Love in the Blitz

by Eileen Alexander

  However, we found Leicester Square & Piccadilly Circus completely roped off – to safeguard the public from the effects of four delayed-action bombs which they are harbouring.

  We were just walking sadly back to the tube-station when the sirens went and we took shelter in a basement, dimly lit by four hurricane lamps – so that knitting was out of the question – though, of course, I had your scarf with me, darling. Somebody said – inevitably – ‘What do you think of it all?’ which provoked a violent outburst from a tight-lipped, desiccated, decayed genteel old woman sitting beside me. ‘If you’d been in the East End,’ she said bitterly, ‘you’d know what to think of it all. “The spirit of the people is fine” the papers say – I’ve seen ’em – I know – It’s all very well for people like you –’ She turned angrily to me – (I had asked her if it would be alright to smoke – and she obviously thought I was a flibberty chip of a Mayfair block). ‘If one of your houses gets blown down you can go to another – but the poor folk lose their homes & their families, and then they’re left to shift for themselves. Ask them if they want peace. They’re crying out for it – craving for it – They want to live.’ Here a rather attractive slow-voiced girl – I think she probably worked in a shop – interposed & asked why the ‘Cosmo’ shelter had been closed down – and a motherly charlady replied that the public had made an awful muck of the carpets – fair tore ’em up – Then she turned to me and said, ‘Are you comfortable on that box, dearie? Come & sir ’ere – you’ll spoil your pretty dress.’ (I was wearing my rill red dress, dear) I said thank you very much but I thought I’d like to stand for a little while – and then a nice old man advised Lionel to move away from the window: ‘We don’t want nothing to happen to you’ – and the All Clear went. So you see, darling, as things are it’s almost impossible to move from home. It’s depressing and exhausting but if I were asked to choose between death and a shameful peace – I would choose death – Wouldn’t you? The only price I couldn’t pay would be your life.

  Yesterday, as Pa and I were walking away from the City, we met Mr Gestetner’s chauffeur outside Mr G’s office – and he said if we’d wait a few moments he was sure Mr Gestetner would send us home in his car. He did – but he insisted on making a detour to inspect the damage on the Embankment. Darling, every window in the Northumberland Avenue department of the War Office (where I sat waiting for you on a crate months & months ago) is shattered – London is an unreal city, hushed & expectant. It was sobering to see Piccadilly Circus & Leicester Square completely deserted, & people standing about at the barriers waiting for something to happen.

  Oh! – and Captain Wingate is now Major Wingate. Mr Gestetner says he’ll be a General before the war is over, unless he’s shot in the interim for Insubordination, and I’m sure he’s right.

  Thursday 12 September It was no good staying in splendid isolation in the house last night. The Primrose Hill AA batteries, which, as you know, are less than a quarter of a mile from our house, were firing every three minutes from 8.15 till 5.30. We could even hear the whirr of the reverberating steel after the guns had fired – and occasionally pieces of shrapnel clanked onto the stone path in the garden. When I left the house for the shelter there was a huge fire in the East, and a bomb exploded about five hundred yards away from me, lighting the sky as though a triangular sheet of magnesium had been ignited – and at the edges, showers of molten earth were thrown up.

  Darling, in all my life I’ve never heard such terrible, heart-rending noise. We really are in the front line here. Sleep was, of course, out of the question. Lionel & I amused ourselves by wondering how our various friends in London were reacting to the havoc outside. The Sassoons, we decided, would be praying hard – in the cellar – you know, trusting in God & keeping their Anderson shelter dry. Aunt Teddy (who has reduced Parsimoniousness to a Fine Art), would probably be saying querulously that Gerta & Malcolm ought really not to keep up a town house and a shelter, when they only lived in the shelter. Jean, I suspected, would be slapping her thigh and telling one of her Air Commodores that she thanked God she was in this war – God! and in it up to the neck, too – and so on.

  I’ve had a letter from the Air Ministry at Bletchley asking me if I’d like a job as a Computer Clerk in the Intelligence at £3. 10/- a week. I might be asked to go abroad and then my pay would be doubled. I’d have to pay 21/- a week for board & lodgings out of my earnings. I may go to the interview & say I’d do the work, provided I didn’t have to leave England. It is translating Italian documents – and might be interesting & useful – even though it is not munificently paid – and after all I’m living on £1 a week now – that pays for my cigarettes, having my hair washed – ’bus & train fares – wool for your accessories – stamps and sundries – so really I’d be rich on £2. 9/- a week, wouldn’t I, darling? – especially if I sent my washing home – but I’m not going to hurry over any decision.

  Friday 13 September Last night was an exact repetition of the night before, except that I couldn’t stand the shelter for long stretches and I had to keep going in and out of the house for a change of atmosphere. I did half-sleep during the night this time – but I feel heavy-headed and dim – and I woke up, darling, in a state of intense receptivity to mollocking! – now I know how you feel in the morning – I never did before.

  Mr Gestetner was to have lunch with us today – but he rang up to say that he’d have to stay at the works as they had a time-bomb in the courtyard. Sir Robert Waley Cohen has a time-bomb in the garden of Caen Wood Towers and the Inverforths had four bombs in their grounds last night and two on the house. The two top storeys are demolished, and they’re living on the ground floor and in the basement. Isn’t it dreadful, darling? Pa’s lecture has been postponed because the Chairman of the Royal Empire Society feels that people ought not to be gathered together in large numbers in the late afternoon at the present time.

  Darling, did I tell you that Ismay’s new house at Kings Langley leads on to ‘Lover’s Lane’? Could anything be more inappropriate – Ismay, who had to teach Charles to knit because she didn’t know what else to do with him in the evenings! Ye Gods!

  Saturday 14 September I missed a terrific Drama last night because I was in the house, seeing Duncan. I was just on my way downstairs when I remembered that my mother had asked me to fetch her bag, and I went up again to get it from her bedroom. While I was upstairs I heard the whoosh of a bomb – then an explosion & the tinkle of shattered glass – immediately afterwards one of the Guns on Primrose Hill answered back in no uncertain terms. When there was a lull I went back to the shelter to find Nurse, (who has just come back from her honeymoon), in hysterics – because she’d seen the flash of the AA Gun reflected on the wall and she was vowing (in her own idiom, which is rather different from mine) that she’d Never be the Same Again. Then there was another scene with Pa – but I won’t weary you with that.

  I’ve just had a letter from Ismay (yesterday evening.) Charles has got his commission & is having a week’s leave. Hurry up, darling, I don’t like being outstripped by Ismay. What Charles can do in a year, you surely can do in a month.

  Tuesday 17 September Darling I forgot to tell you Jean’s latest & most supreme example of tact – ‘Gershon is a Wireless Operator, isn’t he?’ she said. I told her that you were. ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘I heard a very comic story about a wireless operator the other day. He was a boy scout and a protégé of the Director of Intelligence – and he wrote to the D of I as follows: “Dear Sir, The pay Sergeant says I get 21/- per day – I asked him how much this was per week and he answered, ‘Don’t be a fool, no wireless operator has ever been known to live a week.’ Please, sir, will you confirm this.”’

  Thursday 19 September Darling, I had visions of the Inverforth’s camping out on the ground floor with nothing but a longish tarpaulin between them & the rude blasts of Autumn – Actually, it isn’t quite like that. Only one wing of the house is really badly damaged through all the floors.
In the rest of the building the roof of the attic rooms is badly burnt – but the damage has not gone through to the other floors. We had our first war-wound last night, when the kitchen window was shattered by a jagged lump of shrapnel – There were no casualties. Lionel & Dicky have a new game. They hunt for shrapnel in the garden and then pore ghoulishly over the kitchen scales, Weighing their Catch!

  Your letter did come, darling, and by the same post I heard from a Lieutenant Colonel at Bletchley, asking me to go for an interview on Monday.

  I think I spoke a little too soon about the wreckage of the Inverforth home. Nita has just wrung up to say they’ve had another high explosive bomb in the garden & all the windows in the other wing (frames and all) have been ripped out. Lady Inverforth, who is a chronic invalid and 73 years old, was lying in her bed when her windows crashed to the ground. When her husband and daughter rushed in to see how she was she said, with the charming Scots accent that she’s never lost, ‘Och! Ye know – it’s a wee bit draughty – but I’m thinking I’ll stay where I am.’ I don’t think Hitler is going to win this war, dear.

  Oh! darling, you’re not serious about saluting Charles? – I’m sure he’s a rotten hugger – he must be a silly mollocker altogether – he always reminds me, when he’s with Ismay, of a bantam prancing round a chicken.

  Saturday 21 September My parents say that if Pa & I don’t get jobs soon, we ought to leave London after Lionel has gone back to school – (His term begins next Friday) I don’t know what to say. We’ve got a circle of ruined buildings within a radius of half-a-mile, and I haven’t slept for three weeks, except very fitfully. Oh! Darling, what do you think? The thought of running away makes me feel ill – but we’re not much use here, really, unless we have something specific to do. I’ll write more tomorrow – I’m too tired to think now.

  The Inverforth’s have a time-bomb & a Messerschmidt in the garden! They’ve roped off the bomb, and are exhibiting the bomber at threepence a time for the Hampstead Hurricane fund. Even a war has its comic side.

  Monday 23 September Good morning, darling. (I’d no sooner written that than the car arrived to take me to Bletchley – and here I am in the Labour Exchange waiting to be Looked Over.) This is a sordid place, darling, and seething with the most awful down-at-heel Girtonians – (They’re not down-at-heel because they can’t help it – most of them are like that because they make a cult of it. They did – even as Undergraduates – their dun-coloured wispiness was an acute disease then – now it’s become chronic – some of them are working here already – some are here for interviews – but one and all have amalgamated into a girlish gaggle – oh! my dear love, if I get this job, you’ll have to spend every moment of all your leaves being a Solace.)

  I’ve had a glimpse of the Colonel – He’s bent in the middle – and anaemic and he has nicotine all over his white moustache. The girl who is being interviewed before me gave him a Bold Look – and he wilted. When my turn comes he will give me a Bold Look – and I’ll wilt. Life is like that.

  Darling, as usual you were right. The work of a Computer Clerk has something to do with computation. When I got into the interviewing room – a shaggy man in corduroy’s asked me if aeroplanes were ‘my line of country’. I said not exactly, & was tempted to add that Launcelet usually got from place to place on a horse. However, I didn’t – which was perhaps just as well. He then showed me a passage from an Italian newspaper – It was a detailed and technical description of the Heinkel No. 113 – but as words like ‘fuselage’ and ‘retractive’ etc. are much the same in every language, it wasn’t difficult – & when I’d finished, the shaggy man said ‘Excellent’ and Col. Makin coughed approvingly – and then we went on to other matters. I was made to write my name in block capitals as small as I comfortably could. (Don’t ask me why, darling – I shall probably Never Know.) This was All Right, too – but then the Blow Fell. ‘Now we come to the figures tests,’ said the Man in Corduroys – and the words struck chill against my ear. ‘Repeat these after me,’ he said, pattering off a string of figures. Well, I could do that too – but, darling, when he made me write a string of nine figures in each corner of the page and then said ‘Add those up’ – That was my end. ‘May I put them together?’ I asked tremulously. ‘You may not,’ he snapped. So, thoroughly rattled and terrified by this time, I did my best – but it was all wrong – and he said ‘I’m sorry – but that’s a vital test for a Computer Clerk. It’s a pity because your Italian is very good – but I’ll send your name into another department, where no mathematical qualifications are needed – and if they have a vacancy, they’ll communicate with you. I hope it wasn’t because we were rather rushed for time that you couldn’t manage those figures.’ I assured him that it wasn’t – I couldn’t have done the addition if I’d had all afternoon. So, my dear love, I’m still unemployed. Oh! It makes me feel ill to think that fool of a Barbara Parker, who looks like a wilted leek and got a sweated third in Modern Languages, should have been computing for two months. She must have been able to deal with those damned figures. Oh! What a Sorrow.

  Tuesday 24 September Oh! darling, they must have been very impressed with my Italian – because, in spite of the fact that I couldn’t add sideways, I’ve had a letter from Col. Makin to say that I’ve been enrolled as a Computer Clerk, and that I’ll hear from the Air Ministry in ten days or a fortnight! I’m in a glow of Solace – what with your long letter and this news.

  Thursday 26 September Did you hear Lord N on the wireless last night? ‘You can’t write too often,’ he said – bless his heart. My mother & I exchanged Significant Glances when he said this. Talk about Little Father.

  Darling, I’m feeling Uneasy in my Conscience about exceeding my smoking ration – because you never really released me from my promise, did you? Oh! Dear – I’d never make a successful sinner, would I?

  I don’t remember what the figures were, darling – but it’s obviously not material, since they say they’ll have me in spite of All. And talking of jobs – Lord Nathan has just offered me one – but, alas, too late. My work would have been to go and see the families of Worried Soldiers imploring them to Write more often, and to call on the Mayors of Boroughs, begging them to look after the wives of men in the Forces while their husbands are away. I’m going to do the work temporarily – and voluntarily, until Bletchley Calls.

  Monday 30 September I’m going to help Lord Nathan from tomorrow and it’s an all-day job – so I may not have time to do more than scribble a note during the day – though I’ll do my best to manage more than that – if I have to get it done in the lunch-hour with a beef sandwich in one hand – and a cup of Camp coffee spilling all over everything.

  Tuesday 1 October Oh! Darling, any job which involves reading other people’s letters is my delight. I had some very choice ones to deal with today. There was Mrs X who wanted her daughter back from the mental home where she’d been detained for 15 years – all because, when she was 17 she had a baby – not, mind you, that she was a One for the Men – but the man Wot Done It had a spite against ’er (sic) father – and then she was shut up – but there was nothing wrong with her except she couldn’t read nor write – and Lord Nathan’s talk on the wireless was that friendly – could he do something about it, please? – and there was Lance-Corporal Y. who wanted compensation for his bombed house in London ‘Luckily my wife and baby were saved – so was my mother-in-law.’

  I work for a man named General Buchanan – I classified letters under various headings today – tomorrow I’ve been promised something more constructive.

  Darling, it’s sad to see the tube-stations full of people settling down for the night with rugs and children & thermos flasks at 3.30 in the afternoon. There isn’t room at Swiss Cottage to move.

  Oh! Darling, Galahad died of Solace, when he saw the Holy Grail – I’m afraid that’s what is going to happen to me when you have leave.

  Wednesday 2 October Lord Nathan looked at me in puzzled
bewilderment & said he hadn’t recognized me because he’d never seen me wearing anything but black. (I’ve got my red woollen dress & grey jacket on this morning.) I love working here, darling – I have an office to myself & two telephones (but alas! they’re both black – my Greatest Ambition is to have an office with two telephones – one red and one white – and a private radio-telephone to you – a green one – jade-green. When that happens, my dear love, I shall have Arrived) and writing letters is what I was Born for. General Buchanan apologized for not having a spare short-hand typist to take things down to my dictation! It was a Very Beautiful moment.

  Thursday 3 October Lady Nathan was in here all morning dealing with cases that can get help under the Ministry of Health Evacuation Scheme. I will say this for Lady N – she’s astonishingly efficient.

  You’re wrong about the work here, darling. It’s responsible and interesting. Lord N said this morning that he was extremely sorry I couldn’t work here permanently – ‘There are a thousand things you could do,’ he said, ‘and you’d be very well paid.’

  Lord Inverforth’s time-bomb (he’s had two since then – one never went off) exploded on the Front lawn – there isn’t much left of the Front lawn. Mr Gestetner’s was harmlessly removed.

  Darling, whenever you want to kiss me, tell me, and I’ll stop smoking and suck peppermints instead – In fact, when you have leave, I won’t smoke a single cigarette without your permission.

  Monday 7 October Shakespeare is my Greatest Solace after you, darling. I feel quite light-headed after hearing Hamlet last night. My mother is in Great Sorrow at the thought of Pa’s imminent departure for the Isle of Man – (Oh! my dear love, he’ll be within 46 miles of you on his way there). She isn’t going with him because she feels she ought not to leave the children & me. We went past Gray’s Inn3 on our way back from Finsbury Square. ‘That’s your Young Man’s inn,’ said Pa reluctantly, and I Saluted it Reverently. He then went on to tell me that all that was left of Inner Temple Hall was the walls – and he said it almost as though it were your fault, darling!