A Chelsea Concerto Read online

  The exercise was timed for twelve noon, and Mr Harold Scott [later Sir Harold Scott], the Commissioner for Police, had ordered that all traffic should be stopped for fifteen minutes – it was said that he himself would be present. Friends who had trained with me in first aid and who were acting as wardens appeared for the first time in uniforms. They caused a lot of ribald comment. Brown overalls with ARW in yellow on the breast pocket brought jeers from many onlookers. The uniforms, mass produced, did not fit – and some of the women’s seats were on a level with their knees. I felt sorry for some of my friends with trim, neat figures having to appear in public in them.

  The sirens wailed – the anguished lament of a soul in torment – and we all took up our positions with combined grumbling and that fear of ridicule ingrained in us all. It did seem ridiculous to have to lie flat on a piece of marked pavement pretending to be a casualty, but it seemed to me that to do so was the easiest way out of an argument as to whether I was to be in the First Aid Post or in the Control Report Centre in the Town Hall, I having taken the training for both. Mrs Freeth, worried about some special dish in the oven, thought it a ridiculous way of wasting a morning. She had Vicki, my Dachshund, in her arms, being determined that if the dog couldn’t stand there with her in the allotted space she wouldn’t stand there either. It was a point on which our warden was not prepared to argue. Whether dogs or cats would be allowed in shelters he was unable to say, but to Mrs Freeth’s argument that as the shelter wasn’t yet built Vicki had just as much right to stand on the pavement as she had there was no answer. The rumour went round that many distinguished visitors had arrived to see our exercise, including Sir John Anderson, the Home Secretary, Sir John Gowers, the Regional Commissioner, and Mr Harold Scott. Everyone was on his or her mettle!

  At the given signal I lay down on the pavement awaiting the attention of my fellow VADs in the Mobile Unit. I lay there staring up at a poster, which after the interminable wait for the exercise to begin I knew by heart.

  ‘Although we differ in many aspects of policy, we unite in urging you to volunteer for training – to protect yourselves and your neighbours.’ It was issued jointly by the Chairmen and leaders of Chelsea Communist Party, Chelsea Conservative and Unionist Party, Chelsea Labour Party and Trades Council, and Chelsea Municipal Reform Party.

  Its impressive message that in unity lies strength was marred by a large swastika painted on it, and looking up at it made me chuckle happily.

  The Oswald Mosley Party had been going round at night in their black shirts daubing posters with Hitler’s emblem. I had seen this particular one being done a few nights previously when out on Vicki’s nightly exercise. The young Blackshirt had been bent, absorbed in his task, with his pot of paint unattended on the pavement. I ran suddenly and quietly across the road with Vicki and kicked the pot adroitly so that not only did its contents upset all over the pavement but great splashes of it went over the dauber. Apologizing profusely for my dog’s carelessness in tipping over his paint, I left him swearing at me. ‘There’s a copper coming – hurry up!’ I shouted. He was still swearing – there was nothing political about his language. There were actually two policemen approaching, and the young Blackshirt vanished, leaving the upturned paint pot behind. From the windows of my studio a few minutes later, I watched them halt on their beat to examine the mess on the pavement and the freshly painted swastika on the poster. Then out came their note-books.

  The Blackshirts sometimes held meetings at the top of Chelsea Manor Street near the coffee-stall. I loved to stop and heckle them. Their manners reminded me of their fellow Brownshirts in Germany. It was safer to be accompanied by a male when attacking them, Mosley’s followers, like Hitler’s, having scant respect for the fair sex.

  I lay now on the pavement and looked up at the swastika and made up my mind to paint it over with white paint. I would go and buy a cheap pot of white paint for the purpose. I wasn’t unusually patriotic but I had seen what the swastika meant and did in Germany. I could just see Mrs Freeth and Vicki standing patiently in the imaginary air-raid shelter. Vicki was frantic because I was lying on the pavement, which she thought suspicious to say the least of it. The First Aid Party arrived. My leg (broken in two places) was strapped. My wounds were bandaged with many giggles and much chaffing, and I was taken in charge to await an imaginary ambulance. Vicki’s struggles became so frantic when she saw me being tied up that Mrs Freeth called out that she had better take her home. ‘Stay where you are, the raid is still on!’ shouted an authoritative warden. Mrs Freeth and Vicki stayed. Ambulance bells clanged, whistles blew, fire engines raced, rattles sounded – it was absolutely maddening not to be able to see what was happening. Only one eye was left free of bandages and my lowly position made visibility poor. The flurry of violent activity went on in the deathly silence of the trafficless streets. Comments, some jocose, some ribald, some angry, were being freely exchanged all round us. ‘Lot of tommy-rot, won’t be no air raids here. All this silly playacting!’ I heard fellow-casualties grumbling. Those in the imaginary shelters echoed their comments. They had voiced the thoughts of many who believed what they wanted to believe. There would be no air raids on England! It was unthinkable. Old Granny from Paradise Row left her allotted place and started away determinedly in the direction of her home. ‘Raid’s still on, come back!’ shouted a warden at her. ‘Call of nature, can’t do nothing about that, raid or no raid,’ she retorted, and marched resolutely away. At last the continuous flute-like voice of the All Clear sirens sounded. The exercise was over! With relief and more grumbling we could all go home.

  Next day we read in the Press that it had been an unqualified success. Every section and service of the ARP had worked perfectly. Chelsea was praised everywhere, and other boroughs had learned from her foresight. The unstinted praise of the much scorned wardens made up somewhat for their frequent unwelcome visits to the homes of residents to obtain lists and particulars of their occupants. We resented this intrusion into the privacy of our homes – an Englishman’s home was supposed to be his castle!

  In the sunshine, warm at mid-day, and very lovely in June, my upstairs neighbour, Kathleen Marshman, and I walked back to Cheyne Place. Kathleen was a widow, whose elder daughter Anne worked in the City. Upstairs in the flat with the Sealyham dogs was her younger daughter, Penty, playing records, her favourite ones being those of George Formby. Penty, of a happy disposition, and easily amused, was mentally retarded and would never be able to earn her living. I was trying to teach her to paint simple designs on lamp shades and trays, so that, at least, she could earn some pocket money. She showed distinct ability and interest in this. Kathleen and I had a drink after our exhausting experiences (she had also been a casualty) and we had a good laugh about it all.

  Our opposite neighbour, Elliot Hodgkin, the painter, was also returning from the exercise. He was training with me in first-aid, and although disabled in one arm was, to my chagrin, much quicker and defter at splints and bandages than I was. From the windows of my studio I used to watch him at work on the opposite side of the street. He often painted right in the window, as I did. He was already well known for his exquisite flower pieces.

  Kathleen had to rush off back to her work with the Disabled Servicemen’s Handicrafts. I was doing some designs for the hand-block printed fabrics for which they were becoming known, and she was delighted with them when I showed them to her. ‘You don’t think there’ll really be a war, do you?’ she asked anxiously, as her work was for the maimed wrecks of men left by the 1914-18 war – and I could understand her horror of another. But when I looked at the Green Cat I was not sure and I did not reply.

  The Green Cat was eighteen inches high, and sat on a lacquer stand. Made of translucent green celadon, he was incredibly beautiful. He was not just a cat – he was CAT. But I could never look at him without remembering my hurried departure from Peking in July 1937 when the Japanese were advancing on the city, and for the first time I had seen refugees. Long struggling
lines of weary trudging figures with their babies strapped on their backs and small children clinging to their thighs. I had reached Peking with great difficulty and only with the help of Chinese friends, and had just acquired the Green Cat for which I had exchanged my Leica camera, when we were ordered to leave immediately for the Settlement of Hong Kong. The journey was a nightmare because of the Cat. The little Chinese, Ah Lee, who had sold him to me had warned me that he was the Guardian of the Home. As long as he was treated with deference and respect my home would remain safe and prosperous. With great trouble and annoyance to others, I had got him home intact – and he was my most beautiful and treasured possession. Was he going to prove a Guardian of my Home? I looked at him sitting there in the studio window and I thought of all those fleeing pathetic refugees. It had happened in China – it had happened in Spain. Hadn’t the doctor lecturing to us on first-aid told us about it? Gruesome and vivid as were the details he had given us they had stuck in my memory. Some of his phrases would not leave it. ‘You won’t find sterile bandages and boiling water at hand when the casualties occur. Casualties don’t choose their place of annihilation – the bombs choose them – anywhere – anytime. You must be prepared for anything.’ And later in his lecture he had warned us about filth. ‘Don’t back away from dirt and filth – you’ll see plenty. Blood and tissues and spilled guts are not pretty, ladies and gentlemen – and they SMELL. You’ll have to get used to that. If you come upon a casualty with half his stomach laid open and his guts hanging out thrust your hands unhesitatingly into the wound and pack them back, hold your fists there to keep them in position if you have nothing else. The mess and smell may revolt you, but that man needs his guts – keep them in for him until medical help arrives.’ Had I not seen all those refugees – many of them bandaged and maimed – those words might not have been imprinted so indelibly, word for word, in my memory.

  I looked now from the window, down Swan Walk to the Thames, and conjured up a picture of the Royal Hospital Road as it would look if the recent exercise had been real, and if the circumstances which the doctor from the Spanish Civil War had described, applied here. I could see it – with the fires blazing, the buildings falling, the guns barking, and the planes droning above. It was horrible. But it was only in my imagination, which had always been too vivid. I shuddered – and shook myself back to reality. Everything was just as usual. The sun was shining, the river reflecting its light. The trees in the little Hans Sloane Physics Garden were full of noisy birds and some of them were in flower. That little garden had been there since 1673, I reminded myself, and the house on the corner of Swan Walk even longer. In the Royal Hospital Road people were walking to and from their lunch and their work. This was Chelsea – not Spain or China. ‘Come and have your lunch – it’s late,’ called Mrs Freeth. ‘That blessed exercise has taken all the morning.’

  It was hot and still and sultry that summer and each day seemed more tense and heavy than the last. It was difficult to concentrate on painting although I was at work on several portraits. Two of these were of young girls from South Africa who had been in London for the Season and had been presented at one of the Presentation parties. They were lovely and delightful girls and the sittings had been a great pleasure to me. They were, however, becoming apprehensive and nervous as letters urging them to cut short their Season and return to the Cape began coming by every mail. It was essential that I got the portraits finished in case they had to leave suddenly.

  My friends Leon and Mary Underwood came to see the portraits and Leon gave me some valuable help, as he invariably did. I have always had a great admiration for Leon, as sculptor, painter, writer and as a man, while as a teacher he is, I think, unsurpassed. He has that rare gift of inspiring in his pupils immense enthusiasm and, what is more, some of his own determination and inflexibility of purpose to achieve any given aim. I am fortunate indeed in having had the privilege of being in and out of his studio since I was in my teens. Leon, always unflinchingly honest, had no self-illusions about war. There would be one. He was certain about that. He had gone through the 1914-18 one. His son, Garth, would be of the age for immediate call-up for this next one. I think I learned how to look a thing in the face and not avoid it from him.

  Leon loved cats, and admired my Green Cat immensely. I envied him his complete concentration on whatever he was doing. War or no war, he urged me to finish the portraits.

  At last on August 24th the Emergency Powers Bill was passed through all its stages and became law. Lord Halifax broadcast the same evening. The Executive by this Act received powers to take further measures necessary to secure public safety in the event of war. M Daladier made a statement about Danzig on the 26th, saying that France was determined to uphold Poland’s independence.

  By now we all knew that war was inevitable, and on the Sunday, the 27th, another very hot, sultry day, streams of cars were already leaving London. People had begun buying up commodities in the shops. The streets of Chelsea, especially around the Duke of York’s Barracks, seemed full of khaki, soldiers were milling round everywhere. My two lovely young South Africans came round in a great state. Both had received cables ordering them to return at once. But the whole shipping future was in the balance – thousands, like them, having suddenly decided to go home, it was impossible to get on any boat. They were in despair, but there was little I could do to help them. Many families were already sending their children out of London, carloads could be seen, toys, perambulators, dogs, cats and birds all piled in with them or balanced on top of them. It gave me a strange feeling to see this – and the hot, still, brooding weather seemed so like that we had had during Munich, but the strain of that period was now intensified. I had finished one portrait and it had been crated in readiness for when a boat could be found. The other one was still not to my satisfaction – somehow the joy I had felt in creating it had all dissolved.

  In August we had a full-scale night exercise in Civil Defence. Again a mock air raid was in process over Chelsea. It was certainly less conspicuous for the actors and actresses than it had been in bright sunlight. On the other hand it was more dangerous in the black-out. Naturally there was some confusion and a few unfortunate incidents and much laughter. I was not a casualty this time, but a relief telephonist in the Control Room or Report Centre in the Town Hall, deep in the basement and well reinforced and sand-bagged. We had been trained by Mr T S Cane, the Borough Surveyor, in receiving and dealing with messages. There was a map in Control which showed at all times the distribution and position of all Civil Defence Services. To us it seemed a lovely game of make-believe, rather like halma, each Service in their separate corners awaiting their moves. Mr Cane had been a severe teacher, unrelenting about clarity, speed, and the legibility of handwriting. Alas, mine was so illegible that I had to print very carefully. I have never been able to read my own handwriting except immediately after it is written. As I was only to be a volunteer relief he passed me in spite of this, as I came up to his standard on speed and my reactions were apparently adequate. Several of the women full-time telephonists were excellent at the job, amongst these two young Scottish girls, Sheila and Chris, with whom I had become very friendly. During the training exercises we had had a lot of fun together. They were all on the night exercise now.

  It was exciting down there in that sand-bagged room as the mock messages from the wardens for help, for fire services, ambulances, stretcher and heavy rescue parties to be sent to various streets and squares in Chelsea came over the lines. We had been thoroughly grounded in the names of all Chelsea’s streets, terraces, squares and gardens, walks and avenues. Mr Cane was very strict about this, explaining to us that the saving of lives could depend on our knowledge of the correct position on the Civil Defence plan of each and every place in the neighbourhood. I remember his scathing remarks to me when I did not know in which district was Ixworth Place. Thanks to him I am well acquainted with the whereabouts of every Chelsea address. It had all seemed so silly when we had just been pr
actising imaginary incidents and writing imaginary messages, but it was quite exciting when the messages actually came from the wardens during the big black-out exercise: although few of us really thought that we would ever have to receive them in an actual air raid.

  Chapter Two

  I HAD A number of German and Austrian refugee friends in London and they kept on telephoning in consternation as the news grew more and more disquieting. To them it was incredible that we had not heeded the growing threat from the country from which they had been forced to flee. One of these friends, Ruth, who had been divorced under the Third Reich’s new bill on Aryan-Jewish marriages, and had fled to Britain with her small daughter, Carla, was absolutely frantic. The situation was rapidly unhinging her mind. She was still suffering from the shock of the recent ‘purges’ in Germany when her entire family had disappeared into concentration camps, and with the Press and radio concentrating on the possibility of war now she was becoming rapidly worse. She not only telephoned several times a day, but she wrote me long letters every day as well. I began to dread the thick familiar envelopes with the violet ink, and to try to ignore the telephone. Her worst fear now was that if we went to war she, as a German refugee, would be sent to a concentration camp.

  It was useless to assure her that they did not exist in Britain. She said she knew that they did – that in the 1914-18 war Germans had all been behind barbed wire – an island camp in the wildest part of the British Isles – an island somewhere. Nothing would calm or reassure her. She kept telling me that by continuing to see certain other refugees I was putting her and Carla in danger. Some of the refugees were spies for the Nazis, she insisted. She was incoherent, muddled, and hysterical, and although I was desperately sorry for her I found her very trying.