The Letters of Noel Coward

by Noel Coward

  On September 27, 1938—two days before Munich—Blanche Lloyd, wife of Lord George Lloyd, a prominent diplomat and close friend of Noël's, was writing: “I can't help wondering a little whether that epileptic monster in Berlin is beginning to think twice—but I am dreadfully afraid that no bridge is golden enough for him to get back over—and also that he is sure that he can beat us—Well, he just shan't.”

  Noël was writing to Alec Woollcott: “We have nothing to worry about but the destruction of civilisation.”

  Humor is the typical British reaction to stress. Nothing, at the time,can be allowed to be serious enough to be taken seriously. It's an outward attitude that Britain's enemies consistently misinterpret as weakness. Nonetheless, concern was growing, and it was possible to find the true perspective on those strange days only a long time later.

  As late as January 1970, Robert Boothby, a Tory politician and friend of Noël's for more than forty years, could write to him: “I've been going through my Munich papers. How right we both were. It is still frightening.”

  Noël to Vansittart:

  5th Nov. 1938

  My dear Bob,

  I am terribly sorry to have missed you, however I had not very much to tell you. I had a brief but reasonably interesting time in Switzerland. I snooped around a good deal and flapped my ears and I don't think discovered much more than you know already which is A. That the Swiss, although pretty scared, behaved and are behaving pretty well and very calmly. B. That the Nazi propaganda, particularly in Zurich and Basle, is very strong but falling on the stoniest of stony ground. C. In various conversations I had and listened to it was apparent that English prestige had dropped considerably but there was no violence about this just a rather depressed acceptance of the inevitable. There was, of course, relief that war had been averted but also a certain surprised resignation that it should have been averted at such a price.

  “Don't forget your gas mask!” was the cry in the early months of the war. Interestingly, Noël is being fitted for his as early as September 26, 1938— nearly a year before hostilities began.

  I heard an Englishman (commercial traveller type) in the bar of the hotel in Zurich making a tremendous tirade against Duff [Cooper, First Lord of the Admiralty], Anthony [Eden] and Winston but he was very quietly and successfully squashed by a Swiss professor of sports propaganda who said, without heat, that in the opinion of the Swiss, if we'd had a few more men like that, perhaps the British Empire would not have fallen so low.

  It was all a little depressing, I think and I felt that everybody was just waiting rather drearily to see what was going to happen next. I am afraid that none of this is very illuminating, however, my time was very short. I sail for America on the 5th and my address there is 450 East 52nd Street. I shall be in Washington for two weeks in January so just drop me a line when you have time and give me a few conversational leads or, if possible, defences.

  My love to you both,

  NOËL

  On November 12, Vansittart replies:

  Hotel de Paris

  Monte Carlo

  Your information is very much what I expected; and I think that the impressions you gleaned would be applicable to many other countries in Europe. I should expect you to have the same impression in the U.S., only more so. I shall be most interested to get your general impressions about this, for your range will be pretty wide, and it should furnish a good cross section. Try to get them on to the topic as much as possible, and let them rip. I think many will need very little encouragement! And the topic will still be a very fresh one, I should imagine, in spite of the growing calls of the parish pump.

  IN JUNE 1939, Noël undertook a trip for Vansittart to Warsaw, Danzig, Moscow, Leningrad, Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo, and Copenhagen “to see what was going on.”

  His secret mission was hardly “secret.” The Daily Sketch reported:

  Noël Coward has “Design for Politics.” He left from Heston Airport to study the political situation there. He has seen a great deal of Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Eden in the last two years and in 1937 he joined the “Die-hard” Atheneum Club … On his departure he gave the reason for his Polish trip as he maintained his well-known “poker face” but he did not deny that his trip might have a political reason as well.

  He kept Violet up to date on the lighter side of things:

  In Warsaw … I was met by a private band of fifty men in uniform who played “God Save the King” in my honour—off key—I had to stand to attention and try not to giggle … The Poles are very sweet and gay and everyone drinks far too much vodka. Fortunately I have a very strong head!

  [Russia] was filthy and smelly. Exactly like a whole world composed of the Whitechapel Road on August Bank Holiday. In addition to that, I was spied upon and followed everywhere because it was known that I had something to do with the British Embassy … The Russians, I need hardly say, opened everything and turned out all my clothes onto the platform. What they hoped to find I don't know. I had any papers of importance in my hip pocket!

  [Helsinki] … the relief after Russia is indescribable. This town is clean and pleasant and everyone is amiable … I had my usual press conference when I gave out discreet information about my new plays and the magnificent strength of the English Air Force!

  [Danzig is] a lovely city and seemed calm enough although there were a lot of Nazis parading about.

  Dame Rebecca West (i 892-1982). A distinguished writer and an old friend. Like Noël, she found after the war that she had been on the German “blacklist.” “My dear,” she cabled Noël, “the people we should have been seen dead with!”

  I'm leaving [Oslo] this afternoon for Copenhagen which is my last port of call as far as doing my stuff goes. I'm not altogether sorry. It becomes a little wearing constantly having to be polite and guarded. But still I think I've done it all all right.

  Wherever he went Noël found “the same fatalistic conviction that war was not only inevitable but imminent”—a perspective that could be achieved only by being outside the wishful-thinking world he had left at home.

  In Danzig—a particularly sensitive location—he was spotted by the writer Lawrence Durrell being closely observed by Nazi agents. It's probable that there and then he was put on the infamous blacklist of British “agents” to be liquidated when Britain was conquered. When the list was published at the end of the war, Noël received a cable from his friend Rebecca West, who was also on the list:

  MY DEAR THE PEOPLE WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN SEEN DEAD WITH.

  He began to send in his reports, and on July 5 Vansittart replies to Noël in guarded terms:

  In view of the uncertainty of the letter's destination it will be brief. Your letter told me much in a small compass, particularly in regard to the attitude of some people. In fact, it told me all I wanted to know. Some people are not very quick at seeing wedges, even right under their noses. I shall look forward to hearing more of your experiences directly you get back.

  Vansittart fought the good fight for many years, and when he finally resigned, he unburdened himself to Noël of the feelings he had kept to himself for so long:

  My dear Noël,

  Oh yes, I've done right to go. The last twelve years of my thirty-nine in the public service have been a long martyrdom. For eight years my advice was rejected and for the last four it has been unsought. To have foreseen everything, and been allowed to do nothing to save, has been so huge a spiritual misery that I am glad to have been alone in it … Now at last I am wrenching myself—yes, it's a wrench—free from gags and trammels. I've given my life to trying to prevent two German-made wars. I've failed. I wasn't allowed to succeed. Whatever remains of my life I'm giving to the prevention of a third. But this time on my own, by God. You may imagine how I'm looking forward to my freedom. I sometimes ask myself whether so many of my dear fellow-beings would have had to suffer and die if I had freed myself sooner. And then I dismiss the question as vanity. Well, we shall see.

  Yours ever,

&nb
sp; BOB

  WITH THIS AS a background and a regular contact with Vansittart, the phone call from Stuart that sunny Sunday in mid-August can hardly have seemed “out of the blue.”

  Managing director of The Times and an important figure in propaganda in the First World War, Stuart was known to have moved in the corridors of power. A lunch guest at Goldenhurst that day happened to be Robert Boothby, who told Noël that Stuart probably wanted to recruit Noël for some hush-hush job when war broke out. Knowing that Boothby would be breaking his return journey to town to dine with Winston at Chartwell, Noël asked if he might accompany him. He felt badly in need of Churchill's advice on what he should do in the conflict that was about to begin.

  He was still haunted by his inglorious lack of performance in the first war and was determined to make a significant contribution this time. All of which he told Churchill later that evening.

  When Noël said that he wanted a job that would be associated with the navy and that would use his “intelligence,” Churchill pretended to interpret the word with a capital I. No, no, he'd be no good at that, Churchill told Noël. Too well known. His job was to go out and sing “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” when the guns were firing. Noël reflected (but did not say) that if the guns were firing, no one would hear a word of the song.

  It would not be the last time that the two men failed to see eye to eye. A day or two later Noël tried to set the record straight in a letter he drafted but may have thought better about sending:

  My Dear Winston,

  It was good of you to receive me yesterday so graciously and at such short notice, too. I know you had many more things on your mind than listening to my insignificant concerns!

  Thinking about it overnight, I would like to make one thing clear to you. I fear I failed to do so properly at the time.

  During the last “war to end wars” I'm conscious that I made little or no contribution—and that is something that has stayed at the back of my mind ever since. I was young and callow—but that was a reason not an excuse. This time I am determined to play as much of a part as the powers-that-be allow me.

  You know of my love of the Navy—one I know you share. [Churchill was to become First Lord of the Admiralty within weeks.] I needn't elaborate on that. What I miserably failed to convey to you was that this time I want to do something that will utilize whatever creative intelligence I've been blessed with. You, I know, took me to mean I wanted some glamour job in Naval Intelligence. My ambitions are not so high and I simply want to clear the air on that score.

  You may count on my doing whatever I am called upon to do and to do it to the best of my ability.

  In sincere admiration

  Noël Coward

  Why didn't Noël tell Churchill that he was already involved through Vansittart? It came down to a question of political protocol. Vansittart was a professional civil servant, committed to serving the government of the day, whether he agreed with their policices or not—and in the case of their appeasement policy, he most emphatically did not. His information-gathering activities were strictly private, and discussion of them could have undermined his position at the center of power and influence. It was highly likely that the like-minded Churchill was perfectly well aware of what was going on, but he was in no position to discuss it, either. A very British situation and one perfectly understood and accepted by all concerned.

  •

  SURE ENOUGH, that night, back at Gerald Road, the saturnine Sir Campbell Stuart made Noël an offer he couldn't very well refuse, if he was serious about wanting to serve. He was to go to Paris immediately the war began and set up a Bureau of Propaganda, working closely with the French Commissariat d'Information. Since the French were using famous literary figures Jean Giraudoux and Andre Maurois to run their own operation, presumably the use of someone of Noël's stature was considered appropriate. Giraudoux himself said that he “would take it as a personal compliment” if Noël accepted the role, the role that would provide him with the opportunity “to prove my own integrity to myself.”

  It was a flattering offer but not what Noël had hoped for, and the very next day he consulted Vansittart again, only to be told that Vansittart agreed with the posting. (He himself was now the government's chief diplomatic adviser, a post Chamberlain intended to be purely symbolic but one that acquired teeth when Churchill became prime minister.) The die effectively had been cast before Stuart even picked up the phone.

  The next two weeks were more than a little chaotic. Noël divided his time between rehearsing two new plays that were due to open in tandem that autumn at the Phoenix Theatre—Present Laughter and This Happy Breed—and being briefed by Stuart and his second-in-command, Col. Dallas Brooks. Noël was given his own deputy, David Strathallan, and on Sunday, September 3, the day war was formally declared by a lugubrious Chamberlain, the two of them traveled to Stuart's “secret” headquarters in Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, a country house commandeered by the SIS and a location that would come to be increasingly important as the war progressed.

  Noël was formally enrolled into D section, familiarly known as the “dirty tricks department” and one that was to earn its name in more ways than one. The future spy Guy Burgess was already ensconced there, and his partner in crime, Kim Philby, would soon join him.

  The fate of the plays—at least for the duration—was settled when all London theaters were officially closed. For theater folk, no statement could have been more definitive. War had become a reality.

  Noël was off to fulfill a unique out-of-town booking, and Lorn and Joyce sped him on his way:

  DAYS WILL BECOME A PERPETUAL NIGHT

  NOW THAT THE MASTER HAS FLOWN OUT OF SIGHT

  FRANCE WILL HAVE DAYLIGHT AND FRANCE WILL

  HAVE DAWN

  JOYCE WILL HAVE NEITHER AND NEITHER WILL

  LORN

  BECAUSE TO THE RULES WE MUST NOT ACT

  CONTRARY

  THIS CABLE IS SIGNED LORN LORAINE AND JOYCE

  CAREY

  Ironically, the very day he left the following letter was sent to him:

  MINISTRY OF INFORMATION

  SENATE HOUSE

  LONDON UNIVERSITY BUILDING

  MALET STREET, W.C.i.

  5th September 1939

  Dear Sir,

  I am directed by the Minister of Information to inform you that your name has been entered on a list of authors whose services are likely to be valuable to the Ministry of Information in time of war.

  The Minister will be grateful, therefore, if you will refrain from engaging yourself in any other form of national service without previously communicating with the Ministry of Information.

  Please send particulars of any change of address, and all communications to me at Room 135, at the above address.

  Yours faithfully,

  A. D. PETERS

  Peters was a highly respected literary agent. Noël instructed Lorn to reply.

  Dear Mr. A. D. Peters,

  Mr. Noël Coward has asked me to thank you for your letter and to tell you that he has noted the instructions contained therein. He wishes me to say, however, that he fears he will be unable to comply with these as he is going abroad today for several months. Should you wish to get in touch with him, he suggests that you should apply to the Ministry of Information or to the British Embassy in Paris.

  Yours sincerely,

  Lorn Loraine

  Secretary

  For Noël it was like acting in a surrealistic play. On September 5 he was flown across the Channel in a small plane, to find Paris in a state of suspended animation. War had not reached them, and surely never could— not with the Maginot Line. While he and Strathallan searched for office premises, their informal headquarters was the Ritz. And then—nothing. ha drole de guerre—the French name for the “phoney war,” itself an American coinage—was well under way, and Noël found it difficult to take it seriously. He'd signed up for this? “I could not avoid realizing quite early on that the job I had und
ertaken was neither so serious or so important as I had been led to believe.”

  •

  AT FIRST he warmed to his new task. It was like opening a new show and he sent regular (censored) reports to Violet and Gladys:

  18-20 Place de la Madeleine

  September 15 th

  Everything is going very well here and I must admit I'm enjoying it all quite a lot. To begin with the work itself is frightfully interesting and I'm beginning to understand what it's all about. I have to deal tactfully with all sorts of people and up to date I think I have got the most important ones on my side. At all events I keep getting telegrams of thanks from my Chief in England so, so far so good!

  I have found the most lovely flat in the Place Vendome just a few minutes from the office and right in the middle of everything. Also it is bang opposite the Ritz where they have the most well prepared air raid shelter, so all is well.

  Don't worry about air raids. We are bound to have a few here but I don't suppose we shall have as many as London and the Germans have seventeen lines of defences to cross before they get here.

  I should think in a few weeks time when things have settled down a bit I shall be able to pop home for a few days or you can come over here.

  And to Gladys Calthrop on the same day:

  Well, Cock, So far, so bien.

  It really is quite enthralling when you begin to get below the surface a bit and the jolly decent intrigues and carryings on is nobody's business …

  Paris is beautifully “War gay”. Nobody ever dresses and everybody collects at Maxim's.

  September 21st

  Hallo, Cock,