Farming, Fighting and Family

by Miranda McCormick

  As you will have heard I continue to shrink and am to be allowed home on Dec 16. There, provided I have a sensible wife (Doctor’s remark not mine) I can easily take off another 2 stones by Feb 1, after which I should be fit for more toil. With regard to feeding her family I think you will agree that our beloved Mrs. Meeks* is far from sensible, her obvious aim being to fatten them to butchering point in the quickest possible time. However, as starving me will mean the saving of lots of money each week in fees up here, it may be that the miser will overcome the cook …

  It was fortuitous that one of Vera Street’s main contributions to the war effort had been growing and tending vegetables in Ditchampton Farmhouse’s large garden, which she had successfully transformed into a market garden, selling her produce to other Wilton residents. Indeed in a letter to Pamela earlier in the autumn Arthur Street wrote: ‘Mummy is making a fortune selling vegetables.’ Obviously there would be a plentiful supply of the right kind of food once Arthur returned home, and in a letter to Vera from Ruthin Castle written after Pamela had been home on leave, he jokingly warned his wife that he would be putting her out of business:

  I was amused, too, to hear that Pamela couldn’t stand your rich food. Neither shall I, so you and Vi will be out of a job. However, I shall expect greenhouse lettuce when I return in mid-January, for I have decided to eat up all your market-garden profits …

  In those dark days of ‘make do and mend’, another of Vera’s talents proved particularly useful. She and her other Foyle sisters were all accomplished needle-women; two of her unmarried sisters were making a living together as dressmakers, including amongst their clientele the Pembrokes of Wilton House. Pamela was having difficulties getting her unflattering ATS uniform to fit, but her mother was well qualified to deal with the challenge. On 25 November Arthur Street commented in a letter to his wife: ‘I trust you have managed to solve her uniform problems – after all when it comes to clothes the Foyles do stand supreme.’

  Arthur Street was proud not only of his wife’s accomplishments, but also of her good looks. He clearly enjoyed, and was currently missing, the physical side of their marriage, as illustrated by various remarks he made in letters to her during this period. For example, commenting on the evident success Vera had enjoyed at a party she had just attended, Arthur wrote:

  I’m so glad you had such a fine party with the Yanks and Bucky Tyler [the Streets’ new American billetee] and especially that you sparkled not merely as mother of Pam, but as a woman considered bedworthy. And how! I’m thrilled that you put it over the local tarts so definitively ….

  At this stage of the autumn Vera Street was dithering about whether to take on a second billetee, and evidently asked her husband’s advice, which when it came was both forthright and flattering: ‘I think you did the right thing about Bucky Tyler’s room, but don’t be daft and let another room. I don’t want money but a room with a good bed and you in it.’ Arthur Street was clearly worried that his illness and weakened state might have lessened his former sexual prowess. When he knew he would shortly be coming home he wrote to Vera:

  You will have to co-operate with me for I shall be unable to play the role of commando in bed, although I think I shall be a rather attractive co-belligerent … I have no desire to work yet, but merely to come home and play with you. Incidentally there has been no sign of stiffness up here, so maybe I’m finished for good, but I’m banking on your magic touch …

  Holding the fort back at Ditchampton Farm, Vera Street found herself confronted by an additional troublesome situation, as Pamela later explained: ‘By now we had two land girls living in the converted stables … The prettier of these girls, the daughter of an eminent legal luminary, began having an affair with one of our farm staff.’ The warning signs had already been in evidence earlier in the year. In a letter to Pamela during her OCTU training, Arthur Street described the early stages in typically humorous fashion:

  Joan and Jean have each been away for a long weekend. They are both good workers, both daft and both man crazy … Jean still casts sheep’s eyes at Chas [Charlie Noble, the foreman], and he back at her, the fathead. In fact the two girls should be called Sampson and Delilah. Howsoever, I have spoken formally to Delilah, and demanded reformation or departure. What it is to have arrived at the old buffer class!

  With no Arthur on hand to crack the whip, the situation deteriorated further, as Vera Street reported to her husband, for on 2 December he wrote back to her: ‘I cannot help worrying a bit about Jean – silly little ass. Keep your eyes and ears open, and I will sack her when I return. Then if Noble is foolish enough to go he can.’

  Whilst the land girls were busy burning the candle at both ends, Pamela’s constitution allowed her no such indulgences. Her new duties left her far too exhausted at the end of the day for any form of social life, and by 9 p.m. she could be found sitting on her narrow camp bed, writing letters to her parents and friends, including David, who was still constantly on her mind.

  It was a long time after the signing of the Italian armistice before Pamela heard from David, and at the beginning she held high hopes that he would immediately be liberated, as can be seen in one of her letters home during her period of training: ‘I do hope and pray they didn’t move him after August 6th … I see the Telegraph says they “presume” our prisoners will be released. I wish it was stronger than that. However I suppose it’s just wait and see now.’ David’s mother was the first to hear he was now in Germany, though she quickly passed on the disappointing news to Pamela, who in turn told her parents: ‘Mrs. McCormick has had a p.c. from David dated 1st Oct but no address. Poor thing. It sounds pretty grim but I don’t think it’ll last much longer really, do you? Did you hear them going out last night though? I hope David isn’t near a town.’ This last remark was a reference to the bombing raids the RAF and US Army Air Force were now carrying out round the clock on strategic targets in Germany, the Americans in their new long-range so-called ‘flying fortresses’.

  On receipt of the first letter David wrote to her from Germany, quoted at the end of the last chapter, Pamela commented to her parents: ‘David’s letter was very nice – he doesn’t complain ever – it is almost too good – I would sooner know what it is really like.’ Pamela was to learn more when she received David’s next letter, written on 27 November, in which he went into greater detail about his living conditions and state of mind:

  We have not had any mail since we have been in this country, but are hoping to get some any day now … I must admit that I am finding life rather dreary. We are in wooden huts divided into rooms of 14 and sleep in bunks of 3 tiers. I live in one in the middle. We have 3 roll-calls a day & are locked into our huts at 5.30 to 6 after the last roll-call. Otherwise we are left to ourselves. We are very short of books, but the Y.M.C.A. are sending us a whole lot, which will make life better. I believe we are going to get a weekly cinema showing education films too. It has snowed once or twice & it is pretty cold here …

  I wonder if you are an officer yet? Darling, don’t be a Major when I get back!! I am longing to hear from you, Darling, don’t forget me.

  To add to the prisoners’ woes, by this stage of their captivity an all too common event was the arrival for one of their number of what became known as a ‘Dear John’ letter, written by a sweetheart or even in some cases a wife, informing the unlucky recipient that in his absence she had met someone else and that their relationship was now over. David dreaded the arrival of such a letter from Pamela; however being a sensitive and conscientious young man he felt guilty about holding her to a semi-promise made so many years previously. Consequently shortly before Christmas he wrote her the following thoughtful letter:

  Darling Pamela,

  I have just completed 2 years in the bag and feel it is time to write you a rather serious letter about our relationship. Looking back, the two years have gone very quickly for me as there are so few outstanding events, but I feel that for you it must be very different. You must have had
all kinds of experiences and met many new people and I have got an idea in my head that you may easily have forgotten or ‘got over’ me, and yet feel at the same time that it would be unkind or unwise to tell me at present. Darling, if you do feel like that I think it would be best for me if you were frank about it. I cannot tell how I shall feel when I get home but at present I believe my best chance of a happy life lies in persuading you to marry me, & I certainly cannot imagine marrying anyone else. But from your point of view I am hardly eligible; I am none too fit, have no job to go back to, no special training & I believe my parents have recently suffered a severe financial set-back and I shall almost certainly have to live entirely on my own earnings.* I may feel it would be unfair to ask you to marry me. Darling, I would prefer you not to commit yourself either way. I still love everything about the girl I parted from in Weston nearly 3 years ago – do you feel the same about the joke officer or are you being kind? I have just had my first letter from Mummy in Germany (Nov 24). Could you please tell her that I am writing next week. Congratulations on the commission. I am very proud of you.

  David

  Pamela did not receive this letter until well into the new year, but once she did – not surprisingly – it made a deep impression on her, and she immediately set about composing an equally thoughtful response. Fortunately a copy of her reply still survives:

  Darling,

  I have read and reread your letter of the 17th December and I think it is the most wonderful one a girl could ever have. I understand everything you have said. I realise that people change, but I want you to know that in all the time you have been gone I have never (and I can honestly say never) met anyone like the David I parted from nearly three years ago. So I am not being ‘kind’. There have been times Darling when perhaps you have seemed far away but I think I have always known in my heart that my only real happiness could be in trying to make you happy too. I do not know if you will think I am the same girl you left behind or not. That will be for you to judge. But I have tried very hard to remain the Pamela whom I hoped you loved. I do realise Darling that you may not and I may not think you the same David but something tells me that the person who has written me this letter is the one I know & still love and therefore I am prepared to take that risk. Darling it has been a long time but that spring still stands out as something very precious which I shall never forget and I would like you to know that if we do both think the same then whether you are ‘eligible’ or not will not make the slightest difference to the fact that I would still want to marry you.

  Pamela

  Although Pamela had kept her previous letters from David private, this time she could hardly wait to tell her mother what he had written. Her pride shows in the following extract from her next letter to Vera Street:

  Thank you very much for sending David’s letter on in a separate envelope. I think it was the most wonderful letter a girl could ever have … I will show it to you when I come home as although I have never showed you any of David’s letters before I think perhaps you would like to see this and he would not mind. Time alone will show what is to happen to us but I am more convinced than ever that what I am waiting for is worth it a hundredfold …

  I don’t want you to think Mummy that anything at all has been decided because neither of us can tell what we shall feel at the end of this wretched war and what may happen before its end – all I wanted you to know was that I was very proud to get a letter like that & hope and pray that this year [1944] will see the end of the war with Germany & that better times will come.

  Being from such a close and – to use Pamela’s own words – tender-hearted family, one of Pamela’s chief concerns during her period of ATS service was how and when to get leave in order to see her parents again. This seemed even more imperative once she knew that Arthur Street was to be allowed home early from Ruthin Castle; on hearing the news she wrote to her mother: ‘It was lovely talking to you & it’s wonderful about Pop. I am so glad. I must come and see him through hell or high water.’ Although permission for Pamela to visit her parents over Christmas was initially uncertain, she was finally granted a reasonable period of leave. On her return home, however, her first reaction on seeing her father since his stay in Ruthin was one of shock, as she later recounted in My Father, A.G. Street: ‘When I walked into the drawing-room and saw him sitting on the sofa, I was scared. He seemed to have shrunk out of all recognition, but he was as cheerful as ever.’

  Pamela’s presence at Ditchampton Farm turned out to be fortuitous, as she goes on to relate, albeit in typically self-deprecating fashion:

  My mother and Vivi had gone down with influenza, so I did what I could towards the usual household chores and tried to produce a few meals for us all. They were not very well cooked, and I can remember my father and myself sitting down to a rather poor supper together. When I apologized for it, he said, ‘Never mind. As long as we see to the essentials and get the invalids fed, you and I can do without the frills.’

  Arthur Street gradually regained his strength and went on to make a seemingly full recovery, despite once again topping 16 stone. Pamela wrote of his reaction when he learnt, many years later, that the heart specialist who had treated him during the war had died at a comparatively young age:

  When he read about it in the newspapers, my father poured himself a large whisky and soda and shook his head. ‘Doctors,’ he remarked, ‘they’re all the same. They don’t really know very much. That’s why they’re all practising, you see.’

  Notes

  * At the time, people would have been familiar with the Glaxo advertisements for their baby food, featuring well-fed, happy toddlers.

  * The equivalent of a little under £2,000 in today’s money.

  * A late nineteenth-century Australian cookery expert and great proponent of cookery lessons in schools for girls.

  * Before the war David would have been expecting, like his father, to live off income from the McCormick family trusts, which had been badly mismanaged of late.

  Fifteen

  The Build-up to D-Day and a

  Crisis of Conscience

  (January–June 1944)

  The build-up to the Second Front was aptly code-named ‘Operation Bolero’, after Ravel’s composition of the same name, with its insistent theme repeated by a variety of solo instruments, which gradually combine until the piece reaches its explosive climax. By the beginning of 1944, preparations for D-Day were approaching completion. The atmosphere of expectancy was palpable. All British citizens, military and civilian alike, knew that it would only be a matter of months if not weeks before the Allies would launch their strike on the other side of the English Channel, though only the very top brass knew exactly when, and just as crucially, where.

  In a letter to her mother in early January 1944 Pamela wrote: ‘We are just waiting for the news – there is some rumour of all leave being stopped soon – watch out for “South Coast” in the Field!’ As an ATS officer posted on the outskirts of Portsmouth, Pamela was able to watch, at particularly close quarters, the military preparations for D-Day. During one of her periods of leave, she captured the feelings she shared with the rest of the British population in a poem that was published in The Field at the end of January 1944:

  South Coast

  There’s a hush along the South Coast where

  the shingle meets the sea,

  Like the lull before a storm begins to break;

  And shadows out of History Books pass by inquiringly,

  Lord Nelson, Raleigh, Kitchener and Drake.

  There’s a murmur in the harbours all along

  the South Coast towns

  There’s a humming in the ship-yards and the docks;

  A wind sweeps seawards knowingly across the

  Sussex Downs,

  And whispers to the valleys and the rocks.

  And as the darkness falls on this grey January day,

  And in the sky there shines a crescent moon,

  The waves beat
out a lullaby in every South Coast Bay –

  ‘Quite soon’, they chant, and then again,

  ‘Quite soon’.

  By early 1944 Pamela’s request for a compassionate posting had finally been granted, and she now found herself at a large military base in North Wiltshire. However in terms of her responsibilities, it proved a case of ‘out of the frying-pan into the fire’. Many decades later she wrote about this period of her life as follows:

  My new posting took me to Corsham in North Wiltshire where there was a large underground ammunition depot. An A.T.S. company of cooks, clerks and general dogsbodies catered for all the male personnel stationed there. My C.O., sensing, I suppose, that I was a so-called ‘good’ girl, told me she was putting me in charge of a platoon in which there was a disproportionate number of ‘baddies’: streetwise young women, mostly from urban areas, some of whom had married bigamists, knew all about abortion, pregnancies and had already been offenders in civilian life.

  I found my new duties incredibly difficult. There were two peroxided tearaways in whom she felt I might be able to instil some sense of morality. Petrified, I tried to do my best, but was convinced they fell about laughing once they got outside my office. To make matters worse, we officers had to take it in turns to escort lorry-loads of our charges to dances almost every night at various camps all over Wiltshire. It was this business of Paul Jones rearing his head again to entertain the troops, only a bit more basic. It was necessary to round up the correct number of girls for the journey home, practically having to detach them, physically, from their partners with whom they were in a firm clinch.