Monday, 10 June
Italy has declared war on us. Land of colour and enchantment! Now my brother and his family in Suez are cut off from me. Malta is a little besieged island, a lonely fortress in the Italian sea. Slowly the ground crumbles around me at the march of Fascist armies.
Tuesday, 11 June
Two children got off the bus with me this morning and followed me along the narrow footpath towards home. A little boy and a little girl – he possibly 9 and she 7 or 8. Presently they overtook me and we began to talk. They were returning from school, the Dair House School in the village. Did I know where they lived? No. ‘Shall I tell you? In that big white new house just round the corner. You wouldn’t think from the outside that it was a very big house would you?’ said the boy. ‘But it is. It has 13 bedrooms.’
It is a modern, reinforced concrete house, whitewashed, with flat roof and flush doors which I have noticed with interest. I had been told that it was the work of a young architect but did not know who.101
I find that he is the father of these children. ‘But he’s in the army now,’ said the little boy. They chattered on. ‘Do you know my mummy?’ asked the girl. ‘I’ll tell you her name and I’ll tell you ours. I’m Janet and he’s Richard …’
Thursday, 13 June (War Diary)
Paris is becoming a deserted city. A great tide of humanity is fleeing towards the West.
All Church and Chapel bells are to be used now only to notify the arrival of parachute troops.
Friday, 14 June
Because of the food shortage all dogs in Germany are to be killed.
Sunday, 16 June
A depression of such blackness envelops me. I hardly know how to write about it. The Germans are in Paris.
I have been reading A.A. Milne’s Pooh stories. Beloved little animals in the forest – our foolish, childish, blundering selves …
The Germans will not gain control of France and leave us untouched.
Monday, 17 June
I have met Janet and Richard again. Their father has been killed in Belgium.
17.
Gas-Filled Cell
Thursday, 20 June 1940 (aged thirty)
We wait. We wait interminably for the word of the Dictators. I hope there will be a place and work for me in the new order. I hope I shall be able to preserve my journals and my books. I only want to keep my journals because of the conceit I hold that they will be of interest and use to posterity.
Friday, 21 June (War Diary)
Still alone waiting for news. French plenipotentiaries have met German and been handed peace terms which have not yet been published. So far there have been no alerts near here or London. Neighbour Mrs C. has just told me that if there is a raid here I may go and sit with them, which is very sweet of her.
Our turn will come. I MUST do something. The New Statesman this week points to the millions of men and women who if invasion comes will find themselves useless civilians. We have not been organised or called upon. I suppose it is left for us to volunteer but it should be made more constructively possible for us to do so. There should be some urgency and appeal about it.
Am reading Maugham’s Of Human Bondage.
Monday, 24 June
The stocks smell heavenly tonight. The terms to France are monstrous but nothing less than one expected. Germany is to occupy all the Channel and Western coasts, the whole of Northern France and territory from Tours to the Pyrenees. At cessation of hostilities all artillery, tanks and weapons to be surrendered and the armed forces to be demobilised. French fleet to return or be interned. Everything in fact is to be done to aid Germany in the war against us. Italian terms are yet to come. I think that the war is over. We cannot withstand them for very long.
Tuesday, 25 June
Last night we had our first air raid warning since last September. I woke at 4 a.m. to the ‘all clear’ warden’s whistle. Tonight I am keyed up, excited, not at all depressed. Have a new filter fixed to my gas mask, have placed bucket of ashes and shovel by back door, filled the bath with water, have torch, gas mask, patience cards at hand and my clothes all ready to dive into.
Damage and casualties have been reported from east and south coasts and Midlands. One of the towns hit was near Cambridge I heard from the sweetshop man. I lay awake this morning listening to an early cuckoo and the receding All Clear sirens, picturing Wee Cottage on fire and the cats writhing under gas.
Hitler, I am told, is to be in London now by August the 18th.
Wednesday, 26 June
Another warning last night which I slept through until the all-clear sirens went.
Monica has made a summary of a sermon Graham Howe gave in St Martin’s Church on the day of National Prayer (Hospital Sunday). He said that there is much more at stake than the matter of which side wins this war. If this war is not to end in utter waste it must be followed by a great spiritual revival. ‘Then he swept away all the beloved props to which people cling so fiercely. We must not fix our hopes on a life beyond this – our business is to live now. Then he said that each of us should say to himself, “It all depends on me,” and each one of us should act as if it did all depend on us.’
Friday, 28 June
There has been little (comparatively) damage from air raids in Britain so far. But they will come. ‘No one should be allowed to imagine,’ writes the New Statesman, ‘that the air raids that have come our way so far are more than reconnaissance and trial flights.’
I received a cable from Pooh in Suez. Mails home have been stopped temporarily, but the family is all right so far.
Tuesday, 2 July
Still nothing definite happens. Woman in antique shop in village today sounded panicky but prepared. Fanny told me of people she knew who had left coastal towns, their houses deserted and gardens planted with vegetables. The finest summer we have had for years, and instead of seaside resorts thronged with satisfied visitors – barbed wire and troops.
Sunday, 7 July (War Diary)
The war seems as fantastic and far away as ever. Successful air attacks by the RAF on enemy objectives continue. The Italians show up poorly as fighters.
I can still get as much good food as I need. London, except for the balloons and sandbags, ARP notices and black-out, seems as normal as ever. Shops are in full summer sale array. Went to the bank, the dressmaker, and attended a family lunch party. Bought new grey slacks at Peter Bobs. Bank manager said to me, ‘They will never get London.’
There has been an improvement recently in BBC Postscripts, with another good one tonight by Priestley. This is a war between despair and hope. Nazism is an expression of despair, a death worship. People were watching the other night a brood of ducklings on Whitestone Pond in Hampstead. A symbol of hope.
Sunday, 14 July (War Diary)
A week of showers and cool wind, of chores and letters and ARP lectures, of garden and books and restlessness.
Tea is now rationed to 2ozs. Next week total allowance of butter and marg to be 7ozs. Green Line and country buses are to have women conductors. Bevin is to present a scheme for women, including the middle-classes, to relieve hard-pressed regulars in factories, and if this comes about I might volunteer. I have started the Home Nursing course and begin more First Aid on Monday.
The South Bucks anti-gas instructress is a terrifyingly efficient person. She is slim, trim and precise with a very upper-class manner. Her complexion is shocking – she looks as though she is worked to death. Some of our First Aid unit are going in for their anti-gas exam and were put through their gas drill the other night. When everyone’s gas mask had been properly fitted and tested we were shepherded into a gas-filled cell. The masks are certainly good, even the civilian one I have that has been dumped and bumped about enough this past year and not once cleaned. We tested for gas, i.e. took a deep breath, thrust two fingers into the side of our mask and ‘pecked’ thrice. Eyeballs began to prick at once. Just before we came out we ripped off our masks and took a lungful – and rushed out weeping. It was a harmle
ss experience.
Monday, 16 July
Am grateful for what I have now. I thank God sincerely for my cottage comforts, the garden, the cats, my books and food and clothes and health and the long, quiet nights. But how can I sit in my solitary peace writing ‘The Confessions of an Old Maid’ when the world is being shaken and shattered around me? I want to be in contact with life when the old order crumbles, I want to be in at death, part of suffering, growing humanity, not a dry isolated speck in security.
Sunday, 21 July
My Little Titch has been taken. A family came last night and took her away within 10 minutes. They were nice people and will look after her I know, but I have never wept at the loss of a pet as I have for her. She had inherited all Dinah’s most attractive characteristics without Dinah’s timidity. There was such sweetness to be drawn from her, and now she is no longer mine. Really it hurts.
Monday, 22 July (War Diary)
My first duty at the FAP last night.102 The Point is in the gym of a boys’ prep school on the edge of the Common. We sleep on camp beds which we have to erect and make with our stock blankets and of course clear away in the morning. I should have worn uniform but it had never occurred to me and no one had told me. Did not sleep very well but night was without incident. Returned home by 7 a.m.
Wednesday, 24 July (War Diary)
The new Budget: Income tax 8s. 6d.; 1d. per pint on beer; ½d. on ten cigarettes, 1½d. on 1oz tobacco. A tax on entertainments.
Saturday, 27 July
We are beginning to think now, ‘Perhaps the threatened invasion will not take place, not perhaps immediately, perhaps never …’ Hitler is evidently having to change his plans and he will have to hurry to be here by August 18th.
London Philharmonic Orchestra is to tour music halls instead of being disbanded as was feared through lack of financial support. This happened through the publicity given to the matter by Priestley and the News Chronicle, which roused Jack Hylton ‘whose personal enthusiasms go far beyond dance music,’ to act as sponsor. A curious situation, but results may be excellent.
Military activity in and around the Beeches. Lorries parked. Troops marching.
Sunday, 28 July
This afternoon began to read John Strachey’s Why You Should Become a Socialist, which I have had since 1938. These figures stick in my mind, and in my throat: approximately 90 per cent of the population earns £250 and under per annum, a large proportion of which are families of four living on £2 a week. ‘With individual exceptions, the employing class cares nothing about the conditions which the existing economic system imposes upon the working class.’ I’d say rather that the major part of the employing class (if he means the middle classes as a whole) do not know the conditions. They never come into contact with the real workers. Only by desultory reading have I become conscious of the magnitude of social inequalities and injustices. At one time I honestly and happily believed that the working classes were a minority of the total population.
The Canadian Geographical Journal is publishing my article in the August issue. Think of it – it must be in print and in circulation now!
Wednesday, 31 July
It is exciting to ride off late at night, through the dark woods and along the edge of the mist-hidden Common as mysterious as the sea, with bright beams of light searching for an aeroplane and a pale moon edging its way between low clouds. No signs of life. In nursing frock and apron with gas mask swinging from one’s shoulder one feels original and important. But the night spent on a hard strange camp bed in the unfamiliar darkness is more oppressive than too many blankets. The pillow is bumpy and too low. One sleeps lightly, with one ear open. One turns and sighs, conscious of strange and vivid dreams, hearing one’s companion stir in the next bed. An owl seems to be crooning all night on the doorstep. One wonders if daylight will ever dawn again.
Days are drawing in. I am not looking forward to the winter. I hope to have some coal sorted. But what will the food supply be like? The other night I had half of a steamed mackerel (3d.) with new potatoes (2d. or 3d. a lb), spinach from the garden, and parsley sauce made from lard, wholemeal flour, water and home-grown parsley, and stewed fruit and bread and butter. Black treacle, important for my health, is difficult to get but I have managed so far.
And then the long black nights, the awful business of blacking-out. For six weeks or more I’ve had to black out scarcely at all, simply by going to bed when it was dark and getting up early.
J.B. Priestley’s broadcasts are excellent. I am astonished that the BBC allow them. He says insistently that this war is not to restore the old order, that we must not return to the old muddle and injustices. Already, he says, he has had letters telling him to get off the air before the government puts him where he belongs.
A film called Grapes of Wrath has just been released and has had startlingly good criticisms in every paper. It tells a story of American life that is not often mentioned, of unemployed and down-and-outs trekking across the Continent in search of work. There are no stars in the cast103 – characters are all played by ordinary men and women. It is being shown at the Leicester Square Odeon.
Sunday, 18 August
I have been counting up the ‘eligible’ men I know.
1.
Alan D. The innocence at 34 is astounding. Elis is quite sure that if he were married he wouldn’t know how to have children. The sexual instinct seems entirely lacking.
2.
Clinton G.F. Twice married and looking for a third wife. But has no attraction for me at all, nor have I for him. Just a silly little man.
3.
Ivor Brown, who lived in the Hampstead flat with me. An enigma. Too timid. Did not appeal.
4.
Mr Ratcliff, who was a neighbour last year and now lives in large, gloomy house on the Common with his old mother. A cruel and mean nature, altogether twisted and undesirable.
5.
Hugh L. – now in Palestine. A problem I couldn’t tackle. I could only have him because N. didn’t want him. Hugh would be difficult – I could never trust him.
6.
Psychologist Jennings W. Again no appeal.
7.
D. Mitchell. Poet and scholar who lives in Hampstead. I might find him attractive but I know by instinct he has got himself into a comfortable middle-aged groove and doesn’t want to be disturbed out of it. No desire in him for a wife, and considers himself over and well out of the passionate stage.
Wednesday, 21 August (War Diary)
Ethel and Aunt Maggie have evacuee mother and two children from Southend. Mother is bone-lazy and has no control over small boy aged 2. His hands perpetually sticky. Loves coal, dustbin and drain. Mother does minimum of housework. Baby lies in pram on pillow always wet. Stories of other evacuees in neighbourhood with disgusting habits. Our own people – it is shocking. And to think that the Belgians they housed (with a not too sanitary reputation from last war) were clean, industrious, grateful.
Troops in the Beeches today: they seem to come and picnic every midday and go off again. One day a machine gun in a lorry trained skywards just outside the cottages.
An astonishing growth of feeling towards a new order is manifest everywhere.
Sunday, 25 August 1940 (War Diary)
Yesterday I received a telegram from brother Pooh in the Suez to say that he and family were well but mails were badly delayed and he wanted news. I cabled a message back and have today sent a letter. I parted with it with a pang of fear. What is to be its route, its adventures, and will it ever arrive at its destination?
It is sometimes difficult to believe in this war. This afternoon it was so quiet in the garden. From the sultry sky came the sound of one far-off plane. Churchill has made another impressive speech this week. He is undoubtedly a figure in our history. Trotsky has been murdered in Mexico. Our belated account of recent air battles has impressed America who had been given the impression by swift German reports of a shattered and demoralised Britain.
> Animals must be suffering more than we are from this war. Proper food for them is difficult to get. Ginger Tom has been looking wretched for weeks, and in desperation at the sores around his head and his thinness I took him to the vet yesterday. I was told he was not being fed adequately. He needs quantities of raw, red meat. Raw, red meat. I wheedled some pieces from the butcher but he told me we were liable to two years’ imprisonment! I wonder what Lady S. does for her Alsatian.
Monday, 26 August
This weekend London has been raided. The enemy has changed his tactics from mass attacks to small formations and single bombers. We are warned to expect raids nightly now. So far near here we have heard little noise, only the noise of aeroplanes and distant thuds. Bombs fell at Datchett, only a few miles from here, and Chertsey. The Devereuxs propose taking me with them to Stratford this weekend to see some Shakespeare.
My home nursing exam is on the 6th. I am in a twitter this evening, having asked my commandant to tea. I don’t know whether this is ‘done’, whether I’m not being too impulsive. She has been so kind and is now offering to coach me for the exam.
Sunday, 1 September
We saw Measure for Measure at the Shakespeare Theatre. We sat by the river on Saturday morning and I practised home nursing bandages. When they slept here on Friday night, Elsie said that the noise of gunfire and bombs that she heard was worse than it had been in London, although they have been spending every night in basement shelters. I seem to sleep through everything and will only wake I suspect when a bomb falls in the garden.
Monday, 9 September
Raids over London are incessant and of increasing intensity. Damage and death over the docks and East End have been terrible. But Hitler won’t win. Rash perhaps to prophesise, but I believe I can feel a spirit awake and moving among our people. We will not be subdued. We will have a better world. Confound German arrogance. Damnation to them who machine-gun our women and children, and they do. Only last week a hundred or more factory girls were killed in this way during their lunch-hour at Weybridge. There are people in the village who once knew the dead. One girl escaped by diving under a hedge.
A Notable Woman Page 20