The Letters of Noel Coward

by Noel Coward

  It is perfectly horrifying to read in the papers and hear over the radio about the administrative muddles taking place in London. This is, obviously, not the moment to enlarge upon it in writing, but it is really agonizing to visualize those thousands and thousands of people, not only being bombed by the Germans, but being strangled and frustrated by governmental red-tape.

  The Presidential election campaign is roaring along in full swing. Mr. Wilkie started very well with a lot of personal charm and two fisted virility. Unfortunately, for his supporters, he is becoming more and more cute and pixy with every day that passes, and if he ever does get into the White House, I am afraid the only place for him will be on the chandelier.

  Send out good thoughts, my darling,

  and hold on to everything.

  NOËL

  October ist, 1940

  Darling Lornie:

  I haven't heard from you just lately, but you have been so frightfully good about cabling that I really mustn't grumble. It is perfectly horrifying to visualize what you must be all going through and I long so very much to be with you, because, in spite of nerve strain and lack of sleep, at least we should all be together in the big brass band. Here it feels quite obscene to be sitting in peace and security sipping a drink, and listening to the news bulletins on the radio; quite obscene and very, very horrid indeed.

  I am going to Washington today to see the Ambassador about various things. I am working very hard for the British War Relief, but it looks as if I should have to do a lot of traveling in the next few months, unless, of course, something very different happens. Traveling for the British War Relief would resemble, in many ways, the traveling I did to Poland and Russia just before the war, if you know what I mean, dear. I see by the papers here that, in addition to all the horrors going on in London, there is also the usual administrative lash-up—oh dear, will we never never learn? I must say, that in spite of all personal tears and disquiet, it is a pretty exciting thing to be English, and one's national head can be carried very very high even though one's personal head may droop a bit at being so far away.

  Mother and Vida are settled in a hotel just near me. They have a flat on the twenty-fifth floor with a glorious view of the river, but are extremely dissatisfied with the food. Mother says that the meat is so tough that she can't get her teeth into it. Aunty Vida's teeth, however, seem to work, on the average, pretty well. The Baybay [Jack Wilson] has procured a play by Victor Wolfson the author of Excursion which really is very well written, but as it deals with a frustrated New England woman who goes mad finally and kills her rival, I fear that gaiety will not be the keynote of our theatrical sea-son. There is so very very much that I want to tell you, that it really is quite difficult.

  I don't think I have any more news for you, darling. I do hope that you are not letting all this horror get you down too much. When all this is over there will be a lot to say.

  With all my dearest love—

  MASTER

  To Gladys Calthrop:

  October 11th

  I'm feeling a good deal more cheerful as I at last have a job to do which will, I think, be worth doing. I've been talking a good deal lately to Dick Casey, the Australian Minister here. I think I told you about him, we originally met in Arras in November. He is a grand man, tough and with humour and very sympathetic about the dreariness of me sitting here on my fanny without anything really specific to do, apart from a few odd jobs on the side, and a fair Aunt Sally for all the mingy little journalistic twirps who like to throw mud at me across the Atlantic, and so he suggested that I beetle off to Australia for a month or two to talk about England, The British War Effort, etc: and appear at Red Cross benefits and generally make myself pleasant. Then, on my return here in January, I shall be able to explain the Australian point of view and do as much as I can to help towards an understanding between the two countries. All this seems as though it might be of use and at any rate it will be utilising my capabilities and celebrity value efficiently. I am paying my own fare but while I am there I am the guest of the Australian Government. Of course, I am very excited about it although I shall be so far way, but I feel that perhaps, in some ways, Australia will seem nearer to England than here. The British Ambassador, who has been extremely nice, was enthusiastic about the project, almost too much so I thought, in fact I detected a gleam of relief in his eye at the idea of my getting out of his hair. I suspect that the Embassy is constantly racked with anxiety lest I say something unethical and lousy. However, all is arranged, with suitable official announcements, and I fly to Los Angeles on Monday night and sail on Wednesday. I have masses of books and notes to read up on Australia and a lot of speeches to prepare and I intend to do the Australians proud.

  I miss you most horribly and have dreadful nocturnal imaginings and walk up and down the room, eat a chocolate, take two aspirin and go bubbers again, tear stained but resigned. The other night I indulged in a little light cookery and have arrived reluctantly at the conclusion that it really isn't my thing on account of losing my head, getting flurried and dropping a thought too much yoke of egg between the prongs of the gas ring. By the time I had finished the kitchen was like the black hole of C[alcutta] with gas escaping in all directions and I was forced to retire to the bath room with a plate of frizzled tomatoes, two rashers of ever so black and white bacon and a slice of inadequately toasted bread with some fluff on it. I take back all I said about that hair in the pheasant. I'd understand now if I found your whole bush in it.

  There is a great deal too much fart and fancy going on about the election, a convenient, if temporary refuge for escapists—after November the 4th I really don't know what they'll do.

  H. G. Wells arrived the other day and proceeded to make a prize ass of himself, whereas Willie [Maugham] arrived only two days ago and did exactly the opposite, which isn't really so surprising, is it? There has been a lot to contend with here—little tiresomenesses mostly well meaning and quite maddening. It's no use going on about the bombings, so I won't but please don't go buggering about the overt too much and for Christ's sake bob down when you're spotted.

  I remain, yours sincerely,

  Nellie Melba

  Before setting sail, Noël took a few days in Hollywood, where once again he stayed with Cary Grant. Although they had known each other for some years, they had never been particularly close friends and there was some speculation in the local community as to why—considering all the old friends he had there—Noël should visit Grant three times in just over eighteen months. Was there an affair? Unlikely, since Grant was living with Randolph Scott at the time. And if Noël was so critical of British-born men refusing to return to the old country, did his criticisms not also include Grant?

  What people couldn't know was that two of Little Bill's “boys” were conferring. On his subsequent travels, Noël would frequently use the Hollywood-bound Grant as his “control.” Grant himself fretted that he was not allowed to serve in the armed forces but was told that he could make a much greater contribution by staying where he was and monitoring which of his colleagues in the film colony supported which side. It's tempting to think that at this time all of Hollywood was pro-Britain, but this was not the case. Stars such as Errol Flynn were suspected of strong Nazi sympathies. Little Bill needed to know who they were and what they were saying and doing.

  Grant's role was never made public, but the fact that at the end of the war he was awarded the King's Medal for Service in the Cause of Freedom—an award given only to those who performed special intelligence services—tells its own story.

  •

  ON OCTOBER i 6 Noël sailed from San Pedro, California, on the SS Monterey. Once again he was traveling alone.

  CHAPTER 18

  WORLD WAR II: ‘FARAWAY LAND”

  (1940-1941)

  I come from a faraway land

  On the other side of the world,

  A land that's primitive, crude and brave,

  Where no one's master and no one's sla
ve,

  Yet one and all of us primly stand

  When the English flag's unfurled.

  I come from a faraway land

  On the other side of the world.

  The journey's long and the seas are wide

  But it's sweet to know that there's English pride

  On the other side of the world.

  “FARAWAY LAND,” IN AFTER THE BATE (19 54)

  S.S. Monterey

  At Sea

  October 20th

  DARLING LORNIE,

  I'm typing this A. because you can read it more easily. B. because the censor can read it more easily and C. because the typewriter was handy although broken to bits and I fear I shall have to buy several new ones when I arrive in Honolulu tomorrow. The route of the ship has been changed at the last minute and now no one, least of all the Captain, has the faintest idea where we are going when we leave Honolulu. All that is known is that we have to go somewhere or other in the Orient and pick up a great many—too many—people and then go on to Australia if the Japanese will let us and not behave like saucy little sods and make us eat our passports and pull down our trousers and paint lotus blossoms on our bottoms, any of which might quite conceivably happen. In the event of me being whipped off the ship like a flash and placed in some old Yoshiwarra will you kindly explain to the Sunday Pictorial that I did it for Britain and not because I am just naturally decadent and like that sort of thing.

  1940- Two national treasures, and endangered species, meet … with the Aussie definitely coming out on top.

  I only spent one night in Hollywood but I utilised it by sitting in a projection room and seeing the film they have just made of Bitter Sweet, No human tongue could ever describe what Mr. Victor Saville, Miss Jeanette MacDonald and Mr. Nelson Eddy have done to it between them. It is, on all counts, far and away the worst picture I have ever seen. MacDonald and Eddy sing relentlessly from beginning to end looking like a rawhide suit case and a rocking horse respectively. Sari never gets old or even middle aged. “Zigeuner” is a rip snorting production number with millions of Hungarian dancers. There is no Manon at all. Miss M elects to sing “Ladies of the Town” and both Manon's songs, she also dances a Can-Can! There is a lot of delightful comedy and the dialogue is much improved, at one point, in old Vienna, she offers Carl a cocktail! Lord Shayne was wrong,

  Richard (later Baron) Casey (1890—1976) and his wife. It was Casey who persuaded Noël to tour Australia and New Zealand and then the war zones.

  Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy are very definitely the wrong age for Vienna. It is the vulgarest, dullest vilest muck up that I have ever seen in my life. It is in technicolour and Miss M's hair gets redder and redder until you want to scream. Oh dear, money or no money, I wish we'd hung on to that veto.

  Oh Lornie, it feels very strange and not entirely nice going further and further away but, because I've got a really good job to do, I must say I feel happier than I have felt for ages. I have a lovely lot of time stretching ahead of me on board this ship in which to write and prepare speeches and broadcasts, etc. I do so very much hope I shall make a go of it. I certainly start at an advantage as I am already popular in Australia as a name, let's hope that by sheer prettiness I shall be able to round up even the most sullen dissenter. I miss you most dreadfully but I don't intend to go on about that. Take care of yourself, darling, and the children and remember that even though I am at the other side of the world, I am very very close indeed.

  Love Love Love

  MASTER

  His route, in fact, took him from Honolulu to Yokohama, where he was told he might not disembark. This piqued his interest enough to have himself smuggled ashore, where he found the city awash with Germans— a fact he promptly reported back to Little Bill.

  Then on to Shanghai: “Gay as bedamned … I'd never have believed it had been battered to hell [by the Japanese in 1937].” “It's hardly changed at all,” he wrote to Violet. “All my old friends greeted me. The Cathay Hotel [where he had written Private Lives] insisted upon my being their guest and gave me a resplendent suite filled with flowers!”

  Then Manila and, finally, Sydney. En route he had done his Australian homework and written several of his intended broadcasts.

  Menzies Hotel

  MELBOURNE

  3rd December 1940

  Darling Lornie,

  This is another communal letter to my loved ones. I have not had a moment to write before, because to date this has been the most hectic experience of my life and makes the last rehearsals of Cavalcade look like a couple of aspirin and a nice lie-down.

  Now I must talk to you seriously for a moment. This is really a much more important job than I ever anticipated. The broadcasts that I prepared on the ship coming out, each one lasting 15 minutes, are really good and some of the best writing I have ever done. These are having a terrific response and are heard all over Australia twice a week. The Government is being enormously considerate and although the whole business is terribly strenuous, so far it has really been a triumphant success and I am assured that I am doing a fine job for England and for Australia.

  You can imagine, with the nerve-strain of all this just beginning, that it was a little startling to receive at the outset cables from you and Joyce and Blackheart [Gladys Calthrop], urging me to return to England immediately. I fully realise that I am missing a great deal of history there, but on the other hand, maybe I am making a little here. As you remember, at the beginning of this war we decided that the best way I could do a job for the country was to make one for myself. This is the first really valuable work I have yet done for the war.

  After all this I am going to be pretty exhausted, so I am going to get on to the Clipper to New Zealand and stop off at Canton Island, which is a tiny place where there is nothing to do, and stay there by myself… in order to sort out my impressions and prepare broadcasts on Australia and New Zealand, which I intend to do in America.

  According to this plan, I shall arrive back in America round about the 20th February. I shall stay there for about a month, because one of the reasons that the Australian Minister sent me here was in order to talk about the Australian war effort in America. It therefore does not look as though I could return to England before April.

  Now then, I am absolutely furious about the way the cheap English press has treated me as a result of those idiotic questions in Parliament. The reason I am doing what I am doing is because I know I am really contributing to the ordinary people, not the press or the big shots. The behaviour of the latter makes me at moments feel I never want to clap eyes on England again, but this is only temporary bitterness and quite natural in the circumstances. I am longing to come back to see all of you, but it can only be for a little while because the frustration of seeing all that muddling going on scares me much more than all the bombs in Christendom.

  Nobody in England has the faintest idea what the Australians are like, and when I do get back I am going to make it my business to tell them. They are simple and direct and friendly, and their feeling about England is so deep and touching that in my opinion a great deal more should be done about them, from our point of view, than has been to date. This really is being a wonderful experience.

  The Australian country—what I have seen of it from aeroplanes and motor-cars—is perfectly beautiful, but, the thing that is nicest about it here is its Englishness. It is good, honest middle-class, neither common nor social. There is no snobbery around, or very little, and I should think that in future years it will turn out to be far and away the most important jewel in our Imperial crown. If, in the future, I hear anybody saying, “Darling, really the Australians are too dreary for words—those awful voices, etc., etc.,” there will be bad trouble.

  “Accustomed as I am to public speaking …” Noël makes one of his very many public appearances to help the war effort.

  I will now, my little darlings, conclude this bright novel. If you would care to visit my detractors en masse, each holding a meat-a
xe, I would be delighted.

  Love! Love!! Love!!!

  MASTER

  On the same day he sent a preliminary report to Duff Cooper:

  My dear Duff,

  This is just a brief letter to tell you how I am fareing here—actually I am fareing very well, and it seems that I am doing a good job. [He then gives a detailed summary of his activities.]

  I propose to get back to the States round about the 20th February and spend a month or so there, broadcasting and generally talking about Australia and its war effort, etc. When I have done that, this particular job will be finished and some other plans will have to be made. If it really turns out to have been successful, perhaps you would help over this. As I told you in my last letter, I have been naturally upset about some of the dirty cracks in the English press about my activities, and I would like in the Spring to come back and deal with some of this. There is lots of time, unfortunately, and perhaps you could think of some way to help.

  It is horrible to think what an awful time England is having. I do hope you are all well and not getting too nerve-strained and tired. Please give my love to Diana [Cooper], and please believe that I'm doing the level best I can, and intend to go on doing so until the damned war is won.

  Take care of yourself,

  Yours ever,

  NOËL COWARD

  HOTEL ESPLANADE

  Perth, WA.

  14th December 1940

  Darling Lornie,

  Well, my tour is nearly over, and a fine rampage it has been. I have been charming, simple, modest, boyish (inappropriately) human,understanding, patriotic, and absolutely unspoiled by my great success. All this vintage coquetry will not surprise you. The press have been terrifically nice to me and everything has gone down like a dinner.