Farming, Fighting and Family

by Miranda McCormick

  The whole world is mad, and so the whole countryside is at war. But when daybreak strips off the black eiderdown of night from the countryside the rural scene is the same as of old. The skylark sings on high, the dew is on the grass, the morning mists are hung out to dry, and only basin-like bomb craters here and there in the fields and the training aeroplanes above them show that the countryside is at war. The land remains, unaltered.

  Another year had ended. But it was now clear to Arthur Street, and indeed most of the British population, that this was to be a long war.

  Notes

  * Gone into the ATS, the Auxiliary Territorial Service, forerunner of the British Women’s Royal Army Corps.

  * Use of anti-aircraft guns.

  * The government had banned the normal use of church bells; instead they were only to be rung to warn British citizens of imminent invasion.

  * Sulphapyridine, an early type of antibiotic known as ‘M&B’ after the pharmaceutical company that produced it, May and Baker.

  * This was the notorious sinking of the City of Benares (which actually took place on 17 September but was only reported on 23 September), which put an end to CORB (Children’s Overseas Reception Board), a government-sponsored organisation for the evacuation of British children to the Dominions.

  * Robin Sayer, re-named ‘Claude Shillito’, the ‘wanton son from Chelsea’, in Pamela’s poem Wessex Wins, quoted in Chapter 2, pp. 30–1.

  Five

  A Protracted Parting

  (January–May 1941)

  Once David was posted to Weston-super-Mare in early January 1941, Pamela had no idea whether or not she would see him again before he left for Egypt. This uncertainty should perhaps be put into context. By this stage of the war, the campaign in North Africa had assumed a vital strategic importance. In order to defend their interests and launch counter attacks on Axis-held territory in the Mediterranean, the British and Allied forces needed to establish a secure presence in North Africa, particularly along its coast. Since the fall of France, the pro-Axis Italian colonies of Libya, Eritrea and Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) were no longer threatened by the French colonies of Algeria and Tunisia to their left, and could instead turn all their military attention to their right towards Egypt. A former British protectorate, Egypt had a treaty with Britain whereby in the event of a threat to the Suez Canal (a vital link for Britain with India and its colonies in the Far East), it would allow British and Allied troops to be stationed on its soil. The Canal was now an essential lifeline for Allied troops and supply vessels, which to reach base depot could not risk sailing through the Nazi-infested waters of the Mediterranean, but instead had to sail the long way round the South African Cape, up the east coast of Africa to the Suez Canal. This was the voyage that David McCormick’s regiment was preparing to undertake.

  The military situation in northern Africa was constantly changing, however, and by early 1941, before Rommel and his forces arrived on the scene, the Allies had achieved some notable successes. Back in the summer of 1940, the Italian forces in North Africa under the command of Marshal Rodolfo Graziani had little appetite for conflict and were playing a waiting game, fully expecting Britain – like the rest of Western Europe – to fall to the Germans, in which case there would be no need for military action. But as the summer progressed and Britain held firm, Mussolini lost patience with Graziani and ordered him to invade Egypt. On 13 September – when the London Blitz was at its height – Graziani launched a cautious invasion with a few limited initial successes; but instead of pressing home their temporary advantage, the Italians contented themselves with building a series of forts into which they dug themselves for the duration. Despite being vastly outnumbered, the Allied forces launched ‘Operation Compass’, a highly successful counter-attack that by the end of January 1941 had not only routed the Italian forces, taking huge numbers of prisoners in the process, but had also taken the strategically important sea ports of Bardia and Tobruk and had even chased the Italians back over the border deep into Cyrenaica, the easternmost province of Libya. As a result of these successes, back in England the High Command must have been weighing up the pros and cons of sending yet more newly trained troops to the African desert, or whether to save them to spearhead a British offensive on the continent of Europe.

  David’s letters from Weston-super-Mare during this period both to Pamela and his parents reflect this uncertainty. On 7 January David wrote to his parents: ‘I … don’t think I shall move again until we sail, which may be around the 18th though no one knows of course. Perhaps now Bardia has fallen we won’t go at all …’ However in his next letter to his parents he wrote: ‘I hear now that we aren’t going until the middle of Feb & I am thinking that we probably won’t go then either, or if we do it will be to invade France & Germany. It looks as if I am not going to miss much cold weather …’ Then on 25 January David wrote to Pamela: ‘As you see I am not in Egypt yet – as a matter of fact I don’t think I am going for a long time though we are still at 24 hours notice & we have got all our tropical kit – & you ought to see McCormick of the river in his shorts & topee; it is a fine sight …’

  * * *

  Pamela’s diaries and other writings leave no doubt that her and David’s courtship was extremely chaste, as indeed were all her earlier youthful romantic relationships. Kissing was permitted, but nothing more. In her later unpublished autobiography Pamela explained, for the benefit of both current and future generations to whom such behaviour might seem incomprehensible, the sexual mores of the time:

  There was no pill and the fear of pregnancy kept many a young woman on the straight and narrow, including myself. Of course there were illegitimate births in every stratum of society, girls who had ‘fallen’, or were described as ‘having to get married’. Of course there was adultery and mistresses from royalty downwards; but there was never, in my little world, any overt reference to sex and I don’t think I knew what homosexuality was. But I was aware that there were other sophisticated young women – mostly from the metropolis – who were probably clued up in more ways than one. They were deemed ‘fast’ and got away with it. We slower ignorant country types sometimes wondered ‘fast at what?’

  Being in the latter category, along with countless other contemporaries, we so-called ‘good’ girls simply dolled ourselves up hoping to look as attractive as possible to the hordes of servicemen who swarmed all over South Wiltshire. I don’t think we thought much about sex, or even wanted it. In fact, one of my best friends said that she hoped her husband would leave that out, at least until after the honeymoon. It was love we were after, with a capital L. Marriage was the goal and though we regretted that so many nice young men didn’t come across with the offer, we would no more have dreamt of providing them with what they probably really wanted, than we would have thought of giving the terrifying matron of the emergency hospital a piece of our mind.

  In Pamela’s case, her misgivings about the sexual act were probably even more extreme than usual. In her novel Many Waters, there is a passage in which the heroine Emily Mason is anticipating this side of her future marriage to her childhood sweetheart:

  But there was something else: something deeper, something which she found far more difficult to think about calmly and logically, a problem which was impossible to share with anyone … It was simply that she did not think she could face the physical side of marriage. The whole idea of it upset her. She was still unsure as to what exactly happened, but she had never forgotten the strange isolated incidents as a small child, when she had overheard those bewildering, frightening sounds coming from her parents’ bedroom: the breathless energetic tussle which seemed to be going on, the creaking of bedsprings, the muffled laughter, her father’s repeated whispers of ‘darling’, and then, finally, most horrendous of all, her mother’s low moaning. It was something etched on her memory, vivid, indelible, which, however hard she tried, would not go away …

  Despite this, by the turn of the year Pamela was still keen to continue
her relationship with David McCormick. David had come back to Larkhill for one last course before being posted to Weston-super-Mare to await embarkation for Egypt, and Pamela was about to return to work at the emergency hospital. Her diary reveals her constant preoccupation with how they could co-ordinate their periods of leave. On 1 January 1941 Pamela wrote: ‘Here starts the fifth year [of her five-year diary]. Waited for Matron & David to ring up. Still waiting. I don’t think we will see each other somehow. Life is odd. Matron’s got the M.B.E …’ The following day’s entry was rather more positive: ‘Well Matron wrote & I’m probably going in on Sunday if not before. I rang David & he came and was frightfully sweet and all that and looked marvellous in his uniform …’

  The pair managed to meet again on 4 January:

  Mummy sent in to say David had rung up and wants me out tonight. Went off in the afternoon after hectic rush. Convoy of 50 and 15 in our ward! Frightful time meeting David because we missed each other. In the end met … he was really very sweet and loves me a little but probably just another fancy – anyway he’ll soon be in Egypt.

  David’s letters to his parents and Pamela give a taste of what life was like with his new regiment, the 285/72nd Field Regiment RA. This was a north country regiment in the Tees & Tyneside division, and despite David’s comment to his parents in his first letter from Weston-super-Mare that ‘I am gradually getting used to my regiment’, later letters show that his efforts to fit in with his new colleagues were met with a certain resistance. On 14 February he wrote:

  There is a lot of ill feeling between the old officers & the new O.C.T.U. ones here. The old ones all come from Newcastle & knew each other before the war, & were in the French show together & naturally resent southerners & newcomers in their midst & with few exceptions do not extend the welcoming helping hand.

  Elsewhere in the same letter, however, written when David was in bed recovering from a bout of flu (to pile on the nation’s misery, there was a flu epidemic throughout Britain during this period), he commented: ‘A lot of officers have been in to see me while in bed which is a good sign.’

  To begin with David seems to have had comparatively little to do, as he and his new companions were expecting to leave at any moment, and were allowed generous spells off duty. In his first letter to his parents from Weston-super-Mare, David stated: ‘There seems nothing for me to do except watch chaps cleaning guns …’ Pamela would not have been amused by the following extract from David’s next letter to his parents: ‘I have been boozing in the pubs & picking up rather low type girls & rushing round with them. One was a girl who was professionally cut in half every evening by a wonderful wizard in the B.B.C.!’

  Once it became clear that David’s regiment would not be leaving imminently, training exercises and other duties became the order of the day. On 12 January David wrote to his parents:

  I have got a section of 20 men to look after & am responsible for two gun tractors, two guns & four ammunition limbers. I do not know the men at all well yet as they are always away for some reason or other … My first lecture was on V.D. which was sprung on me ten minutes before I had to give it. It went down very well!

  David also recounts this last episode in a letter to Pamela, but adds: ‘I wouldn’t mention it if you weren’t a nurse. If you don’t know what it is don’t ask your parents for heaven’s sake!!’

  The winter of 1940–41 was an exceptionally cold one, adding to David’s miseries on regimental training schemes. On 13 February he wrote to Pamela:

  I have been doing an awful thing the last 3 weeks called a ‘cadre’ class. The word cadre always makes me think of dead bodies which is very suitable. The class is like to OCTU only very much worse. We spend the mornings marching, doing P.T. & gun drill, often standing in sorrowful circles on the beach looking balefully at some gun for several hours with snow falling on our gun and battledress till we look like the last picture of Scott’s polar expedition.

  I then have from 2 till 4 to look after my troop – a hundred & one jobs to be done. Very often I have to spend an hour or two inspecting some vehicle. I crawl underneath getting very dirty & say ‘take that off’ pointing at some mysterious part. The unfortunate driver takes it off and I then look at it from every angle & say ‘oil it’ or ‘rusty’ & the chap puts it back. All very droll, but quite the thing to do & as you can see all helps to win the war.

  In another letter to his parents from the same period, David describes a different, even more arduous, training exercise:

  Last night we went on a divisional scheme which involved leaving Weston at 11 a.m. All going off to a place near Bristol & spending the night there. No sleep & all night pulling guns out of bogs!! I spent 2 hours moving my guns from one field to another only half a mile away. We started at 2 a.m. to drive through the night till about 7 when we went into action. We spent the rest of the day standing about in the cold & occasionally moving to a new position, & at 6 p.m. it was announced that everyone except drivers were going to march home. So we walked home: a distance of 10 miles. Result being blisters on my heels, a headache & general depression – but supposed to be toughening. However I have been seriously putting the whisky cure into practice & am feeling much better …

  In another letter to his parents David gave vent to his feelings of disappointment about the life he now found himself obliged to lead: ‘I have been pretty depressed lately. Worked so hard & so long to become an officer & now I find the job is most uncongenial. Don’t enjoy any part of it & I don’t fancy being cooped up with this gang for years …’

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Pamela was finding being back at work at the emergency military hospital equally uncongenial. She reported for duty on 3 January, subsequently writing in her diary that it ‘felt as if I’d never been away’. From then on her entries very much match those of the previous autumn; for example:

  January 15th The most hectic day of days – one continual rush – man with haemorrage [sic]. Terribly short-staffed – absolute nightmare – oh lord. Washing bowls and bedpans and blood. Don’t know when I’ll get another day off … haven’t heard a thing from David. What a war.

  January 21st A wful. I’ve been changed. Put back to surgical. Oh lord it’s so depressing … I can’t stand Sister S – it’s so difficult because she can’t stand me either …

  January 22nd The most frightful day without exception. Such a rush this evening that I thought it would never come to an end. Patients terribly ill – drip salines – it’s like a nightmare – ghastly. I’m glad no one can see me now. I don’t think I ever looked anything other than a shiny-nosed ugly skivvy – I’m quite frightened when I look in the glass …

  January 24th Another frightful day. I’m certain she isn’t human. XXX brought in a stretcher case at 6 and there was the usual rush round …

  January 25th Thank heaven sister was off so the cat & mouse trick was too. However the case last night is pretty bad, hasn’t come round & they think it might be compression. It’s terrible the responsibility. Feeding him etc. This diary is terrible. Nothing but hospital but you seem to live in a world apart and the war news is second rate to the strain …

  February 10th Well it’s happened – the inevitable night duty – feel so depressed don’t know what to do with myself …

  February 13th Went to bed all day. Just go to bed, get up and go to bed again and all nights off have been stopped. It’s a funny existence – sitting in the ward in a little cape and trying to keep awake …

  Another, comparatively minor, source of irritation for Pamela during this period was the arrival of a different category of nurse. For the most part, Pamela got on well with her fellow nurses, who were mostly from the same locality and background. References to ‘smarties’, however, started creeping into Pamela’s diary entries. These were girls from London and the Home Counties, viewed by Pamela and her contemporaries with some suspicion; for example on 8 February Pamela wrote: ‘Got the most frightful girl on the ward … London smartie. Oh I am u
nkind but I’ve never struck anyone like her …’

  To add to the Street family’s domestic woes, rationing was by now beginning to make itself felt. Petrol rationing had begun in 1939, and from 1940 onwards the rationing of various foodstuffs was implemented in stages. By the start of 1941 all meat, butter, sugar, tea and margarine had been added to the list; jam, cheese and eggs were soon to follow suit. Clothes rationing would be introduced in June 1941, and already stockings were in short supply. In her diary entry for 5 January, Pamela writes of an altercation that she had had with her nursing room-mate over the loan of some stockings: ‘she’s terrible on stockings and the war – they’re awfully difficult to get these days.’

  On 10 January Pamela noted: ‘Mummy is very worried about the rationing.’ This was the period when people were being encouraged to ‘dig for victory’. Vera Street was a lifelong keen gardener, and it must have been a considerable wrench – albeit in other ways a certain source of pride – for her to transform her carefully tended flower-beds into vegetable patches. Her mother’s efforts were clearly the source of inspiration for another wartime poem of Pamela’s, which was accepted for publication in late February by St Martin’s Review for the ‘princely’ sum of 15 shillings – a rare piece of good news:

  Lest We Forget*

  Where the long herbaceous border