by Mary Soames
I have seen men die with smiling faces
And second class horses win classic races;
And now a kidney floating in empty spaces
So I have hope!
At this point we were joined by Gil Winant, who had come to Rome to be with Sarah. As I have explained earlier, Winant was the American ambassador to Britain, having succeeded the defeatist and anti-British Joseph Kennedy in 1941. Inevitably a frequent guest at Chequers, he had rapidly established the friendliest of relations with my parents and all our family; he and Sarah, however, became particularly close, and were soon lovers. But at that time neither of them was free to marry—nor did either of them want to cause the inevitable commotion in their respective families. Their desire to keep their relationship out of sight was fortuitously aided by their living near each other: Sarah had for many years a flat in 55 Park Lane, and Winant’s own private house was a few blocks north in Aldford Street.
During these days Christopher again asked me to marry him—and this time I said “yes.”
Having assured myself that Sarah was “on the mend,” and knowing Gil would certainly keep an eye on her, I returned home by train on 3 November—via Paris, where Christopher joined me. We went straight to Hyde Park Gate and I presented him to my parents. My father and Christopher took to each other immediately—but my mother was not such an easy conquest. Years later, when she was dining with us one night, Christopher charged her with this: my mother held out her hand across the table and said, “No, darling—but I made up for it later!”
OUR ENGAGEMENT WAS announced on 8 November, and our wedding planned for early February 1947. The months of our engagement were not particularly happy or easy, mostly owing to the bitter divisions between Christopher’s parents, Arthur Soames and Hope Rhys.‖ Also, we could not spend much time with each other as Christopher was not due any more home leave for a while. At least my mother and I were able to make a visit to Paris, staying as usual with the hospitable Duff and Diana Cooper at the embassy.
Christopher and I were married on a freezing February day in St. Margaret’s Westminster, where my parents had been married. That winter was to set records for icy conditions. For more than two months the country suffered the heaviest snowfalls of the twentieth century: road and rail links were paralyzed, causing a desperate shortage of coal, and there were draconian power cuts, reducing offices and homes alike to living by candlelight. Nevertheless, unheated St. Margaret’s, which still bore the marks of interior war damage, was packed: the reduced lighting was boosted by candlelight and someone was standing by to blow the organ by hand if necessary. My dress was made by Molyneux and my tulle veil was held in place by a coronet of orange blossom. My one bridesmaid was my dear faithful friend and cousin Judy Montagu, wearing flame-coloured chiffon. The choir could not rise to anything more elaborate than “Jerusalem,” but the essentials were there—and our promises and prayers would be wonderfully fulfilled.
A large crowd gathered despite the arctic conditions, and cheered the arrivals (although afterwards I learned to my embarrassment that the Attlees, who were kind enough to come, were loudly booed).
The reception at the Dorchester was largely candlelit, which was very pretty—and also made the room warmer! We stayed in London that first night, leaving the next morning by the Golden Arrow for Paris and Lenzerheide, the small Swiss resort where my mother and I had skiied together in 1937: here we thought we would have privacy, but the press descended and put paid to that—as well as making skiing quite difficult. After a few days a friend of Christopher’s appeared, sized up the situation, and advised us to move to St. Moritz—which we duly did. This—a bigger fishbowl!—was much more fun.
Shortly before we were due to go home Christopher was taken alarmingly ill with what turned out to be a duodenal ulcer, as a result of which he would shortly be discharged on medical grounds from the army. My mother flew out to be with us—which caused a certain level of visible merriment among our fellow guests—and Christopher dispatched me to Paris to close up his apartment there.
By a most fortunate coincidence the farm below Chartwell came up for sale just now, and my father bought it: it included a small house which they now offered to us, and on 10 May we moved in with skeletal furnishings; over the next few months we would spend much time visiting local salerooms. For the first ten years of our married life, during which four of our five children were born, Chartwell Farm would be our home.
* * *
* My mother must have left earlier.
† The rising up of French peasants against their seigneurs in 1358.
‡ The Béguinage in Bruges was for several centuries the home of the béguines, women who wished to pursue a religious life without taking the binding vows of nuns. Since 1937 it has been the home of the city’s Benedictine sisterhood.
§ When he was helping to get British prisoners of war back into France after the Italian surrender on 7 September 1943.
‖ Charles Rhys (who became Lord Dynevor on his father’s death) had eloped with Hope Soames (as she then was); they were married after Arthur Soames divorced her in 1934.
I was born in London in September 1922, the “Baby Bud” of the family. Above is the earliest photograph I have of myself; (Photo Credit i1.1)
at bath time, not much later.
(Photo Credit i1.2)
Here I am with my parents
and my eldest sister, Diana
I did not enjoy having my portrait painted: a reluctant sitter, aged four, I was being held by my nanny.
When I was two, the family moved into Chartwell. The house was somewhat dilapidated when my father bought it two years earlier
(Photo Credit i1.3)
At Chartwell I was introduced to the delights of country life, including feeding chickens with my elder sister Sarah
and learning to ride on Judy
While I helped my father bricklaying (Photo Credit i1.4)
or played in the snow with Nana adult life at Chartwell went on.
My father painted the visitors assembled for tea on 29 August 1927 from a photograph:
himself, Mrs. Sickert, Diana Mitford, Eddie Marsh, the Prof., Randolph, Diana, my mother, and Walter Sickert. I was there when Diana opened the British Legion building in Westerham—I think I am the little girl on the left in this picture.
My father incorporated in the redbrick walls around the kitchen garden a tiny one-room cottage that became known as the “Marycot”: here I am, in a picture painted by my father from a photograph, giving my first public speech as I laid the foundation stone. Randolph holds my bouquet. (Photo Credit i1.5)
I loved playing here, but as the years passed I developed more sophisticated tastes
I spent much of my teenage years riding at Sam Marsh’s establishment near Edenbridge or with my father on borrowed horses (Photo Credit i1.6)
When I was sixteen I went to Bertram Mills Circus at Olympia during the Christmas holidays clearly enjoying every minute.
As I grew older, my social life broadened. In the late 1930s my mother and I had three wonderful skiing holidays (Photo Credit i1.7)
I made good friends of my own age, among them Fiona Forbes
My mother’s bedroom at Chartwell reflected her lovely colour sense, with arcaded sky-blue painted walls and ceiling, and brilliant scarlet curtains for the bed.
Summer 1940 in Breccles, staying with Venetia Montagu. (Photo Credit i1.8)
Judy Montagu
Kathryn Stanley
Rosemary Scott-Ellis, and myself.
Antony Beauchamp (who would later marry Sarah), just starting as a photographer after his war service, took this one of me in my favourite dress—a sapphire-blue long-sleeved jacket-top over a tartan taffeta skirt. (Photo Credit i1.9)
My mother in the Admiralty House flat my parents occupied in the first months of the war; (Photo Credit i1.10)
her bedroom in the No. 10 Annexe;
the dining room in the fortified Garden Rooms at No. 10.
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On 4 October 1939 Randolph married Pamela Digby—and I kissed the bridegroom.
Arriving with my parents at the Free Trade Hall. Manchester, January 1940. (Photo Credit i1.11)
Waving away HMS Indomitable, launched by my mother (on my left) at Barrow-in-Furness on 25 March 1940.
I “came out” at Queen Charlotte’s Ball at the Grosvenor House Hotel. Here I am in my ball gown and dancing, watched by my father: my mother is dancing too, on the right.
Here I am with my poodle Sukie. (Photo Credit i1.12)
Wartime weekends were usually spent at Chequers, where I had a top-floor bedroom or at Ditchley, the Oxfordshire home of Ronald and Nancy Tree, where my parents and their guests stayed when the moon was high.
Opening Westerham’s War Weapons Week early in 1940.
Dancing at Queen Charlotte’s Ball, 1941. (Photo Credit i1.13)
In Cardiff, April 1941, with Gil Winant (far left) and Averell Harriman (right). We were accompanying my father.
As a WVS hospital librarian talking to the visiting minister in charge, and on leave from the ATS, with my mother and Nana (and Sukie).
(Photo Credit i1.14)
Early days in the army. Our initial ATS training was as much about keeping ourselves and our quarters clean and well presented as about anything strictly military.
In uniform with Judy Montagu: note the “fore and aft” caps, which we could wear off duty. (Photo Credit i1.15)
My mother and myself with Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound.
Taking leave of my father on the Duke of York before he set out for America in December 1941. Note I am now a lance corporal!
With some of Pip Section, 481 Battery, at practice camp in Bude, Cornwall, 1943. (Photo Credit i1.16)
As a newly commissioned officer at the end of 1942, I accompanied my father to military exercises in the north of England. Here I am keenly observing the proceedings. (Photo Credit i1.17)
My parents, Sarah, and I on the way to Guildhall to see my father receive the Freedom of the City of London. My father was light enough of heart to have some fun with his top hat.
Leaving No. 10 with my father to hear him speak in the House of Commons, July 1942. (Photo Credit i1.18)
The Queen visited 481 Battery in July 1943. Here I am in the lineup with Molly Oakey on my right; Major Stan King stands behind the Queen.
An artist’s impression of the command post at my battery during an air raid when my father paid us a visit. General Pile, C-in-C Anti-Aircraft Defence, is standing behind him. I am the plotting officer marking the position of our target on an illuminated glass tabletop. (Photo Credit i1.19)
We arrive in Quebec for the First Quebec Conference in August 1943. (Photo Credit i1.20)
Brendan Bracken, “Pug” Ismay, and myself during one of our long train journeys.
With my father on the observation platform outside the rear coach. Inspector Thompson stands behind.
My father and I downstream from Niagara Falls, August 1943. (Photo Credit i1.21)
We went home on HMS Renown during our voyage I celebrated my twenty-first birthday, and cut a hastily assembled cake with a midshipman’s dirk
During redeployment in 1944, 481 Battery found ourselves in afield a few miles from Chartwell! My parents visited us, and saw the battery in action against a flying bomb (V-1). (Photo Credit i1.22)
Meeting my parents at Euston Station on their return from Quebec,
September 1944.
Visiting Paris after the Liberation. Watching General de Gaulle and my father walking down the Champs Elysées on Armistice Day, 11 November 1944. (Left to right:) my mother, Mme. de Gaulle, Beatrice Eden, myself, Lady Diana Cooper. (Photo Credit i1.23)
With my parents and the Edens leaving the Quai d’Orsay, where we were all accommodated during the visit.
On my way to serve in Europe: embarking with other members of 481 Battery, 25 January 1945. (Photo Credit i1.24)
With my father and Anthony Eden, viewing the ruins of Hitler’s Chancellery in Berlin during the Potsdam Conference, July 1945. (Photo Credit i1.25)
July 1945: from the beach at Hendaye with my mother to the house near Potsdam where I stayed with my father (Photo Credit i1.26)
Outside our house near Potsdam I am presented to President Truman.
(Photo Credit i1.27)
Berlin, 1945: taking part in a victory parade with Anthony Eden surrounded by servicemen all keen to be in the photograph of this momentous occasion.
In 1945 I visited my old French holiday governess, Mme. L’Honoré. She was now in a nursing home—but sparkling as ever. (Photo Credit i1.28)
An outing with my mother in a speedboat resulted in a fall that sadly put her out of action for the rest of our holiday.
The page from my album recording my first meeting with Christopher Soames.
Driving with my father through Berne on his official visit, September 1946. (Photo Credit i1.29)
Sarah and I go to Buckingham Palace with our mother in July 1946 to witness her investiture by the King with the GBE.
An engagement picture. (Photo Credit i1.30)
At our reception at the Dorchester Hotel.
Leaving 28 Hyde Park Gate with my father on my wedding day, 11 February 1947.
Outside the church.
Leaving St. Margaret’s Westminster, where my parents had also married. Behind me is Judy Montagu, my only bridesmaid, and behind her my father. (Photo Credit i1.31)
Christopher and I began our honeymoon in Lenzerheide in Switzerland—where I had enjoyed that last wonderful skiing holiday with my mother ten years earlier. (Photo Credit i1.32)
Acknowledgments
I AM GRATEFUL TO HUGO VICKERS FOR SENDING ME THE LETTER I wrote to the Duke of Marlborough on 24 July 1931, to the Hon. Robert Lloyd George for sending me the letter I wrote to David Lloyd George on 20 September 1937, and to the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., for permission to quote from my letter to W. Averell Harriman of 13 May 1941.
I would like to thank Sally Gaminara of Transworld Publishers for her guidance on overall strategy and for her great patience; Sheila Lee, the picture editor, for her skill in tracking down so many evocative photographs; and Gillian Somerscales, my copy editor, for her eagle eye and invaluable suggestions. And, as always, my thanks to Nonie Chapman, my private secretary, who keeps my life on an even keel.
M.S.
Notes
CHAPTER 3: Sisters and Cousins
1. Sarah Churchill, Keep on Dancing: An Autobiography, ed. Paul Medlicott (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1981), p. 14.
2. Ibid., p. 36.
3. Ibid., p. 2.
CHAPTER 5: Family Affairs
1. Angela Culme-Seymour, Bolter’s Grand-daughter (Oxford: Bird Island Press, 2001).
2. Mary S. Lovell, The Mitford Girls: The Biography of an Extraordinary Family (London: Little, Brown, 2001), pp. 162, 185.
3. Ibid., p. 205.
CHAPTER 6: A Bright Life and a Darkening Horizon
1. Shiela Grant Duff to WSC, 19 June 1937, quoted in Shiela Grant Duff, The Parting of the Ways (London: Peter Owen, 1982).
2. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. 1, The Gathering Storm (London: Cassell, 1948), p. 253.
3. Maze Papers, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Companion Volume V, Part 3, The Coming of War (London: Heinemann, 1982), p. 1592.
CHAPTER 7: Clearing the Decks
1. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, p. 389.
2. Ibid.
CHAPTER 8: A Year to Remember
1. John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1939–55 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1985), pp. 120–21.
2. Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 361.
3. Ibid., pp. 486, 500.
4. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. 2, Their Finest Hour (London: Cassell, 1949), p. 162.
5. Quoted in Colville, The Fringes of Power,
p. 185.
6. Ibid., p. 176.
7. Ibid., p. 219.