The Years Between (1939-44)

by Cecil Beaton

  When Diana got a job as an interior decorator she told her father of her doubts. ‘Do you think it’s wise to work in such a dowdy shop? They make money — do awfully well — but so dowdy!’

  ‘Dowdy? Why, all England’s dowdy!’

  PHOTOGRAPHING WINSTON CHURCHILL

  The prospect of photographing the Prime Minister next morning prevented me from sleeping most of the night. I knew it would be a difficult job, but it was most important that I should succeed. As with anyone whom I enormously revere, I am always paralysed with shyness in the presence of Churchill, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to wear down his gruff façade in the short time that had been allotted for the sitting.

  It was a cold grey morning and Dorothy, the maid, was slow in bringing the wretched little pot of hot shaving water (we have been two months without a bath at home — still no gas!), and I was late in starting off. When I got to No 10 they were all rather feverish, Mrs Hill, Churchill’s secretary, saying she had tried to call me to come earlier but my line was always busy, and now the Prime Minister was already in the Cabinet room and would not allow the lights to be rigged up there while he was working. Would we like to fix up something somewhere else? I was whisked down to see Mrs Churchill. On my way I noted that the symbol of Western survival had evidently hurried out of his tub that morning, and there was a trail of wet feet along the corridor, together with damp bath towels and a dripping sponge on a window-sill. Far from being surrounded by footmen or valets who ministered to his needs, Churchill has to manage his own bath, and however late he might be for a Cabinet meeting or an audience with the King, there are no short cuts even for his daily ablutions. Very feverish and excited Mrs C. seemed to be and said, ‘You must come and see Winston right away.’ Before I demurred that my preparations were not complete, all a-flutter, all flurries and staccato darts and jabs, Mrs Churchill put her head around a succession of mahogany doors. ‘Is the Prime Minister in there?’ Further doors leading to Adam rooms were opened, and from the final secretary’s room I was able to catch my first glimpse of our goal. Through a double door, heavily lined, and framed by a couple of white columns, at the centre of an immensely long table, under an eighteenth-century portrait hanging above the noble chimneypiece of white marble, sat the Prime Minister. The huge Cabinet table stretched to left and right. The tall windows were, here and there, pasted with improvisations of brown paper. Mr Churchill appeared immaculately black, white and pink; fat, white, tapering hands deftly turned through the contents of a red leather box at his side. A vast cigar was freshly affixed in his chin. He was deeply engrossed.

  But Mrs Churchill’s entrance broke the solemnity of the atmosphere. All smiles and femininity, Mrs Churchill beamed, ‘You know Mr Beaton, don’t you? He’s come to take a photograph of you.’

  ‘Ah, yes!’ He pierced me with his cold blue eyes, and barked, ‘I hear you’re very clever!’

  The interruption was obviously displeasing and who, indeed, would wish to be deflected from the business of running a war by a photographer? The Prime Minister grumbled gruffly, inarticulately, huh-hummed. In desperation I threw down my trump card. The first photograph, just rushed through, of his grandson, Winston Junior. The atmosphere lightened for an instant, but then what else to do but leave the presence immediately, for what use is a photographer without a camera or fight? Mrs Churchill had disappeared, smiling, into thin air, perhaps as embarrassed as I, perhaps oblivious. I made a hasty retreat and threw myself on the mercies of understanding and competent secretaries. Where could we most easily and quickly fix up the fights? No 10 is now a nutshell, most of the furniture and pictures are gone, only a few secretaries’ rooms have the necessities.

  Mrs Hill, always kind and helpful, hurried from her silent typewriter opposite the Prime Minister to whisper that perhaps the reception room would be most suitable, but we must hurry as there was an 11 o’clock appointment. In a frenzy we tried to arrange the necessary paraphernalia, but the devil was in my Indian assistant, Haupt, today, and the fights would not go on. The big antediluvian camera was still buried in its case, and even the procedure of unpacking it was a lengthy one. Already panicking at the thought of the rush there would be at the last moment, I compromised on making a half-hearted arrangement of portable lights and smaller camera trained on to a yellow marble pillar in an upstairs room. Haupt and I then hurried down to the ground floor to await our fate outside the Cabinet room armed, just in case, with a Rolleiflex and some flash bulbs.

  At ten minutes to 11 o’clock we were still waiting outside the mahogany door. Senior secretaries, who were playing their important roles in fighting the war, passed by. I noted with relief that they all seemed cheerful and at ease. Perhaps the war was not going so badly after all. At 11 o’clock the butler took a glass of port into the Cabinet room, and came back confiding that the Prime Minister had just started dictating to Mrs Hill.

  The Whip, David Margesson, appeared and talked about the latest air raid damage: minor secretaries crossed and re-crossed the hall. It was 11.10. At 11.20 some more Government servants appeared. Without doubt the Prime Minister must leave at 11.25. He had a Cabinet meeting at 11.30!

  Mrs Hill, white and worried, put her head around the mahogany door. ‘No time to go upstairs. Would you just come in here and take a few pictures now?’

  I went into this noble room again. Churchill, still with cigar in mouth, looked so lonely and alone in this large room. This would make an aptly symbolic picture. From my distant vantage point, I clicked my Rolleiflex, and Haupt let off a flash. This surprised the Prime Minister. Although his sentences were not perfectly formed, I would hazard that the following would be an interpretation of the barks, wheezes and grunts that turned my blood cold: ‘Hey, damn you, young fellow, what the hell are you up to with your monkey tricks? Stop all this nonsense! I hate candid camera photographs! Wait till I’m prepared: the glass of port taken away, my spectacles so — this box shut, the papers put away thus — now then — I’m ready, but don’t try any cleverness on me!’

  The PM settled himself and stared into my camera like a bulldog guarding its kennel. Click! ‘One more, please.’ By slow degrees I stealthily stalked my prey, coming at last within close range of him on his left side. He glowered into the camera, and by slow degrees dissolved into half a smile. Good humour prevailed. ‘Sorry I can’t go upstairs to the lights, but come again — come another day!’

  By now three minutes must have ticked away on the clock. Dare I venture? ‘Would you turn this way?’ To my intense relief he turned his head and in reply again I clicked the camera. ‘But come again another day. I’d like to see something that isn’t just another photograph.’ He rose from his chair. I asked, ‘May I take a flash of you as you walk along the corridor outside towards the front door?’

  ‘Certainly, so long as you don’t photograph me putting on my coat and hat — no fooling about!’

  We are in position; the PM, ready for the day’s business, was about to make his stately progress along the hall. The flash went off twice. I moaned an aside to Haupt, ‘But that was a double flash!’ The PM stopped. ‘Does that mean it’s ruined? Does that mean it won’t come out?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ And once more he turned on his heel and walked back the length of the hall to repeat the exodus for me.

  Yes, indeed, the devil was in Haupt today. He took for ever to put the new bulb in. Lighting his cigar Churchill waited patiently, while Haupt, all fingers and thumbs, tried to reload the flash lamp. Finally Churchill said, ‘I must go now. I can’t wait.’ Haupt at last was ready and let off his flash — but far too soon. Oblivious of the disaster, Mr Churchill now in excellent mood, smiled benignly at me. I had not the heart to let him know that his magnanimous gesture had been unrewarded. Nevertheless, I was later able to beam with satisfaction myself, for although less than five minutes had elapsed since we had been admitted into the Cabinet room, one of the results on our negatives made a little history.

  FIRE OF LONDON

  December 30th


  The city was still in flames after last night’s raid when eight Wren churches and the Guildhall were destroyed. It was an emotionally disturbing experience to clamber among the still smouldering ashes of this frightful wasteland. It was doubly agonizing to realize that, had precautions for fire-spotters been taken, much of the damage could have been avoided. But it was too late, and some of the best churches have gone with little to indicate what was there before.

  St Bride’s in Fleet Street is now just a gutted orangery; St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe, a hideous black mass with a molten copper roof like a blanket pall over the charred remains. No signs can be found of Gog and Magog at the Guildhall, and only a few baroque memorial tablets with sorrowing cupids and skulls remain at St Vedast’s.

  In the biting cold with icy winds beating around corners, James P. H. and I ran about the glowing smouldering mounds of rubble where once were the printers’ shops and chop houses of Paternoster Row. We have trundled under perilous walls, over uncertain ground which, at any moment, might give way to the red-hot vaults below. We have known Ypres in the heart of London. We could not deny a certain ghoulish excitement stimulated us, and our anger and sorrow were mixed with a strange thrill at seeing such a lively destruction — for this desolation is full of vitality. The heavy walls crumble and fall in the most romantic Piranesi forms. It is only when the rubble is cleared up, and the mess is put in order, that the effect becomes dead.

  We went to St Paul’s to offer our prayers for its miraculous preservation. Near the cathedral is a shop that has been burnt unrecognizably; in fact, all that remains is an arch that looks like a vista in the ruins of Rome. Through the arch could be seen, rising mysteriously from the splintered masonry and smoke, the twin towers of the cathedral. It was necessary to squat to get the archway framing the picture. I squatted. A Press photographer watched me and, when I gave him a surly look, slunk away. When I returned from photographing another church, he was back, squatting and clicking in the same spot as I had been. Returning from lunch with my publisher, my morning’s pictures still undeveloped in my overcoat pocket, I found the Press photographer’s picture was already on the front page of the Evening News.

  Part IV: Friends and Relations, 1940-1941

  STEPHEN TENNANT

  Wilsford

  Because Stephen is so delicate his friends have felt that every day was made more precious in his company by the fact that any moment he might disappear for ever. But Stephen has learnt how to conserve his strength. I have now come to look upon him as someone who will beat us all and be the last to go — the tortoise among his contemporaries, the hares.

  During this latest visit I have never appreciated the comforts of his house so much as now when in my own there is no hot water, the mirrors are blown out, and the blackout regulations are inadequate. Here, in a house that is heated to a uniform temperature with lights blazing, one relaxes into deep beds with fur coverlets or into steaming scented baths. The war — even the winter — is being defied.

  Stephen himself is so untouched by the war that it is a comfort to be with him. He came to London for shopping. His reaction to the bomb that burst near him in Stratton Street was that it shot him and the page-boy through the swing doors of the Ritz ‘like Peter Pan and Wendy’. He said, when the manager came down saying, ‘Is everything all right?’ he was only looking to see if the chandeliers were intact.

  While staying at Wilsford, there has been much reading aloud. Stephen intoned his favourite authors: Conrad’s stories (for he loves the sea), Suarez’s work on Marseilles, descriptions by Firbank, books on sexual aberrations, the next world and spiritualism, and poems by Madame de Noailles. Stephen is the greatest paradox of heart and heartlessness, sensibility and cruelty, taste and vulgarity. He has untold strength. He laughs ruefully at the idea of becoming old, and manages to consort with younger people with facility.

  Stephen, in his bathroom amid a great juxtaposition of face creams, scents, soaps, antiseptics, coal tar mouth wash, celluloid goldfish, and every sort of sponge and loofah, described a visit to a perfume counter in a Bournemouth store. At last the shop assistant had met someone who knew as much about scent as she. Stephen and she huddled together. This little woman essayed to describe the subtleties of every perfume that even a writer would blanch from setting forth. She said, ‘When I use this, I become all dizzy. When I use this, it’s like a shot of chloroform and I lose consciousness. And when I use this, I am followed!’

  Rex Whistler asked Stephen, ‘What are all these creams?’ ‘They are preserving creams.’ ‘But I don’t see the point. What are they preserving you for?’

  Yet incarcerated as he is in his ice cake fortress, how alive and susceptible to impressions he is! Tancred Boraneous said that the house should be made airtight and preserved intact just as it is at the moment, so that future generations may see these incredibly delicate and vivid colours, the vases of artificial roses and lilac, the fishnets hanging over the banisters, the tinselled postcards in the revolving stand, the whole paraphernalia of Stephen’s taste, which astonishes even his few intimate friends and would be quite incomprehensible to future generations.

  WITH NANCY AT FROYLE

  Dorchester Hotel

  There could be no more striking example of the changes that marriage can bring to a woman than that of my sister Nancy. She used to be gay, effervescent, with a streak of circus fanfare about her. She was full of fantasy and fancy. From the day she married Hugh the metamorphosis took place. She is now completely content (as far as anyone can be during this war). She has aged hardly at all yet her face wears a pensive look. In her teens she was plump to an extent that she used to diet and take foam baths. Her figure is now lean, her hands and face positively bony. In fact, she has become the typical English lady of tradition.

  There is little today to stamp her of her own epoch. She says she would like to have lived in the time of Jane Austen. Her house, her clothes, have nothing modern about them, and her mind is full of the leisure and the domestic quiet that is not part of my own life. She has infinite time for her house, for her child and the country neighbours. It is only in gossip that she likes to have contact with the great world. She receives, and writes, large quantities of letters, copies poems in a flowery handwriting, does embroidery, is amused by the things the villagers say — and gives imitations of their voices, their toothless accents.

  Staying with her for one peaceful week-end was an agreeable contrast to my week in London. We did nothing — yet were always occupied.

  I came back, laden with lettuces and magnolia leaves, to find that the windows of my room had all been blown by the blast of an enormous bomb that fell only a few hundred yards away from the house.

  I went upstairs to find my mother’s room disfigured with soot, a wall bracket smashed, and looking-glasses littering the floor. This, of course, is nothing to what is happening to many others. But a succession of minor irritants were added to make this week an unproductive one. Maud was stricken with flu, the telephone was dead, telegrams impossible, and still no gas. I left to live at the Dorchester and this, in spite of its advantages, really only added to my displeasure for it has become a vulgar escape hole filled with foul-tempered, bombed-out people like myself. It is costing me the eyes of the head to stay on here paying for drinks and dinners every night.

  DIANA AT LOBLIA WESTMINSTER’S

  I went to bed for dinner in the hotel but later, when the usual racket outside became unbearable, went downstairs to the gaieties of the restaurant. I was glad I did as my rather bitter mood was sweetened by a description of Diana’s week-end at Loelia Westminster’s.

  On Sunday night Diana finds herself useless and unwanted. There is a bridge four and she and Ian Fleming remain over. After dinner Diana suggests to Ian they should play backgammon. No, he has some accounts to run through. He is poring over figures. Diana takes herself upstairs to write reams to her son, John Julius, in America. Envelope addressed, downstairs Diana comes. Ian Fleming stil
l full of absorption in his figures. Diana thinks she’ll make a joke. ‘Awful to be the wife of the Minister of Information when the Minister doesn’t give his wife any information, and so no one wants to ask her anything.’ Silence! The bridgers continue their calls. Ian Fleming still absorbed. Diana in a huff goes up to bed. She creams her face, puts on a nightcap net, and then hears the Boche aeroplanes overhead. What use to try and read a book with that din? She becomes really frightened. Duff and bridgers still at it downstairs. The intermittent buzz of engines above sickens her. Damn these unheeding swine below! She gets out of bed, explores the corridors and finds a room exactly above the bridge table. Here she jumps high into the air and lands as heavily as possible with a bang on the floor above the bridge table. With beating heart she rushes back to her room and, as was to be hoped, Duff appears.

  ‘Did you hear that? It must be a bomb nearby. The whole house shook.’

  A few intimate words between Duff and Diana. Music to Diana’s ears. Duff agrees they are all shits downstairs, paying no attention to her — shits, absolute shits they are. Loelia’s cheery face appears around the door. They are waiting to get on with the rubber. Duff goes downstairs, and once more Diana is left alone to listen to the enemy above. What could she do? Go downstairs and delight them with her greasy face and nightcap?