by Mary Soames
† The Navy Army and Air Force Institute, which ran canteens in all service units of any size: they had a pretty middling reputation, but were probably better overseas.
‡ This worked out at 1s 8d per day—a little over 5p today, though of course worth much more then, when an agricultural labourer would earn less than £3 for a fifty-hour working week.
§ Many years later, I was really gratified to see in a magazine article about the women’s services that a distinct little upward “blip” on a table showing recruitment figures was labelled “Mary Churchill joins the ATS”!
‖ Small town in Shropshire near the English-Welsh border, whither we were bound for anti-aircraft training.
a A very large army establishment, about two(?) miles out of Oswestry. Several heavy anti-aircraft regiments and ATS “specialist” personnel (which included us) underwent training courses there.
b Whenever possible my parents continued to entertain in the fortified Garden Rooms at No. 10.
c Mrs. Georgina Landemare, a wonderful cook and charming personality. As a girl she had started as an under-kitchenmaid in a grand kitchen, and had risen “through the ranks”—and married the French chef M. Landemare. In the thirties she used to come for special weekends to Chartwell, but from the outbreak of war she came to cook for my parents full-time.
CHAPTER 12
Battery Life
AT THE END OF OUR LEAVE JUDY AND I, EXCITED AND DISTINCTLY nervous, reported for duty to 469H(M)AA Battery at Chaseside, Enfield. Before I left home I wrote to my father, who was still on the high seas:
My own darling Papa,
Just a little letter to tell you I love you, and that I hope you are well and have enjoyed the journey.
I so much enjoyed my trip with you to Scotland—although it made me sad and anxious to leave you.
Today Judy and I join our battery, which is situated near Enfield; I am so much thrilled by the thought of being in action.
And the fact that I shall be so near home makes me very happy indeed.
Please take care of yourself, and come back soon.
With love and kisses from your own kitten—
Mary
WOW!
My mother, in a letter to my father the following day, wrote:
Yesterday Mary’s leave came to an end; I took her & Judy in your car & deposited them as night was falling at their new camp near Enfield—In the gathering darkness it looked like a German concentration camp. It is a big piece of waste ground surrounded by suburban villas in the distance.—It has a high iron fence all round with barbed wire & locked gates …
Although first appearances were so dismal on a drear December evening, the gun site was in a pleasant open situation, and the living conditions were a marked improvement on our Park Hall accommodation, as I told my mother, to whom I wrote the day after our arrival:
There are about 120 ATS*—& we inhibit 1 spider comme a la Oswestry—BUT
1) We sleep in single beds & 25 per room.
2) The rooms & passages are much more cheerful—being painted white & green.
3) Each AT has a box & shelf & hooks.
4) The floors are ordinary boards which just need sweeping & occasionally scrubbing. Hooray!
5) Attached to the spider is a lovely rest room—with comfy chairs & a stove.
Thank God—the curse of NAAFI is not upon us. There is a small—but nice YMCA (delicious cream buns!) …
We shall only be able to get out 2ce a week from 4 to 11 & we don’t know which days.
The girls here seem very charming & I really think it will be thrilling, interesting & fun here.
The next day I managed to get home briefly, and wrote to my father about battery life:
10 DOWNING STREET,
WHITEHALL.
My darling Papa,
I am at the Annexe for a few hours ‘off duty’—and I find there is an opportunity of writing to you.
I was on duty at the gun site from 1 o’clock today. The ‘manning team’ sleep in a little concrete warren—ready (fully dressed in battle regalia!) to rush to the instruments. Twice during the night Judy and I took our turn to do an hour’s stretch at ‘spotting’—and watching for anyone suspicious on the gun site.
The battery I am with seems very agreeable. There is a great deal of work to do, for besides manning the guns we have fatigues and guarding duties to do. I am sure I shall be very happy there, and I am thrilled and proud to be part of the aggressive defences of London.
I hear that your journey was delayed by bad weather—I do hope when this reaches you that you will have arrived safely. It is very sad that we shall all be separated for Christmas—but I hope and pray we shall be re-united soon.
With loving thoughts and kisses from
your proud and devoted soldier—
Mary
I told my mother I would be “manning” on Christmas Day itself; my father being away, she decided to remain in London, inviting Nana to come up from Chartwell to be with her. On Christmas Day she wrote to me:
10 DOWNING STREET,
WHITEHALL.
My own darling Mary,
Yesterday at four o’clock Papa rang up from The White House. He might have been speaking from the next room. But it was not very satisfactory as it was a public line & we were both warned by the censors breaking in that we were being listened to.
Nana & I are all alone this Christmas, but we are not lonely because we feel Papa is serving the World & you and Sarah are also, & are happy in your work. We shall be here till Saturday when we go to Chequers till Tuesday morning.
On Boxing Day [Saturday] Diana, Duncan, Pamela, Archie Sinclair, Ivor Churchill & Mr. Winant are lunching with us at Downing Street. It would be lovely if you and Judy blew in then or any time …
Tender Love my own Darling & thoughts & Kisses—your present is here. I don’t send it as it would probably get lost in the turmoil of the Barrack Room.
The present referred to was a lovely turquoise-and-gold Victorian necklace from Mummie, Papa, and Nana.
To assist in our celebrations at the battery, my mother sent an outsize cracker and some delicious goodies. On 28 December I wrote to tell her how well they had gone down:
Thank you too for the food and the enormous cracker you sent to the barrack room. The girls were simply delighted & we had a lovely party on Christmas evening & the officers came & we pulled the cracker and ate the cake. I am very well—but tired as there were very gay exhausting parties both on Christmas and Boxing night and last night [27th] (after bundling down with the rest of the cast to perform our pantomime at the Battery hospital) I was manning on the predictor & so had an interrupted & short night. I am just going to have a lovely hot bath and retire to bed.
Meanwhile, across the world, my father had Christmased at the White House, and on 26 December he had addressed both Houses of Congress:
… How wonderful Papa’s speech was—& how thrilled and proud it makes me to know that he has ‘conquered America’. But how I long for him to be back.
Isn’t it lovely—I and Judy have got 24 hours leave from 1 p.m. on 31st!! Whoopee. Goodnight—darling Mummie—Love & Kisses.
On New Year’s Eve I wrote to my father:
My own darling Papa,
… Many, many congratulations on your two wonderful broadcasts [he had addressed the Canadian parliament on 30 December]. Whenever you speak free peoples everywhere lift up their hearts, and we in the fighting forces turn to our tasks with fresh courage and determination.
I have just had twenty four hours leave and I went home to see Mummie who was very well. I am back once more in camp just starting on a twenty four hour stretch of duty.
Happy and Victorious New Year—darling Papa.
With love and kisses from your
Mary.
When my father returned home on 17 January we were all so much relieved—it had been a long absence.
JUDY AND I would be with 469 Battery at Chaseside for nearly te
n months. It was, on the whole, a happy time—and certainly a busy one. From the local underground station (about a quarter of an hour’s walk away) we could be in central London in just over an hour, and usually had evening leave two or three times a week. Unless we had a special late pass, however, we had to be back in camp at eleven o’clock, which somewhat restricted our night life, entailing much anxious checking of the time and frantic rushing for the station.
Battery social life was very jolly, with fairly frequent all-ranks dances in the NAAFI. Outsiders could be invited to these, including American soldiers from a nearby unit; these visitors jazzed things up considerably, as many of our own gunners were married or not dance-inclined. Even so, girls predominated, and rather than be “wallflowers” danced with each other. Our officers also attended these dances, and naturally there was considerable competition to dance with our very handsome major; my section officer Mr. Green was also very good-looking and intelligent, which made long nights on duty less tedious. Predictably I fell for him—he was married (of course)—and I confided to my diary that I rather envied Mme. Vert.
But the focus of my off-duty life was home. As always, the atmosphere there was like a barometer which reflected the war news, which in the early months of 1942 was unrelentingly bad. Late in January Rommel launched a new offensive in the Middle East and drove our forces back to Tobruk; in the Far East the Japanese were advancing through Malaya while we were falling back towards Singapore, which surrendered on 15 February—an event pronounced by my father little over a month afterwards as “the greatest disaster to British arms which our history records.”1 Towards the end of February I had twenty-four hours’ leave: I lunched alone with my parents. “Papa is at a very low ebb,” I wrote in my diary. “He is not too well physically—and he is worn down by the continuous crushing pressure of events.… He has not weakened—never for a moment—but he is desperately taxed. O God, we need him so much—spare him to us.”
Meanwhile, on the family front there were tensions and difficulties. Randolph had been granted two months’ home leave, and at the end of January had made a powerful and pugnacious speech in a House of Commons debate on a vote of confidence.† However, as well as laying into his father’s and the government’s critics in Parliament, he had publicly attacked Lord Chatfield (recently a member of the War Cabinet) in a speech at the end of February, which naturally embarrassed Winston; and he also enraged his father by violently attacking his colleagues and criticizing the conduct of the war.
A further cause for friction and unhappiness between Randolph and both his parents arose from the fact (which he discovered on his return home) that Pamela had for many months been having an affair with Averell Harriman—a situation which was widely known in social circles, thereby adding to his hurt and humiliation. Randolph was convinced that his parents not only knew about the affair, but actually condoned it. Winston and Clementine were in an impossible situation. I do not believe they knew about the relationship for quite a long time after it began—and when they did, they did not want to believe it: Averell’s and Pamela’s behaviour was perfectly discreet, and he had been from the first persona grata at Chequers and No. 10—and indeed, needed to be so. They were devoted to Pamela (who was a model daughter-in-law in her relationship with them), adored “Baby” Winston, and hoped against hope that Randolph and Pamela’s differences could be healed and the marriage saved. Diana and Sarah knew about the situation long before I did (I think Sarah told me); all three of us were indignant on Randolph’s behalf, and loyally took his part.
Pamela’s relationship with Averell not only destroyed her and Randolph’s already rocky marriage, but was also the cause of a series of scenes at No. 10 when Randolph would turn up at the Annexe and provoke violent arguments with his father; after one particularly volcanic episode, Clementine, fearful that Winston might have a seizure, banned Randolph from their home for the rest of the war. On my own various visits to the Annexe, I either witnessed or heard distressed accounts of these appalling rows, and became furious with Randolph for causing such mayhem and misery.
Towards the end of March I had seven days’ leave, on the first evening of which my mother took me to see Vivien Leigh in Bernard Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma: returning home rather late, we found that
Papa, Diana & Duncan had already started dinner. Evening from here on was not a success. Papa tired, low & cross, had a row with Mummie. Then battle royal ensued between Papa, Mummie & Diana over Randolph. Randolph must go & rejoin his regiment if he is to save Papa from public resentment & disapproval which just at the moment he can ill afford. [I imagine I was referring to Randolph’s attacks on members of the government.]
Stirred up by this fracas, I wrote (I suspect a heated) letter (which does not survive) to Randolph, “begging him to rejoin his regt.”
Two days later, when I was alone with my father after dinner, he told me Randolph had shown him my letter: he strongly reproached me for such an unsisterly action, and “proceeded to show me two secret telegrams [from Cairo] which explained how justified R was in being over here.” I complained to my diary that I thought “R would have had greater dignity than to go running to Papa. I must say I didn’t know he [Randolph] set all that store by what I said or thought.” I poured into my diary the details of the severe scolding I received from my father, which of course upset me deeply:
It all hurts so much. I so much wish this bust up hadn’t happened. But I DON’T regret writing that letter … But darling Papa—if only you knew how reluctantly I did it [and] how grieved I am you’re angry with me. Well—then—in the middle of Papa lecturing me in walked R & Pamela. It was a little strained—but all right on the whole. I went to bed after about a quarter of an hour—R leaves for Cairo tomorrow—I said goodbye—Il y avait un peu de gêne—Papa in a hoarse whisper tried to make me say something about it [the letter]—but I wouldn’t … [Later] I weakly capitulated & vaguely promised I’d write to R about it. I went to bed feeling calm but a little saddened. I will not relent.
The next day I accompanied my parents to Caxton Hall, where my father was to address the Central Conservative Committee. Just before we left home, “Papa came in looking frightening & said ‘Have you written that letter?’ I said ‘No’ firmly. But I felt sick at heart.” As for Randolph himself, in April, shortly after his return to Cairo, he joined a parachute detachment of the Special Air Service (SAS), formed by Major David Stirling with the express object of operating behind enemy lines in the desert.‡
Happily for me, my leave was not entirely composed of family commotions! I shopped and bought a glamorous dress (according to me); became godmother to a school friend’s baby daughter; went to a luncheon and reception with my mother at the Soviet Embassy; and was taken by her to see another play—Old Acquaintance by John van Druten, starring Edith Evans. I also went to a party, staying up all night with Ali Forbes and other jolly friends, going to two nightclubs and finally eating an enormous breakfast at Lyons Corner House in Leicester Square:
Coffee, Sardines-on-toast, Waffles & butter & treacle. Oh heaven. And this perfect meal gave me the poetic brainwave [shades of Wordsworth] of seeing the dawn from Westminster Bridge!!! So we walked down Lower Regent St. & down the Duke of York’s steps & through St. James’s Park and across Parliament Square to Westminster Bridge. What a lot one misses by taking taxis at night in London. How lovely the night is—& what fun walking the deserted streets. I had brought a pair of low heeled shoes & made John put the others in his pocket. Just before dawn on Westminster Bridge wasn’t a let down—it was still & chilly & mysterious … And then—as the sky was growing paler we went home. Judy & I both agreed it was a perfect night & had hot baths. Mummie’s comment was: ‘Well I don’t mind you coming in at five, but at six—I draw the line—& what must the marines [on sentry duty at the Annexe] have thought!’ Went to bed from 8.30 till 12 & felt awful when I woke up.
My parents, Nana, and myself were all at Chequers for the weekend, and to my joy,
Sarah had some leave as well and came over on Saturday. She was now commissioned and doing highly secret work in photographic interpretation at Medmenham near Henley, only about an hour from Chequers. I was delighted to find I was sleeping in my old bedroom—the “Prison Room”—and went to sleep watching the firelight play on the old beams.
On Saturday I went with my father when he inspected the Second Division, which was stationed in Oxfordshire, preparing for overseas service. On the way my father talked again about Randolph and was “very cross,” but “I didn’t answer back or argue at all—out of wisdom I hope—perhaps cowardice—yet somehow I felt hopeless about making Papa see it at all as we see it.” I reflected that in fact I had come to care for Randolph more than I had in earlier times (the age gap of eleven years having put him beyond my reach as a child),
and now I seem to have alienated Randolph—& which grieves me to the heart—hurt & angered Papa & destroyed that understanding & sympathy that really had grown strongly between us—& which alas had naturally diminished a little as we see so little of each other—& now this has dealt it a blow. However later he was sweet to me—but I felt a little chilled inside & fearful.
That evening Lord and Lady Louis Mountbatten arrived for dinner. He was then Chief of Combined Operations—good-looking and most affable: “Sarah & I both fell for him in a big way! [I remember we somewhat disrespectfully dubbed him “Glamour pants”!] All through dinner news of the St. Nazaire raid§ kept coming through. Thrilling.”
I stayed up talking to Sarah very late, and on Sunday morning “I woke about 9. Had breakfast in Sarah’s room—after we went into Mummie’s room & gossiped & greased our faces.” The rest of the weekend was pleasantly uneventful, with two of my friends, Ali Forbes and John Bruce, coming down from London for luncheon. After dinner Saturday and Sunday we had films—Les Misérables (“which I thought bloody awful—Papa the sweet, said ‘Fine film’ ”) and Wuthering Heights. It had been lovely for me seeing Sarah, and having a good “catch up”: we confided to each other that we were “both dreading going back.”
