proposed to me. I’m in a daze—I think I’ve said ‘Yes’—but O dear God I’m in a muddle.” My family and closest friends were all very encouraging and sweet, but my mother was not very enthusiastic (which unsettled me a bit); my father—with other things to think of—was genial, but left it all to her. I vacillated between having real doubts and uncertainties, and—once with Eric—feeling “happy—confident—decided.”

  The families conferred, and no one could have been kinder or more welcoming than my future parents-in-law; Roberte gave me a beautiful brooch, and it was decided our engagement would be announced the following week. Eric bore me off to Leatherhead to meet General McNaughton, who commanded the Canadian army over here—Eric being one of his staff officers—and once more celebrations and congratulations were showered upon us. One sobering note was struck by my sister-in-law, Pamela, who was staying nearby at Cherkley, Lord Beaverbrook’s country house, and came over to see me. I recorded in my diary her wise—if at the time unwelcome—piece of advice: “Don’t marry someone because they want to marry you—but because YOU want to marry them.” Her words stuck in my mind.

  Meanwhile, on 10 May, Clementine wrote to Max Beaverbrook:

  It has all happened with stunning rapidity.

  The engagement is to be made public next Wednesday: but I want you to know beforehand because you are fond of Mary—

  I have persuaded Winston to be firm & to say they must wait six months—

  She is only 18, is young for her age, has not seen many people & I think she was simply swept off her feet with excitement—They do not know each other at all. Please keep my doubts and fears to yourself.

  Eric and I left Leatherhead on the Saturday morning to join my parents at Ditchley. There had been a very bad blitzing the night before in London (in fact it would prove to be the longest and heaviest of all), resulting in many fires, three thousand people killed or wounded, and the destruction of, among other buildings, the Chamber of the House of Commons. In consequence of this mayhem several stations were closed, and so our train journey to Oxford was by a devious route necessitating several changes on the way—and it was during this long and tedious journey that serious misgivings crowded in on me.

  At last we arrived, and found a large party already assembled, comprising our contingent and Averell Harriman, plus a mixture of the Trees’ family and friends. Immediately my mother whisked me off to her room and told me that she had discussed the whole matter with my father, that they had both been seized with serious doubts about Eric’s and my proposed marriage, and that they wanted our engagement put off for six months. I was of course aghast—but through my tears and protestations, I was aware of my own doubts and uncertainties crystallizing. My mother asked me directly if I felt certain of my feelings—and of course I was unable to answer: at this point she perceived (rightly) that I was not in love with Eric, and determined to do everything in her power to stop the whole affair. Feeling unable to distract Winston from the war, she commandeered Averell Harriman (to whom she had confided her anxieties) and asked him to talk to me: so while she went off to confront Eric with this unpalatable news, Averell asked me to go for a walk with him in the garden. As we paced round and round the formal box parterre, he begged me to take more time to consider this major decision in my life. That night I confided to my diary: “I can never say just how sweet & sensible & sympathetic he was. He said all the things I should have told myself.”

  Eric was of course mortified, but very nice to me—and very angry with my mother! Letters were sent by dispatch rider to the Bessboroughs, and drafted announcements rescinded (despite which there would be a few “leaks” in the press, which added to our general embarrassment). We all got through the evening in civilized fashion, aided by a long film. “Had a lot of cider cup—felt better,” I wrote in my diary—but I was perfectly aware I had behaved stupidly and went to bed feeling “crushed, humiliated, but fairly calm.”

  It so happened that this weekend of my emotional and romantic crisis coincided with a dramatic event in public affairs—and so mountains and molehills acquired their proper proportions. On Saturday, 11 May, Rudolf Hess, the deputy leader of the Nazi party, had flown to Britain, landing by parachute near Glasgow, where he was arrested and demanded to see the Duke of Hamilton. It so happened that the Duke, who was a group captain in the RAF, was commanding a station not far away. Hess, who was in a disordered mental state, had come with the self-imposed task of trying to persuade the British government that Britain could not possibly win the war, and that a negotiated peace was possible—but the prerequisite was that the Churchill government must go. Hess had met the Duke of Hamilton (a distinguished athlete, who had briefly attended the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936), and had found out that he held the appointment of Lord Steward of His Majesty’s Household; naïvely assuming that this meant the Duke was in constant attendance upon
the King and in a powerful political position, he decided that this was the person who could inform the King of his mission. All this news had been coming through to the private office piecemeal during the weekend; we in turn were regaled with it, and everyone was duly mystified and excited. Churchill sent for the Duke of Hamilton (who, poor man, greatly resented the possible slur this bizarre turn of events might cast upon his loyalty, which was impeccable) to come to Ditchley. He arrived, the object of consuming curiosity, on Monday morning, 12 May, just as the weekend party was breaking up, and my mother and I were departing for London (sans Eric); so our curiosity remained unsatisfied.

  I did not linger long in London—though long enough to go with my parents, when Winston arrived back from Ditchley, to view the ruins of the Commons Chamber and St. Stephen’s Hall. Just before I headed back to Chequers I went along the passage in the Annexe to the private office and called on Jock Colville, who was not only by now my friend and confidant, but also a longtime friend of the Bessboroughs. He wrote in his diary: “During the afternoon Mary told me her engagement to Eric was off—and that she felt in the bottom of her heart it would never be on again.”4

  AFTER THIS EMOTIONAL and upsetting interlude I found getting back to work quite difficult, particularly as I had told my companions in the library about my engagement, and a number of people on my “rounds” had read the rumours of it in the press: I found all this embarrassing and depressing. At home my family and our visitors were sympathetic and made “hopeful noises”—which did not accord with my mood. However, Gil Winant relayed a welcome message from Harry Hopkins (now back in the United States), whom he had told of my romantic crisis: “Girls as attractive as Mary should get engaged at least 3 times before marrying & and I send her my love.”

  The President’s special advisers had generally taken a very touching interest in my affairs, and I wrote gratefully to Averell shortly after that mouvementé weekend. I first of all thanked him for a handsome present of books which he had sent me for my hospital library: