A Daughter's Tale: The Memoir of Winston Churchill's Youngest Child

by Mary Soames

  IN 1934, WHEN I was twelve, I left Irwin House and moved up the road to the Manor House School, next to the church in Limpsfield. This was my mother’s second choice. She wanted me to go to St. Paul’s School in London, but I flunked the entrance exam: I felt much humiliated, and realized I had disappointed her.

  The Manor House was primarily a girls’ boarding school: about two hundred strong, it also admitted a contingent of about twenty day girls, of whom I was one. The headmistress—Miss Katharine Gribble—was an unusual person. She was exactly of the generation which had lost husbands, lovers, and sweethearts in the Great War, and I suspect she was a schoolmistress by default. Although she was a brilliant French scholar and a gifted teacher, and highly cultivated in music and literature, I do not think she was a university graduate. She was nearly very beautiful, with piercing blue eyes and silvery hair, and her very feminine appearance and style of dressing was most un-headmistressy: she wore long, romantic dresses (in the style made fashionable years later by Laura Ashley), with immaculate ruffles at wrist and throat, and her manner of address was like a rushing torrent—mostly in French, in which tongue one was meant to respond: thanks to Madame L’Honoré, I scored rather well here. Although there was a “Mademoiselle,” Miss Gribble herself taught French throughout the school, and there was a French-speaking table in the dining hall, to which captives were committed by rotation. Miss Gribble was the only teacher who ever managed to instil in me some rudiments of French grammar: some of her axioms stick even now in my memory and come to my rescue: “Les fleurs que j’ai mise sur la table hier sont mortes aujourd’hui.” Goodness, how sad!—and a frequent occurrence, I have found—but a rule unforgettably learned. Miss Gribble would at times make dramatic gestures or interjections in the normal routine: one such at the end of prayers left the assembled school and staff agape. Instead of ending with the usual “Grace,” she closed her books and, staring fixedly at us all, declaimed: “For God’s sake—let us not live to be useless!”—and marched out of the Assembly Hall.

  Like most headmistresses with pronounced personalities, La Gribble aroused violent extremes of like or dislike among her pupils. The younger ones were astonished or abashed by her excessive enthusiasms; the older ones, embarrassed by her manner, either were dumbstruck or, if among the braver (or bolshier?) sixth formers, adopted a non-receptive, verging-on-the-hostile attitude which later on, in my army days, I learned to recognize as that most effective and disconcerting of weapons known as “dumb insolence.”

  I was to be at the Manor House for nearly five years and was fairly happy there, despite being very bad at lacrosse and netball (I was better at games in the summer term, as I swam well and was a goodish tennis player). I longed to be popular—which I certainly was not. Having lived up to this time almost exclusively in the company of grown-ups, I tended to prefer talking to the older girls and the mistresses, which was neither practicable nor likely to endear me to my contemporaries and classmates. At academic work I was a plodder, though I mostly liked learning—except for loathsome maths. Overall, I think I would have been quite unhappy if it had not been for three loyal and companionable friends: Jean Edwards, Rose Jackson, and Pat Tickell. All four of us are widowed now, and still in touch from time to time.

  During term time I had a busy life, as I explained in a long letter to Sarah started on 26 October 1936 (after she had gone to America), which I wrote in instalments over nearly a fortnight: “I must stop here till tomorrow, it is 6.15 [a.m.] & I must go and do my goats, canaries and dogs before going to school! Au revoir!” Nine days later I continued: “I’m sorry this letter is written in short instalments, but you see I have so little time to do anything, as I don’t arrive home till 6.45, then supper at 7.30 & bed … so all my letter writing is done before I get up in the morning, today I am writing at twenty minutes to six!”

  At weekends, and in the school or parliamentary holidays—unless my parents were away—Chartwell throbbed with life. The most frequent “stayers” were my uncles and aunts with their children: usually they came family by family, diluted with other guests, but at Christmas they were all squeezed in at the same time or spread over the New Year. The family fell into two groupings as follows: Uncle Jack, my father’s only sibling, younger than he by five years, Aunt Goonie and their children, Johnny, Peregrine, and Clarissa; and Aunt Nellie, my mother’s younger sister, Uncle Bertram Romilly and their two boys, Giles and Esmond—totally inappropriately known as “the Lambs.”

  The “Jacks” were closer as a group to Winston and Clementine and their older children, both in ages and because during the First World War the two families had combined households and nurseries both in London and at Lullenden. Johnny and Peregrine were close contemporaries of Diana, Randolph, and Sarah (indeed, Peregrine and Sarah, only eighteen months apart in age, were bosom companions). By now the days of the frolics in the tree house, from which I had so much minded being excluded as a small child, were long past, and all these older ones had moved on to different enthusiasms and more grown-up enjoyments.

  Clarissa was only two years older than I, but our personalities were very different—she was a reserved child, and seemed to have been created “grown up” all in one fell swoop; I must have seemed odd to her with my more extrovert nature and with my animals and family of dolls, so we were not great companions for one another. Aunt Goonie doted on her lovely flaxen-haired, blue-eyed only daughter, and showered her with fulsome affection and solicitude: although I was somewhat embarrassed by this (as probably Clarissa was too), I remember being considerably shocked by her icy indifference to her mother’s displays of affection.

  Aunt Goonie’s personality—kind, but remote—and her subtle, elusive style of beauty were not easily appreciated by a child. Uncle Jack, on the other hand, was a great favourite of us all: he was genial and easygoing, and he had a particular talent that was a universal delight—he could play a wide repertoire of tunes by striking his nails against his front teeth! His rendering of the national anthem was particularly splendid.

  The two Hozier sisters were very different in both character and temperament. Nellie was much easier-going and less highly strung than Clementine. Large and amiable, she was a chain-smoker, and her clothes always seemed dusty with ash. She invariably carried a large and capacious handbag: “I could leave for Peru today,” she would say as she rummaged in its depths. However, from the time of her marriage to Colonel Bertram Romilly of the Scots Guards in 1915, her life had been dogged by difficulties. The Romillys were badly off financially—an unfortunate circumstance not improved by Nellie’s being a compulsive gambler (like her mother). Uncle Bertram had suffered a severe head wound in the war, and although his brain was unaffected he was particularly sensitive to noise and stress; in consequence he made a very ineffectual father to his lively sons, born two years apart. Nellie always tried to protect him from childish uproars, and the upbringing of the boys largely devolved on her: it was unfortunate in these circumstances that she was suffocatingly over-maternal, overindulged them, and was wont (in front of them) to inform her friends and relations and their contemporaries how beautiful and brilliant they were.

  It was not until many years later that I learned from Sarah’s autobiography that the Romilly boys were most unpopular with their Churchill cousins:

  We Churchills had a definite antipathy towards them, and this was to grow through the years until we were all properly grown up and affection was restored. The early antipathy was made stronger by the fact that their mother would insist on calling them, right into their teens, ‘My darling angelic boys, Gy-gy and Ese-wee’, when they both had respectable names like Giles and Esmond—and a very fair share of brains.3

  Protecting her fragile husband, Nellie would stand loyally by her sons (especially Esmond) through a series of adolescent peccadilloes. Later, Giles would be a prisoner of war in the grim fortress prison of Colditz, and in 1941 Esmond, a navigating officer in the Canadian air force, would be lost (missing, presumed kille
d on active service) over the North Sea. Still, despite trials and tragedy, Nellie would remain debonair, gallant, and undaunted, and with her winning charm and gregarious nature, throughout her life she made a host of friends. Winston was very fond of her—“la Nellinita,” he would call her—and despite some sisterly tiffs, Clementine and Nellie were devoted to each other. The Romilly family often stayed at Chartwell.

  Not used to boys, I was wary of Giles and Esmond—but anyway, being six and four years older than I, they were in the group of “Big Ones,” so I did not have a great deal to do with them. Inasmuch as I did, I greatly preferred Esmond to his elder brother: Esmond was brusque and noisy (and of course treated me with disdain), but was usually quite kind, in a rough sort of a way, and with his freckly face, snub nose, and fair hair he was infinitely preferable in my eyes to Giles, who had smooth, dark looks and was very standoffish and supercilious. I usually kept out of the way of both of them, but in the Easter holidays when I was about eight Esmond decided that I should learn to ride a bicycle: so one morning he took me down to the tennis court to teach me. He was an impatient instructor, and his method consisted of vigorous shoves accompanied by yells of: “Pedal! You idiot—pedal!” I was panic-stricken, and fell off several times—but I did learn to ride a bicycle. I never got a kind word, but I adored him despite his tyrannical ways.

  Both boys were sent to school at Wellington, and in their midteens first Giles, and then Esmond, became communists; then, in 1934, Esmond ran away from school amid a blaze of publicity. In the run-up to all this, he drew attention to his political beliefs while staying at Chartwell by sporting a black Homburg hat and refusing to wear a black tie for dinner (the latter sartorial gesture seems to have been an accepted way in upper-class circles at that time of expressing left-wing revolt). Unfortunately this bold act fell rather flat, as his uncle Winston failed to notice his nephew’s incorrect attire.

  Round this time, when I was about eleven, I became a victim of Esmond’s political convictions. We were both in quarantine for some childish affliction (German measles, I think) that required us to be isolated: we were therefore forced into each other’s company, much to Esmond’s disgust. To while away the time he tried to teach me to play cards, which proved a dismal failure—so we turned to conversation. Esmond lay on the bed, and, lighting a cigarette—which I thought very wicked and daring—proceeded to test out my religious belief.

  “I don’t believe in God,” he said. “It’s absolute tosh!”

  “Well, I do,” I said.

  “Anyway, I bet I can make you deny Jesus Christ in sixty seconds flat,” Esmond taunted.

  I said: “No, you couldn’t.”

  Esmond got up and drew a washbasin full of cold water, frog-marched me to it, and held my head down. After two dousings I of course denied my Saviour.

  NOTHING GLOWS SO CLEARLY in my memory of my childhood and teenage years as the Chartwell Christmases. My excitement and anticipation mounted during the preceding weeks, particularly as just outside the day-nursery door was a poky closet that was usually of no significance but, as Christmas approached, became tantalizingly known as the “Genie’s Cupboard,” and was strictly out of bounds: here my mother and Nana spent a good deal of time in secret conclave, accompanied by much rustling of paper. Then I used to watch the gardeners bringing in the Christmas tree, and transforming the house with ivy, holly, and laurel branches: although modern decorations are very glamorous with their glittering effects and twinkling lights, I can still remember how beautiful was the effect of the different textures of the entwined leaves, and the gradations of the lustrous greens. A great bunch of mistletoe was hung strategically in the front hall, and a large and beautiful Della Robbia plaque of the Christ child in swaddling clothes gazed pensively down upon us.

  Then there was the excitement of the arrivals—aunts and uncles and cousins of all ages, whom I was deputed to conduct to their quarters. The only “outsiders” that I can remember were our two regular “bachelors,” Professor Lindemann (the Prof) and Eddie Marsh (more of these two in the next chapter), whom my parents regularly rescued from cheerless Christmastimes.

  When we were all assembled on Christmas Eve, the double doors between the drawing room and the library would be flung open to reveal the lighted Christmas tree, radiating a delicious piny, waxy smell from the white candles, painstakingly lit with tapers by Nana and a responsible helper: it was a beautiful sight. Predictably, one year—it was 1932—the tree caught fire, and was ablaze in mere seconds. Esmond, aged fourteen, wrote this graphic account in his diary:

  The Christmas tree caught fire in the afternoon, which I thought rather exciting. Aunt Clemmie and Mummy lost control of themselves (the former just screamed out: ‘Shout fire!’, while the latter rushed about the room, alternately shouting and doing silly things like opening windows. I must say I expected her to be more useful in that sort of situation.) Cousin Moppet [Nana] was absolutely in her element. She, of course, got the fire extinguisher and put out the fire. I think she slightly enjoyed the comparison between her and Mummy, Randolph (who did nothing) and Aunt Clemmie. But I think she also slightly despised them. I thought I myself was rather clever. I stood there at first, thinking what a marvellous blaze it was, slightly lost my head, and thought of getting out of the front door. However, I then saw Cousin Moppet rush in with a fire extinguisher, followed by Mary who was sobbing hysterically, with a large basin of water. This I seized from her in a masterly fashion and poured it over the blaze, which was now completely under the control of Cousin Moppet. I at least impressed Mummy. Questioned by her this morning as to the part I played, I replied that I had rushed out to get water, and what’s more I think I believed it when I said it.*

  The Christmas party usually seems to have prolonged itself over the New Year. Amusements and activities were not hard to come by: in the year of the “Great Snow”—1927–28—the lane below Chartwell was so deep in drifts that a tunnel had to be bored through to allow traffic to pass; there was skating on the big lake, the older children made a wonderful igloo, and my father created a splendid life-size snowman.

  Amateur theatricals were a special feature in 1933: the dining room made a good theatre with its dividing curtains, and my mother wrote a lively account of it all to Streetie.

  We all acted at Christmas—even me! You will hardly believe that. We (Sarah, Mary & myself) acted a short play by Gertrude Jennings called ‘Mother of Pearl’ … I took the part of a dirty old tramp & I enjoyed it enormously … Mr. Gurnell the Chemist came & made us all up. Then there was a thriller called ‘The Hand in the Dark’ in which Mrs Romilly, Sarah & Esmond performed. They wrote it themselves & it was really quite gruesome.

  We gave 3 performances 3 days running & you can imagine the disorder of the house. Nana prompted & produced & was very severe! Mr Pug [Winston] was too sweet. He said it was all lovely & that I was so tragic I made him cry!

  * * *

  * In the account I gave of this incident in the biography I wrote of my mother, Clementine Churchill, first published in 1979 and revised and updated in 2002, I wrote that Randolph had fetched the fire extinguisher and put out the fire: evidently my memory played me false, and I am glad to have found a truer eyewitness account in Kevin Ingram’s Rebel: The Short Life of Esmond Romilly.

  CHAPTER 4

  Growing Up with Grown-ups

  A PART FROM OUR CLOSE RELATIONS, THE MOST FREQUENT “outside” guest at Chartwell during my youth was Professor Lindemann (later Viscount Cherwell), known to us all as “the Prof”: he had been my father’s friend since the early twenties, and up to the outbreak of war in 1939 his signature appears in the Chartwell visitors’ book 112 times. The son of a French-Alsatian father and an American mother, he was brought up in England, though educated also in Germany and France. He was a brilliant scientist, and for nearly forty years was Winston’s close friend and his mentor on all scientific matters: during the twenties and thirties he was Professor of Experimental Philosophy (Physics) at
Oxford University and head of the Clarendon Laboratory there. All these distinctions of course were way beyond my understanding or interest—I only knew him as a prominent figure in Chartwell life and the great friend of both my parents (my mother particularly enjoying his company, as he was a first-class tennis player). The older children also liked him very much, and he was extremely helpful and hospitable to Randolph during the latter’s time at Oxford. But for me he was just a remote, though benevolent, presence. However, there was one side of this curious person which riveted both Sarah and myself: the Prof was a strict vegetarian, and my mother took immense pains to see he was provided with delicious special dishes. He said he liked eggs, but Sarah and I used to observe with astonishment how he would meticulously remove the yolks, consuming only the whites.

  The next most frequent nonfamily visitor was Eddie Marsh (later Sir Edward). A former civil servant, he had been private secretary to my father throughout his ministerial career before the war, and had become a close personal friend of both Winston and Clementine. He was immensely erudite—a classical scholar, and a patron of the arts and literature—and was Winston’s literary mentor, consulted on all my father’s books. To a child he seemed too extraordinary for words, with his bushy eyebrows and slate-squeak voice.

  Other “regulars” were two of my mother’s first cousins on her mother’s side, Sylvia Henley and her younger sister Venetia Montagu.* During my mother’s difficult childhood (her parents were separated and were on very bad terms) she had stayed a great deal with her Stanley cousins, and her nearest contemporaries among their large family, Sylvia and Venetia, were to remain lifelong friends. Both widowed by the 1930s, they were women of exceptional intelligence and culture, possessing highly developed critical faculties and having inherited the forthrightness which was—and is!—a Stanley characteristic. Winston had always liked them, and found them stimulating company; I was much in awe of them. Cousin Venetia’s only daughter, Judy, was two years younger than I, and although later on we were to become the greatest of friends, we did not take to each other as children.