117 A. J. Cummings, political editor of the News Chronicle.
118 The presentation of the Femina-Vie Heureuse and Heinemann prizes by Max Beerbohm.
119 R.M. means the Brotherhood Movement, a pacifist organization which celebrated its Diamond Jubilee in May 1936. Canon Sheppard was then national President.
120 Abp Cosmo Lang.
121 Abp William Temple.
122 Lord Cecil of Chelwood, President of the League of Nations Union, had written on 27 May to the Secretaries of all branches of the Union, urging them to encourage members to write to M.P.s, the Prime Minister, and the Foreign Secretary, insisting on full support for the League.
123 A leader in The Times on 8 June commented that ‘the branches of the League of Nations Union would render better service to their own cause if, like Mr Eden, they would frankly recognize the admitted defects of the League and Covenant’.
124 Geoffrey Dawson (1874-1944).
125 A letter from Lord Cecil of Chelwood to The Times on ‘The League and Italy’.
126 A garden party in honour of the Emperor of Ethiopia.
127 On the day R.M. wrote this J. H. Thomas and Sir Alfred Butt resigned from Parliament, as a result of the Budget leakage enquiry.
128 The cartoon shows Sheppard, George Lansbury, and ‘Anti-War Youth’ astride a horse which has stopped short at a signpost pointing to ‘100 per cent Pacifism’, and, in the opposite direction to ‘Organization of Law and Order’. It is captioned ‘Sorry boys, I can’t go both ways at once’. See Evening Standard, 8 June, 1936.
129 Lord Cecil of Chelwood, speaking at a Foyle’s Literary Luncheon on 15 June, at which the Emperor of Ethiopia was a guest, said he had been told that ‘to suggest that we ought even now to carry out our obligations would be Midsummer madness’. He had just come back from France, where, he said, there were ‘many mad people’.
130 ‘Not Enough’, a satirical comment on a Rome report that ‘the lifting of Sanctions will not be enough… only a reversal of the League verdict that Italy was the aggressor in Abyssinia would really meet the case’.
1 R. M. had not moved, but Northumberland St had been re-named.
2 Sir Neville Henderson, British Ambassador in Berlin, had flown to London on 26 August, bringing a statement from Hitler emphasizing his demands on Poland. The statement had not been made public.
3 This nickname was derived from the registration number of R.M.’s car: ELX 299.
4 The German liner Europa, due to call at Southampton (from New York) on 28 August, had proceeded direct to Bremerhaven with about 40 passengers for Southampton still on board.
5 Britain had been at war since 3 September.
6 German sources had suggested that the British liner Athenia, which was torpedoed on 3 September, had been attacked on orders from the British Admiralty, so as to provide material for anti-German propaganda.
7 The K.-H. News-Letter Service; a weekly news-letter by Commander Stephen King-Hall.
8 Cdr King-Hall gave his reasons as follows: ‘We are at war because France and Great Britain and the Dominions… stand in the world for an interpretation of life which is sometimes called democratic. This… insists on the value of the individual… includes racial and religious tolerance… freedom of discussion in the written and spoken word.’
9 Hugh Trevor-Roper, who with J. A. W. Bennett was working on a new edition of Richard Corbet’s poems (published 1955), had written to R.M. questioning the date 1612 which she had given for the poem ‘Great Tom’ in her anthology The Minor Pleasures of Life (1934).
10 Postcard.
11 On 16 September the Commander of the German troops before Warsaw had issued a 12-hour ultimatum to the capital, and on the next day Russian troops crossed the eastern frontier of Poland along its whole length.
12 ‘Peace with Ignominy’, see below, p. 91.
13 Postcard.
14 Arthur Greenwood, M.P., was making a broadcast speech to members of the Labour movement in Britain and the Empire.
15 At Margaret Macaulay’s house (she had moved to Liss, Hants, from Petersfield).
16 Sir Walter and Lady Nicholson.
17 Sir John Simon’s ‘War Budget’ demanded economies in Government departments.
18 Postcard.
19 The British Expeditionary Force.
20 Kingsley Martin.
21 R.M.’s charwoman.
22 Abp Temple had given a broadcast address on ‘The Spirit and Aim of Britain in the War’.
23 Mrs Browne’s husband.
24 He had advocated a ‘true Congress of Nations’ to decide the terms of Peace ‘when the fighting stops’.
25 Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (1871-1946).
26 It has not been possible to identify this article.
27 In the Clackmannan by-election in October 1939 Arthur Woodburn (Labour) gained a majority of 14,000 over Andrew Stewart (Pacifist).
28 This had been urged by D. Lloyd George, see below p. 94.
29 In ‘Our Turn Now’ (News Chronicle ‘War Diary’, 9 October) Hitler’s terms, in his recent Reichstag Speech, were described as ‘utterly unacceptable’.
30 In the New Statesman (‘Our Way with Neutrals’, 16 September), H. N. Brailsford wrote: ‘In positive terms our war aim is not merely self-preservation but the maintenance of the values that constitute Western civilization—humanity and intellectual freedom foremost among them. By diluting our ranks with powers that know nothing of these values, we might compromise that supreme objective.’
31 A pacifist organization formed in 1935, under the leadership of George Lansbury and Canon Sheppard, ‘to express the positive side of pacifism’.
32 Christ’s College.
33 The Church of Our Lady of the Rosary in Marylebone Road.
34 On 12 October Neville Chamberlain rejected Hitler’s peace proposals.
35 R.M. and Jean Macaulay had persuaded some of their friends to join them in signing telegrams to Neville Chamberlain, as a last-minute effort to stop the war.
36 H. G. Strauss, M.P.
37 There was only one programme at this time, allegedly because of the danger of giving navigational aid to enemy aircraft.
38 A. MacLaren, M.P.
39 A letter from Dr William Brown on ‘The Make-up of Hitler ‘was published in The Times on 19 October. He identified Hitler’s main tendencies as follows: (1) an hysterical tendency, (2) a paranoid tendency, (3) a growing megalomania, and (4) a compulsive tendency towards more and more ‘bloodless victories’.
40 An Anglo-German organization, accused of being an instrument of Nazi propaganda, which was closed down in September 1939.
41 And No Mans Wit, R.M.’s latest novel.
42 In case of airborne invasion.
43 The novels of E. Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946) dealt mainly with adventure and political intrigue.
44 It has not been possible to identify him.
45 And No Mans Wit.
46 The British Government’s offer of an act of Union between Britain and France, which had been announced on 16 June.
47 Dorothea Conybeare, R.M.’s first cousin.
48 F. W. Ogilvie (later Sir Frederick Ogilvie) was then Director-General of the B.B.C.
49 Postcard.
50 Jean Macaulay had volunteered to take parties of evacuee children to Canada.
51 This was the first air-raid warning in London since September 1939.
52 Harold Nicolson was then Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Information. In a House of Commons debate on 28 May his broadcasting style had been rudely criticised.
53 ‘Arm the Citizens’, Picture Post, 29 June, 1940.
54 On 18 June the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood) had made an appeal to ‘patriotic citizens in a position to do so’ to lend money to the nation without interest till the war was over. On 21 June he reported a ‘magnificent’ response.
55 Jean Macaulay was then in favour of interning all aliens, whereas in Parliament, letters to
the press, etc., it was being argued that there should be a ‘sifting process’ and that ‘friendly aliens’ should not be subject to internment.
56 ‘Lord Haw Haw’, i.e. William Joyce, broadcaster of German propaganda (executed for treason in 1946).
57 A Ministry of Information campaign for a ‘Silent Column composed of men and women who are resolved to say nothing that can help the enemy’ had been launched on 11 July.
58 It was being rumoured in Rome that a last-minute ‘conference of belligerents’ might be called to try to avert direct conflict with Britain.
59 In a broadcast speech on 22 July Lord Halifax, as Foreign Secretary, replied to Hitler’s summons to ‘capitulate to his will’. He defined the freedom for which Britain was fighting, and denounced ‘the challenge of anti-Christ’.
60 It was announced in Parliament on 23 July that the ‘Silent Column’ movement was being abandoned, and that sentences imposed for ‘loose or defeatist talk’ would be reviewed.
61 Frances Conybeare (née Cropper, 1847-1933).
62 See above p. 50n.
63 Postcard.
64 Margaret Macaulay’s cook-general at Liss. See above p. 88n.
65 General de Gaulle had made a world broadcast as leader of the Army of all Free Frenchmen.
66 Paul Baudouin, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Vichy Government.
67 Nancy Willetts, the friend with whom Jean Macaulay lived at Romford.
68 Negley Farson, Behind God’s Back (1940).
69 Mary Macaulay (1867-1953).
70 During the first two weeks of September, 1940, German invasion barges were massing at the Channel ports.
71 The caretaker at 8 Luxborough Street.
72 R.A.F. targets on the night of 10 September.
73 Postcard.
74 As protection in air-raids.
75 Owing to the intense dislike for Quisling in Norway he had been excluded from the Cabinet in the new regime.
76 The weekly Christian News Letter, first published in October 1939 (by Dr J. H. Oldham) for the Council on the Christian Faith and the Common Life.
77 The issue of 25 September, 1940 included an extract from a letter from an air-raid warden who had found that gardening and also country dancing were helpful in ‘forging new social bonds’.
78 General de Gaulle, leading a Free French force, and supported by a British naval squadron, had tried unsuccessfully to establish a foothold at Dakar.
79 ‘Colonel’ J. C. Wedgwood, later Baron Wedgwood of Barlaston (1872-1943).
80 John W. Cudahy.
81 Postcard.
82 254 Collier Row Lane, Romford, Jean Macaulay’s flat.
83 An Institution of the L.C.C. Public Assistance Department which was almost next door to Luxborough House.
84 See R.M.’s Three Days(1919).
85 ‘The Cold Shoulder’. Many Danes were wearing a small badge with the letters D.K.S., to express their feelings about the occupying Germans.
86 On 17 July, 1941, after P. G. Wodehouse had been released from internment in Germany, and it had been announced that he would give a weekly broadcast from Germany to the U.S., the B.B.C. broadcast a sneering attack on him by ‘Cassandra’ of the Daily Mirror. This broadcast aroused violent criticism on grounds of its bad taste. Four days later Duff Cooper, who was responsible for the broadcast, was succeeded as Minister of Information by Brendan Bracken.
87 In ‘The Londoner’s Diary’ (see Evening Standard of 22 July, 1941) there had been a paragraph in defence of the broadcast: ‘I prefer Cassandra to P. G. Wodehouse as a broadcaster, Cassandra is vigorous and vulgar, like the late William Cobbett. He speaks, as he writes, at the top of his voice, and he hates humbug and the enemies of his country.’
1 On 9 February, 1944 the House of Lords debated Bombing Policy (with special reference to the ‘area bombing’ of German towns) and on 16 February the Preservation of Historical and Art Treasures. The latter debate was chiefly concerned with the dangers to art treasures in Italy, in the light of the recent bombing of the Benedictine Abbey at Monte Cassino.
2 The Bp of Chichester (Rt Rev. G. K. A. Bell) had challenged the Government’s policy on bombing enemy towns, and demanded a respect for the distinction between military and non-military objectives.
3 Lord Lang of Lambeth had said: ‘It is one thing to accept the destruction of military objectives as a regrettable military necessity; it is quite another thing to exult in it, to gloat over it. If it be true that such a mood... of exultation is becoming prevalent among large sections of the people, it must involve a very lamentable lapse in their moral outlook.’
4 The Abbey at Monte Cassino had been heavily bombarded on 15 February; its destruction by bombing took place a month later.
5 Probably ‘Scrounging and Stealing’, an ‘unfinished discussion on whether “knocking off” is different from stealing’, which was broadcast on 17 February, 1944.
6 Mary Macaulay’s Irish maid.
7 In February 1946, following a period of mounting tension in French-Spanish relations, the Pyrenees frontier had been closed, and the Spanish frontier garrisons strengthened. The frontier was not fully reopened until February 1948.
8 The engagement of Princess Elizabeth and Lieut. Philip Mountbatten.
9 The Conference organized by Britain and France to discuss the Marshall offer of economic aid had opened in Paris on 12 July.
10 Spain had not been invited to take part.
11 V. A. Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom (1947).
12 Luis and Susan Marques (née Belloc Lowndes).
13 When Parliament adjourned for the summer recess on 13 August (to reassemble on 20 October) the economic crisis which followed the nationalizing of the coal industry was deepening. It was decided that the House of Lords should return more than a month early.
14 R.M.’s handbag had been stolen from her car.
15 On 16 August Winston Churchill, as leader of the Conservative Party, had made a broadcast on the critical economic situation in Britain.
16 ‘Profile of the Spiv’, The Observer, 17 August, 1947.
17 The Spanish ‘Blue Division’ had fought with the Germans on the Leningrad front, suffering very severe losses in the winter of 1941-2.
18 Eleanor Whitton, a District Nurse whom Jean Macaulay and Nancy Willetts knew very well, had died suddenly, aged 47.
19 R.M. had stayed at Denia, south of Valencia, on 27 July, at the beginning of her trip.
20 In Portugal Senhor Daniel Barbosa, then Minister of Economics under Dr Salazar, was leading a drive to reduce food prices and to combat black markets.
21 An inn.
22 Cadiz had been devastated on 18 August when chemicals in the naval shipyards blew up, setting off torpedoes, shells, etc.
1 Postcard.
2 R.M. and a friend, Marjorie Grant Cook, had stayed a night with Elizabeth Bowen.
3 In reviewing The World my Wilderness (The Spectator, 12 May, 1950), Frank Swinnerton examined R.M.’s philosophy of life, as seen in her novels. He concluded that ‘she has left us with the verdict that the answer to mankind’s various ills, follies, disagreements, would appear to be a lemon’.
4 U.S. troops in Korea were falling back before the southwards drive of the North Korean forces.
5 See News Chronicle, 10 July, 1950.
6 Postcard.
7 ‘Crib’. In the Macaulay family the Crib at Christmas was a cherished tradition.
8 ‘Peasants’.
9 A pamphlet entitled, ‘UNESCO Statement on Race’, issued in July, 1950.
10 It was argued that since all men belong to the same species, Homo Sapiens, a race may be defined as one of the groups of population constituting the species; also that there is no proof that the groups of mankind differ in their innate mental characteristics.
11 Probably Dr Isidore Singer (1859-1939), editor of the Jewish Encyclopaedia (1901-5) and founder (1922) of the American League of the Brotherhood of Man.
12 ‘We
follow the Road to Hell’, Picture Post, 16 September, 1950.
13 Cecil Woodham-Smith, Florence Nightingale (1950).
14 Mrs Samuel Smith (‘Aunt Mai’).
15 A review mentioned by Jean Macaulay.
16 Ralph Allen’s Sham Castle, on Bathwick Hill above Bath.
17 R.M. was then working on Pleasure of Ruins.
18 This was a news article headed ‘Is another world watching us?’, not a serialisation.
1 Union with Greece.
2 The Bp of Bristol (Rt Rev. F. A. Cockin).
3 The Church of the Holy Angels, Cranford, which serves a London Diocesan Home Mission district.
4 Rt Rev. Cyril Eastaugh.
5 Mrs Curry.
6 A saying attributed to Max Jacob (1876-1944), French Catholic poet.
7 R.M. was by this time a very regular worshipper at the Grosvenor Chapel in South Audley Street.
8 Rev. J. H. C. Johnson, S.S.J.E., see above p. 22.
9 Postcard.
10 When Marshal Tito appeared in public during his visit to London in March 1953 he was heavily guarded and evoked few cheers.
11 J. P. de Caussade, Ordeals of Souls: A Continuation of His Spiritual Letters (trans. A. Thorold, 1936).
12 See Letter IV, ‘To a Postulant’ (Mme de Lesen).
13 ‘Another Art’, a broadcast talk reviewing Prof. Benjamin Rowland’s Art and Architecture of India.
14 Jean Macaulay had long been attracted by the idea of living permanently in South Africa.
15 Queen Salote of Tonga, a Wesleyan Methodist.
16 Doris B——, whose parents Jean Macaulay had nursed, was receiving teaching from her about the Christian Faith.
17 The Altar Missal, edited by a Priest of the S.S.J.E. (Mowbray 1936), sometimes known as the ‘Cowley Missal’.
18 R.M. was probably reading The Cambridge Platonists: a Study by F. J. Powicke (1926).
19 A free rendering of one of Powicke’s quotations from Ralph Cudworth (1617-88).
20 One of the quotations from the Discourses of Benjamin Whichcote (1609-83) included in Powicke’s The Cambridge Platonists.
21 Plans were being made for a broadcast discussion between R.M. and John Betjeman on ‘Changes in Morals’.
Letters to a Sister Page 27