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

by Mary Soames

  Mummie and I went ahead to the theatre. Papa arrived in time. The audience stood up and applauded him. Papa simply loved Private Lives—so did M & I. But it was an overwhelming joy to see Papa so happy and laughing … at the end John Clements came forward and made a most moving and charming little speech to Papa—and a crowd cheered him off … Back at Claridges we dined à trois gazing out over the lights of London. God knows when I shall see Mummie & Papa again—how I long to come home to them.

  The next morning, a lovely summer’s day, my mother walked with me across St. James’s Park at about a quarter to six to the centre to which servicemen and women returning to their European units reported.

  I arrived back at my battery to find a bustle of expectation, as Monty was scheduled to inspect us the next day. His visit passed off well; as he was leaving he summoned me to speak to him, and, as I wrote later that day in my diary, he “asked me so kindly about Papa and Mummie. I was deeply moved and touched by his genuine solicitude for them and his thoughtful kindness to me.”

  I HAD HARDLY BEEN back with my battery for three weeks when I received a letter from my mother which deeply concerned me. I had written to tell her that our regiment was soon to be disbanded, and that therefore I felt I could apply for a posting back in England. In her reply she wrote:

  what really excited & relieved me was that you say you [my regiment] may soon be disbanded & that you will apply for a post in England. Now my Darling please ask for a job at the War Office, so that you can live at home in your lovely bed-sitting room at Hyde Park Gate. Because I am very unhappy & need your help with Papa.

  I cannot explain how it is but in our misery we seem, instead of clinging to each other to be always having scenes. I’m sure it is all my fault, but I’m finding life more than I can bear. He is so unhappy & that makes him very difficult. He hates his food, (hardly any meat) has taken into his head that Nana tries to thwart him at every turn. He wants to have land girls & chickens & cows here [Chartwell] & she thinks it won’t work & of course she is gruff & bearish. But look what she does for us. I can’t see any future. But Papa is going to Italy & then perhaps Nana & I can get this place straight. It looks impossible & one doesn’t know where to start … Then in a few days we shan’t have a car. We are being lent one now. We are learning how rough & stony the World is.

  This letter galvanized me into action. Having been driven the 240 miles return journey to our regimental headquarters by a kind army chaplain to whom I had confided my anxieties, I had an interview with the “Queen AT.” She was most understanding about my situation, and thought it perfectly proper in the circumstances for me to ask for a posting to London. This was arranged quite quickly, and by the middle of September I was posted as an administrative officer to the War Office Holding Unit in Radnor Place in central London. The ATS officers lived in formerly luxurious houses in nearby Gloucester Square which had been commandeered for their use. This was ideal: my parents’ new house was just the other side of Hyde Park, so that even when I had only a few hours off I could visit them quite often.

  * * *

  * Simon, Anthony and Beatrice Eden’s elder son and a pilot officer in the RAF, had been reported missing while on active service in Burma on 23 June 1945.

  † Permanent Under Secretary at the Foreign Office.

  ‡ “G-men” was a popular nickname for FBI officers; OGPU was the Soviet secret police, a forerunner of the KGB.

  § Sir Ian Colquhoun of Luss. I had been a maid of honour when he was high commissioner in Edinburgh in spring 1943.

  ‖ U.S. Secretary of State.

  a Admiral Ernest King, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations.

  b Lieutenant Colonel Sir Eric Crankshaw, KCMG, Secretary of Government Hospitality Fund.

  c “G-men” was a popular nickname for FBI officers; OGPU was the Soviet secret police, a forerunner of the KGB.

  d 1906 saw a landslide general-election victory for the Liberals.

  e Secretary of State for War, 1940–42, and former Chief Whip for the government during the 1930s.

  f He would die early in 1947.

  g 28 Hyde Park Gate SW7. My parents bought the house later that summer: it would be their home until WSC’s death.

  CHAPTER 20

  “Civvy Street”

  AS SOON AS THE WAR ENDED MY FATHER BEGAN TO RECEIVE invitations from the erstwhile occupied countries to visit them and receive their thanks for the great part he had played in their deliverance. My mother was of course invited too—and so, on several occasions, was I. Having already witnessed the ecstatic welcome he had received in Paris, I would now accompany him to Brussels in mid-November 1945 and to The Hague and Amsterdam the following May; later that summer Randolph and I went with him to Metz, driving from there to Luxembourg.

  It was the most wonderful and unforgettable experience to be with my father on those occasions and to see the vast crowds which everywhere gathered to hail him. One realized that they were seeing the incarnation of that voice to which so many of them—often at danger to themselves—had listened in the dark years of their occupation by the enemy.

  Back at home my mother was trying to organize—or rather, reorganize—our family life both at Chartwell and in London. I see from my diary that during some leave I had in mid-September she and I spent time “beetling to Chartwell where we live in the cottage and push furniture about in the big house.” At the same time I noted that “happy contented news comes from Sarah in Italy,” where she was keeping my father company in the villa Field Marshal Alexander had lent him on Lake Como. After a few days, he picked up his brushes and—to the joy of us all—started to paint again.

  On 15 September I celebrated my twenty-third birthday at Chartwell with my mother and Nana. It was a happy day; but I was in fact at the beginning of what was to be a difficult and unsettled period in my life. I was finding my desk job quite tiresome—“processing” for demobilization ATS arriving back from overseas—and my excursions into life with my own contemporaries were proving disappointing. At the various parties to which I was invited I knew very few people: the young men who (through no fault of their own) had not “done the war” seemed hopelessly juvenile to me.

  I described in detail in my diary one party given by the Marlboroughs at the Dorchester for Caroline (my cousin and near contemporary) and Sunny Blandford, her brother (a good deal younger). Apart from one, “I knew none of the other Y[oung] M[en]—who were all in blues and looked very young and well bred.” Dinner—though itself not very satisfactory—was to prove by far the best part of the evening for me. I had arrived, I wrote, “full of hope and pleasurable anticipation,” wearing “my short blue and white striped dress [and] Mummie’s diamond brooch.” After dinner,

  we waited for le monde to arrive—the ‘gals’ bench very quickly emptied. I sat trying not to look like the wallflower I was and felt. Everyone was in long and some of them in lovely evening dresses—and everybody appeared to know everyone else. M[ummie] arrived—I would like to say she found me twirling with a fascinating parti—she did not. David Bruce danced with me—He is sweet but he bores me—and I him. I liberated him to dance with his pin-up Angela Jackson—she is very pin-uppable.

  I had one or two more dancing partners and caught sight of someone I fancied who sadly

  didn’t catch sight of me—and alas and alack was taken pity on by Giles [my cousin]. We gyrated slowly round the floor in silence. I felt more and more miserable and downcast. I felt jeune fille and stale and faded all at once. I felt mortified and conspicuous. At last unable to contend with events any longer I bolted. I told Caroline I had a headache and that Ally was taking me home—said my au revoir to Cousin Mary [Marlborough] and bolted from the place.*

  Outside a huge full moon poured light on the city—I walked quickly home. Spoilt, angry, mortified tears burst from me. Someone tried to pick me up—A kind Canadian soldier said ‘Was I ill?’—‘No … no’ I muttered striding on—realising suddenly I must look a little strange dashing
about alone sobbing! Westminster Cathedral was my goal—there I could cast myself down in incensed gloom and calm lights and before the merciful majesty of my God lay all my silly, hurt pride—my idiotic grief. My feet were so tired in high heeled shoes I almost fell against the door. It was locked.

  At last I got home. I don’t know when I’ve been in such a passion of misery. It was a mixture of many things—mortified pride, disappointment, hurt vanity—a dreadful desolation at the knowledge that I can be a success and have been—except in what is meant to be my own milieu … I was acutely conscious of how much I must be lacking. But O God what depths to plumb of tears and unhappiness and all over a party! La folie humaine où va t-elle donc se nicher?

  The next day, Sunday, “I woke feeling crushed and headachey. Mummie sweet. She and I went to a lovely comforting service at the Grosvenor Chapel. Lunched together—and here I am back at Gloucester Square.”

  I am happy to relate that not all my social outings were such a dismal failure—but the months following my return to England were, I see in retrospect, not on the whole happy ones. I was not due for demobilization for some seven months yet, and meanwhile I was in a quandary as to what I should do with my life after that. I was markedly lacking in any ambition, and had no qualifications for a career. In my heart of hearts I earnestly longed to meet “Mr. Right” and live happily ever after! But pending this desirable outcome I fully intended not to be idle.

  DURING THE LATE SUMMER of 1945 my parents had a delightful holiday in Switzerland. A gift to my father from the Swiss people, it took the form of the loan of a charming house—the Villa Choisy—between Geneva and Lausanne, standing in its own grounds, with the lawn sweeping down to Lac Leman. It was fully equipped and furnished with lovely furniture lent by many admirers. They would be there for about a month, and—until my mother had an unlucky accident in a boat in early September, resulting in some fractured ribs which caused her much pain—it was a great success. I was with them, and other members of the family and some close friends all came for visits. Painting expeditions, sightseeing, and picnics were all organized by M. Charles Montag, a painter friend of my father, and my father explored the opportunities offered by very large canvases and experimented with painting in tempera.

  It was during these holiday weeks that I made a long expedition into France to see my beloved French holiday governess of the prewar years—Mme. Gabrielle L’Honoré. I had managed to keep in touch with her intermittently; she was now living in a Maison de Bon Repos near La Frette in Isère, and it was there that I went to see her—and had a pleasant surprise, as I recorded in my diary:

  I expected to find an old, shattered invalid—perhaps a little wandering. Instead, I found her sitting up in bed looking much the same as I remember her. Despite poverty, loneliness and illness she is still sparkling with gaiety and vitality … We talked and laughed and remembered and wept a little too. She told me she is ‘croyante’ now—‘comme je ne l’etais pas autre fois’.

  I drove away in the evening “feeling humble, and so so happy to have seen her, and to have been received by her with such love and joy … all my life I shall remember her with loving and tender and grateful feelings.”

  A week later I turned twenty-four; the evening before I recorded in my diary my birthday text, which I had found while reading the Gazette de Lausanne: “Je suis trop petite, O Dieu, pour toutes tes grâces et toutes tes fidelités.”

  The plan had been for my parents to be received officially in Geneva, Berne, and Zurich; but, most disappointingly for her and for our hosts, my mother was still in too much pain from her ribs to take part in these events, and had to stay and be cared for at the beautiful Château de Lohn near Berne, which was our base for several days. Meanwhile, on 16 and 17 September successively I went with my father to witness his receipt of tumultuous ovations from massed crowds in Geneva and Berne, and then on to Zurich on the eighteenth, where we stayed at the Dolder Hotel (my mother remaining in painful seclusion at Lohn).

  On 19 September—our last day in Switzerland—my father addressed the students of the University of Zurich from a balcony in a speech that has since become famous for his theme—“Europe arise!”—and which came to be regarded as the clarion call for a united Europe. That night we dined as the university’s guests at an old and lovely house called “Schipf”: here, as I recorded in my diary, “we were greeted by the students lining the long, steep stairway to the house bearing aloft lighted torches. We dined by candlelight in a room where Goethe once was entertained.”

  During these wonderful days my father made a series of inspired speeches—some (as he would say) “off the unpinioned wing.” His theme through all of them was his concern for “the life and happiness of thousands of humble people who are constantly trampled and mauled by these fearful wars—and he quoted that bitter, moving cry from the days of the Jacquerie:† ‘Cessez, cessez gendarmes et piétons de piller et de manger le bonhomme—qui depuis longtemps se nomme—le bonhomme.’ ”

  On my father’s previous visit to Brussels in November 1945, Prince Charles had suggested that he should make another visit with the express purpose of painting. This had been duly arranged, and towards the end of September 1946 I once more accompanied my father to the Belgian capital, where we were the guests of the Prince Regent in the Palais Royal. Winston had some lovely painting days, which I happily noted in my diary: in Dinant he was “watched by an admiring but respectful crowd,” and the next day in Bruges “Papa settled down to paint in the Béguinage”:‡ here he was attended by charming Benedictine sisters and received a visit from the Bishop. Meanwhile the rest of us went for a lightning sightseeing tour of some of the sights and treasures of that beautiful city.

  At some point during these days the U.S. Secretary of State, Mr. Byrnes, had arrived in Paris, and through the American ambassador sent a message to say he would much like to see my father: consequently our plans changed, so that instead of flying back to London in the Prince Regent’s plane we would go on to Paris. Our last hours at the Palace were marred for me by the confusion and embarrassment caused by the idea, being canvassed in several newspapers in London and Brussels, that Prince Charles and I were to become engaged. At the farewell luncheon “I sat next to Prince C. But all ease had vanished. I felt suffocated and wretched.… Prince Charles was kindness and calm and understanding personified. And my heart warmed gratefully to his gentleness.”

  On the afternoon of 28 September my father and I flew to Paris, where we stayed with Duff and Diana Cooper at the embassy. The following day my father went off to see Mr. Byrnes, and Diana’s social secretary, Penelope Lloyd Thomas, was instructed to find some kind member of the diplomatic staff who would entertain me to luncheon. I was in Penelope’s office (now the Salon Or) while she was telephoning round, when in came a tall, thin young man—Christopher Soames—with whom she was lunching, and who had wearied of waiting downstairs (Christopher never did like to be kept waiting): we were briefly introduced before he took her off for their date. Later that afternoon my father and I flew home to London.

  To my surprise—for I had thought nothing more of our meeting—some weeks later Christopher rang me up to say he was coming home on leave and hoped very much we could see each other. I was pleased to hear from him—although a little puzzled—but I had to tell him that I was about to leave for Rome, to be with Sarah, who had been filming there and had been taken ill with a kidney affliction; she was now recovering, but I was being dispatched by my parents to join her and to keep her company during her convalescence. I felt somewhat disappointed that I should miss seeing Christopher and getting to know this impetuous person, but my plans were now made and I was eager to be with Sarah. So I duly left early on Tuesday, 22 October, for my long journey to Italy. My diary entry that evening records what happened next:

  At Calais a message awaited me from Christopher to say he would be coming to Rome on the same train—he was getting on at Paris. Sensation! At Paris we duly met, and the long journ
ey that followed was most enjoyable, completely unexpected, and most memorable. I tried mild reproaches to C. for boarding this train, but in the end I had to admit I couldn’t possibly have been more glad!

  Dinner à deux that evening was most pleasurable and our wagon-lit compartments were next door to each other, so in the morning we could open the door between them and resume our now-blooming acquaintance—which had progressed so swiftly that “as we emerged from the Simplon tunnel, C. asked me to marry him—I said NO.”

  On arriving at Milan, I was truly grateful for an efficient as well as an agreeable travelling companion, because our part of the train was delayed for eight hours. Christopher took a room for the day at the Continental Hotel, where we could rest, have baths, and generally tidy up. It was a fine sunny afternoon and we did some mild sightseeing, visiting the cathedral. Sitting in the Galleria, we were spotted by one of our mutual French acquaintances—a great gossipmonger—who, strolling by, must have been much astonished to see us. Our “secret” would now be radioed throughout the capitals of Europe. My diary recorded the last stages of our day: “Played gin rummy in the hotel. Dined well and romantically with music. Back to our train and off to Rome at 11.30 p.m.”

  The following day I spent mostly in my cabin,

  being read to or playing gin rummy or talking to Christopher. He managed to contact some of his Italian friends from his SOE days§ who met us at a station en route with delicious picnic food and wine.

  … Arrived in Rome to a great reunion with Sarah who looks pale and thin and is very weak. I am in a room next door to her—I am so happy to be here. C and I dined with her in her room. Long gossips and bed.

  I at once addressed myself to Sarah and her state of health, seeing her doctors and keeping our parents informed. She was on the mend, but needed to rest and put on weight in order to stabilize her “floating kidney” (the layman’s term for her condition). Christopher and Sarah took to each other instantly, and he sent her flowers with this verse: