On Saturday 28 February Ian Crombie’s sister Sheila visited Ditchampton Farm. The two girls spent the time reminiscing about their weekend together at Weston-super-Mare almost a year earlier: ‘Sheila Crombie came to tea. The first time we’d met since last March … She was very sweet. I told her about sending Ian a cable and she thought it was quite all right. She too remembered that evening as if it were yesterday …’
After such an emotionally fraught week, during which Pamela was still expected to carry on with her wartime duties, it is hardly surprising that she spent much of the Sunday in bed not merely catching up on sleep, but trying to recreate in her own mind the time she spent with David before he left:
March 1st Somehow everything seems so queer and unreal & so odd. I don’t take it in. I can’t and don’t think of David missing. I wonder how long it will take finding out but he must be somewhere – just as long as he isn’t suffering too much it will be all right. I want to write down Weston somehow. I somehow think the more you can think remember & imagine it helps because meeting him there did come true on the railway station & if I go on imagining meeting him somewhere here someday it will come true again.
Pamela did indeed write it all down in the blank pages at the end of her diary. Consigning her thoughts to paper was clearly an important emotional release. The resulting essay was prefaced by a quotation from a book she had recently read, Wild Lone by ‘B.B.’, subtitled The Story of a Pytchley Fox, which was popular at the time with children and adults alike, and praised in particular for its depiction and intimate knowledge of the countryside:
‘The memory fades, to return, perhaps as faintly as an echo, when we lie with our faces buried in the June grass.’ – Wild Lone.
It is nearly a year now since Weston. The memory has not faded. It is like yesterday but another world. You came to meet me on the station and the sun was shining – there was a nice old porter who carried the suitcases – the new one which Mummy & Daddy gave me – and your car didn’t start properly and you had to push – you seemed worried I might not like the place. It is the most wonderful one I know. We met Ian on the way to the hotel – he looked so small with that huge truck. And then we met your parents and you looked in my cupboards in case of bogies. The number of the room was 3 – it has always been our lucky one – and after tea we walked, all of us, along the front and you & I went on and climbed up the fire escape to find Jimmy Miller’s flat. And that evening we went to Bleadon & played darts and there were two WAAFS who we had to drive home by 10. And Hamish and I talked about the Seven Pillars of Wisdom in the back – there was you & Ian & Hamish & I in the end & we ate bacon & eggs in The Dug Out.
The next morning was fine again. I shopped with your mother & went for walks with your father because you were busy till the evening. We went out to the pictures – I can’t remember what it was – and before that we hunted out horses to ride with Mrs Miller & you thought I’d been bored all day or something very silly – and on Saturday we watched you play rugger & you didn’t have the proper shoes – and again the sun was shining – we danced that evening all of us at the Atlantic, not late. There were the Watsons and some others. And Sunday came and I was going – we went for a walk, the four of us, in the morning & looked at the sea and town lying beneath in the sun – it shone all that weekend, and you helped me change my shoes beforehand and said something about wanting to do some other job that was dangerous, as if this wasn’t enough.
That afternoon we rode, the two of us. My horse didn’t keep up and the sand kept splashing in my face like the mud when I hunted. There were piles of stones on the sand to prevent aeroplanes landing on it & it was like a bending race. I said I looked awful when we got back to the stables but you said girls always said that. I shall always remember those days. They are like a bright green island in a river – it is only for fear a little might fade that I have written them down. I do not want to think they will return only as faintly as an echo, when we lie with our faces buried in the June grass.
March 1st 1942
There is no mention of David in Pamela’s diary entry for 3 March, when she reached a new milestone in her young life: ‘21st Birthday. Funny somehow – it doesn’t seem like it– Had lots and lots. Mummy & Pop a wireless!! And money & belt!! & slippers – lovely!!!’ Pamela then goes on to record gifts from various aunts, uncles and cousins. However her best birthday present was to arrive a day later. The date, 4 March, is surrounded in her diary by more than a dozen ecstatic exclamation marks:
A TELEGRAM FROM THE McCORMICKS SAYING ‘Have received letter from David, he is prisoner in Italy, no address yet, will write.’ Feel just so wonderful want to shout – Rang them up. Mrs M said David had said tell Pamela he’d still got the horse-shoe & my photograph – but he’d got dysentry [sic] & was going to hospital. Do hope he wasn’t bad and is all right now. What a birthday present. Did anyone ever have any one like it. How I long to get a letter – wonder how much I can write. Wrote him one which will send as soon as I can – if only I knew the address. Hope they give him enough to eat.
Not surprisingly, Pamela’s diary entries for the next few days show her passing on the good news to various friends and relatives and making enquiries wherever possible about conditions in which prisoners of war were kept. On 6 March the Streets were invited to dinner at Compton Park by their wealthy friend George Cross, whose son – also called George – was present. Pamela records: ‘Mummy, Pop, me to Compton to dinner. Great fun. Young George was there – he’s going to India. He said they never make prisoners work – it’s an international law.’ ‘Young George’ was correct up to a point, at least in the case of commissioned officers from the Western European nations that had signed up to the Geneva Convention of 1929. Captured officers were on the whole treated with suitable respect, and segregated into prison camps for officers only. ‘Other ranks’, however, were often required to work, provided that such work was not directly undertaken for military purposes. Prisoners from non-signatory nations to the Geneva Convention were another matter. On the Eastern Front, Russian prisoners of war were regarded by the Nazi forces as belonging to a sub-human species and subjected to hideous brutality; many were summarily executed or forced to work in appalling conditions in labour camps, which often resulted in death from exhaustion.
On 11 March Pamela received the letter she had been waiting for from David’s parents:
Letter from Mrs McCormick all about David + an enclosed card – we can write to the Italian R.C. [Red Cross] at Rome in the hopes of forwarding – she can write twice a week and is letting me have one of them which is v generous …
Wrote David – isn’t it wonderful to be able to put that – oh so longing to hear.
Families of prisoners of war were able to obtain special airmail forms on which to write their missives to their loved ones in captivity. Such missives, both to and from the recipients in captivity, were subject to strict censorship. Families and friends back home were encouraged to make light of wartime privations, and do all they could to boost the morale of their imprisoned correspondents. Similarly, prisoners of war, issued with a limited ration of airmail forms and postcards, could not reveal their exact whereabouts, or complain of ill treatment. One of David’s early letters to his parents, dated 4 April 1942, evidently fell foul of the censor, the first couple of lines having been heavily deleted in thick black ink. It follows on from this that on first reading, the correspondence between David and his parents and Pamela during his period of captivity seems somewhat bland, though occasionally it is possible to detect certain undercurrents. The first letters that David was allowed to write were – quite properly – to his parents. As before, however, Phyllis and Pamela shared their contents; long before the days of photocopiers, let alone scanners, this involved the physical posting of letters back and forth. Pamela made handwritten transcriptions of certain paragraphs of David’s early letters, both to his parents and to her, which makes it possible to continue the chronological narrative, desp
ite the originals of some letters being missing.
The first letter Pamela received directly from David and partially transcribed before forwarding to Phyllis McCormick, was dated 30 January 1942:
Ospedale Militari, Bari
I sent the first three to Mummy to be sure that she would know quickly that I was still in the land of the living, and am glad to be alive too! Though that is the only consolation in my present position. How long will it be for. I have certainly got myself into a fix this time but it might be worse. I have spent the last three weeks in this hospital with a dose of dysentry [sic] which has cleared up now and I am going out tomorrow I think. But there are some other officers here with horrible wounds. I am very sorry for them but there is not much I can do to help them. One there is who has lost an eye and an arm. He is very cheerful and never complains at his lot … I lost all my kit except what I was wearing, so I consider myself fairly lucky. I have more than some.
Also transcribed in Pamela’s handwriting is the following excerpt from a letter from David to his parents dated 28 February:
Campo 75, P.M. 3450, Italy
There is not much news here. The weather is a little warmer thank God and the almond blossoms are coming out. We had four falls of snow down here and without heating & living in a wooden hut I found it very cold. I have always an upset stomach and fleas and am pretty dirty as it is too cold to wash my shirt. I amuse myself by playing bridge, trying to learn various languages and reading …
Phyllis McCormick’s first letter to David, dated 5 March 1942, records his parents’ relief at knowing that their son was still alive:
Darling David,
Just received your letter of Jan 10th. The first news we have had since you were reported ‘missing’. Our anxiety has been fearful. We do hope you are now well again – We cannot send you anything until we get your full address – We are trying to do so through the Red Cross – The only way – Have informed Pamela, & everyone is delighted to have news of you at last … We do hope you have been able to get the bare necessities. It makes us very anxious knowing you have no clothes or soap …
Edward McCormick wrote David a very similar letter a couple of days later, ending with a practical suggestion for how he might occupy his time in captivity:
My dear David
We received your letter dated 10th Jan on the 3rd March. I can’t tell you how delighted we were! … You were reported ‘missing’ on the 12th Dec, and we received no notification of this until 3rd Feb. Then followed a very bad time for me because Mum had been and was very ill with flu and a sort of pneumonia, and it was quite obvious to me that I could not possibly tell her about you …
We have been making all sorts of enquiries to try to get your final camp address. You see, we cannot send you any parcel until we know your address. We have had no official notification that you are a prisoner …
We shall do all we can to send you what little is allowed for your comfort and entertainment. I expect you will be given facilities for studying the Italian language. You will enjoy this and it will be useful knowledge …
Pamela’s earliest surviving letter to David in captivity, dated 11 March 1942, is a somewhat chaotic outpouring of her relief at knowing that he was safe, with endless reassurances of her continuing affection for him and concern for his welfare:
Oh my darling – I don’t know what to say – you’re safe – it is so wonderful all I can do is thank God and ask Him to keep you safe and sound and one day bring you back to me – Darling I shall love you always – you do know don’t you? Are you all right now from dysentry? I’ll pray that you are. Your mother and father have been marvellous and sent me a telegram as soon as they got your letter – I hope this will find you but it is all the address we’ve got so far. Darling, thank you for having the horse-shoe and photograph. I hope it will always do its duty. Do you know it is a year this weekend since I first came down to see you – I can remember it all as clearly as anything – the hill in the sun and the iron gate – oh Darling if this is a silly letter please forgive – I am so happy I don’t know what to put – but I do hope you’re all right now and that soon I will get the letter your mother said you were writing. Do you know the news about you came the day after I was 21 – wasn’t it odd? The funniest things seem to happen to us don’t they? No one on earth could have had a more wonderful present. Darling I can write to you once a week and your parents the same – I will think of all the things I meant to say when this has gone but just for the moment God bless and keep you Darling, and remember I shall love you always.
Pamela
I’ll think about you all the time – so when you think about me we shall be thinking about each other!
Once communications had been established and David’s official camp address known, David and his parents got down to practicalities. Prisoners-of-war were allowed to receive, via the Red Cross based in Geneva, ‘next-of-kin’ parcels, ‘medical comfort’ parcels, and packs of cigarettes sent at the request of a prisoner’s family or friends directly by the manufacturers (this being long before the dangers of smoking had been established). Cigarettes were useful not merely for consumption but as prison camp currency, being bartered for other goods. An early letter from David to his parents, and a letter from his mother crossing his, give examples of the kind of items that could be sent to prisoners via the Red Cross:
April 14th
I hope you will have had lots of letters from me by now. In case not, here is my list of urgent requirements: long pants, thick short sleeved vests, thick pyjamas and socks and thin shirts (easier to wash), a knife and spoon and 2 pounds of chocolate in any clothes parcel please. I believe chocolate is all you can send. Red Cross parcels are wonderful but I have only had 1¾ in 3 months and none have come to this new camp yet though they are promised. I hear that arrangements can be made with the makers to send separate cigarette parcels taxfree. If so could I be sent 500 Players a month please. If you can send a separate medical parcel I should like dark glasses, a Badger shaving brush, + Vaseline or oil for my hair. Sorry to do nothing but talk about parcels. I am in the mountains now in a beautiful old monastery.* For a few days we went back to winter and it was very miserable, but now we sunbathe all day and at night it is cold. More about this place next time …
April 20th
Darling Dave,
We were so delighted to get your postcard dated March 3rd, & to hear that your tummy was better. I sent you a next-of-kin parcel as soon as we had your address, containing a shirt, vest, pants, socks, pyjamas, handkerchiefs, soap, towel, shorts, shoes etc, & some chocolate (the latter from Pamela). I do hope they arrive before many months have passed. I have also sent you a parcel of books & cigarettes. I am also trying to send you an air-mail parcel as you have been in such bad health, but I’m afraid I can’t send the things you most need, owing to the many restrictions. So don’t be disappointed when it arrives (if it ever does) …
Phyllis McCormick then goes on in the same letter to describe in greater detail the relief and celebrations that followed the arrival of David’s first letter home written from captivity. Clearly at some stage, despite Edward McCormick’s attempts to protect his wife from hearing about it, she had become aware of the fateful telegram. Keenly aware of the inevitable inconsistencies of the postal service to and from prisoner-of-war camps, David’s ever practical father suggested early on a system for keeping track of the letters the McCormicks wrote to their son:
March 18th
We shall try to number our letters to you, and keep copies. In this way you will be able to tell us if any are missing and we shall be able to fill up the gap in any news which you may have missed …
He also clearly tried to put as positive a ‘spin’ as possible on his son’s situation, offering him advice on how he might make best use of his time in captivity:
March 30th (no. 7)
We are so glad to know that you are getting over your attack of dysentery. With the Spring coming on, in that beaut
iful Italian climate, you should soon be able to regain your strength, and may possibly become healthier than you have been for some time. I’ve no doubt you will find that things have been organised to help you keep busy, and that is most important. The busier you keep, both mentally and physically, the quicker the time will pass, and the better will you be equipped to meet the difficult times ahead of us …
As previously explained, family and friends of all prisoners of war were anxious to avoid their letters being held up by censorship at either end, so at times it must have been hard to fill the pages with innocuous news from home that would escape the censor’s black ink. This particular letter from David’s father passed the test splendidly by continuing with an unintentionally humorous account of a current domestic problem the McCormicks were having with one of the members of staff back at Shaws:
We are having rather a tricky time here just now. Clar [Phyllis McCormick’s family nanny, who had been staying at Shaw’s to care for Phyllis during her illness] brought her young niece to us about a month ago to help in the house. She had had some kind of unsatisfactory love affair which had slightly unbalanced her and she had to be taken away from the works she was employed in. They thought the change of coming here would do her good, and for a time all worked well, and she was perfectly normal and worked like a beaver, but, some 10 days back she struck up a friendship with a married man, which was naturally unsatisfactory, and now she has gone crackers again and does the most peculiar things. Yesterday Paine found her trying to start up the Vauxhall. She had the starting handle in and had pulled everything in or out and had finally found the self-starter when Paine appeared.
Farming, Fighting and Family Page 22