The Baroness told me how her first Pimpernel book was turned down by twelve publishers – then she turned it into a play and the play was damned by the critics. Now the books have sold more than three million copies. At the time of our interview it was being made into a film with Leslie Howard as the inscrutable Sir Percy and Merle Oberon as Lady Blakeney.
Generations have come to love Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends of the House at Pooh Corner: creations of A.A. Milne. I was invited to his home to meet him. He lived in perfectly Milne-ish surrounding, in Mallord Street, Chelsea, a street of humanised dolls’ houses, though made of brick not gingerbread. From any of them you expected Christopher Robin to pop out. Number 13 was distinctive for its blue door. The little entrance hall was blue too, as was the carpet on the stairs. So were A.A. Milne’s eyes as he welcomed me into his little ground-floor study. Later, when conversation became easy and more personal, he told me his nickname within the family was ‘Blue’, too.
Milne was at that time past his peak as a successful playwright but his reputation as an author of children’s books was as bright and unsullied then as now. We began to talk of Christopher Robin, not the character in the Winnie-the-Pooh series but his twelve-year-old son who gave his name. ‘Moon is doing quite well at boarding school,’ said Milne. ‘We always call him Moon – it was his first effort at pronouncing Milne. I don’t particularly want him to be a writer. One is enough in any family.’
I asked whether Christopher Robin still liked the children’s books that were written for him. ‘More than ever now,’ said Milne. ‘He’s read them all and knows huge chunks by heart.’ Before I left, Mrs Milne took me upstairs to see, in Christopher Robin’s nursery, a glass case on the wall. Inside resided all the famous toys: Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore.
Another celebrated writer whose home I visited was Walter de la Mare. He lived at Tallow near a serene middle reach of the Thames. De la Mare was a poet of other world fantasy, of dreams, of delicate observations of nature. But in person, he was no intense aesthete. His manner was straightforward, utterly free of affectations, gently humorous though shy when it came to talking about his personal life. In response to my request for an interview, he had written that he disliked the word ‘interview’ but would very much like to meet us for a talk.
He wanted to hear from us as much as talk about himself. At one point, he asked what we thought of the English climate. I told him how I deplored the long grey gloom of the winter. He, on the other hand, felt he couldn’t cope with our abundant sunshine. But he did tell us something very interesting that linked him to Australia. His great grandfather, Dr Arnold Browning [Dr Colin Arrot Browning], had been a naval surgeon in charge of two shiploads of convicts taken to Tasmania in the 1840s. The doctor had showed a humanitarian interest in the convicts and during the long sea passage taught most of them to read and write. His experiences were recorded and published in a book, The Convict Ship.
After tea, Walter de la Mare escorted us through his garden. It was the mellow sunset hour which is particularly lingering and lovely in the English springtime. While we strolled, he compared himself to an old apple tree there which was still clinging to life, bearing blossoms and fruit. Such a wise and gentle man. He and his wife were very kind to us and hospitable, asking us to visit them again which we did.
G.K. Chesterton, essayist, poet, historian, critic, writer of murder mysteries and creator of the quixotic, bicycle-riding priest and private detective Father Brown, was a joy to meet. In his home, we chatted with Mrs Chesterton, waiting for him to appear. Then in he came, enormous in girth, small eyes behind pince-nez, droopy moustache, a muttering half-buried voice disguising the intellect behind.
He began to laugh – how he loved laughing, specially from self-deprecation. He began by telling us about some neighbours of his, past and present. One was the owner of a mansion that had burnt down the previous day. ‘He was a retired factory owner. When he came here to live, he said to me: Of course you won’t think much of me, I’m only a soapboiler. I replied: well, I’m only a potboiler. And we’ve been friends ever since.’
Chesterton was the exception to our observation that notable authors don’t necessarily converse as well as they write. They are seldom as coruscating, profound or lyrical in speech as they are in the written word. But no matter what subject was mentioned, G.K. had a flow of words or ideas about it. In that low mumble of his, he would go on talking high and clever sense without a smile until suddenly, with a twinkle, down would fall the pince-nez to land on his billowing stomach and he would break into unrestrained giggling. It was a cumulative exhalation of irrepressible spirits, going on for a minute or so, Chesterton heaving with subterranean rumbles which eventually subsided as he took up the thread of his argument.
The subject turned to Hitler as it did in mostly any company those days. Chesterton was derisive about the servile obeisance paid to the Führer at public gatherings while in Britain the Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, was subject to every democratic jibe. ‘Apparently in Germany, when you shake hands with a friend, you have to say Heil Hitler. Imagine meeting someone in the Strand and greeting them with Oh Ramsay MacDonald.’
This was at a time when Hitler was not always treated as a joke. Some found his rulings fitted with their social and moral theories, even G.K., when we tackled the subject of women’s rights. ‘I believe Herr Hitler is groping towards the truth when he sends women back to the home. That’s where they belong – not in offices and factories.’
I was shocked. Naturally I challenged him on such a reactionary statement.
Chesterton was a master at combining earnest argument with satirical humour. I wasn’t sure how to take him. ‘To my mind the so-called emancipation of women has given renewed lease of life to a number of bad institutions such as party politics. Just when men have reached the stage of seeing through its farcical procedure, women have got the vote and an avalanche of ardent schoolgirls have kept the outworn system going. I admit that the position of women needed brightening up and if that’s what you mean by emancipation, I’m all for it. But I can’t see that it’s a step upward for women to turn factory handles and enter figures in a ledger. Their job is to marry, make homes and raise families.’
I protested as politely as I could.
‘Of course, I’m not fanatical about all women sticking to the home. Joan of Arc, after all, pointed out there’d always be plenty of women to sew and spin. There will always be exceptions like her – but I won’t have the normal sacrificed to the abnormal.’
So that was Chesterton on woman’s status. Even if everything he’d said went against my grain, there was no doubt he was a most likeable fellow and most engaging.
My own attitudes to women’s abilities were gratefully reassured when I met Lady Astor, the first woman to hold a seat in the British Parliament. Surprisingly, though she was prodigiously wealthy and the owner of three homes (all of aristocratic proportions), she arranged to meet me in her car. We were driving from the House of Commons where for two hours I had waited for this appointment. It was clear she was an extremely busy person. Her constituency was in Plymouth and after her work in the House, she was in demand for the projects she most supported such as nursery schools in London’s East End. Inaugurating schools for disadvantaged children in the slums was what she regarded as her most important work. Even at the weekends she was busy entertaining in her luxurious upper-Thames home near Maidenhead. Regular visitors were members of the Conservative establishment who came to be known as ‘The Cliveden Set’.
As Lady Astor’s chauffeur zigzagged the Daimler through Westminster’s six o’clock traffic, making for her town house in St James Square, I had to make the most of that journey to ask my questions. I began with ‘Have women made good in the British Parliament?’
‘Good?’ she exclaimed. ‘They’ve made more than good. And so have the women electors.’ She loosed a flood of impromptu ora
tory upon me. ‘Considering British women have only had the vote for seventeen years and there’ve been so few women members of parliament pitted against hundreds of men who didn’t like us one bit, I think they’ve done remarkably well. At least they’ve taken their job seriously. Their diligence and constant attendance at the House have proved that.’
This petite feisty woman, then in her mid-fifties, was sitting bolt upright in her car. Her warmth of manner, direct intonation, her energy and determination all commanded respect. ‘A hundred years hence there may be equal numbers of men and women MPs. There might even be a woman Prime Minister. One thing is certain – I will never be PM. I did not go into politics for personal aggrandisement. I stood because there was urgent work for me to do. And now the three policy areas nearest my heart: housing, education and nursery schools, have really been taken up by the Government. That is my reward. If I’d been considering myself all these years, I’d have stayed home. Wouldn’t you?’
I was aware that Nancy Astor had six of her own children. We talked briefly about home life. She maintained: ‘The best thing a mother can do for her children is give them a clear standard of right and wrong.’
Thankfully we were held up in a traffic jam so I could ask her more about women in politics. ‘Don’t mistake me,’ said Lady Astor with one of her quick, retaliatory, floor-of-the-House glances, ‘I’m not in favour of a sex-ridden government. I can conceive of nothing worse than a man-governed world – except a woman-governed world. What I see is the combination of both, going forward and making civilisation more worthy of the name, a civilisation based on Christian values: justice and mercy – not on force and aggression. I feel men have a greater sense of justice and we of mercy. They must borrow our mercy and we must borrow their justice.’
The Daimler had reached St James. I had been given a glimpse of this woman’s humanitarian dynamism. Though she was cradled in luxury, her record of public work in England was just wakening the need for social justice, for people’s basic and inalienable rights. Her candour and energy had made her an institution since she won her seat in 1919. But she was not wholly popular. Her rash and impulsive jibes often got her into hot water and her anti-Jewish attitudes were well known. It was some time after my meeting with Nancy Astor that suspicions were raised about the role of ‘The Cliveden Set’ of which she and her husband, Viscount Astor, were leading lights. The group was rumoured to be favourable to the policy of appeasement, sympathetic to the bourgeoning Nazi Party and extremely right wing, even Fascist. To what degree its influence did actually change governmental policies to the looming threat of Hitler in the lead up to the Second World War was to become a matter of public debate and commentary in years to come.
4. The Heartache of the Expatriate – LR
Despite the low pulse of Britain’s over-all economic living, the terrible state of unemployment in so many industries, these had been very full years for us. We had been lucky as well as hard-working. I had become senior dramatic critic of The Era and attended hundreds of theatre first nights. For three years I had a full page to myself, ‘The Week at the Playhouse’, to write what I liked. I had been a member of the choosy London Critics’ Circle. In the latest edition of Who’s Who in the Theatre, my name was included in a short list of London’s principal dramatic critics. I had written articles for The Times, The Observer, The New York Herald Tribune and the Theatre Arts Monthly as well as some of the English weekly reviews. I was invited to lunch by theatrical managers and was frequently astonished to hear how seriously my views on theatre were being taken.
Our delight in meeting writers had not waned. In fact between the two of us, we never ceased the game of enquiry into how authors got their start in life, what impulses directed their pursuit of social and personal themes, what were the practical as well as aesthetic problems of living by the pen, to what extent writers used their own intimate experiences, how it felt to be successful, what were the problems in maintaining success, the problems of free expression and censorship.
I had been privileged to meet so many – so had Coralie. I’d met J.B. Priestley in his Georgian house once owned by the nineteenth century poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He used the same study and writing room. I’d met Somerset Maugham and talked in his flat at St James and Hugh Walpole, the novelist, in his country home in the Lake District.
For me, the pinnacle of meeting famous writers in their own homes was my visit to Bernard Shaw in his flat high above the Thames. Shaw not only gave me an hour of his exuberant company but a long handwritten newspaper interview that caused quite a flurry in Fleet Street when printed in The Era. Coralie had met many notables herself and written them up for the newspapers in Australia for which she was a London correspondent. And together we had made a visit to Paris to talk with James Joyce.
So there’d been many good and memorable times – but tough ones, too. There’d been deaths in the family at home, the news taking so long to reach us. I’d had my troubles with the editor of The Era, culminating in my departure from that office. Neither of us had had a book published or a play produced although we’d tried – oh yes, we’d tried. A pile of manuscripts was testament to that. We had plenty of freelance work to keep us busy but despite this, we were unsettled. Emigrés from Australia seemed to form two main groups: those who had come to study and would want to return, or need to, after their course to find a job; those who felt their only hope of a successful career lay in the crowded centres of Britain and in competition with the British themselves.
Our homesickness was as great as ever. It had expression partly in herding with Australians, either old-established or newly arriving. Much mental and emotional confusion could be seen in our inclination to criticise many things English but also see many things Australian from a distance and a more critical perspective. The thoughts roamed, the inward hunger gnawed: when shall we be able to return home? But fear gripped, too. What risks would there be? Would we find jobs, would we regret turning our backs on what we had worked so hard to build up? It was a persistent internal tussle tearing at us, an agony of rootlessness. Should we leave before the process of assimilation swamped us and it was too late?
Then there were external influences. 1935 was a year of restless movement towards change. In Britain, Ramsay MacDonald, the spent Labour leader, had resigned as head of the National government and Stanley Baldwin had taken over. On the Continent, Fascism was a rising spectre from which most people seemed still to be hiding their eyes. Mussolini was preparing to invade defenceless Ethiopia. Would there be sanctions against Italy? Was Britain herself defenceless, being now open to new methods of air attack?
And Hitler, Hitler, Hitler – the giant question mark. Was totalitarian government the inevitable and unalterable pattern for the future? Rising tensions everywhere on the Continent but nobody in England taking them very seriously. Mosley’s blackshirts selling you their paper outside Charing Cross station. European countries seemed more and more chaotic with unemployment and Nationalist fanatics. New techniques of communication lessened the space between us and them.
Other distances were shrinking, too. Scott and Black had won the MacRobertson’s air-race to Australia, compressing the long months of sea travel into a micro-flash of three days. Following hard on this the England-Australia airmail had been started, first fortnightly and then every week. What a joyful sense of closer contact this new mail service gave us exiles! Coralie and I had articles on the initial airmail plane, addressed to the newspapers we wrote for. These were given prominence when published, even one of my long envelopes with scrawled lettering was photographed and reproduced full size: ‘By England-Australia Airmail – Press Copy – Important’.
Various new trends of thinking were causing turbulence within me. I was becoming more and more excited by sociological phenomena and ideals. I was keen to learn what various propagandists had to say about monopoly capitalism as well as social exclusion. The loss of contact between diffe
rent levels of people seemed to me at the root of the malaise in England. Wasn’t the rise of Fascism just as much connected with the decay of socio-economic structures as was the rise of Communism? Surely modern writers like Lawrence, Joyce, Huxley and T.S. Eliot were throwing overboard many of the solid Georgian and pre-Georgian literary forms – widening the boundaries in unheard-of ways? I borrowed a disguised copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and managed to get hold of Joyce’s Ulysses, also in the ‘Denied-by-State’ (banned) list.
I had already read Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Now I spent six weeks of spare time reading Ulysses and then determined that before we left the northern world we should get to Paris again and try to meet James Joyce. We arranged to fly the Channel, a new adventure and dazzling experience as neither of us had been in a plane before. We found Paris embalmed. Ice-stalactites encrusted every shop front. The grey deserted streets were like skating rinks. The beloved city gave a frigid welcome.
From London I had written and received no reply. But while we were in our hotel on the Left Bank a letter came from Paul Leon. He was one of a group of writers who, under Joyce’s influence, had been experimenting with language during the past fifteen years. Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway were also among them. Leon had written to say Mr Joyce never saw the Press but we might like to meet him on different grounds. Leon arranged for us to call on Joyce at 3 pm that day.
We made our way to Joyce’s flat, No. 7 Rue Saint Valentin Edmond in the Pont d’Alma district, under the lee of the Eiffel Tower. Ascending by a small open lift ornamented with enamelled filagree, we knocked at the door of No. 7. A servant woman ushered us into a modest-sized sitting room, furnished in genteel taste.
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