I felt a bit lackadaisical all that morning as I and the other servants got some order out of the chaos. We were beginning to see the results of our labours when at one o’clock her ladyship turned up with a party of air raid wardens. ‘We’ve all of us got to get out, Rose,’ she said. ‘There are six unexploded bombs surrounding the house.’ If ever I felt like swearing it was then. All that hard work and now we’d got to evacuate the place. I don’t think I was worried about the bombs even after my experience with the delayed action one the night before. I packed her ladyship’s things and my few bits and pieces, grumbling all the time. We were separating: Arthur Bushell and I went to a hotel in Ivybridge, a nearby town, and the Astors went to stay with some friends.
Once we’d arrived in Ivybridge I stopped moaning. It was wonderful to see a fresh clean bedroom again and think there was a possibility that I should sleep between sheets that night. Even so, I was keeping my fingers crossed. We weren’t far from Plymouth and the surrounding area had already suffered some damage. In the event we were lucky, but every day I was reminded of what the city had been through, since Arthur and I travelled to Plymouth to help the Astors in any way that they wanted. It was now that I saw the great work that my lady was doing. She was in her element: she was helping people. Arthur and I ran messages for her and distributed clothes where they were needed, many of which had been sent earlier from the States, having been collected by her ladyship’s friends and relations there. How wonderful America was in that way. There’s a story of how forty children arrived at school barefoot holding their shoes in their hands and saying, ‘Give these to the children of Plymouth, they need them more than we do.’ And of another school that raised £1,000 in a few days when they heard of the bombing. Lady Astor was proud to be able to speak of her country’s sympathy and help. Then we’d be running backwards and forwards from the various emergency centres reporting their requirements. We were always told to look for cases of individual hardship, for people who were too proud to ask for help, or who didn’t know what was available for them. Nor did his lordship or my lady leave this to other people: every evening when they weren’t directing or administrating they’d be on the streets to see for themselves.
I remember once her ladyship was going round a hospital chatting up the patients and seeing what they needed. She came to one bed where there was a young boy of about sixteen who looked very poorly. ‘He’s suffering from pneumonia and shock,’ said the nurse. ‘He’s very unhappy but we don’t know why. He’s French and no one in the ward can talk to him.’
In an instant my lady was rattling away at him in his own language. ‘He wants to get near his brother in Liverpool. Is he fit to travel?’
A doctor was called. ‘It’s a risk,’ he said, ‘he’d have to go in an oxygen tent. It would mean travelling first-class and he hasn’t any money.’
‘That’s no problem,’ replied my lady. ‘I have. Get him ready and I’ll be in touch with you.’
She rang Ellen Wilkinson, a local Member of Parliament, who arranged a hospital bed there and the boy was on the train within hours. It’s a small incident but typical of so many. His lordship, while he wasn’t so communicative, did things his own way. It was said at that time about the Astors that, ‘She found out what needed doing, and he saw that it was done.’
Another big job that she attended to was seeing that those who were away in the Services were kept informed about their parents’ welfare and whereabouts; a special bureau was set up to deal with phone calls and written inquiries. It wasn’t an easy job but she knew from personal experience how necessary it was. In between times she’d be popping backwards and forwards to London to attend to her Parliamentary duties, and what she’d seen that had gone wrong at Plymouth during the raids made her critical of the government. She became unpopular with the Churchill administration. She and the Prime Minister had never been exactly bosom pals anyway. However since she was as usual speaking the truth as she saw it, it worked, and things were either done or changed.
This then was the time when a lady became a heroine to her maid. Previously I had had a deep and growing affection for her despite – and sometimes even because of – her faults. Now in battle her qualities were shown. Her courage, not the ‘backs to the wall’ stoic kind of British courage, but the flashing tempestuous rousing roistering courage of the Virginian exemplified by the way she would turn cartwheels in air raid shelters to cause a diversion when things were at their worst. Not your sixty-one-year-old Nancy Astor, Lady of Cliveden, hostess to the aristocracy and Member of Parliament, but Nannie the wild-eyed girl who rode unbroken horses. And along with this went the softer, compassionate creature; the voice behind the sad Virginian songs, that would comfort a mother whose child had been killed while her own heart was grieving for the mother, yet hardening against the Whitehall officials who in their short-sightedness had not declared Plymouth an area for the evacuation of children. Then catching the night train to London and the next day telling Parliament what should have been done and being accused that by saying what she had, she’d given information and help to the enemy. Yet still not giving a tinker’s cuss. This was a woman I could idolize.
Still, at times her waywardness showed through. While the raids and the danger seemed to increase her strength, they took their toll of his lordship’s. Tramping around in all weathers he got a chill which, ignored, became a fever. It was obvious he had to rest, but he refused to return to Cliveden, because he wanted to be near Plymouth. It was decided that he should go and stay at a hotel near the little town of Rock in Cornwall, and that I should go there with him as a kind of nurse/valet. Her ladyship was to accompany us there and spend a day or two with him. The day we were leaving there was a lunch party at Elliot Terrace for some of the local dignitaries. The house had been repaired quickly for use as the mayoral offices. It happened that on that morning some chocolates and sweets had arrived from America for the people of Plymouth. After lunch my lady asked his lordship to get some of these for her. He explained that they were not intended for her, but for others whose need was greater. She straightaway went into a tantrum, was rude and spiteful to him in front of the guests, and told him she wouldn’t now go to Rock with him. His lordship left the room. I didn’t know about this at the time, I was told about it later by Florrie the housemaid who came with a message from her ladyship that I was to unpack her things as she wasn’t now going away. I started emptying her cases, then in came Arthur Bushell with a summons from his lordship. When I went to his office I could see at once that he was in a dreadful state: he had difficulty with his breathing and his face was high-coloured. I thought he must have had a stroke, and to this day I’m convinced I was right.
‘Rose,’ he said, ‘Lady Astor has upset me badly. She now refuses to go to Rock. She must go and I need your help to see that she does.’ I was moved by what he said and very worried at his condition.
‘Very well, my lord, I’lI see to it.’ I waited for the guests to leave, then went into the drawing room. ‘I hear from Florrie, my lady, that you’re not going to Rock.’
‘No, I’m not,’ she said, rushed out of the room and up the stairs. I was ready for her and caught her on the landing. I got hold of her by the shoulders and shook her.
‘Listen to me,’ I said, ‘I don’t know what you’ve done to his lordship, but he’s now very ill indeed. You’ll go with him to Rock and if you don’t I’ll write to all the boys and tell them that his condition is your fault because you were greedy and selfish over a few miserable sweets.’ Then I threw her away from me in anger and waited for the storm to burst over me. To my astonishment she looked at me meek and ashamed.
‘All right, Rose, I’ll go,’ she said. At that moment it was hard to believe that this sorry-looking person was my heroine of a few hours before and would be again a couple of days later.
During the next six weeks at Rock I got to know his lordship more intimately. I think I rather enjoyed having a man to look after and spoil. I did all
I could for him, though it’s difficult nursing a Christian Scientist because you have no doctor’s orders to go on. Once he was over the chill and the effects of the row with my lady I tried to get him to continue to rest. It wasn’t easy. When he and Lady Astor had seen the damage inflicted on Plymouth after the first two terrible raids, they said publicly, ‘We will rebuild it again,’ which those who heard it thought was meant to apply to them and the other citizens, as I’m sure it was. But by the way his lordship began to work now it seemed as if he meant it to apply personally and he saw this period at Rock as an ideal time to get things started. The government had other things to think about, so he worked without its help, and it was during this time that the new foundations for Plymouth were laid and the great work was conceived that Professor Abercrombie later carried out as the planning consultant. If the Astors loved Plymouth when it was whole they loved it more now when it was so badly wounded. It was at this time too that a codicil was written into their wills saying that in the event of them being killed during a raid, they wished to be buried in a common grave with the other casualties.
So it was that much of my work was answering the phone, taking and giving messages, sending telegrams and generally acting as a sort of secretary-cum-mouthpiece. I remember one day, while I was fumbling over the reading of some message to him, his lordship said, ‘Give it to me, Rose.’
‘No, my lord, it’s not meant for you to read.’
He roared with laughter. ‘Don’t you think I’m old enough, Rose?’ he said.
‘It’s not that, my lord; it’s written in my particular brand of shorthand.’ This seemed to amuse him even more. Still, as he had to admit when he was well enough to return to Plymouth, it had worked.
Almost exactly four weeks after the first two appalling raids on Plymouth the Germans struck again, and the night attacks of 21, 22, 23, 28 and 29 April were as ferocious as the earlier ones had been. Now their main target was the Devonport area, the dockland. By the end of the month the city had become the most heavily bombed of any in the country. There was hardly a building that had escaped some damage. His lordship and I were safe at Rock, I’m grateful to say, but her ladyship was often in amongst it all.
My stay in Rock with his lordship had an eventful ending for me. I received from him the first tip I had ever been given during my time in service. I’d had presents, of course, from my lady and others, but those came as it were in the line of duty. When we left Rock he handed me an envelope containing money. I took it as I’d seen other servants take such things and regarded it as a tip, something given for that bit of extra service. I was quite thrilled and excited about it.
I remember shortly after speaking of it to Mr Lee and we got on to the subject of tipping in general. ‘You know, Rose, there’s a mistaken idea among some people that we behave as we do in the hope of getting a financial reward, and particularly do they think this is true of menservants. How wrong they are. I can’t recall in the whole of my service ever doing anything because I thought there would be something at the end of it. Naturally when I was a footman and I was asked to valet for a visitor I expected to be given something for the work that I’d put in, but my opinion or respect for him was never formed or changed by the amount he gave me. Most gentlemen work on a given scale, just as you and I do with porters and taxi-drivers and the like. Nevertheless I never could like the person who rushed about as he was leaving, sort of not seeing you so as to save himself a sovereign, neither did any of my men, and strangely enough that kind of behaviour generally came from those whom we knew to be loaded.’
From now on my lady and I went backwards and forwards like shuttlecocks between London and Plymouth. We rented two different houses in Rock, Bray House and later Trebetherick. It did mean that after either of them had finished their work in Plymouth they could be sure of a reasonable night’s sleep. Some people may criticize them for leaving the battleground when others couldn’t, but commanders have to if they’re to be in a fit condition to direct operations in the future, and in these circumstances I looked on my two as generals. From May onwards, we were lent a house, Bickham, on Dartmoor. It was easier and quicker for us to get in and out of Plymouth. I don’t know whether someone told Hitler about our move, but the moment we got in there the bombs began to fall around us again.
By now of course our jobs had ceased to have any definition, we just did whatever needed doing. Cleaning up seemed to be my main occupation. Since we’d left Cliveden for Bickham in something of a hurry, I’d only packed a few things and the frock I’d got on at the time was the one I had to work in. Whether it was a bit worn or whether it was the effort I put into my work, it eventually split, making a big hole underneath my arm. As Arthur Bushell was going into Plymouth with her ladyship, I asked him to get me an overall for decency’s sake. He returned with a parcel containing a maternity smock. He pretended to be very penitent when I opened it so I couldn’t be sure whether he’d done it on purpose. Anyway it protected my anatomy, so I put it on.
That evening when I went in to dress my lady she took one look at me and screamed, ‘Oh, Rose, I didn’t know you were in that sort of trouble.’ I tried to explain. ‘It’s no use trying to blame that on enemy action,’ she said.
In exasperation I pulled the smock up. ‘It’s only a hole I’m trying to hide.’ We both of us ended up screaming with laughter. His lordship popped his head round the door and said, ‘Oh it’s you two, I thought it was the air raid sirens.’ He eventually ended up in stitches too when the situation was explained to him. I never found out whether Arthur had done it purposely or not. If he did it was one of the best jokes he ever perpetrated.
I won’t say that bombs in the country are better than those in town, but they’re different. To start with, when you hear a stick of them coming down you don’t find yourself wishing them on your neighbours by praying that they’ll miss you. To find the next morning that they’ve hit a sheep or a cow and made their craters in a field brings only a sense of relief, it doesn’t trouble the conscience. But while they’re actually falling the country has its hazards. We seemed to attract incendiaries and as Arthur and I continued our fire-watching at Roughborough we were kept very busy. Baskets of the wretched things were dropped over and around us. It’s one thing putting one out on a roof or a pavement, but we were kept running around the grounds and the fields with our buckets of sand and water and our hoses and stirrup-pumps.
Now, in normal circumstances I’m fond of roses, but their bushes at night are a hazard, and if there were any around I seemed to find them in my chases to put out incendiaries. I’d study the garden in daylight to make sure that I wouldn’t make the same mistake again, but there is something about the dark that makes me lose any sense of direction. Then often Arthur and I would be out in the fields, and though I may not have shown much sympathy for cows and sheep earlier on, I felt even less as I skated about in their pats and droppings.
Eventually Arthur and I struck a bargain. I’d do the near incendiaries and he would tackle the more distant ones. There’s a saying ‘He travels fastest who travels alone,’ and that was certainly true of Arthur one night when he ran to put one out. One moment I saw him silhouetted on the skyline, and the next moment he wasn’t there. I thought I heard a cry from his direction but I couldn’t be sure so I busied myself putting some earth on a nearby incendiary. When it was out I called into the direction in which he’d gone and got a muffled response. I went to look for him, picking my way carefully, which was just as well because I found myself on the edge of a small sandpit, and from the noises that came from below I realized that that was where Arthur had disappeared into a few minutes before. I eventually worked my way round it and rescued him. He was none the worse for his fall, but was covered in sand and mud. ‘Perhaps you’d like to borrow my overall,’ I said to him as we went back to the house.
I also found that bombs can have some funny effects on people. One night Arthur and I were outside the house, we thought that incendiaries wer
e raining down on us. Well, it’s one thing to put them out, it’s another to be hit by them, so we made for the house. In the hall were my lady and his lordship, looking somewhat startled. ‘Where did they drop?’ she asked. Both Arthur and I tried to reply. We must have looked very comic because although we mouthed the words no sound came out; we couldn’t utter. We were later told that three bombs had dropped some way beyond the house and that what we thought were incendiaries was in fact the earth and stones from the craters they’d made, and that the blast had in some way stopped us from speaking. ‘I want to get a supply of them,’ her ladyship said, somewhat cheekily, I thought, when we’d recovered, ‘then I might be able to get a word in edgeways.’
One of the more pathetic sights around this time was in the evenings when people were leaving the city on foot for the comparative peace of the countryside. They would sleep under hedges, in barns, out on the moors, anywhere where they could feel safe from the bombs. If a car of ours was returning from Plymouth it was always packed with these nocturnal refugees. Then from time to time her ladyship would ask friends to stay the night. We always had to be ready to receive them and, more difficult still with the rationing, to feed them. I remember one evening when she turned up with three sailor boys. ‘They’re hungry and need a good rest,’ she said as she put them in my charge in the servants’ hall. We gave them eggs and bacon, our personal rations, and prepared beds for them. Then the sirens sounded and soon our peace was shattered. There was a lot of activity that night and the sailors were kept busy putting out fires and running down to the village where help was needed. At about four in the morning all was quiet so we made ready for bed, only to be told that the sailors had to rejoin their ship at six o’clock and that they were hungry again. So we cooked them more eggs and bacon – this time it was her ladyship’s rations though she never knew it – and saw them on their way, eventually thumbing a lift for them on a passing lorry. About a week later her ladyship got what she described as a lovely letter from them, thanking her for all she had done. ‘We gave them a good time, eh, Rose?’
Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor Page 20