All of this Sean knew when he wrote to the Ambassador at the end of January, reminding him of their meeting in Ballsbridge and asking for an exclusive interview for the Dublin Gazette. Sean defended the Ambassador to Freddie, saying that Fleet Street had expected too much. They had treated him as one of their own, but that never made him a Londoner. He was a neutral, and had now said as much.
Freddie disagreed. "He and I are fellow countrymen, so I shouldn't run him down. But he's wrong about Hitler. Nobody should expect other people to preserve their freedom for them. Hell, we all want freedom. How can you be neutral about that?"
When Sean wrote to Kennedy, Freddie shrugged. "Okay, go ahead. Ireland will love him anyway, but take my advice - write the piece as his views, not yours. Sooner or later you'll change your mind about neutrality. You won't want Kennedy's opinions hanging round your neck."
Three days after posting his letter, Sean was delighted to receive a hand-written reply, inviting him to "call and fix something up."
Freddie grinned. "That's Kennedy, as approachable as Santa Claus. Maybe that's why women like him so much. I'll give you another tip never leave Val in the same room with him. He's got a knack of getting girls into the sheets that makes him the most envied man in New York."
Sean was shocked. He remembered the balding, untidily dressed man who had visited Ballsbridge. He was an old man. Besides, he was married to a beautiful wife who had borne him nine children. And he was a devout Catholic!
Freddie laughed more than ever. "Okay, don't believe me - but Gloria Swanson has been his mistress for years. Her and a dozen others."
Gloria Swanson the actress! Sean refused to credit it - more than ever after his visit to the American Embassy. Joe Kennedy's welcome was as warm as his smile, and wherever Sean looked another Kennedy was beaming back at him. He had already met Joe Jnr in Dublin, but that first meeting at the Embassy was so overwhelming that of the others only Jack and Kathleen registered - Jack because he was so like his older brother, and Kathleen (known as Kick to the family) because she was so pretty.
The Kennedy interview made the front page in the Dublin Gazette. Dinny telegraphed his congratulations. Joe Kennedy liked the article too - and after that Sean Connors had direct access to the Ambassador. Not that he abused the privilege, he was too shy for that. But word spread along Fleet Street that Sean had friends in high places.
Sean often bumped into the young Kennedy’s afterwards - not Rosemary who led a secluded life, or Bobby or Teddy who were mere schoolboys at Gibbs - but Kick was sometimes at a Hamilton party, and Joe Jnr and Jack were often in the gallery at the House of Commons. Nobody worked at the relationship. They were all busy young people with plenty to do who were merely pleased to see each other now and then. They had the rest of their lives to form lasting friendships, and they were all conscious of the speed of events - especially in March, when Hitler tore up the Munich agreement and marched into Prague.
Sean went to Birmingham to report a speech by the Prime Minister. Normally Freddie would have gone, but he was so sick of appeasement that he refused to leave London. "Maybe I'll get a column out of Churchill or Duff Cooper. God knows, someone needs to stop the rot. One thing's certain, it won't be that old fool Chamberlain."
The speech at Birmingham, however, caught everyone by surprise. Sean watched carefully as the seventy-year-old Prime Minister rose to his feet. The ovation was thunderous, as it always was in Birmingham. This was Chamberlain's city and had been his father's before him. Old Joe Chamberlain had been the presiding genius over Tariff Reform, that dismantling of trade barriers which had brought prosperity to Birmingham.
Sean's pencil raced over his notebook. The Prime Minister defended his visits to Germany ... matters should be settled by discussion, not force ... Hitler had made certain pledges ... and the Prime Minister had felt obliged to accept such assurances in good faith.
Sean groaned as he imagined Freddie's reaction. Then - unexpectedly - the Prime Minister struck a new note. He was beginning to doubt the value of Hitler's guarantees. Of the invasion of Prague he asked his audience, "Is this the end of an old adventure, or the beginning of a new? Is this the last attack upon a small State, or is it the beginning of a new? Is this, in fact, an attempt to dominate the world by force?"
There was deep silence, while people wondered what the Prime Minister was leading up to. A minute later he told them, in a voice trembling with emotion. "There is hardly anything I would not sacrifice for peace. But there is one thing I must except, and that is the liberty we have enjoyed for hundreds of years and will never surrender."
This was not the voice of appeasement. Chamberlain was drawing a line. Sean tingled with excitement as men leaped to their feet and roared approval. Their cheers lasted for minutes, great rolling waves of sound which bounced from the walls and the rafters. Sean could feel the emotion on all sides. He longed for Freddie's experience, Freddie would write about the revival of the old English spirit, the spirit of the Magna Carta. Freddie would write of the courage of all those countless people in this little old island who had fought for their liberties during a thousand years of trouble and strife. Sean smiled as he looked at faces shining with excitement on all sides. He forced himself to be dispassionate. After all, he was an observer, not a participant. Besides he was an Irishman, with all the mixed feelings the Irish have for the English. And if war did come, Ireland would be neutral.
The Prime Minister was finishing ... "No greater mistake could be made than to suppose that ... this nation ... will not take part to the utmost of its power in resisting such a challenge."
Sean worked hard on the train going home. Appeasement is dead, he wrote, which was Dinny's headline when he ran the story in the Dublin Gazette. The proof was not slow in coming. A fortnight later Chamberlain told the House of Commons what would happen if Hitler attacked another small State - "... in the event of any action which threatened Polish independence ... His Majesty's Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all the support in their power ..."
Sombre news - and the presses were still rolling with that when another sensation burst. Mussolini's Italy had invaded Albania. Greece and Yugoslavia were threatened. The spectre of war was at hand.
There seemed no end to the sensational news. As May ended, Germany and Italy forged their "Pact of Steel", and as the long summer days fled one after the other the whole of Europe prepared for war. In a despairing bid to retain independence Estonia and Latvia signed non-aggression pacts with Germany. "Documents of convenience," sneered the British press, "which Hitler will destroy when he's ready." But when would he be ready? The wires hummed with talks of pacts, pacts with new friends, pacts with old enemies, pacts which might, even at the eleventh hour, stop Nazi Germany. The British Foreign Office despatched an emissary to Moscow. France did the same, for despite distrust of the Bolsheviks the Russian Bear was preferable to the German Jackal. In Moscow Stalin listened ... and talked ... and talked some more until, on 22 August, came the most astonishing announcement of all. Yes, Russia would sign a non-aggression pact, not with the British however, nor with France ... but with Germany! Herr Ribbentrop and Comrade Molotov put pen to paper the same day. The fate of the world was sealed.
London seethed. Warning telegrams flashed to the Commonwealth and the Dominions. Twenty-five merchant ships were requisitioned. Twenty-four thousand Air Force reservists were summoned to duty. All leave was stopped for the Fighting Services. Thirty-five trawlers were seconded for mine-sweeping. And on 25 August the British Government proclaimed a formal treaty with Poland, confirming the guarantee already given.
These were just some of the stories which gripped Sean Connors between New Year's Eve and 25 August 1939 ... a drama unfolding so fast that he and Freddie had to race to keep up. And race they did. They were greedy for news. Anything that promised a good story was grist for the mill. London was the most exciting stage in the world and Sean and Freddie were in the best seats.
> When unemployed men entered the Savoy and lay down in the lounge as a protest, Freddie and Sean wrote about it. When archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler married a beautiful widow, Freddie and Sean wrote about it - if for no other reason than Mrs Agatha Christie and A. J. P. Taylor were guests at the wedding, as was Augustus John, who beamed satisfaction at the widow who had been his girlfriend for years.
And in June, when there was a dance at the American Embassy for seventeen-year-old Eunice Kennedy's coming out, Sean was there to record it - just as a month later he was on the Kennedy's balcony with Bobby and Teddy, waving good luck as Eunice left to be presented at Buckingham Palace.
London was becoming Sean's town, and he strode around as if he owned the whole city - even Shadwell, although Valerie had kept him waiting until March before she'd invited him to her precious East End.
Shadwell had needed time to accept Valerie Hamilton - what with her fancy clothes and posh voice. "Do-gooders" were the curse of the East End and people were suspicious. But eventually Val was judged to be different. "She ain't afraid of nuffink - not 'er, she'll take 'em all on an' give 'em a bleeding good run for their money."
She lived in Shadwell for part of each week, leaving the East End on a Friday to return to her other life in Eaton Square. They well knew where she lived. "Goin' back 'ome for the weekend then. Good luck to you, Miss. See you next week." Nobody resented her good fortune. There were more bathrooms in Eaton Square than in the whole of Shadwell, but that was never held against her. She despaired at times wanting other people to share her sense of outrage. How could they accept the slums? Even so, she was glad not to be in the Communist Party. Kids in the street sang Vote, vote, vote for Harry Pollitt but few of their parents actually did. The East End wanted a better deal, not Russian style revolution. "Who'll run the country then? Old Ernie from the docks? Cor blimey, we'll be in ruins in no time."
Val ran two separate lives. She enjoyed them both - departing happily for Shadwell early on Wednesday and returning on Friday in time to bathe and change for the evening. She looked forward to Friday evenings. Freddie and Sean were always entertaining, usually there was a play to look forward to, or a new restaurant to try - it was fun, and increasingly the high spot of her week. But her feelings for Sean grew ever more confused, despite the fact that shared dates with Freddie and Margaret provided a certain protection.
The truth was that when they were dancing at a night club for instance, and she felt the strength and size of Sean, she grew frightened. People would never believe it, Val Hamilton, that spit of a girl who shouted Labour Party speeches from a soap box at the dock gates - her frightened? But she was - especially when he looked at her in a certain way. She knew what he wanted and thought it was unfair. He was asking for more than she wanted to give. He had no right - and yet, she had to admit, there were times - and increasingly often - when she liked to be looked at like that. Perhaps she even answered with a smouldering look of her own.
Once, after a Friday night out, she lay in her bed thinking. Her student from the LSE had been frail and slightly built - the smallest boy she could find. She never saw his penis because she had kept her eyes tightly shut, but its size had surprised her. It felt enormous - and that was him, a narrow shouldered little chap, weighing only eight stone. Sean was well over six feet and as broad as a barn! Her hands moved under the bed covers to the top of her legs. Experimentally she slid a finger into herself. She moaned softly and raised her buttocks, unintentionally creating far more pleasure than ever aroused by her student. He had been bigger than her finger. Suppose he had been twice as big - and suppose Sean was twice as big again. Or even bigger?
Panic kept her awake for a long time that night. The next morning she began comparing husbands and wives. Men were usually taller, but never by as much as Sean towered over her. It would be quite out of the question. There was no point in him giving her those knee-trembling looks. Besides it was wrong! They were just friends, would never marry ... Val's political career would leave no time for marriage anyway. Yet thoughts of those looks and the need which prompted them haunted her - until something happened which left her sweating and trembling, but which made up her mind.
The front window of her flat at Shadwell overlooked the boats in the West Garden Dock, and her bedroom at the back looked down into a yard, beyond which was an alley leading to a five-storied tenement. The alley was a nuisance at night, especially when the pub on the corner disgorged its usual quota of half-drunk seamen, each with a girl on his arm. Fights broke out as men disputed their rights to a girl, and more than once the police were called, often with an ambulance not far behind. Val made it a rule to be home by closing time, and she had observed that rule the night she discovered that the alley was not used just for fighting.
She had not meant to look. If she had known what she would see she would have avoided it like the plague. The bedroom was in darkness, lit only by light from the other room. Outside the mist rolled in from the river, and she was drawing the thin, unlined curtains when she saw two people in the alley.
One was a huge man with a knitted cap on his head, the other, a woman so tiny she had to stand on tip-toe to kiss him. The girl's coat was undone and his hands were working under it. Her face was upturned and the man laughed, throwing his head back to show strong white teeth. He said something, she answered, and they kissed again. Then she turned away from him and leaned forward over the trashcans in the corner. Her coat and skirt were rucked up to her waist. She wore no underclothes. The cheeks of her buttocks gleamed like moons in the lamp light. His huge hands were spreading her flesh. His penis plunged forward like a spear. He pressed in and in. At the window Val cried aloud, but the sound escaped as a whimper. Below in the alley the man plunged into the girl again until he lifted her up and turned her towards him. She came into his arms, feet off the ground, white legs fastening round his waist, arms clinging to his neck as her lips found his. She might have been a child, except her actions were not childlike. Her legs worked constantly while he responded by driving up into her. Their rhythm continued even as he carried her with one hand under her buttocks while the other opened her blouse. His head ducked to her breast - and still his hips jerked as she writhed in his arms. Suddenly her back arched, her head came clear of his shoulder - she looked directly up to the window - Val felt her eyes but the girl was blind to everything save the sensations of her body.
Her mouth opened as if to scream. A second later she went limp. All movement ceased - two statues caught in the moonlight. Slowly, one leg unwrapped itself from around his body, followed by the other a moment later.
Sweat lay in beads across Val's upper lip. Moistness warmed the top of her legs. Trembling, she turned slowly away and went back to the fire in the other room, thinking of what she had seen, the size of that man against that tiny girl.
The next Friday she said to Sean, "Do you remember promising me beer and pickles in the East End? Well, I'm still waiting."
Three weeks after that they made love in front of the fire in Val's flat ... and the East End became a magical place for both of them.
Sean loved Shadwell. So much of it reminded him of his boyhood on the Quays. Streets down to the docks were paved with stone blocks which became slippery in the rain - just like in Dublin. Irish songs were sung in the pubs. Sean even heard Down by the Glenside, a sad revolutionary song about the bold Fenian boys. Eyes glistened with stifled emotion, until someone struck up The Wearing of the Green and a minute later everyone was stamping and clapping, just like in Mulligan's Bar.
Not that the Irish dominated the place. They shared it with native born Cockneys and Polish Jews, African seamen and Indian Sikhs. The poor of the world lived in Shadwell, but sometimes the Irish took over. When the church of St Mary and St Michael had feast days, the Catholics scrubbed the pavements and put up little altars, draped with lace curtains and bedsheets - sodalites walked in procession, carrying banners and statues and lighted candles ...
Val learned to see
the East End through new eyes. Some sights still made her angry, the dock gates for instance, surrounded by queues of ragged labourers, with dockers' hooks at their belts, all hoping for work - ten men picked out of forty by the bowler-hatted foreman, the unwanted drifting away, to reassemble at midday, and again the next morning, and again and again in the slim hope of work. Life was hard. Poverty plucked at Val's heart, and it took all of Sean's time to open her eyes to the humour and colour. To his delight Shadwell even had donkeys - at least on Saturday nights when Watney Street was closed to the usual dock traffic. Out came the donkeys, pulling costermongers' barrows. The place came alive. Up went the stalls and the market buzzed with energy. Naphtha flares lit pavements crowded with women in search of a bargain. Men in striped aprons sold cockles and whelks and jellied eels. Hot chestnuts were stoked over braziers on street corners. Cries of Tuppence a pound pears mingled with the raucous rendering of Nellie Dean from a pub, pierced now and then by shouts of Late night final from the newspaper boys. Jack the Banana King swished his machette through bunches of bananas on the corner of Commercial Road. The pungent smell of vinegar wafted from a fish and chip shop. Street cries blended into a cacophony of sounds, all linked together by the haunting, tinkling notes of a street organ.
From April onwards, Shadwell became a lovers' retreat. Most Sunday afternoons saw Sean and Val naked on a rug in front of the fire. Outside the fog rolled in and sirens sounded mournfully as ships dropped down to the sea. Inside was bathed in the flickering light of the fire, the only sounds the soft sighs of lovers - until five o'clock, when the distant clang of the Muffin Man's bell had Sean hurrying into his clothes. Down the stairs he rushed and into the street, often meeting the lamplighter carrying his pole from one gas lamp to another. He would hurry back with muffins to toast on the fire for tea, greeted by a drowsy and still naked Val.
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 117