by Mary Soames
If I take a course of swimming lessons meanwhile, will I qualify to visit you once more in the summer? Or would ability to stoke a boiler do instead?† Chartwell’s inhabitants are as exciting as mixed drinks and much better in taste. Also I got my ‘Crises’ inscribed.‡
Yours sincerely,
T. E. Shaw
T. E. Shaw left the RAF in 1935. In May that year, returning home, he had an accident near Clouds Hill and was thrown from his motorbike: he died from his injuries a few days later, on 19 May, aged only forty-six. I had whooping cough that spring; Nana and I went down to Buck’s Mills in May for me to recuperate, and it was there that I heard the news—first of the accident, and then of the death of my fabulous friend. I was deeply shocked, and I remember poring over the details in the newspapers.
The only other grown-up whose death had touched me closely up to now had been that of my great-aunt Maude—Nana’s mother—who had died after rather a long illness (cancer, I think) in 1933, aged seventy-four. Nana had gone home to the “creaky” house in Lansdowne Road to help nurse her, and for a term I became a weekly boarder at Irwin House.
Although I was a little frightened of her, I loved Aunt Maudie dearly, and she was a great feature of my childhood. I knew she was very ill, and I had been gently, but quite realistically, prepared by Nana, who wrote to me regularly; but it was Sarah who told me that she had died, and walked me round and round the kitchen garden while I cried. In a letter to Nana the same day Maudie died—3 April—I wrote: “I am trying not to cry because it is not sad for Maudie, for her it is glorious happiness; she has gone to her perfect rest.” Two years later, I found this Christian acceptance harder to apply to my “Prince of Arabia.”
One afternoon when I was about fifteen, my father took me with him when he went to visit the great Ll.G.—Lloyd George—who lived at Churt in Surrey (his house was named Bron-y-de, Welsh for “slope of the south”), an easy drive from Chartwell. I remember he received us in a very comfortable summerhouse at the top of the garden. I was of course thrilled to see my father’s great colleague and chief, for whom he nurtured glowing admiration and affection, and about whom I had quite frequently heard my parents speak. My mother, who had been his ardent supporter in the years of the great radical Liberal reforms of Mr. Asquith’s government before the Great War—and while acknowledging Ll.G.’s magnetic charm (particularly towards women)—had always had a reserve in her feelings for the “Welsh wizard,” and she had an inconvenient memory for his slyness which, if she warmed to the topic, she roundly called “treachery.”
I was strongly and immediately struck by the great man’s white locks, his animation, and his celebrated Celtic charm. Over the teacups he and my father plunged instantly into political talk, while I occupied myself contentedly with the scones and delicious honey from “home” bees. But presently—perhaps sensing I was not paying much attention to the topics under discussion—Mr. Lloyd George kindly involved me in the conversation, telling me how, while sitting quietly one morning, he had seen a fox pass quite close to the summerhouse. I surely must have regaled him in return with a lively account of animal life at Chartwell—wild and tame—including stressing the size of the splendid golden orfe in the water-garden pool, which were my father’s pride and joy: Papa would have certainly corroborated my enthusiastic appraisal of their magnificence.
Later that summer Ll.G. paid a return call on my parents at Chartwell: sadly for me, I missed seeing him as I was away in France, staying with the Forbes family in Brittany. But I heard all about his visit, and from Les Essarts, St. Briac, I wrote to Mr. Lloyd George on 20 September 1937:
Mummie in one of her letters told me that you had been over to Chartwell, and had brought me some lovely green gages; thank you so very much; I am most disappointed to have missed you, and also the green gages. I hope, however that you will come and visit us very often at Chartwell, when I am there.
I am having great fun out here, fishing, riding, swimming and tennis.
With very much love, and many thanks from, Mary
p.s. Now that you have been to Chartwell, I hope you realise how big our fish really are!
* * *
* Daughters of the fourth Baron Stanley of Alderley (later fourth Baron Sheffield).
† Clearly a reference to the huge boiler Winston had installed to heat the new swimming pool, completed in the summer of 1933.
‡ His volumes of WSC’s The World Crisis, my father’s history of the First World War, published between 1923 and 1927.
CHAPTER 5
Family Affairs
DURING THESE YEARS, I HAD AT VARIOUS TIMES BEEN CONSCIOUS of tension between my mother and Nana, though early on it had to be very obvious for me to notice it—protective wishful thinking, I suppose. To their credit, it was extremely rare for them to air their differences in front of me, but sometimes Nana would return to our quarters after being with Mummie with clear signs on her face that she had been crying. At these moments I was overcome by embarrassment rather than sympathy—the sight of a grown-up crying being positively offensive to me—and I think it was not until I was fifteen or sixteen that I actually asked Nana the reason for her distress, or that she herself (despite her professional sense of loyalty) volunteered the reason for it, which was invariably a scene of reproaches by my mother, starting from some trivial matter to do with plans involving me, my manners, or my clothes (buttons off cardigans, or crumpled dresses—Nana being admittedly quite negligent in these matters) and progressing to a wider field of complaints probably involving household matters, during the course of which Clementine waxed hysterical, and was not open to reason or argument. These unedifying scenes always culminated in Nana leaving the room, utterly defeated, in floods of tears. I, of course, was on Nana’s side—but to little avail; I merely seethed inwardly, and hugged Nana.
The situation between Clementine and Nana was not the normal employer-employee relationship on account of their close family connection; moreover, during the 1930s Nana came to play an important role in the household apart from looking after me whenever Clementine was away from home for any long period of time, writing long newsy letters to her, not only about my doings and sayings (in considerable detail), but also covering domestic and family minutiae that might have been left out of Winston’s regular letters, which gave a broad overall report but also included news from beyond the Chartwell world. Particularly during Clementine’s four-month cruise as Walter Moyne’s* guest on his yacht the Rosaura during the winter and spring of 1934–35, when she travelled to the farthest reaches of the Pacific, Nana was a vital link with family and home affairs.
Despite the occasional stormy scenes, Clementine was truly fond of Nana, and knew full well how much she depended upon and owed to her; she also increasingly understood that (with good reason) I turned first to Nana in almost any circumstance. By the time I was in my midteens, my mother and I already had a shared pleasure in tennis; she herself played a good deal with me, and during the thirties a most charming and excellent tennis coach, Miss Dorothy Cathcart-Jones, came regularly in the spring and summer holidays to give me lessons, and to play enjoyable “coaching” games with Mummie and myself, and any of the elder ones who were around. Many years later my mother told me that it was round this time that she began to cast about for some means of developing a closer relationship with me without entering into open competition with Nana. Some of her friends had taken up skiing (then much less highly developed than nowadays as a family holiday sport), and she decided that this would provide an ideal way in which she and I could share a holiday abroad together, in circumstances which would be fun for us both. I was of course thrilled with the idea, and felt very grown-up to be going away with Mummie on my own (although with a very faint shadow of apprehension at the prospect of such prolonged and unusual intimacy).
Our first skiing expedition was to Zurs-am-Arlberg in Austria, in the Christmas holidays of 1936. There we joined up with Aunt Goonie and Clarissa (now fifteen), and Cousin Ve
netia Montagu and her daughter Judy (aged twelve). We stayed on this occasion at the Zurserhof, the rather grand hotel which lay at the extreme edge of the village. The holiday was an enormous success, and Mummie wrote lively letters to Papa describing our somewhat erratic progress in the art of skiing. When I had to return for the new school term, my mother sent me home with her maid Jefferies, and she herself stayed on for a week or so with Tor-Tor (Mary Marlborough’s sister) for company, to continue grappling with this new activity which had really enthused her. In retrospect I see it was very plucky of Mummie and Cousin Venetia—then in their fifties—to tackle this highly energetic and demanding sport.
The following year we went again to Zurs, this time staying in a more modest hotel (which was also much more fun): the Flexen, situated in the heart of the village, and owned and run by a charming family, the Skardarsys (a younger generation of whom would still be in charge over forty years later, when I would in turn bring my children there). Our party this year was again Cousin Venetia and Judy, plus Clarissa.
Our third and last skiing holiday was at the end of the same year, this time at Lenzerheide in Switzerland; Mummie and I went out in time for Christmas, leaving Papa to go to Blenheim. My stay in Lenzerheide was made particularly jolly, on and off the slopes, by the presence of a large number of the Grant Forbes family. The highlight of our skiing expeditions was reached when Mummie took me and six of the Forbes family on a day trip to Davos, from where, after ascending a further 3,000 feet, and eating a large luncheon, we all—with varying degrees of skill and speed—descended one of the Parsenn runs (about 14 kilometres). It was in Zurs, in the early New Year, that we heard of the tragic news of Dick Sheepshanks’s death. Mummie said, “Sarah will be very upset”; I went out into the freezing dark, and sat and sobbed my heart out in a snowdrift for this love of my youth.
Clementine’s strategy worked: for it was during these three lovely holiday times that I started to begin to get to know my mother—and, most important, to enjoy her company. During the long après-ski evenings, I would go to her room and, wrapped in dressing gowns and with well-greased faces, we would enjoy long sessions of talk or reading aloud. I greatly enjoyed it when Mummie regaled me with accounts of her childhood and youth: I loved to hear about Kitty, her elder sister, whom she adored, and the twins (Bill and Nellie), and about her fascinating, unpredictable mother, Lady Blanche Hozier, and terrifying old Lady Airlie, her grandmother. Clementine had had an insecure childhood: after her parents’ separation when she was about six years old, Lady Blanche and her four children led a somewhat peripatetic existence—always short of money—and the occasional unwelcome visits of their father, Sir Henry Hozier, cast a shadow of anxiety over their lives. Kitty, her mother’s unashamedly avowed favourite, tragically died of typhoid just before her seventeenth birthday: Clementine was heartbroken.
And of course I was riveted to hear about how my mother made her debut, under the wing of a rich and benevolent older relation: from looking at old photographs I realized how exceptionally beautiful she had been as a girl. I wanted full details of her beaux, and was particularly impressed by Sidney Peel’s long and faithful courtship (he sent her white violets every day). And then—at last—Mr. Winston Churchill arrived upon the scene!
A particular pleasure of our après-ski evenings was the long reading-aloud sessions. We concentrated at first, I remember, chiefly on poetry; some of it was holiday reading set by my school, but my mother greatly extended our explorations. We would take it in turns to choose and read from anthologies or collected works. Thus I discovered Keats’s Odes, and his “Eve of St. Agnes”; Shelley’s “Witch of Atlas”; Milton’s “Ode on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity”—and so many more treasures. Presently my mother veered away from poetry to prose. Her preference was for memoirs, histories, and biographies; she also enjoyed classical novels, and long books of several volumes never daunted her (I’m afraid I never was able to emulate her in this), and in addition read a lot of French books. She pointed me to many authors and books I very much doubt I should have discovered for myself—such as Ernest Renan’s Vie de Jésus, and the long and curious Tale of Genji, translated from Japanese by Arthur Waley, to mention only two.
But the development of a closer relationship between my mother and myself was not always equable: there were tempestuous passages between us from time to time. I sometimes found her difficult to understand and extremely demanding; I dreaded her displeasure, and the emotional, electric storms that could brew up. I myself must have often irritated her—I was, after all, in my “terrible teens” (more elegantly described by the French as l’âge ingrat)—and must have been at times excessively tiresome, graceless, and, I fear, a dreadful prig. This last unattractive attribute, I think, was in part the reverse of the shining coin of high moral standards inculcated in me by Nana.
My relationship with my father was altogether much easier—it just seemed to happen. Of course, he did not have to deal with the “small print” of my life or wrestle with my shortcomings in the same way as my mother; nor was there any tussle of authority or conflict of loyalty—in Clementine’s absence, all “nursery” matters were referred to Nana. My father could be quite solicitous: “Shouldn’t the child be wearing a vest, Moppet? It’s really quite chilly still.…”
There were, of course, “no-go” areas: his study and bedroom were generally out of bounds, unless I was sent as a messenger: “Fetch your father—tell him it’s lunchtime.” These missions were often unsuccessful, as I was not good at breaking up evidently important conversations, and frequently I myself became preoccupied with treasury tags or trying to use the “klop” (WSC-speak for a paper-hole punch). No noise (whistling particularly was abhorred) outside Papa’s study was permitted, and a thunderous roar of rebuke and reproach would result from any infraction of this not unreasonable rule: nor were interruptions to his painting welcomed. But when touring the grounds and gardens, inspecting the livestock, or occupied with the current project, my father welcomed company and “henchfolk.” In my teens I loved these outdoor occupations just as much as I had as a small child; and his love of birds and animals, domestic or wild, was a great bond between us. My letters to him reflect our shared interests:
CHARTWELL.
AUGUST 30 [1931]
Dear Papa,
Thank you very much for your lovely long letter. [Sadly I do not have it.] I am sorry I have not written sooner but I thought I would wait till I could tell some news about Chartwell. Well, Chartwell is looking much the same as it did [when you] went away. Two of my baby bantams died while I was away, so now I have only got five baby bantams. Yesterday I went and bathed with a friend, and we played in the afternoon …
Well I really must stop now, tender love to all.
MARIA
X X X X X x x x x x x
PS One of the baby Canadian geese had to be killed, because Arnold [farm bailiff] says [the] white swans are mateing [sic] and have fought the Canadian geese.
A year later my father wrote to me before setting off on his long “sightseeing” tour in Europe:
CHARTWELL,
WESTERHAM, KENT
23RD AUGUST 1932
My darling Mary,
I was very glad indeed to get your letter and to know that you are happy in Scotland under a shining sun. Mummie and I and Sarah are starting on Saturday for Brussels, the capital of Belgium, whence we can see three of the great battlefields of John, Duke of Marlborough, Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet. It will be very interesting because Colonel Pakenham-Walsh is going to explain on the ground to us exactly how it all happened. We are travelling there from Dover to Calais, and then Professor Lindemann motors us in his car through some of the battlefields of the Great War to our destination.
After that I am going to motor all across Europe from Brussels to the Danube in Bavaria along the line your great ancestor marched with a small English army and conquered all our foes as he met them. Give my love to Moppett and write often.
Winston S. Churchill
Later during that holiday Winston was taken ill with typhoid fever, and spent some time in a nursing home in Salzburg. Although my letter to him starts with concern over his illness, I naturally assumed he would want a Chartwell update:
CHARTWELL,
WESTERHAM, KENT
SEPT:12TH [1932]
Darling Papa,
I am so sorry to hear you are ill, I do hope you will be better.
At the present nothing very much is happening, except that Arnold is filling up the lovely woodshed with wood,† and that I am riding Judy, Nana’s poney [sic] about in the grounds.
One of the heifers is going to calve in two or three days, it will be so lovely to have a little calf.
I am so very very very sorry that you and Sarah and Mummy cannot be here for my birthday, it won’t be half as nice without you.
Well I really must stop now, tender love to all
MARIA
X X X X X x x x x x x
From our skiing holiday in early 1937 I wrote my father a long letter, describing mountain scenery, a bit of social life, and details I was sure would intrigue him about a mountain hare!
HOTEL FLEXEN
ZURS-AM-ARLBERG
AUSTRIA
11TH JANUARY 1937.
My Darling Papa,
I hope you and everyone at Chartwell are quite well. I am having a simply marvellous time. Yesterday Mummie and I went for a whole day’s expedition to a lonely lake in the mountains called the Zursersee … while Mummie and I were toiling painfully up the mountain [no ski lifts then!] we were overtaken by a good looking young man, who Mummie told me was Prince Starhemberg,‡ he stopped and talked to us for a few minutes.
We saw yesterday also the tracks of a snow hare. In the summer they are a discreet brown, but in the Winter they discard their quiet ‘smoking suits’ and don a coat of pure white; when they want to have a meal they dig through as much as six feet of snow, to find the grass. They find it very easy to go fast up hill because of their long legs, but they are very slow coming down because their legs get in the way. I think it would be such fun to have a hare at Chartwell.