Elizabeth Leveson-Gower and Eunice Kennedy nearly did not get there at all. They had arranged to go to the match together, so Elizabeth picked Eunice up after lunch and drove her to Eton College by mistake. The school must have been as empty as the Marie Celeste, but they found someone to explain to two embarrassed girls that the Eton and Harrow match took place at Lords. Gamely they drove there, and arrived in the late afternoon. They took refuge in Billy Harrington’s box to watch the last hour of the first day’s play.
Marigold Charrington, who also went, recalls the mad frenzy that Harrow’s victory the following day provoked: ‘It was a very exciting day and at the end everybody just went mad. They all rushed on to the pitch, throwing their hats into the air, and it was an extraordinary and really a wonderful sight.’ Not everyone viewed it quite so indulgently. Baroness Ravensdale, who was there with her niece, Vivien Mosley, called it:
A most disgusting riot and shambles. It was not mere top-hat bashing: middle-aged men rushed in and were bestial and savage in their onslaughts on boys and older youths alike; one small boy was badly hurt and was carried off; the savagery shown was sickening, even trying to debag people! Eyes, teeth and noses risked being smashed.5
The reason for this near-riot was that, in 1939, Harrow won for the first time in thirty years. The player chiefly responsible for this great victory was one E. Crutchley, who scored the only century (he made 115 in Harrow’s first innings) and whose father had been equally instrumental in securing the school’s last victory in 1909. It is precisely the sort of demonstration of continuity and skill handed down from father to son that the English love, especially when it happens in a context that unites two of their ruling passions; and Crutchley was wildly feted at the ball in honour of the match at the Hurlingham Club that night.
The account by The Times’ cricket correspondent is so rapturous and so unlike any sports report that might be written today that it is worth quoting at some length:
The drought is over, the Arctic night is past, the chains are burst, the clouds have lifted from the Hill – no metaphor can do justice to the feeling of long-deferred satisfaction with which lovers of cricket in general and of this match in particular saw Harrow beat Eton on Saturday by eight wickets.
… Thirty years is a long time, and the last Harrow victories are brilliantly associated with the names of Crutchley and Anson and Cowley. History repeats itself, and it is pleasant to imagine, at least in two of these cases, Hamilcars impressing on their infant Hannibals the necessity for undying hostility and ultimate vengeance upon the ancient foe.
… It was to be and was, as the old lady said when she married the footman: that, and the fact that the match is now alive again must be Eton’s present consolation.
… Nothing short of an air-raid could stop Harrow’s serene advance to the land of their 30-year-old dreams.
… Harrow cheers were now the shout of them that triumph, the song of them that intend shortly to feast without stint or misgiving. Lithgow (the Harrow captain) was chaired to the pavilion in the traditional manner, in which there may be little comfort to the limbs but surely an abundance of glory to the soul. The customary scenes of enthusiasm and hat-smashing, honoured by time but not perhaps by much else, followed, and the heroes of the drama had to take their calls. … Then the lowing herd wound slowly o’er the lea, and soon nothing remained on the scene of Harrow’s splendid and deserved success save a raffle of old school ties and what, 48 hours earlier, had been new school hats.
It is a wonderful piece of writing, and – with its references to everything from Hannibal to air-raids – entirely characteristic of its time.
The Season was now on its last legs as far as dancing was concerned, though some of the major sporting events were yet to come. Fewer than half a dozen dances were listed for the next three weeks, and of these the main one was Gavin Astor’s coming-of-age at Hever Castle on 18 July. The previous evening, however, saw one final pastoral entertainment which rounded off the summer typically and gloriously. It was given for Barbara McNeill, a charming and popular blue-eyed English blonde and everything a deb ought to be, who showed when the war came that she was made for much more than just the adornment of Society. Her mother, Mrs John Dewar, lived near East Grinstead in Sussex, in a beautiful house with spacious grounds called Dutton Homestall. Barbara’s step-father was very rich, and the party was a suitably extravagant climax to three months of gaiety. Mollie Acland was flattered to be invited, as the guests were – for once – mainly those who were genuinely friends of Barbara or her mother, and not just names plucked from a list. ‘There weren’t many debs or young men and it was very sophisticated. I remember sofas and lying-down chairs with white satin cushions and masses of caviar.’ Elizabeth Leveson-Gower was there, too; and dined with the Dewars beforehand. ‘Great fun,’ she recorded in her diary; ‘garden floodlit and woods too. Everything looked beautiful and there was iced fruit on the tables.’ She, like most of the guests, finally got home at five-thirty next morning. A week later she was already aboard the Empress of Britain en route for Canada, where her uncle’s ocean-going yacht with its crew of twenty-seven was waiting.
Although she was one of the earliest debs to leave, the holiday migration was beginning. People were anxious to get to the sun and seaside as quickly as possible, just in case … The Times prefaced its list of those who had taken grouse moors for the (shooting) season with the glum words:
The state of world affairs and their uncertainty has had a serious effect on the letting of grouse moors and deer forests in Scotland during the early part of the year-. It is expected that quite a number of moors which have failed to find tenants will be shot over by the proprietors. It is certain that there will be fewer Americans than usual out on the Twelfth. The counter-attraction of their own World’s Fair and the uncertainty of the European situation are responsible.
The country still did not know what it wanted. As late as July the Daily Express carried a daily banner on its masthead that proclaimed ‘THERE WILL BE NO WAR IN EUROPE THIS YEAR OR NEXT’. Those who were politically aware (whose number seldom included the debs) ranged from one extreme across to the other: epitomized by members of the Mitford family, whose opinions shaded from deep red to brightest blue, right through the spectrum to Fascist black. Their memoirs make interesting reading. The Hon. Lady Mosley (then wife, now widow of Sir Oswald Mosley, the charismatic leader of the British Union of Fascists) writes in hers:
In July 1939 M. had an immense meeting and demonstration for peace in the Exhibition Hall at Earls Court. It was the culmination of several months’ campaign all over the country. Tom [her brother], hoping for peace but seeing that war was probable, had joined a territorial regiment, the Queen’s Westminsters. He gave the fascist salute as M. marched up the hall, and this was reported in one of the newspapers with a comment implying that an officer in the army could not at the same time be a follower of Sir Oswald Mosley. Tom’s Colonel strongly upheld him and said he was not going to be deprived of one of his best officers; no more was heard of this nonsense.6
In complete contrast, here is Jessica Mitford – by then the wife of Esmond Romilly. Although both held extreme socialist views, they were not members of the Communist Party. ‘The Bermondsey Labour Party was much more to our liking. At the monthly meetings … vigorous discussions would take place on the important political events of the day. … Fund-raising campaigns for milk for Spanish orphans or for aid to Hitler’s Jewish victims were planned and carried out.’7 On one occasion, at a Labour Party parade, several members of the family found themselves at the same meeting, though on opposite sides:
We had been warned that the Blackshirts might try to disrupt the parade, and sure enough there were groups of them lying in wait at several points along the way. Armed with rubber truncheons and knuckle-dusters, they leaped out from behind buildings; there were several brief battles in which the Blackshirts were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the Bermondsey men. Once I caught sight of two
familiar, tall, blonde figures: Boud [Unity] and Diana, waving Swastika flags. I shook my fist at them in the Red Front salute.…8
But such issues, passionately felt, were only a microcosm of the great concerns preoccupying the statesmen of Europe. A statement by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons earlier in July had promised unconditionally that Britain would support Poland against German aggression: ‘We have guaranteed to give our assistance to Poland in the case of a clear threat to her independence, which she considers it vital to resist with her national forces, and we are firmly resolved to carry out this undertaking.’9 In spite of this crystal-clear expression of support, the British Ambassador in Berlin, Sir Nevile Henderson, reported back a few days later that Hitler was convinced that England would never fight over Danzig. Henderson reiterated to the Under-Secretary at the German Foreign Office, Baron von Weizsäcker, that ‘if Germany by unilateral action at Danzig in any form compelled the Poles to resist, Britain would at once come to their assistance. … His Majesty’s Government could never be reproached this time, as they had been in 1914, of not having made their position clear beyond all doubt. If Herr Hitler wanted war, he knew exactly how he could bring it about.’10 That was on 15 July. Two weeks later the British Ambassador in Warsaw, Sir Howard Kennard, sent a telegram to Halifax in which he expressed concern that:
intensive official propaganda is now being conducted in Germany demonstrating the necessity of an isolated war against Poland without any British or French intervention. This, coupled with the notices which have been sent to German reservists who are to be called up during the second fortnight in August, was somewhat ominous. … in East Prussia, reservists up to 58 years old were being called up.11
That ‘somewhat’ is a wonderful piece of diplomatic sang froid.
By the end of July the official Season was over. In its final week there had been four days’ racing at Goodwood, held in fine weather which brought out a last display of debs and their mothers in bright summer frocks, a last round of house-parties before people dispersed for their summer holidays. The railways were standing by for record crowds determined to make the most of the brilliant holiday weather that had been forecast. Sailing enthusiasts headed towards Cowes. Meanwhile negotiations with Moscow dragged on, both sides curiously half-hearted. By now the war of nerves had gone on for so long that, instead of being at breaking-point, most people were oddly relaxed. The weather was good, their holidays were booked – some, presumably, in Germany – there was a widespread illusion that events would stand still for the time being while they enjoyed themselves. Hitler was on holiday in Berchtesgarten; Chamberlain was about to leave London for a fishing trip in Scotland. A curious stillness fell, much like the last weeks of that July a quarter of a century previously, when in just the same brilliant weather the country had idled unbelievingly towards the outbreak of war. In 1939, though, there was to be another month of peace.
For the debs, three months of what one of them called ‘hardly real days’ had passed, leaving them much more than three months older and more sophisticated – even those who were reluctant or terrified to start with. Christian Grant’s feelings at the outset of her Season were quoted above (p. 86–7). Here is how she looks back on that summer:
The moment that, for me, crystallizes the state of being eighteen that year was a marvellous moment when I had wandered away from one of those wonderful country-house dances with a young man. We were in a state of happy reciprocal love and we found ourselves in the most beautiful wood and some birds were singing – they must have been nightingales, I suppose, because it was at night – and in the distance we could see the lights of the party and hear the music of the band. We were terribly innocent, and we just sort of kissed each other in a very chaste way and I remember then thinking, this is the most magical thing. One was in this beautiful wood with the birds and the music in the distance with somebody one loves. It was a very nice time while it lasted.
It is impossible to begrudge happiness like that; and, for Christian in particular, the war was to bring at least as much suffering. Mary Tyser, now Lady Aldenham, speaks for them all when she says:
I can’t remember any one thing that stands out from that summer, but maybe the broadcast by Neville Chamberlain of the declaration of war made the most difference to my life. Nothing was ever the same again afterwards.
Chapter Eight
The Last Month of Peace: August
August began with Cowes Week: the last and most picturesque of the summer’s events. Sunshine scampered and slid across the waters of the Solent, throwing patterns of light over canvas sails and highly varnished decks. The old men watched, rigid as admirals in their dark-blue reefers (some of them were admirals) while the young men showed off their speed and skill in the races, admired by girls with wind-blown hair and tossing skirts. It was a very English image to carry away from the summer of 1939, and a last escapist fling for many of those who sailed all day and danced half the night.
Mollie Acland’s father was Commodore of the Yacht Club at Seaview, on the Isle of Wight, and the children had been used to boating all their lives. Her parents had bought a big house at Seaview, to which Mollie invited some of her new friends from the Season.
When we were children, all our friends used to come and stay in July and my parents’ friends came in August. Then as we got older our friends started to come in August, and in 1939 our house was enlivened by some young men from the Season. We had a lot of servants – the house was bigger than our home in Hertfordshire – so there were plenty of staff to look after us and the guests: in fact we used to have to take on extra people for August. We had the butler, a footman, an extra footman, the cook, a kitchen maid, a between-maid or two, an under housemaid, two boatmen, two gardeners and an odd-job man called Tom, as well as the nanny and two nursery maids for my younger sisters. (The servants slept two or three to a room, somewhere at the back of the house – I never saw their bedrooms; all except for Cook, who had her own room, and my mother’s lady’s maid, who did too, and Nanny, who slept in the night nursery.) We had lots of boats there, and a staff boat for when they had time off. There were three rowing boats called Pip, Squeak and Wilfred, and sailing dinghies, and Mermaids. Ninety per cent of our time was spent sailing in August, because after Cowes Week there were the Portsmouth and Bembridge Regattas, the Ryde Regatta – lots of them, so you’d be out all day long. As well as that we swam a lot – somehow we didn’t mind the cold in those days – and had a ping-pong table in the old dining-room, where we played if it was really too wet to go out, and there were public tennis-courts.
Apart from Cowes Week, when traditionally it always blows hard – and it did – we had wonderful weather that August. Peter, now my husband, had come to stay for Cowes Week. He was in the RAFVR by that time, but he managed to come back again at the end of August, and we went to a local place to dance – a sort of nightclub, though not quite – and that’s where we fell in love.
On 2 August, a Wednesday, the House of Commons considered how long to adjourn for the summer recess. To the astonishment of many MPS (who had assumed that, in view of the gravity of the international situation, the recess would be brief) Chamberlain insisted that the adjournment should last for the usual two months* until 3 October. It was gestures such as this – whatever may have been said between diplomats at the highest level – that persuaded Germany that Britain was not serious about going to war. The only concession the Prime Minister would make was a promise that Parliament would be recalled should a situation like that of the previous September recur. Winston Churchill opposed him strongly: ‘In a funny but sad speech [he] said that we must certainly come back early, and gave many reasons including his theme song that the dictators help themselves to a country whilst we are on holiday! Speech after speech followed along those lines … all were against the pm who grinned and bore it.’1
The divided mood of the House precisely echoed that of the country. A quarter of a century earlier, on 4 August 1914
, Britain had entered the First World War after Germany’s invasion of Belgium. The parallel was uncomfortably close, and it was not an anniversary that was much celebrated. In 1914 the outbreak of war had been greeted with cheering and hilarity by crowds all over Europe. Then, as now, there had been many who, right up to the last minute, had not believed it could happen. Sir Osbert Sitwell described his father’s reaction when he opened his Times in 1914 and saw that war had been declared: ‘What was that? War! War! There would not be a war; how could there be?’ In 1939 some people had the same attitude, either hopelessly blinkered by self-delusion and patriotism or simply ignorant of the inexorable march towards a confrontation that could not any longer be side-stepped. Events were now measured in days, not weeks or months, let alone the gathering force of decades. As the Spectator analysed it: ‘A week whose first four days have been marked by no accentuation of crisis is by common consent being described as a period of “lull” in international affairs.’2 Right up to the last weeks there was still optimism – and, in any case, who behaves as though international affairs were more important than packing and getting away for a summer holiday? Who spends as much time reflecting on the balance of probabilities were Germany to invade Poland as they do on deciding which swimsuit will be most becoming, and whether a raincoat is just tempting fate ? Certainly not a newly fledged debutante brimming with the social confidence instilled over the last three months, and longing to try it out – and the swimsuit – on the beaches of glamorous Le Touquet, sporty and sophisticated Deauville, chic Eden Roc, slightly passé Biarritz, or – best of all, though mostly for the international moneyed set – Monte Carlo and the casinos of the Riviera.
France was a favourite holiday destination that August: not too far away, ‘in case’, it promised good weather in which to acquire a fashionable tan, and crowds of like-minded people with whom to enjoy the sporting facilities by day and social life by night. Villas were rented all along the Mediterranean coast, and the house-parties of the previous three months simply transferred themselves several hundred miles, to a bluer sky and a more exotic landscape, with little diminution in standards of comfort or service. Sarah Norton’s mother, Lady Grantley, was very hospitable:
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