by Mary Horlock
‘He entered my office,’ wrote a traumatised Mr Williams, ‘and informed me that he was in charge of camouflage throughout the country and without waiting for me, entered into a tirade about the position of camouflage, stating that the whole position needed investigating, that it was scandalous the number of lives being lost due to non-delivery of camouflage material, and did I not agree with him.’
Williams reacted with dismay and disbelief. ‘I stated that I was not in a position to express an opinion but that we had only recently known about the camouflage and that we were doing everything possible to boost up delivery and provided that we get some fitters, we could deliver 100,000 square yards a week and that I believed that if we obtained the wire wool in bulk, similar to the samples just received from America, there would, I thought, be no difficulty in getting an output from the Plant we were making, of 125,000 square yards per week.’
Johnny was still not satisfied. ‘He said he wanted 500,000 square yards a month and I pointed out to him that 125,000 square yards a week was 500,000 square yards a month. He then said that he wanted 500,000 square yards a week.’
Things went from bad to worse. ‘He asked me if I knew people in the Ministry of Supply. I stated only by having contacted them on the telephone. He asked if I considered they were Fascists. He said the orders had been placed in January and what had we been doing in the meantime?’ Mr Williams promptly explained that they’d been making Nissen huts and other items for the war effort.
Johnny spluttered and stamped the floor.
‘Another racket!’ he exclaimed.
The meeting ended abruptly with Johnny making various threats. Poor Mr Williams consoled himself that Johnny’s artistic temperament was to blame.
‘I have since learned that Captain Churchill in civil life is an artist and interior decorator, and upon learning this, understood his attitude at the interview.’17
For the prime minister it was embarrassing, but the intensity of the debate shows how much camouflage had come to matter. The enquiry eventually concluded that any delay in manufacture was simply a matter of departments being stretched to their limits. As for Johnny, there was talk of a court martial. ‘Johnny gets into and out of hot water,’ Joe told Mary. ‘He is really too undiplomatic. He will either be made a brigadier or will be shot!’ Neither, in fact, occurred. But the spotlight on steel wool seemed to speed up production. By autumn, Tinsley Wire Industries were delivering 80,000 square yards a week, and Williams & Williams 20,000 square yards. Both firms were working double shifts.
The Air Ministry considered steel wool crucial, particularly for the camouflage of its aircraft factories, hangars and for aircraft dispersal, but there was still some way to go to have it widely accepted. After the declaration of war, the Ministry of Home Security had taken charge of civil camouflage and established the Civil Defence Camouflage Establishment, based in the picturesque town of Leamington Spa, conveniently located in the almost exact centre of England. Wing Commander T. R. Cave-Brown-Cave, a professor of engineering at Southampton University, was the new director, with Captain Glasson named chief camouflage officer. Office headquarters were located in the elegant Regent Hotel, and an old ice rink was commandeered as a camouflage workshop. (‘An old skating rink in Leamington is now filled with artists with hair of various lengths, painting camouflage schemes onto models of all the most important factories engaged in our war production.’)18 A revolving stage was constructed, complete with adjustable ‘sun’ and special viewing balcony. This, the men at RE8 thought rather extravagant: ‘The Leamington experts, rather to our amusement, even went so far as to rig their own private solar system. The precious models when painted were set up on a turn table . . . a movable lighting was manipulated to simulate sunlight and moonlight at various times and seasons. Undoubtedly a fascinating toy.’19
But the Civil Defence Camouflage Establishment was supposed to be the place where new techniques and materials were developed, and Captain Glasson expressed reluctance to use steel wool. He thought it too expensive and ‘only doubtfully fireproof’.20 Several colleagues queried this, suggesting he ‘was condemning something he knew little about’21 and that it was in the national interest to support its production. The issue was debated because the Air Ministry had initially requested up to 10 million square yards of steel wool, and then responsibility for the camouflage of many of its sites was transferred to Home Security.
But Glasson’s reluctance to support steel wool was coloured by his own interest in another screening material, one made out of seaweed. Dried seaweed contains a large percentage of alginic acid, which was extracted from it in the form of crude sodium alginate. This was then converted into calcium alginate, which was spun into a fibre. The final material was promptly codenamed ‘BG’ (‘BG’, stood for ‘Bloody Good’ – after so many other materials had been labelled ‘NBG’).
The battle between BG and steel wool was extensively documented. Glasson rightly argued that seaweed was cheaper and more readily available and therefore surely better; however, the means of transforming it into something hard-wearing proved costly and labour-intensive. In the end, after two years of trials, the appointment of two research chemists and the endless allocation of resources, BG was still neither strong enough nor sufficiently weatherproof to be used on anything like the scale of steel wool.
It is strangely satisfying to find John Lewis, the camoufleur who had been so unimpressed by Joe as a lecturer, being yet more dismayed by the material that was meant to rival his. In the spring of 1941 Lewis was inspecting some large guns near Tunbridge Wells. ‘The actual guns, which were Big Bertha-like relics of the first war, were concealed under 18,000 square yards of netting and stuff that looked like grass. It was actually a kind of seaweed.’ Yes, this was the famous ‘BG’, although, according to Lewis, ‘It was not all that BG, for when the weather was damp it drooped in the manner of any proper seaweed and all its covering capabilities were lost. Sodium alginate found its proper level after the war in the manufacture of ice cream.’22
Notes
CAB = Cabinet Papers
CD, TC, CDTC = Camouglage Development and Training Centre
HO= Home Office
IWM = Imperial War Museum
PREM = Prime Minister’s Office Records
TNA = The National Archives
WO = War Office
Jack Sayer, ‘The Camouflage Game’, refers to his unpublished, hand-written memoir, courtesy of Gillian Ward.
To avoid repetition, the majority of quotes from Joseph’s letters to Mary are not noted. Unless stated otherwise, they form part of the Barclay family archive. Similarly, images reproduced form part of this archive, except where credited otherwise.
1 Capt. T. Van Oss in a letter (with pencil drawing), 21 August 1941, IWM ARCH40
2 Sayer, Camouflage Game, p. 35
3 Lewis, Such Things Happen, p. 55
4 Capt. T. Van Oss in a letter home, 26 September 1940, courtesy Richard Van Oss
5 Static Camouflage, TNA CAB102/206
6 Capt. T. Van Oss in a letter to his wife, 2 November 1941, courtesy Richard Van Oss
7 Julian Trevelyan, Indigo Days, MacGibbon & Kee, London, 1957, p. 123
8 Ibid., p. 122
9 Roland Penrose, Manual on Camouflage for the Home Guard, George Routledge & Sons Ltd, London, 1941, IWM 25160, pp. 4–5
10 J. Trevelyan in a letter to Maj. Edward Seago at Southern Command, 3 April 1941, TNA WO199/1630
11 Wright, Tank, p. 31
12 Jean Goodman, Edward Seago: The Other Side of the Canvas, Collins, London, 1978, p. 150
13 IWM Archive Pavitt Documents.2790
14 Sayer, Camouflage Game, p. 36
15 Ibid., p. 11
16 Peregrine Churchill in a letter to his aunt, 12 July 1940, TNA PREM 3/81/1
17 Ben Williams in a letter, 7 August 1940, TNA PREM 3/81/1
18 TNA WO 199/1630
19 Sayer, Camouflage Game, p. 17
20 TNA AVIA
15/1495
21 ‘Minute Sheet – talk on Steel Wool’, 3 December 1940, TNA AVIA 15/1495-360620,
22 Lewis, Such Things Happen, p. 61
is for Maintenance of the disguise Leaving covers unchecked is always unwise
17 Vale Court
9 September 1940
Dearest M.,
I am adding a P.S. to my letter to let you know that a bomb landed in my bedroom last night.
But the M wasn’t Mary. This was James Meade, Mary’s brother, writing to his wife Margaret in Canada. James had been staying in Mary’s flat in Vale Court. Only the flat was no more.
The Battle of Britain had begun in earnest in June 1940 and by August the Luftwaffe was moving inland, targeting London suburbs. The much-feared ‘mighty blow’1 came on Saturday 7 September. Six hundred bombers swarmed in tight formation up the Thames, and with a thundering, furious certainty they laid waste to east London, dropping their explosives on the power stations and docks. They returned the next night. The Strand was bombed, St Thomas’s hospital and St Paul’s, the West End, Buckingham Palace, Lambeth Palace, Piccadilly, the House of Commons. Chelsea was also badly hit because German planes would fly up the Thames in search of Battersea power station. The only landmark that stood out was the Water Tower on Campden Hill in Kensington, and as soon as the German pilots spotted it they knew they’d flown too far. They’d turn around and jettison spare bombs en route.
James Meade had only recently returned to England after a stint in Geneva, working at the League of Nations. He was back in London to take up a post as economic adviser in the War Cabinet. His plans to stay in Vale Court were brought to an abrupt end.
‘Luckily, we had all taken refuge in the basement & no one was at all hurt. I am afraid that a good deal of Mary’s things were destroyed, and I rather suspect that I have lost a lot of my clothes!’ James tried hard to assure his wife it was really only a ‘small fire’ and ‘London seems very normal again this morning. Now I am living at the office and sleeping on a “Lilo” in the deep air-raid shelter. So I am as safe and as comfortable as one can possibly be.’2
It was business as usual, that was the idea. But not for Mary. When she learned that Vale Court had been hit she was distraught. Her home and many of her belongings had been destroyed, and that private place where she and Joe could meet was gone for good. Joe had braced himself for such a violent shock and it almost came like a relief since it was what he’d been expecting.
‘Why dear P.F. it seems practically impossible to realise that No. 17 has been smashed up in this frightful way but thank Heaven you were safely out of it. I spent that night with an A.A. Battery in Kent, who had lent us a couple of blankets, it being impossible to motor in the dark. I must say, the barrage over London made a fantastic sight!’
How typical of Joe to find the beauty in bombs dropping; his artist’s eyes were drawn to the throbs of light, the warm glow of distant fires. Driving through the East End the next morning, he couldn’t resist sketching the scenes he came across.
The firemen were still busy – on tops of ladders and roofs and so on hammering away and hosing tons of water – a most fantastic sight. The people are going about their morning work, these typical old women with their shopping bags and umbrellas – and scores of children of all ages still around – Nothing of military importance seemed to have been hit but I suppose they did get some of the docks and warehouses.
With London under attack, Joe’s way of life would change and change again. It was a new kind of homelessness and a new extreme of sleeplessness. He would rarely get back to Marlborough Gate – ‘it is practically impossible to get any means of conveyance after 9 or 10 o’clock. The Marlborough Gateites sleep – or try to – in the basement or ground floor but I think the Hyde Park guns keep most of them awake – Fortunately I don’t hear the guns too much but even I hear the Hyde Park ones which are pretty ’ot!’
Mary had no choice but to remain at Lansdown Crescent with her mother, which proved difficult for both of them. Unlike Joe, Mary was unable to keep secrets – both her brother and her mother now knew about her ‘complicated situation’. Mary assured them that Joe’s marriage was long over, but this was small comfort to the recently widowed Kitty Meade. She thought her daughter impetuous and immature, and the uncertainty of these terrifying times had only made her vulnerable. War, like alcohol, could skew one’s moral compass.
Fortunately, Joe was too busy to impose on them in Bath. He was himself a distant spectre, the will-o’-the-wisp of Sayer’s cartoon. ‘So sorry but working day and all night. Haven’t a chance to write. Hope to do so tomorrow though and you will understand!’ Even when Mary came up to London to see the charred ruins of Vale Court, they missed each other completely. ‘This is just a rushed note to tell you how sorry I am I didn’t see you before you went,’ Joe scrawled on some scrap paper, before dashing off to Dover again.
He was so caught up in the frenetic pace of work and the endless bombing raids he had little chance to reflect on what had been lost. Mary tried to salvage a few bits of furniture and regain a sense of perspective. Returning to Bath, she found herself a clerical post at the Admiralty offices there. She wanted and needed to be useful, to keep active, but she was fighting a terrible feeling she might become now more stuck than ever before.
For the camoufleur, blackout was crucial, and for Joe it was also an opportunity. Through the autumn and winter of 1940 he developed the dangerous habit of going out every evening under cover of dark, with senses newly alert to each bombing raid. Oftentimes the Churchill brothers joined him. More exhilarated than afraid, Joe reported each adventure to Mary.
The night Bruton Street and Berkeley Square were bombed Johnny Churchill and I were caught right in the middle of it and it was terrific – but frightfully thrilling.
Another night Johnny and Peregrine and I went into a burning house with the A.R.P. wardens – with pick axes and stump pumps etc. We had all just got to the top floor when there was a shout – ‘all out all out!’ and like the Duke of York’s men we all dashed out again, thinking some huge bomb was about to go off – but it was actually the fire brigade coming to the rescue. They had the ladders up in no time and fairly blew the house to bits with the force of their water. What a marvellous picture it was from the street – wonderful! One of the incendiaries dropped only 10 yards from us. Very ’ot. Very ’ot. I find it very fascinating after the nightly bombardments start but must stop tempting fate too much.
He didn’t – couldn’t – stop, though. He just took up his pens and pencils and started sketching. Every night he would walk for hours, sharp-eyed, observing and then drawing some new spectacle, noting the demise of all his favourite Chelsea pubs. And he reported his endless close shaves and near misses to an increasingly horrified Mary. So used was Joe to living on his wits, he didn’t consider how he amplified her anxieties. ‘Present conditions are fantastic, I can’t see how they will end – nor can I see how they can continue.’
But they did continue. His fellow camoufleurs tried to protect him – Tom Van Oss put him forward for membership of the Chelsea Arts Club, so at least he had another place at night – but Joe found it too depressing. Everyone went to the shelter, which he couldn’t understand. What artist would want to miss ‘a full moon and a terrific barrage’?
So he slipped back through the empty streets, deaf to the sirens and air raid warnings, visiting pubs and clubs along his route. He was like a cat with nine lives, insinuating himself into hotel lounges, having a drink and stealing the notepaper. Having survived one war, a few bombs couldn’t scare him and the fact he couldn’t hear them made him feel impervious.
But why tempt fate so much?
It was all about what he saw; his role was one of witness. London without electric light was transformed into something magical. The idea of all these magnificent buildings under threat only intensified his desire to see them one more time. The spectacle of an attack was too enthralling and apalling to miss. ‘I say –
what a war! Fantastic – what marvellous subjects for drawings – simply wonderful and horrific.’
The bombs, the air raids, the smoking ruins, revived such strong memories and with them came that heady fatalism. Joe had no death wish, but he had long accepted how life could be snatched away. His acceptance of this gave him back control, and control mattered greatly. He decided it was better to be killed doing what he loved rather than hiding in some cramped basement, trying and failing to get a good night’s sleep. ‘I lead a fantastic life when the blackout comes on. I have no real place to go so I sort of float around – seeing the most wonderful things in the barrage.’
He had slipped his moorings, reimagined himself. London offered a wild adventure and a secret escape, a release from the pressures of his work. On finding some fresh fire, his first instinct was to climb onto a roof and get the bird’s eye view. Looking down on the world was still the best way to understand it. He was back in the role of observer, sketching new ruins on scraps of paper, summoning the outlines of buildings caressed by flames, the billowing contours of smoke clouds.
By 18 November Joe felt that he had ‘started drawing seriously and got some rather good stuff under way’. He considered ‘the right approach’, and decided to transform his night-time sketches into a series of Blitz etchings, to be called ‘The Battle of Britain’. Of course, he had no studio, and so he made his own. RE8 had moved offices across the road to Bush House and there, when only the fire-watchers were awake, Joe would sweep his reports aside and make space for ‘etching needles, scrapers and brushes’.
Artist or camoufleur? He was both, and his already cluttered office became the site of a new industry. Sayer and Dalgliesh both had families waiting for them at home, but they stayed on, fascinated by the sight of Joe at his desk with a single screened lamp above his copper plate. There he’d stay, scratching and gouging, smearing on printer’s ink at intervals and then wiping it so as to judge the effect, while his cigarette smoke drifted up through the light. So inspired were they by Joe’s example that they soon joined him, and Joe conducted his own impromptu etching classes each night.