Farming, Fighting and Family

by Miranda McCormick

  David’s letters home all begin with a grateful acknowledgement for parcels received; to Pamela in particular his concern was that she was being over generous. On 27 August he wrote to her:

  I have had several parcels now. A clothing one, 2 invalids food parcels & some cigarettes including one from you, bless you for them. It is terribly sweet of you but I hate you spending your money on so unworthy an object … Thank you for the chocolate in the clothes parcel. It was wonderful.

  Red Cross parcels and those from relatives continued to reach David well into the autumn, so that by 5 November he was able to write to Pamela:

  I have had 2 more cigarette parcels from you. This means 3 altogether. It is very sweet of you, but please send them less often, as I don’t like you wasting your pay on me. They are very much appreciated. I must repeat so you can pass it on to Mummy if she hasn’t heard that I have now had 2 next of kin parcels, 4 invalid comforts & am consequently well-equipped for the winter & need no more clothes. Sorry to bore you with this. I am afraid my letters to you, few and short as they are, are all about parcels & letters & I have no room to say what I feel about you, but I know you know.

  The books that family and friends were allowed to send to prisoners of war were almost as important as food, clothing and cigarette parcels. For the morale of young men cooped up together in such cramped and basic conditions for an indeterminate period of time, keeping their minds occupied was essential. This was recognised by the authorities, and bookshops were encouraged to make arrangements to dispatch books to prisoners of war on behalf of their customers. As early as 12 May Pamela recounts a rare visit she made to London with her parents, during which she had lunch with Phyllis McCormick and was able to introduce her future mother-in-law to her own mother. Afterwards she records going to Harrods to have books sent to David:

  Went to London with Ma & Pa and met Mrs. McCormick at the Hyde Park Hotel for lunch – she was perfectly sweet. Never nicer … We talked David solidly all through lunch & then Mummy came and it went very well … Went to Harrods & sent D Peking Picnic, 3 Men in a Boat & Literary Lapses.

  Having been informed of the contents of this parcel in advance, David again wrote to Pamela expressing his gratitude. Reading was clearly a major daily activity by this stage of his captivity:

  I’ve never read ‘3 Men in a Boat’, you will be surprised to hear. I never used to read anything, but now we have quite a good library & I read almost a book a day including all the old classics which I should have read years ago.

  In another letter he told Pamela that he had read her father’s second novel: ‘I read “Strawberry Roan” the other day and enjoyed it very much.’ Evidently other books by Arthur Street had made their way into the prison camp library by the summer of 1942 as well, for on 27 August David warned Pamela: ‘Don’t buy your Dad’s books for me if you haven’t already as I think I have probably read them all.’ Arthur Street’s books were particularly popular with British prisoners of war, because they evoked with such clarity the countryside to which their homesick readers yearned to return.

  On hearing that Arthur Street had been going through a difficult period in the spring of 1942, David replied to Pamela with some well-meant advice: ‘I am so sorry to hear your Dad was ill in April & expect & hope he is well again. I think he works too hard! A great mistake!’

  On 1 October he wrote:

  My Darling Pamela, I expect it will be quite cold when you get this, yet here we have had the 2nd hottest day of the year last week. I have had your letter of Aug 27. You had just had lunch with Mummy in town, & bought me a wonderful mug. I had quite forgotten that I had ever asked for one, but am very pleased as I am still drinking out of old tins and need one. Thank you very much for the chocolate you gave Mummy for me too. I have just heard that two more parcels have arrived for me too but don’t know what they are yet. A big day for me! Life here is going surprisingly quickly now that we have Red X food parcels once a week & have plenty of clothes. I learn Italian & French all morning, sleep after lunch till about 4, then play poker or go to a French class till dinner & play bridge from then till midnight. Do you play bridge? Mine is getting revoltingly good.

  Bridge was one thing; however it is surprising that David also mentioned playing poker, given its somewhat louche reputation. He was evidently a dab hand at both. Although it was contrary to military discipline to play cards for money, to get round this issue, and on the assumption that an officer’s word was his bond, the prisoners played for IOUs to be redeemed after the war had ended and they had been demobilised. One family member even cynically suggested that in this way David amassed sufficient capital to fund some of his post-war enterprises.

  On 5 November David replied to a letter he had just received from Pamela, urging her once again not to write to him if so doing was becoming a chore. He went on to explain his recent promotion from Second Lieutenant to full Lieutenant, which Pamela must have noticed and queried from the details on the outside of his airmail letters, on which the sender’s name and rank had to be printed:

  Are you finding it an awful duty to write to me so often? I do hope not, but don’t write if you don’t feel like it, darling. Yes, it is 2 years that we have known each other, & perhaps in all a week that we have been together! I must put you wise about this Lieut business – it was unavoidable & happens when you have been an officer 18 months – I believe it has changed to 6 months – it would be, wouldn’t it!

  By the beginning of December the POWs were already planning how to make the best of Christmas given their limited circumstances, and saving up rations for the big day. On 3 December David wrote to Pamela:

  There is snow on the surrounding hills & it is pretty cold. I think we are going to have a good feed on Christmas Day as we are putting all sorts of things from our Red X parcels into the workhouse for the occasion. Unfortunately our issue is being cut to one a fortnight which makes a big difference … Well Darling I shall be thinking about you on Christmas Day & hoping you are having a good time. My love to you, David.

  David described how the POWs’ festive season was spent in a letter to Pamela written on 6 January 1943, mentioning inter alia an evidently well-received visit by a Papal envoy. He goes on to conjure up in his mind’s eye a rather touching picture of how Pamela and her parents might have spent Christmas Day:

  Darling, I have had two more letters from you since Christmas, Nov 6 & 16, both very sweet, and a sweet little photo of you in uniform. The hair is just right & I realise what I am missing. We really had a very good Christmas here considering, lots of food & sort of parties & everyone gave a Christmas present & then they were all drawn for so that everyone got one back. That’s democracy! We also had lots of services, cards, a pantomime which was very funny & a visit from a wonderful papal delegate, who brought the Pope’s Christmas message to us & a whole lot of papal medals & stamps which were drawn for. I thought about you more than ever on Christmas day and I imagined you having rather a quiet day at home resting & eating too much & sitting in front of a fire with Rigo, and oddly enough you were wearing the long red dress with the painted buttons which you thought I didn’t like. I have always felt guilty about that dress because actually I thought you looked lovely in it. 1943 is in & I am sure we will be together before it is over.

  With a huge kiss,

  Your David

  During the run-up to Christmas, Pamela’s diary records her going to various parties, some of which she enjoyed more than others, but David was correct in that Christmas Day itself for the Streets was indeed a quiet affair. Whether or not Pamela was wearing her red dress is not recorded, but quite possibly she wore it on the following day, for which the Streets were evidently keeping their powder dry. They were to hold what appears to have been a highly successful Boxing Day party, as Pamela described afterwards:

  December 26th Our party. It was terrific. Cuban Pete came to help in the afternoon. Everyone came [there follows a long list of names], Americans & lots of friends of people
, all my A.T.S. & Dinah’s Fannies. It really went with a swing & quite the best we’ve had though I say it myself.

  However, a few days later Pamela attended a New Year’s dance which only served to make her more aware than ever of her single status, and left her in a very different mood:

  It was an awful flop. Jimmy had a cold & Major K G was sweet but old & Capt Evans was a sop & John Matthews a twirp & I wonder if it’s me or if I’ll ever find anyone nice to run round with. Gosh I feel ancient & unwanted & miserable … oh blow everything.

  Pamela was not to know it at the time, but things would change dramatically for her in this respect the following year, though this in itself would present a new set of problems. Meanwhile the rest of the civilian population could take comfort from the turn of the tide in the Allies’ fortunes that the battle of El Alamein and success so far of ‘Operation Torch’ signified. As Churchill famously said about this particular stage of the war, whilst it was not yet even the beginning of the end, it was ‘the end of the beginning’.

  Notes

  * One of the most famous band leaders during the Second World War.

  * A game in which the players attempt to communicate with the spirit world.

  Thirteen

  American Impact, ‘Operation Husky’ and an Unwelcome Move

  (January–October 1943)

  After the debacle at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 that brought the USA into the war, it was only a matter of time before American troops would come over to the UK to prepare for the Second Front. With its nearby army bases, Wilton had to accommodate a good many of these new arrivals, who proved something of an eye-opener for the locals. The differences between American servicemen and their British counterparts were legion. Though united by – almost – the same language, their cultural backgrounds were worlds apart. For a start, the hierarchy of the American army was essentially meritocratic, whereas in the British army, class differences still played an almost automatic part in the question of promotion. Then whilst the British took pride in their traditions, Americans celebrated everything modern. British citizens typically spoke in understatements, whilst Americans bragged of their exploits. A major cause of British servicemen’s resentment towards their new allies was that the Americans were paid roughly five times as much as the British, and this inevitably led on to perhaps the most resented issue of all: the success American servicemen enjoyed with the British female population. This is how Pamela later described their arrival:

  Over came the yanks to the Old Country, tens of thousands of them, their influx so aptly described by that catch-phrase, however hackneyed: oversexed, overpaid and over here. With their chocolates, nylons and uninhibited sweet-talk or sweet-drawl, they woke up the English girls, none more so than myself.

  For parents of girls of Pamela’s generation it was a case of ‘lock up your daughters’. Arthur Street could never sleep at night until all his ‘womenfolk’ were safely under his roof, and having so many Americans in the neighbourhood only served to fuel his paternal anxieties. Pamela later recalled in My Father, A.G. Street an incident at this stage of the war when she had been asked to a party and failed to arrive home when expected:

  In vain I pleaded that I hoped he might have been asleep and did not want to disturb him; in vain I said, quite truthfully, that the taxi which was to have brought me back failed to arrive; in vain I said I’d been offered a lift by some Americans who seemed to be on the point of leaving every minute for at least two hours. It was to no avail. According to my father I had neither the ‘courtesy’ nor the ‘gumption’ to telephone, and when he arrived at two a.m. on the doorstep of the house where the party was being held the wrath that I engendered on the way home was something I remember to this day.

  Some of Pamela’s diary entries for late 1942 suggest that these new visitors were becoming more accepted and indeed welcome:

  December 9th Colonel Dickson brought an American, Colonel Joseph, to dinner.

  December 20th The Americans came to tea & Robbie G & Jane B & Joy & Rosalie & Dinah. It was quite fun.

  December 24th Went to New Year’s dance with Colonel Joseph. Great fun & came back in a truck + darkies.*

  It was not the aforementioned Colonel Joseph who, in Pamela’s own words, ‘woke her up’. Instead it would be a certain US army captain, Holden Bowler, who caught her eye.

  In the absence of diary entries (Pamela later explained that from 1943 onwards she was ‘too busy, too tired or too ill’ to continue to keep a diary), it is unclear exactly when and how Pamela and Holden became acquainted, but in her autobiography Pamela made a remarkably frank admission about the effect he had on her:

  I can’t remember where we met, only that there was an instant rapport. He was a singer, older than any of my other escorts and, for the first time in my life, I knew what it was like to want to go to bed with someone of the opposite sex.

  Holden was indeed a talented musician, who having dropped out of Idaho University to pursue his dream of a musical career, ended up in the late 1930s as the lead singer aboard an American cruise ship, where he met and befriended J.D. Salinger, author of Catcher in the Rye. Salinger was working as a staff boy, a job which included dancing with unattached female passengers; perhaps, having had enough of such activities for a lifetime, this is one reason why, after the success of Catcher in the Rye, Salinger became more or less a permanent recluse. When on shore leave the two young men would explore their new surroundings together on rented bicycles. Salinger later borrowed the name Holden for the protagonist of Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield.

  Holden may or may not have been amongst the earliest American visitors to Ditchampton Farm, but by the spring of 1943 he appears to have been readily welcomed by the family for, being a country boy from Idaho, he was a keen fisherman, and later fondly recalled time spent fishing on the River Wylye with Arthur Street. In the run-up to D-Day, his wartime role was as a liaison officer supervising the reuniting of American servicemen with their equipment, which had arrived in different ships at different ports. He was billeted in West Street, Wilton, with a childless couple, Charles and Clara Elliot, who quickly took Holden under their wing. Holden’s and Pamela’s paths must have crossed frequently on their way to and from work at Southern Command headquarters, and their meetings would therefore have been easily witnessed by the Elliots. Judging from an extract from a letter Holden wrote to Pamela later that year after she left Wilton, Clara Elliot seems to have taken a particular interest in his moral welfare:

  Things in Wilton don’t change … Clara still stands guard over all activity in and around W. St. – as you well know. Needless to say when I found yours [letter] it was high on a mantle – & knowing looks were in abundance – Dear old soul, she will live so much longer, given a bit of food for her active if misguided imagination.

  Clara Elliot’s imagination was not entirely misguided. From the spring of 1943 Pamela and Holden had entered into an increasingly serious relationship, if Pamela’s later novel about the Second World War, Many Waters, is anything to go by. This is how she described her heroine Emily Mason’s near affair with her American admirer, Vernon Keeler, during this period of the war:

  Both had known … that their love affair was rather more than Just One of Those Things, as the popular song of the moment put it. They had therefore met, secretly, whenever possible. The coming of lighter evenings … had given them more opportunity for cycling into the countryside together. Such assignations had often, Emily feared, been tempting fate. But their love-making, largely thanks to Vernon, had always stopped just short of what she supposed was the point of no return … Her whole being felt on fire as she went to meet him. She had not stopped to think where their relationship was leading. She only knew that she had to see him, that she lived to see him …

  As Pamela’s feelings for Holden intensified, she soon found herself consumed by guilt, for all the while she was still writing to – and receiving letters from – David McCormick. David wrote to Pamela a
s often as his meagre ration of prisoner-of-war airmail forms permitted. In a letter dated 11 February 1943, thanking her for several Christmas gifts, he once again commented on how much Arthur Street’s books were appreciated by him and his fellow prisoners of war: ‘I have had a very fine Christmas present from you, 2 parcels of cigarettes & “Country Days” & “Hedgetrimmings”, which I had not read and enjoyed very much. Everyone borrows them because they take one back to England for a while.’ But was it coincidence, telepathy, or something in the tone of one of Pamela’s more recent letters that caused David to end this letter with the admonition: ‘Don’t get snapped up by one of those Americans! It is one of my major anxieties!’

  Another, more practical matter, was by now also bothering Pamela. At the time, the Streets were housing two billetee colonels who began to suggest that Pamela could use her talents to better effect than in her menial job at the Registry, and that she should apply for a commission in the ATS. No doubt their advice was intended to be encouraging and in a sense flattering, but Pamela took it as a swingeing criticism which evidently goaded her into action. An additional incentive may have been a desire to demonstrate both to David and to Holden Bowler that she was capable of more serious war work, even if deep down she knew it went against her natural inclinations: