Love and War in the WRNS

by Vicky Unwin

  Sheila

  On Victory Day, she ‘took half the morning off and went riding – in the afternoon I went out sailing with an awfully nice young Sub. here – Tom Unwin – we had such fun’. In the evening they went on aboard the destroyer Zenith, and then on to a film. ‘I reckon I had as good a day of Victory as anyone.’ So my father enters Sheila’s orbit again, but he is not without competition. In the same letter, that of 10 June, she writes of another admirer:

  I have had such a pleasant week, and mostly all from mine own efforts, which all goes to show it does pay to make the effort. I have asked several people up to dinner and made up parties – have ridden a lot – sailed once – one evening I went up to the Schleswig Officers’ Club with a rather nice Engineer I met in the course of my duty – Barry Phillips – and last night I asked him back to dinner in the mess. We had a hilarious time as 2 old old friends of mine ex. Hamburg and Harwich (Wrens) came up en route for Denmark and did we chatter? In the end Barry drove us round to his little ship ‘Nautik’ where he lives all by himself and we finished the evening on champagne and Nautik specials, gazing over the rails at the water, in true troop ship style. It was fun.

  She adds as a postscript: ‘not a word from Bruce, Robin neither for 4 or 5 weeks!!!!’

  In mid-June, she writes about her impending leave to England in early July; she will go home for a few days and then spend some time with her cousin Hazel and her goddaughter Daphne, for whom she has knitted many a fine garment while on watch, and then perhaps spend a day or two in London.

  Sheila is obviously going out with Tom a fair bit, although he doesn’t sound very attractive as he has produced some ‘frightful spots on his neck’. This on top of the terrible rash he had when she first met him in Hamburg. I put it down to his deep neurosis, which I shall explore a little later.

  She tells a funny story about her lunch with some Russians. ‘One of them asked Donald Wood [an interpreter and friend of Tom] whose girl I was – Oh she works for Captain Morse was the reply – Oh no – I mean who does she sleep with retorted the Russian!! They really are most odd!!’

  Barry meets her on her return from leave in mid-July. She spends the rest of the day with him, and then on to Hamburg for the evening. In the next letter, she seems to be seeing a fair bit of Barry, as Tom is away:

  Kiel

  21.7.46

  My dear Mama –

  Today is your birthday – Many happy returns, once more! Tom has gone up to Denmark and I have asked him to bring back a cheese for you if he can get one on Sunday – so here’s hoping! Thank you for your letter – I hope you are feeling less tired …

  Life has been rather hectic since my return and I have laid off a bit as I felt rather tired. Two mornings running I went riding; one day we bathed at lunchtime – one evening Barry and I went to the Guards’ Club at Eckernforde – the following evening three of us returned to our old barracks Plön and dined in Rodney block (where we used to live) with the guards – It was really rather fun – they were all frightfully guard-ee but awfully nice, really – Dinner was rather sumptuous – (caviar!) and afterwards we trooped off to their new Country Club which is in the house the General used to occupy – It was very nice indeed but very empty indeed as it had only been opened 3 days – They produced a cabaret and we danced – and didn’t get home till 2.30 – ugh!

  You can guess I was tired on Friday – but I rode in the evening and haven’t felt at all stiff from my efforts at all, which is marvellous change for me – In the evening Tom came round after dinner and we walked and talked in the nearby woods – Yesterday Betty, Diana and I went out to Westensee to see where we have a country house for weekends – it’s beautiful there – a large lake, with fields, woods and trees all round – we took Capt. Morse and a Norwegian with us – It was quite warm and we finished up in the Schloss drinking champagne on the terrace! Yum Yum! I ended the day by going to bed at 9.15 – heavens – Today I feel full of energy and Barry and I are going for a picnic – if it doesn’t rain! This evening we are going back to Schleswig the club which we like best – Eckernforde always rather depresses me – there’s far too much to eat – courses and courses and the band’s not very good!

  I hope you have had that bottle of champagne for your birthday – I bought 2 more bottles last week – 9/- a bottle! Could you please get me another small gold coin button from Coyne’s – I should have got 5 – silly!

  Rosemary seems bereft of all her friends – I wonder if she has gone to Italy?

  I am very busy in my office – tons of bills to deal with which are rather complicated.

  There’s no news at all for now – I will leave this open in case anything happens.

  Lots of love,

  Sheila

  Now Sheila is the two-timer. Only this year, 2014, I discovered a cache of my father’s letters to my mother, stuffed in an old plastic bag, along with the wedding telegrams. This sheds a whole new light on their courtship and their relationship, and reveals much about my father that I suspected but could never prove, as by the time I knew him he was a hugely successful man, first in the Colonial Administration in Tanganyika and then in the United Nations.

  The first letter is dated 4 July, and predates the above letter, in which he apologises for not being able to come to the UK ‘after all as the “Cdr Aylen” gang have made other arrangements’. This refers to his work with Professor Walther and other German scientists in Kiel. He adds, ‘do you know I miss you quite a lot.’ This was getting serious only after a few weeks. His other letters contain a sketch of a bleeding heart and a long love poem on Naval Message paper, obviously written by him as there is lots of crossing out; here are the final stanzas:

  It may just be a reverie

  Of a sub on morning watch

  But that’s how you appear to me

  That’s what you’ll always mean to me

  At times when I am took with fright

  I’d love to have you near to me

  My light!

  Forgive these lines

  Writ down in haste

  For beauty they have none

  And all they really show to me

  Is the damage

  You

  Have done!

  Nevertheless she continues to see both Barry and Tom. Perhaps she was terrified of being left high and dry again as she was with Bruce, so kept her options open:

  Kiel 30/7/46

  My dear Ma – no news from you for ages. The mail seems to have gone all haywire. I hope all is well and that you are feeling less tired.

  Life here is extremely pleasant, the highlight of the week seems to be Sunday. Tom asked me to go on a trip with him to try and look up some Russian cousins of a friend of his at home. White Russians – and with another young interpreter, Donald Wood as well, we all set off to find the place, near Ratzeburg, south of Lübeck, we had a bathe and a picnic lunch on the beach at Timmendorf and then sped on to find this place – After asking and asking and bumping over frightfully badly made up roads we found the house, a large old farmhouse packed with D.P.s [Displaced Persons] from the Russian zone and discovered the people we were looking for. They were charming, had lost everything in Berlin, were stateless as they were exiled Russians, but were still in hope that something would turn up. They had a sweet little girl of six years old who speaks German and Russian and we all three said how do you do to her in different ways in Russian (the only words I know!). After about 1/2 hour we decided we had better be on our way, but alas within a mile of the house we broke down – and had to go on foot to a neighbouring dairy to phone. This was all miles in the heart of the country. There we met a kind man who offered to tow us with his lorry into Ratzeburg, where we hoped the 10th Hussars would be able to help us. When we eventually arrived, we discovered they had no breakdown party at all and that we had to get another car from Kiel. However, they were throwing a small party for the local DP’s – would we like to join in? – We would and did and spent a most amusing evening danc
ing and talking to the DPs – mostly Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians. We met an awfully nice Lithuanian Colonel who was rather like a fish out of water – he spoke only French, and either Russian or German – Tom was marvellous as he is a very good linguist and the old man thought him marvellous. Eventually our car arrived at 1230 and we got home at about 0315! The dawn was rising! I was terribly tired as I had been late the night before.

  Yesterday I took Barry out riding for the first time and it poured and poured with rain, we got soaked. This evening is a ladies guest night on board the ship – I am riding with Tom before, and then Barry is calling for me for the dance.

  Oh, did the cheese ever arrive? I sent it off approximately a week ago in a big wooden box – cheese provided by Tom – box by Barry. I am rather worried about having two young men – both are dears – I really must be careful and not go sailing on head in air. There might be talk.

  Tennis I played three times last week also, rode 2 or 3 times as well – danced 3 evenings and swam twice. It’s a good life!

  How is Rosemary? I’ve heard no news from her for 2 weeks or so. Oh, I am being taken out of the dryer so must stop. (Am having hair done!)

  With heaps of love,

  Sheila

  And so it continues with her two young men, although Tom has a trump card in his favour:

  Kiel Sunday 4th/8

  My dear Ma – many thanks for your letter which crossed mine – I wonder whether you got the cheese? Your apples haven’t arrived yet – George, our nice German steward, had some sent to him by his wife yesterday, and I found a plate by my bed – I felt rather awful taking them, but I always give him chocolate and cigs when he goes home – so I think he felt he would like to do something in exchange –

  A very happy and busy week for me – Did I tell you how Tom and I went out riding and had a battle with an enormous cart horse stallion? We were galloping down a field to a gate, when this thing started to chase me and when we got to the gate, found it was wired up and padlocked – I got off to try and undo the wire, and left Tom to cope with the horse – luckily they weren’t mares but the stallion didn’t seem to mind, and I foresaw us all being trampled under foot. Tom was frightfully brave especially when the nasty thing got its foot caught in his horse’s reins and he had to undo the strap – all the time there was bucking and kicking going on and I was battling with the gate which I had to take off the hinge – In the end I got it off, and my horse through, and repressed the stallion whilst Tom got his through – my goodness I was frightened, tho’ we have had many a laugh over it since!

  We went on to the ladies’ guest night afterwards – I in my black dress lace earrings and velvet bow tied round my neck, which brought forth rounds of applause from everyone – I am glad I brought it back.

  Barry has got to go home in a couple of weeks – a blitz from above has removed his job, and he is going home. It appears that he is married, but is another one who doesn’t get on with his wife – this I don’t doubt at all, but I must say what a typical male attitude not to tell until the last minute – all I can say is it’s jolly lucky I hadn’t fallen flat for his charms, because I should have been sunk!

  Tom and I had a marvellous afternoon yesterday at Schleswig where we went over the Cathedral. It has the most beautiful carved altar screen – I have never seen anything so intricate – all scenes from the New Testament carved in oak, and in the contemporary costume of the 13th or 14th century – The ceiling and pillars are all painted delicately in buff ocre [sic] and brick colours – apparently all the paintings were white washed over at the time of the Reformation and were not discovered till 1938. N. Germany was the last part of Germany to be converted to Christianity and still on the ceilings are painted 2 witches on broomsticks, old pagan gods – an organ was playing whilst we were there, and I was terribly impressed by the whole place – Tomorrow is Bank Holiday and we hope to go on a picnic. In the evening we are going to a circus in the town – later on, we hope to go to Bad Harzburg together, and Capt. Morse says that I can go – but Tom (reluctantly I’m afraid) is going on leave in 2 weeks time – so we must try and go before he goes. He really is the sweetest person – but 3 years younger than I am!

  The glamorous and beautiful Sheila in Germany in 1946. This is the black dress referred to in the letter of 4 August.

  I have had a very nice dinner dress made in almond green cotton-silk and I managed to get some very pretty painted wooden buttons to go with it – We got them at Eckernforde yesterday. It really is quite [sketch] sweet.

  I really must stop and finally get ready for riding. It is a beautiful windy and sunny afternoon – I am going with Barry – Tom is out sailing as it is Kiel Regatta this week – They are going 10 miles outside the boom in cabin class yachts – I do hope he won’t be seasick as he says he is terribly at times.

  Heaps of love

  Sheila

  No news from R. for weeks – is all OK?

  The next letters are all Tom (although Barry sneaks in when Tom is sailing) – dining, swimming, picnicking, visiting Lübeck, driving through the country. And then Tom goes on leave ‘for a whole fortnight – Awful!’ but they have arranged to go to Bad Harzburg for her birthday on 9 September. Barry, too, has left, but not before giving her a nice hand-made black handbag, but she’s ‘glad he’s gone really – much as I liked him – Complications only ensue.’

  Nevertheless, she has time for a rant about the notion that the British Army on the Rhine are to be allowed to bring their wives out, and it is revealing in what it says about conditions in Germany at the time, and her sympathy with the civilians:

  Kiel

  17.8.46

  I think this BAOR [British Army of the Rhine] wives business is a scandal – Here, dozens of families have been evicted and there is absolutely nowhere suitable for them to go, as the town is so badly bombed – also, they have had to leave behind furniture etc. and feeling will I am sure, run very high, and rightly so – It is untrue to say that such luxuries await the wives such as the papers make out – we have hardly any furniture or anything to put into unfurnished houses and I don’t suppose the NAAFI arrangements are any further forwards – There will be discontent all round – I am sure it is a mistake bringing them over here – they will have precious little to do except gossip and I don’t suppose many will take an interest in the German problem today – Conditions in winter will be shocking – And as for giving them that luxurious train – that’s the last straw, when you consider the trains we service people travel in – FILTHY – 2nd or 3rd class for officers, not enough lights – windows often boarded up – lavatories too smelly and dirty to even enter and I suspect, infected with all kinds of livestock – If they can produce decent trains for wives and families, what about the poor old service personnel who’ve won the war for them? It makes me sick –

  I attribute this outburst partly to the stress she must have been feeling with Tom away, and to his growing influence over her, as he mixed freely with Germans as part of his job. He begins to bombard her with letters, ranging from extremely witty to downright depressive, many adorned by cartoon sketches.

  Some of the sketches from Tom’s letters.

  The following letter was written on Salvation Army paper, while he was waiting for his train to take him on leave to England. She could not fail to have been amused by it, and this is my father though and through – limitless charm hiding a tormented soul:

  Railway Stn

  Bad Oeynhausen

  15.8

  Madam

  May we interest you in corresponding with a lonely young man who is off on leave to England today?

  He is a young naval officer – his plane didn’t fly owing to the weather and so train is the answer. He is rather unhappy at the thought of going home and so, knowing you, we hope you will not mind the Xian [Christian] deed involved in writing to him.

  He was rather bashful of writing to you himself, but appears to be very fond of you. In fact he forgot to take
his change of [unreadable] and when asked why, said ‘these bloody women, always on your mind’ from which remark you will readily deduce the depth of his love.

  In the hope, dear madam, that we have not offended you by our forthright request and wishing you the happiest possible of correspondences.

  We sign ourselves

  Respectfully

  Josiah H Turmoil

  Stn. Welfare Officer

  NB the young man’s address – his name is I believe known to you – is 17, Chamberlain St, Wells, Somerset.

  These letters were to continue right up until their marriage in December, as Tom only returned to Germany at the end of August for a few weeks and was demobbed in mid-October. Reading them now, it seems to me that she was taking a huge risk in marrying him as he showed signs of great mental instability. It is hardly surprising when you know what he had been through, but neither Sheila nor anyone else, apart from his mother and brother, had any idea about the real Tomas Michael Ungar.

  ❖❖❖

  Tomas (Tomy) Ungar was born on 25 October 1923 to Hermann and Margarete (née Stransky) in Prague. His father was a writer and former Czech diplomat who had served in Berlin, where he had belonged to an elite group of writers – the 1925 Group – which included Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Doeblin, Albert Ehrenstein, Willy Haas, Egon Erwin Kisch, Robert Musil, Joseph Roth, and Max Brod.

  In Berlin Hermann met Thomas Mann who was to become his sponsor and, later, Tomy’s godfather. His books were Boys and Murderers (1920), The Maimed (1922), The Class (1927) and the plays The Red General, which was premiered in 1928 in Berlin, and The Arbour, which was published posthumously in 1930. He also wrote many short stories, including one about his son, ‘Tomy learns to write’. He wrote about sex and psychosis in a manner that shocked the establishment and was probably the reason why he sunk into obscurity, not helped by the fact that Max Brod, Franz Kafka’s executor, turned against him after his death – due, no doubt, to Ungar’s unfavourable remarks in his diaries, which were also published after his death. Hermann did not know the meaning of the word tact, something his son inherited.