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

by Mary Soames

  Soon after our arrival at Arborfield it was Christmastime; we had a few days’ leave and Judy came back with me to Chequers, where there was quite a gathering of the clan over several generations: Uncle Jack and Aunt Nellie Romilly; Diana and Duncan with Julian (aged three); Sarah; Pamela with “Baby” Winston (two and a half); Brendan Bracken and the Prof; and—since business was as usual—delightful Leslie Rowan from the private office. Dear Monty Lamont made the gaunt house glow with a huge Christmas tree, garlands, and lights, and with so many separations one really appreciated “being together.” In writing to thank my parents for their generous present, I said: “It was sweet of you to think of a cheque, because although I can be quite economical here as there are no shops, and the Garrison cinema only charges 1s 6d a time—still on the whole being ‘an officer and a gentlewoman’ is more expensive than being a rude rough sergeant!!”

  Early in the New Year I was again at home, and learned some disquieting news about my father’s health. On the Sunday I

  went for a long & lovely walk with Mummie after lunch. We talked entirely of the family—& especially of Papa. It appears that he MIGHT get [a] coronary thrombosis—& it might be brought on by anything like a long/or high flight. The question is whether he should be warned or not. Mummie thinks he should not—I agree with her.

  Looking back, I see this is a very good example of my mother’s calm and resolute stoicism. I reflected in my diary:

  It is frightening & yet I feel perfectly calm. Funny how I fuss & fret about comparatively small things & yet this shadow & menace to someone I love so much much more than life itself doesn’t throw me out of gear—I just feel numb & calm—And yet how desperately, longingly hopeful that it will be all right.

  This knowledge, of course, made the few of us “in the know” even more anxious whenever my father had to fly. From this time on, persuaded by his doctor, Lord Moran,h and close colleagues, he travelled as much as possible by sea.

  But it was by air that he went on 12 January to North Africa to meet President Roosevelt for the Casablanca Conference; ten days later he went on to Turkey to meet President İnönü; and from there he went on to visit the Eighth Army in Tripoli, before flying home. The news of his journeyings was not made public until 27 January, so until then I gleaned information about his movements only spasmodically when I visited home, keeping my anxiety to myself in the intervals; and it was over the radio at lunchtime on 7 February that, to my intense relief, I heard of his safe arrival back in London. I was given permission to go to London for the night; Diana and Sarah were also at dinner, and I reported in my diary: “Papa in excellent form—sang Poultry and Half a woman & half a tree [two of his favourite Edwardian music-hall songs].”

  However, the strain and fatigue of his travels contributed to my father becoming ill. On 18 February my mother had told me he had a feverish cold; this developed into pneumonia, and the next day saw the first of a series of doctors’ bulletins. I went home two days later, a Sunday, and on the way up,

  in the train reading the official bulletin about Papa I got into a sudden panic. Might this be the beginning of the end? Arrived home M was ready for church. In her lovely dark cloth coat trimmed with beaver & the flame coloured scarf bursting out—beaver muff & hat. To me Mummie has all the lovely graces of life—tempered with a steel-like integrity. We two went to service in the Royal Military Chapel [at Wellington Barracks]. It was rather lovely & comforting. M is not seriously worried about Papa—but he is pretty ill. I was shocked when I saw him. He looked so ill & tired—lying back in bed. What beautiful hands he has. I found the house frightening—nurses’ caps, kidney bowls & bedpans. In the office slips of paper with bulletins, messages, fond enquiries.

  It was not until March that the last bulletin was issued, the doctors feeling confident that my father was at last restored to health.

  Judy’s and my time of serving together was now coming to an end. At Arborfield I’m afraid we had been regarded with some disapproval by our seniors and betters—the general consensus being that we were all right apart, but tended to be noisy and boisterous when together. Judy, however, was to earn golden opinions for her actions in Reading one afternoon: a sneak raider dropped some bombs—one just opposite where she happened to be; she was involved in the aftermath, and was later commended by the authorities for her assistance. I wrote in my diary that she “had behaved with wonderful & typical presence of mind & returned white and unconsciously shocked” from this unpleasant experience.

  As planned, Judy was to remain on the permanent staff at Arborfield, where her technical abilities would be fully employed; so we had a tearful parting of the ways at Wokingham Station on the evening of 22 February, when I departed with my new battery, 643 Heavy (M) AA Battery RA, on our overnight journey to the practice camp at Whitby on the Yorkshire coast. It had been wonderful for us to have started our army life together; Judy’s presence had been a salvation to me in my slightly conspicuous situation, and our friendship would remain important for both of us always.

  BEFORE I LEFT ARBORFIELD I had spoken to my mother, whose reassurance about my father’s health enabled me to leave for Whitby with an easier mind. Of course, I missed Judy enormously, not least because I could talk to her about family matters which I confided to nobody else; however, luckily life at Whitby with my new battery, where we were all new to each other, was completely engrossing and very hectic, so I did not have much time to mope, and very soon we had all “shaken down” together nicely—although I shared a room with a maddening colleague, about whom I complained bitterly in my letters home and to my diary. (I have no doubt my feeling was shared—these things are usually mutual.)

  The ATS billets were in requisitioned boardinghouses and cheap hotels on the seafront, totally exposed to the wild and bitter winds. We kept warm largely by moving about constantly (sometimes “at the double”) between billets, dining halls, Messes, and—above all—the guns and command post, which were up on the cliff which towers above the town, and which one reaches by means of 199 steep steps.i These had to be climbed twice a day, and more if one was on special duties, so that by the time we left Whitby we were truly “fighting fit.” I think we all enjoyed our month there: Whitby is a charming town, full of character and cosy pubs, and the sea air was wonderfully invigorating. Also, I made a very nice friend, John Archer, a captain in one of the other batteries.

  The bulletins about my father continued to improve, and in her first letter to me in Whitby, on 24 February, my mother wrote to me:

  First of all I write to tell you that Papa is I think really better. The doctors still give out the ‘no change’ bulletin because the temperature has not completely gone down, but I can see for myself that he is better. His face looks quite different. He has lost that weary look. I know, my darling, this will relieve you. I have really been very worried about him.

  I am longing to hear how you are, and all you are doing, and how you are settling down. I love detail about everything if you have time.

  As soon as my father was strong enough, my mother moved him down to Chequers, from where she wrote to me on 9 March:

  Here are Papa and I living for a whole week at Chequers. Most unusual—by the time it is over I shall have settled down & be quite enjoying it! Papa is progressing very slowly but (I hope & believe) safely through his convalescence to his normal strong state of health. Yesterday morning as Papa could not go to his weekly luncheon with the King—the King came here & paid a morning visit in the White Parlour a la Jane Austen.

  Meanwhile our battery’s time at Whitby was coming to an end, and I summed it up in my diary:

  What shall I remember about it?—feeling v well—steps & more steps—sun drenched fresh spring days—convoys moving slowly & fatefully out at sea—enjoying my work & it troubling me—enjoying increasingly John’s company … And the guns firing & crashing [practicing on targets] & me never really getting used to it—& endless professional jokes—battery gossip—battery problems—batter
y life. Moments of homesickness—long letters from Mummie & Judy—bracing myself to go to S. Wales [where 643 was to be deployed].

  I was much absorbed too during these weeks by War and Peace, which I was reading—predictably falling in love with Prince Andrew, and seeing myself as “Princess A … & everyone saying ‘Moshka’ & ‘Little cousin’ & ‘Princess’ to me!”

  A spell of leave followed Whitby, and I remember standing in the corridor of a crowded train, clutching a large parcel of lobsters and crabs I had acquired as a present for my parents (the lobsters’ whiskers escaped from their package, and caused a stir among my fellow travellers). To my great joy, Judy also had leave just now (before going to a gunnery instructors’ course), and that evening our dinner party was just my parents, Judy, and myself: I reported that the lobsters and crabs were “very pink & popular!” I spent the weekend at Chequers, where Uncle Jack, who had been ill, was recuperating; Ali Forbes also came to stay, as did Averell Harriman and his daughter Kathleen (Kathy), and the Prof. My poor mother had retired to bed—the strain of my father’s illness, and her own load of war work and engagements, had temporarily quite worn her out.

  I and my colleagues of 643 Battery converged a few days later on our new site—West Nash, near Newport in South Wales, where we would form part of the defences of Cardiff. Our camp seemed very remote: it was also five feet below sea level, the seawall being a prominent feature of the landscape. Our first task was to clean up the camp, living quarters, and cookhouse—upon which we found that the camp drainage system left much to be desired. Living conditions for the troops were not good; buses were distant and erratic, rendering our nearest “metropolis,” Newport, although in fact only seven miles away, almost unreachable; even the nearest public telephone was nearly two miles away at the local post office.

  Still, the girls set to and made the best of things. They soon persuaded the drivers of the local trains to stop and give them a lift to Newport! We made our own fun in camp too, including a dance—although I can’t remember where we got “outside talent” from: very likely a neighbouring battery or other service units—at which a local band played all the current favourites. I noted the event in my diary: “Dance in the evening—quite a success in the end. Girls enjoyed it. Felt how much more I’d enjoyed camp dances when I was a glorious O/R [other rank]. However it was madly energetic & gay.”

  I had been told while I was still at Whitby that I would shortly be posted to a London battery—481, in Hyde Park. I had quite mixed feelings about this. I felt genuinely sad at the prospect of leaving all my 643 pals so soon—more especially as living conditions for them were so unsatisfactory. Also, I was only just “finding my feet” and learning my job as an officer (apart from my technical role as a plotting officer), and now I got a bad attack of “Fright & jitters” at the thought of going “to a long established bty & once again to start to try & break down a hostile, expectant & you-wait-&-see atmosphere—& once again to feel terribly new & an outsider.”

  I also felt embarrassed by my “special treatment”—though on this score my colleagues were charming and most understanding. They knew I had no part in these special postings which kept me in the London area: the powers-that-were had, I think, decided that my presence near to home would be a solace and pleasure to my father, and his needs featured large in people’s minds. I found this story, which illustrates how people felt about him, in my diary. While my father had been on his travels in February, my mother took Nana to see a play: “In the audience was a whole submarine crew & their girl friends. Their Petty Officer introduced the men to Mummie. She said they were charming & at the end the Petty Officer said ‘Will you tell your husband that we dive for him.’ ”

  My posting came through on Saturday, 10 April, and that evening the girls gave me a party. After warm farewells all round I left 643 the next morning and, having paid a flying visit to my parents at Chequers, I reported on the Monday to 481 Battery in Hyde Park, with whom I would serve for nearly two years at home and abroad.

  Our half battery of four guns,j with the supporting encampment of Nissen huts, was north of the Serpentine, behind Speakers’ Corner and opposite the Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane, where today there is a great empty space used for mass demonstrations and pop concerts. Between us and the Serpentine was a rocket battery, manned by the Home Guard: on the occasions when both batteries fired, the racket was considerable. I had a friendly welcome from my fellow officers, and settled down quite quickly. Although not comparable to the Blitz of 1940–41, the spring and summer of 1943 brought quite a lot of air raids and 481 was in action on a number of occasions.

  Our commanding officer was Major Stan King—a formidable six-footer whose bark was every bit as good as his bite, and who rejoiced in the nickname “Phyllis.” The senior ATS officer was Junior Commander (equivalent to Captain) Molly Oakey, who was charming and efficient, and with whom I quickly made friends. Besides myself there was one other ATS subaltern and three or four RA officers. I settled in quite quickly: of course it was lovely for me being so near home. Not long after my arrival my parents visited us one evening: it was a “great success,” although I also noted in my diary that I “was shocked to see Papa looking tired & old.” But four days later he was off again (in the Queen Mary) to visit the President: “Went with party to station. Felt panicked inside—& rather desolate standing on the platform in pitch darkness with the train drawing out—Bon voyage my darling. Brendan [Bracken] deposited me at [the] battery.”

  While my father was away, 481 went to practice camp at Bude on the north Cornish coast, and it was while I was there that his whereabouts—conferring with the President in Washington—were announced. He would also visit Algiers and Gibraltar before arriving home in the first week of June. In his absence, on 9 May came the tremendous news of the surrender of the German army in Tunisia: for the second time the church bells were rung in celebration. And on the home front there was more cause for celebration, for on 18 May, Diana’s third child—a daughter, Celia—was born; I went and visited them, and found Diana sitting up in bed “looking beautiful, happy & peach-like. The baby is adorable.”

  Quite fortuitously I had twenty-four hours’ leave at the time of my father’s arrival home from these latest travels. I had stayed overnight at the Annexe, and at a quarter to seven in the morning there he was—“Well & in wonderful spirits. I lay in a sleepy haze in Mummie’s bed & he padded up & down in his blue rompersk & told us the news.” The rest of this joyful day was given over to vanity: “Shopped bought new hat, belt, shoes etc. Went with Mummie to Molyneux & saw about lovely new dress. Most excited.… Lunched at home—Mummie & Papa, Oliverl & Moyra Lyttleton, Duncan. After lunch—packed & retransformed myself into AT officer. Returned 481.… Everyone sweet about Papa being home.”

  At the end of June there was a lovely and triumphant family occasion for us when my father was made a Freeman of the City of London. Sarah and I in our uniforms accompanied our parents in an open landau from Temple Bar to the blitz-scarred Guildhall, where other family members were among a great gathering of government and civic guests. It was an intensely moving occasion. The casket in which the scroll recording the Freedom was presented had been made from oak salvaged from the roof of the Guildhall after the destruction wrought by the air raid in 1940. After the speeches and ceremonial we all transferred to the Mansion House for luncheon with the Lord Mayor: wherever my father went or appeared he was greeted with vociferous cheers by the other guests and onlookers. One felt so moved and proud looking back on all the events of the last three years, and the part he had played in them, and it was so gratifying to see the people recognizing this. Although there would be more trials and tribulations to come, there was a sense now that victory surely lay ahead.

  During these summer weeks my parents and I (duty permitting) saw several plays: This Happy Breed and Present Laughter, both by Noël Coward, and The Watch on the Rhine by Lillian Hellman. These evenings at the theatre were a real relaxation for my f
ather, and of course great treats for me when I was included.

  Early in July, I had some of my own friends at Chequers for a weekend. They included Robin Sinclair, a flying officer in the RAF (son of Sir Archibald Sinclair, the Liberal leader and a close friend of my father’s ever since their days together on the Western Front in the First World War), and Robin Maugham, whom I had not seen since the first year of the war: now a captain and back from the Middle East, where he had been wounded, he was far from well and relapsed into bed for part of the weekend. On the Sunday Noël Coward came down (“Very charming, queer & gay,” I noted in my diary). That evening after dinner he obligingly sang and played for us (there was a grand piano in the Great Hall): he had a brand-new song—“Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans”—which was received enthusiastically by us all.

  But after this pleasant interlude we heard on Monday the tragic news of the death the previous day in a plane crash in Gibraltar of General Sikorski, head of the Polish government-in-exile and Commander-in-Chief of the Free Polish Forces. My father was shocked and saddened—he knew Sikorski personally and admired him greatly, and they had established a rapport which was of importance given the complications of Polish affairs, particularly vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. Also killed in the crash were the general’s daughter, his political liaison officer, and Lieutenant Colonel Victor Cazalet, MC, MP, a friend and country neighbour and, incidentally, my godfather.