First Lady

by Sonia Purnell

  By daybreak the skies had cleared and the air had cooled. Now finally, the Prime Minister issued an ultimatum to Germany to halt its hostilities against Poland within two hours. As he famously broadcast soon afterwards, ‘no such undertaking’ was received. At 11 a.m. on 3 September 1939 Britain declared war on Germany and that same day France, Australia, India and New Zealand followed suit.

  After listening to Chamberlain on the radio Clementine joined Winston on their roof terrace. As they watched the first barrage balloons rising slowly over the roofs and spires of London, they thought of the horrors to come. Yet they were far from downcast. Yesterday’s finished man today stood at a new beginning, and as Winston told a Commons sitting that afternoon the prospect of the ‘call of honour’ thrilled his ‘being’.2 He also noticed how Clementine was equally ‘braced’ for what the future held.

  Within minutes of Chamberlain’s announcement, the wailing of the first air-raid siren began. Joking about German ‘promptitude and precision’, Clementine grabbed a bottle of brandy and ‘other appropriate medical comforts’3 before heading down the street with Winston to the makeshift shelter. A German refugee, sensing he would not be welcomed by the jocular crowd, hovered anxiously on the pavement outside. Clementine insisted he should come in4 – although it soon transpired it was anyway a false alarm.

  Such was Winston’s new-found status as visionary and man-of-action that Chamberlain could not possibly exclude him from the newly formed War Cabinet. Later that day the Prime Minister summoned Winston to Downing Street and, while Clementine waited in the car outside, appointed him First Lord of the Admiralty. Winston reported to his old desk at six that evening, and orders instantly came thick and fast – radar was to be fitted to naval ships, merchant ships were to be armed, the Prof was to run a new statistical department. Winston himself set about a quick-fire tour of naval bases, accompanied by Clementine as in the previous war. It was an early indication of how they would work during the years ahead.

  Back in London she immediately set about bringing together Winston’s supporters – around a dining table, of course. The day after he took office, she arranged a lunch for twenty-four. Alas, Winston had to rush off to deal with a crisis and the meal was abandoned after ten minutes. So began a life with ‘less schedule than a forest fire and less peace than a hurricane’, in the words of their bodyguard Walter Thompson. He confessed to wondering ‘a thousand times’ how Clementine could ‘endure the almost unvarying smash-up’ of all her plans. Never would there be ‘one meal without a phone call; even one good-morning kiss not witnessed by waiting courtiers. The mere matter of menus must be the most awful madness! But Mrs Churchill never showed that she was troubled.’5

  Surely most important was that, for the second time, Winston was galvanising the Admiralty for war with her at his side. He worked up to sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, and was swiftly immersed in every detail of naval operations. He also expected his department to function around the clock – a shock for many senior Whitehall staff, who were unaccustomed to starting at their desks before 11 a.m. Unfortunately, only a fraction of Winston’s fizzing energy would be put to good use. Although war had been declared, Downing Street vetoed most of his more audacious plans in case they antagonised the Germans. Some within the government were still intent on finding a peaceful solution but Winston suffered no such sensitivities. He was adamant that the Navy under his command should ruthlessly hunt down German submarines and battleships but when he ordered their sinking – ‘not without relish’ – many in the government felt ill at ease. The torpor of appeasement still hung over Whitehall.

  It was a disease from which Winston’s Admiralty was free, but his stock suffered when Britain’s early naval engagements failed to go his way. The sinking on 14 October 1939 of the old battleship HMS Royal Oak, while anchored at the Navy’s chief base, Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands, cost 833 lives. It also handed the Nazis a public relations coup by demonstrating that even supposedly ‘impregnable’ harbours were vulnerable to U-boats. Just a month later, 60,000 tons of British shipping had been sunk by magnetic mines alone. Billboards may have proclaimed ‘Talk Victory’, but Clementine wrote to Nellie on 20 September 1939 that the news was ‘grim beyond words. One must fortify oneself by remembering that whereas the Germans are (we hope) at their peak, we have only just begun.’6 Fortunately the evening of 17 December brought better tidings, with the scuttling of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee off the River Plate estuary in South America following a ferocious sea battle with three British cruisers.

  Yet despite this mixed record, many now believed that Winston’s fanatical drive made him the only politician capable of leading Britain through the darkness to victory. Crucially, word of his prescience in peacetime and exuberant determination in war had reached the White House, and on 11 September, the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt had cabled him at Morpeth Mansions asking to be kept ‘in touch personally’ about events. In doing so, he broke all the normal protocols, bypassing the Prime Minister, the Foreign Office and even his own ambassador to speak directly to the First Lord.

  In public the President was denying any intention to send Americans into foreign wars, but in private he had now established a direct connection with the one man in Europe he thought capable of resisting Hitler. The antecedents of this relationship were not auspicious. Winston had snubbed Roosevelt at that London dinner in 1918 and was known across the Atlantic both as ‘hostile’ to America (from his time as Chancellor in the 1920s), and as a ‘drunken sot’. On the Churchills’ side, Randolph had declared himself ‘anti FDR’ after meeting the President in 1936 during his campaign for a second term. Randolph had been entertained to tea at the Roosevelts’ estate, Hyde Park in upstate New York, while trying to save Sarah from Vic Oliver. But he had reported back that the American could not match Lloyd George for magnetism or charm. Now of course such indifference would need to be put firmly in the past.

  Meanwhile, Clementine masterminded the move from Morpeth Mansions into Winston’s beloved Admiralty House. In this new age of wartime austerity, the Office of Works had converted the attics into a modest flat for the First Lord’s use, so she no longer needed to worry about the cost of running the staterooms. Clementine decided to keep the curtains with red and blue seahorses hung by Lady Diana Cooper when Duff had been at the Admiralty, but few other remnants of naval foppery survived. When Diana visited, she mourned the disappearance of her bed that ‘rose sixteen feet from a shoal of gold dolphins and tridents’, its blue satin curtains held up by ropes. In its place Clementine had installed a monastic single bunk for Winston and covered the walls with battle charts in pastel shades (bright colours gave him headaches).7

  Under her orders, the First Lord’s office was transformed into a no-nonsense modern command centre. She arranged his desk at an angle so that he would not be distracted by views of the park, and made sure his chair was practical and uncushioned; but she also had two armchairs, upholstered in comforting red leather, positioned beside the coal-burning fire, and placed a constantly replenished biscuit tin and soda siphon for his whiskies on a nearby table. She did everything she could to ease her husband’s burden – he was not to be bothered by any domestic care.

  Winston’s war had begun ‘from the first hour’ with the sinking of the passenger liner SS Athenia by a German U-boat on the very evening of 3 September. It had become immediately obvious that the Navy faced a monumental challenge in protecting British merchant shipping from marauding enemy submarines. Winston’s day was consequently long and arduous, but he made a point of joining Clementine – and their guests – for both lunch and dinner. He also kept her constantly informed. If news – whether good or bad – came in of a battle he would often rush over to tell her. She joined him on the quayside at Plymouth when victorious ships sailed in; she would also accompany him to speak to the relatives of those who had lost their lives. It was her idea, when the crews from the battle of the River Plate were being honoure
d, to set up a special enclosure on Horse Guards Parade for the families of the bereaved in order to show them respect and consideration. And, more than twenty years since she had last launched a ship, she was invited back to do the honours for the aircraft carrier Indomitable. A photograph of Clementine joyfully waving the vessel away became a favourite of Winston’s and the inspiration for a portrait.

  Winston’s appointment as First Lord paid £5000 a year, and even more importantly provided a defence against creditors, who were suddenly reluctant to be seen pursuing a figure so vital to the war. In addition, moving into Admiralty House allowed the Churchills to sell Morpeth Mansions for much-needed cash. Thus they were – for now at least – financially secure. The outbreak of hostilities had not only energised Clementine, it had also liberated her from one of the constant strains of Winston’s years in the wilderness.

  Not that she was solely occupied with the ceremonial and the domestic; she threw herself into all aspects of the war effort and it visibly thrilled her. Clementine was ‘more beautiful now than in early life’, and was as ‘fearless and indefatigable’ as her husband, noted Lady Diana Cooper in March 1940. ‘She makes us all knit jerseys as thick as sheep’s fleeces for which the minesweepers must bless her.’8 Clementine also raised money for those minesweepers (mainly civilian trawler crews whose boats had been commandeered and converted), and the way she helped to run Fulmer Chase maternity hospital for officers’ wives in Buckinghamshire (where she made a point of visiting almost every expectant mother herself ) was deemed ‘beyond praise’ by a midwifery magazine. Sadly her attempts to press Chartwell into service proved less successful. Initially she offered the house up for the use of evacuees, whereupon two mothers with seven children duly travelled down from London to take residence – only to leave after three weeks having found the countryside boring. She then suggested it should be used as another maternity home or hospital, but the medics considered the house as unappealing as she did and turned her down. Eventually the main building was shut up completely, only Orchard Cottage kept open for family use. Out of sight was not, though, out of mind; her diary records as many as fifty visits to inspect damp during the war.

  Conscious of the need to set an example to the nation, Clementine expected all the family to do their duty. Mary, just out of school, worked in a canteen and for the Red Cross, and so as to avoid creating an unserious impression, was, temporarily at least, forbidden to attend dances. Sarah continued acting for a while but keen to distance herself from Oliver – he charged her with desertion in 1941 and they divorced at the end of the war – she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and was assigned to the Photographic Interpretation Unit, where she became a ‘quick and versatile’ analyst of aerial surveys at RAF Medmenham. Only Diana, the mother of two children (and, from 1943, a third), struggled to find a significant role: she became an officer with the Women’s Royal Navy Service (WRNS) but resigned her commission for ‘family reasons’ (although later she became an air-raid warden). Nor did she accompany Winston on his foreign travels, including conferences with President Roosevelt and Marshal Stalin, as Sarah and Mary later did. Both carried out their duties as aides-de-camp with efficiency and aplomb – and in doing so influenced for the better Winston’s views on women’s capabilities.

  By contrast, Diana’s meek domesticity held no interest for him, and was anathema to Clementine. She could not abide the way Diana spoke more about her children – and even the possibility of evacuation – than about the war effort. Clementine believed the war came first; to the extent that when she discovered one of Winston’s great-nieces – Sally Churchill – was about to be evacuated to Canada she personally ordered the girl’s passport to be withheld and had an official stop her boarding the boat train to Southampton. Her action provoked tears and reports in the national press, but like any modern spin doctor Clementine understood the need for all Churchills, no matter how young, to stay in the country and remain outwardly resolute. Diana had no option but to follow suit.

  Meanwhile, Randolph had been spraying around marriage proposals to well-bred ‘gels’ across London in his quest to father a Churchill heir in case he were killed in combat. Most recently he had been trying his luck with a Lady Mary Dunn, but upon receiving a better offer she had fobbed him off with a friend from the country. ‘I’ve got a red-headed tart up my sleeve,’ she told another chum. ‘She will do for Randolph.’9 And indeed she did. Randolph invited the pony-loving Pamela, eldest daughter of Lord and Lady Digby, to dinner at Quaglino’s in St James’s, then three days later asked for her hand in marriage. She was the ninth woman to whom he had proposed in the space of a fortnight, and the first to accept.

  Nineteen-year-old Pamela found the prospect of marrying a Churchill irresistibly exciting. She had grown up in a manorial hall at Minterne in Dorset, where her childhood had been one of dull routine interrupted only by occasional visits from Americans whose different worldview fascinated her. Known as the ‘dairy maid’, she was voluptuous, sexy, and wore high heels and tight skirts. Considered ‘fast’ but not ‘wild’, Pamela’s ‘erogenous’ manner and ‘eloquent listening’ conquered men by the dozen.10

  Winston immediately welcomed his prospective daughter-in-law, relishing her flirtatiousness. In turn, Pamela was intensely solicitous of Winston, soon calling him Papa, lighting his cigar, laughing at his jokes and playing his beloved bezique. He grew fond of her as if she were his own daughter, one perhaps less complicated than Diana or Sarah, neither of whom warmed to this rival for their father’s affections. Clementine would also eventually draw Pamela into the bosom of the family, but was at first ‘correct and reserved’ with her. In truth, she was fretting about the marriage, mindful of her son’s capacity for destructiveness and lack of money. Winston brushed her concerns aside, though: ‘Nonsense. All you need to be married are champagne, a box of cigars and a double bed.’11 As Randolph’s regiment, the 4th Hussars, might theoretically be posted abroad at any moment, the wedding was hastily arranged for 4 October at St John’s Church, Smith Square. Pamela placed a jaunty blue velvet beret with a quill over her auburn curls. The groom wore his uniform. ‘Both looked plump. Pamela would become more attractive; Randolph less.’12

  As Clementine had feared, it was not to be a happy union. Pamela did her conjugal duty by quickly becoming pregnant; he failed miserably in his. He lost money they did not have by gambling with rich friends, drank more than ever and was frequently abusive. Yet Pamela’s disillusion with her husband created a natural intimacy with his mother. The two women exchanged surprisingly personal details, leading Pamela to understand that lovemaking did not enter the Churchills’ lives ‘a great deal’. Her own sex life with Randolph also left much to be desired. ‘He was a womaniser, but in the sense of wanting to dominate women,’ Pamela later told her biographer. ‘When it came to sex, Randolph, like other Churchill men, did not seem all that interested.’13 He also snored and farted with gusto.

  Drawing on her own handling of Winston whenever he had been ‘objectionable’, Clementine counselled Pamela on how to deal with Randolph: ‘Darling, go away. Don’t say where you’re going. Just disappear. I . . . would go off to a hotel for three days and he wouldn’t hear from me.’ She also seems to have sided with Pamela against her son – once telling Winston in front of her daughter-in-law that ‘Randolph is treating our [author’s italics] Pamela very badly.’ Clementine ‘would have liked to have been closer to’ Randolph, recalled Pamela,14 ‘but she was always scared, and with good reason, that he would embarrass his father.’

  The first eight months of the war were eerily quiet. Church bells, ambulance sirens and car horns were banned in case they alarmed people. Initially the mood was buoyant, as collective fear ‘changed into determination, the gloom of anticipation mettled into the gaiety of courage’.15 But then the expected ‘rain of bombs’ failed to pour: Hitler was still busy further east, dividing up Poland’s spoils with Stalin, and beyond a couple of botched attempts to bomb German war
ships, Britain had done little to deter him. In fact, during the early months of hostilities, British attempts to defend the Poles amounted to little more than dropping propaganda leaflets warning Germans that they did ‘not have the means to sustain protracted warfare’.

  By the end of 1939 early British grit had given way to a bewildered resentment. The enemy was yet to kill more than three soldiers, but the blackout imposed in Britain to protect against apparently hypothetical raids had already taken 4000 lives in accidents.16 Moreover, millions had been uprooted from the cities to a countryside they often loathed, while the pets they were forced to leave behind had been put down and left to rot in the streets. Essentials from soap to sugar soon soared in price. Only the rich appeared unaffected. When they ran out of supplies at home, they moved into luxury hotels, which seemed able to procure almost anything for those able to pay. Even the weather was unjust. Persistent autumn rain turned into the coldest winter of the century; eight miles of the Thames froze solid at a time when only the wealthy had enough coal to keep warm.

  Chamberlain’s wartime Downing Street merely exacerbated these feelings of division and inertia. It still ran, or rather walked, at the leisurely pace of an upper-class London home, just as it had in peacetime. Even now, the seventy-one-year-old Prime Minister disliked being phoned after dinner or at weekends.17 Although his staff were, for the first time, expected to be at their desks at what they considered to be the ‘disgustingly early hour’ of 9.30 a.m., many days were still comparatively idle.18 Senior officials remained convinced that real fighting could be avoided and shuddered at anything resembling a ‘war mentality’.