Letters from the Blitz E-Book

Richard MacAlpine

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 339

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

When war was declared in September 1939, everyday life for British citizens changed almost overnight. At the time, Winifred Graville of Sheffield, a gardener, writer and speaker well known in her local area, wrote a series of letters to her American cousin in Penn Yan, New York, describing the hardships and typical daily struggles her city experienced during the Blitz. At a time when American public opinion was strictly isolationist, Winifred's cousin convinced the editor of a local newspaper to publish excerpts from 150 letters in the hope of influencing public opinion in a small way. In Letters from the Blitz, Richard MacAlpine has gathered the published letters into a fascinating collection. At times poignant, often humorous, and always beautifully written and full of detail, Winifred's letters clearly illustrate the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' attitude of the British people during that difficult time and provide an insight into wartime life.

Leseprobe

First published 2020

The History Press

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Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Richard MacAlpine, 2020

The right of Richard MacAlpine to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9582 5

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Letters from the Blitz:October 5, 1939–November 23, 1942

Conclusion

About the Editor

INTRODUCTION

On 1 September 1939 Hitler’s armies crossed the border into Poland and set off a series of war declarations that resulted in the Second World War. Although the mood of the American public and Congress at that time was overwhelmingly isolationist, President Roosevelt could see the potential threat of Nazi Germany to the balance of power in Europe. As the German blitzkrieg rolled across Poland, Denmark, and the low countries, Roosevelt used his substantial political clout to convince a majority in Congress to scrap the earlier neutrality acts that included a total arms embargo and allow shipments of arms to America’s old First World War allies, England and France, on a ‘cash and carry’ basis. That led to Germany’s U-boat campaign in the Atlantic at substantial cost to American shipping. As the situation in Europe seriously eroded in the summer of 1940, with the fall of France and the withdrawal of British forces from Europe, the interventionists in Congress grew in power and influence. The isolationists in Congress objected vehemently to Roosevelt’s executive order in August of 1940 which traded fifty old-age destroyers for the use of British bases in Canada and the Caribbean. As Britain stood alone against the onslaught of Nazi military power and withstood the bombing of British military facilities and cities in what became known as the Battle of Britain, President Roosevelt and the interventionists in Congress gained enough influence to pass the Lend Lease Act in March 1941 which basically gave the British the weapons they needed to defend themselves. That made the United States what Roosevelt called ‘the arsenal of democracy’.

While the American Congress moved toward intervention in Europe, American public opinion did not. Instead the isolationist mood strengthened as conditions deteriorated in Europe. National hero Charles Lindbergh became the leading spokesman for the America First Committee and both toured the country and used the radio to tell the American people they were safe behind their oceans and if need be they could learn how to deal with Hitler. The war in Europe was not their fight. American public opinion was solidly isolationist until the morning of 7 December 1941. The Japanese changed everything that day.

It was that time period, 1939–42, that I was researching in my local newspaper here in Penn Yan, New York, the Chronicle-Express. I was preparing an article for our county history center’s publication about how the attack on Pearl Harbor affected our community. I had previously seen letters published in the paper in the late 1930s by people with ties to our community who were either working or travelling in Germany. They wrote about various aspects of life under Nazi rule. There is a large Danish-American community in our area and when the Germans invaded Denmark there were letters in the Chronicle-Express written from Denmark about conditions there. Trying to maintain focus on the topic I was researching, I skimmed over those letters with the thought that I might refer back to them for future articles. As I got into the years 1940 and 1941, I noticed the occasional headline, ‘Cousin In England Writes of Conflict and German Raids’. I finally decided to read one and it had a vivid description of the letter writer’s thoughts on what became known as the ‘miracle of Dunkirk’. A second one that I read described the writer undergoing training for fire control in Sheffield during the Battle of Britain. Another warned her cousin of the German propaganda machine that was spreading lies in America about how the British people were starving and their cities being totally destroyed. She advised her cousin to listen to the BBC for more accurate news.

From that point on, I shifted my focus to those letters. There was a lot of history in those letters and an important insight into the British spirit in the face of dire adversity. The letter writer was a woman named Winifred Graville who lived with her maid, Doris Hawkes, at 66 Ringinglow Road, less than 2 miles from the city centre of Sheffield, England (about 170 miles north of London). Miss Graville was in her mid-50s at the time and according to the Chronicle-Express was ‘an authority on trees, flowers, and Old World gardens, having lectured and written widely on this interest’. She was a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society. According to the Bulletin of the Rotary Club of Sheffield, she was ‘a born speaker with a lively sense of humour and of a ready wit. Miss Graville’s reputation is such that the City of Sheffield has entrusted her with the creation of an Old World Garden, which will be one of the sights of the city.’ Miss Graville’s sense of humour and writing ability certainly came through in the letters that she wrote to America.

The recipient of the letters was Jane L. Beaumont of Penn Yan, New York. She was the wife of a prominent local businessman, insurance agent Charles Beaumont. Both were quite active in community affairs. At the time of the letters, Mrs Beaumont was the President of the Yates County Genealogical and Historical Society (a.k.a. the Yates County History Center). She and Winifred Graville were distant cousins with a mutual interest in genealogy who had connected years earlier through correspondence.

The first letter, although written on 5 October 1939, was not published in our local newspaper until 25 April 1940. From that point on, there were over 150 letters from Miss Graville published in our paper. The last one was written on 23 November 1942 but was not published until 21 January 1943. Jane Beaumont edited out the personal and family news before turning her cousin’s letters over to the editor of the Chronicle-Express.

I pondered the question: Why were so many of these letters published in our local newspaper? Several times in the letters, Miss Graville voices her concern about the impact of German propaganda and misinformation and warns Americans not to accept it as true and accurate. It is obvious that the two cousins and the local editor were determined to, in a small way, educate the American people on the conditions in Britain and move them away from their isolationist attitude.

What they left us with is a wonderful, deeply personal, first-hand account of life in England during the dark early years of the Second World War, when Britain stood alone against the military might of Nazi Germany and the people made amazing sacrifices with an optimism and a spirit that was overwhelming, epitomising the message of ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’. In one of the letters Miss Graville wrote:

I don’t want to grumble. I’ve made up my mind never to utter a grumble till the war is ended. As a woman whose home has been bombed to bits and had nothing but what she stood up in said: ‘Well, we‘ve got our lives – that to old ’Itler’ and I’m afraid she made a rude face. The Germans may ruin our homes, bomb our beauty spots, and cause us some inconvenience, but they won’t crush our spirits. It’s born in us to be more determined than ever when we are wrongfully treated or up against things.

The true author of this book is Winifred Graville. My contribution is bringing her wonderful letters to light. Here they are presented exactly as they were published in the Chronicle-Express back in the 1940s. The researcher in me had the good fortune to stumble across her letters buried deep in our local newspapers from eighty years ago. The historian in me recognized the value of what was in them. I saw the patterns and the overall quality of her writing, transcribed the letters and added occasional notes to provide context. But it is her personality, descriptions, experiences and humour that makes this a worthwhile look at a critical period of British history. I would have liked to have known her.

Rich MacAlpine

Penn Yan, New York, USA

LETTERS FROM THE BLITZ

October 5, 1939

The war has very effectively stopped all lecturing in this country. I was hoping that my agent would arrange a lecture tour for me in America within the next year or two, but am much afraid that too will be stopped.

You folks, safe on the other side of the world, have no idea what it is like here. Not a streetlamp in Britain anywhere, not a light may show, even shops as well as private houses must present an absolutely black appearance from outside from sunset to sunrise. No chinks or faint glows, just utter blackness. Then too, every single person, children included, must by law carry their gas masks if more than five minutes away from home. Whenever I feel mine an awful nuisance, I just think perhaps some day I shall be only too thankful to wear it. As it is, I feel suffocated in it. I do not anticipate wearing it with any pleasure.

Unfortunately, Sheffield is one of the vulnerable areas. Thousands of children and mothers have been evacuated by the government or have taken themselves to country districts considered safer. Being out after dark is a real experience, for buses and trains are so darkened that you cannot recognize the person next to you and you cannot distinguish the money for your fare and as for crossing the streets, you hold your breath and bolt hoping for the best. Fortunately we have plenty of food, all of us, and there does not seem to be any likelihood of any shortage. I listen to the weekly broadcast from America by Raymond Gram Swing, though I do not know who he is or what position he holds in America.

Perhaps some day we may be able to meet, that is if the German aircraft are kept away from our country. Up to date we have not had a single air raid in Britain, our air force has chased them off every time. Even an optimist cannot expect that to happen indefinitely. This country has been flooded with refugees of all nationalities. I am afraid the poor things may have to suffer again, if luck favors the German aircraft at any time.

November 4, 1939

The weather has been very foggy with torrential rains. We are very tired of it, but feel secure from air raids with the fog. The last two nights I looked out of the door on my way up to bed and I literally could not see the door step although I was standing on it. I do not remember such darkness, but we are thankful for it. It is protection.

Sheffield is an armament city – armor plates, shells, steel plates for the battleships and submarines etc. are all made here. We are built on hills and all around and in the city are anti-aircraft guns. If we know where they are, we are asked not to tell even our best friends, as there are spies here. They will get them sooner or later we know, but they can be very dangerous. For instance, there are about 100 to 200 air balloons round the very dangerous works and one day they were taken down (for inspection, I believe) and that afternoon Germany broadcast in English saying that they knew our balloons were down and mentioned a gas decontamination centre recently made in a residential area and one or two of the big works by name, saying they would shortly be bombed.

Those of us who live close to anti-aircraft guns have been told when they are firing during a bombardment, that we are to lie down flat, face downwards, on the floor with our mouths wide open and our ears stopped up, if there’s time to get cotton wool. If not, cover them tightly with our hands in order that our ear drums will not burst with the concussion etc. A friend who lives in a block of flats opposite a barracks has been ordered to board up all windows for the duration of the war. The tenants of the flats have to pay for it themselves. It looks dreadful. All the shops underneath boarded up too.

If you want to get authentic news, listen in (if your set is powerful enough) to the BBC news at 9 o’clock every night. The Ark Royal, the Repulse, and the Iron Duke are not sunk up to date in spite of anything the Germans may say. We are not starving yet either and there are no food queues. We are to be rationed with butter and bacon, but most of those two supplies come from abroad and will not store. We are compelled by law to carry our gas masks and wear identification disks. All over the city every few yards air raid shelters have been made for our safety, if caught when out from home. They are underground, made of concrete and very cold. I dread having to rush into one. I just hate to see children carrying gas masks. The little mites ought not to know the horrors of war. Thousands of people have shut up their houses and gone into the country for the duration. Only those whose work keeps them or those who cannot afford to leave are staying here.

I have just had a ‘gas mask’ made for my canary. He is a very great pet. The ‘gas mask’ is a large glass jar with a screw top and the sort of stuff our masks are composed of fitted into the top so that the air will be freed from poison before he breathes it. I don’t want even a little canary to die in agony with poison gas if I can prevent it. Frankly, I dread gas attacks far more than ordinary air raids. I feel suffocated in the mask, though the doctors fitted mine properly and inspected it a week or two ago to see that it was still functioning all right. I don’t know what anyone would do who had a cold in the head!

I forgot to mention about the wireless news – that there is a German broadcast every night in perfect English, pretending to be London and giving the most awful lies as news. It says terrible things about England and the British. We all put it on so as to have a good laugh. We don’t mind a bit. The news is really intended for Americans and other gullible neutrals. Though no one in Europe believes a single word that comes from anybody in Germany, it might impress people who do not know that it is not really English.

November 8, 1939

The peace project of Belgium and Holland sounds all right on paper. The fact is however, that they are scared to death of Hitler and who can blame them? There can be no peace with the Nazis. They have broken their word too often. So I am afraid it will not come to anything. Hitler would like it. He has been declaring that the British navy has been swept from the seas and then goes on to say: ‘Britain cannot be allowed to be the dictator of the seas.’ The two statements, like many of his, do not fit.

December 9, 1939

Did you see the King and Queen when they were in the USA? They are idolized over here. She is tremendously popular in all classes of the community. She broadcast to the women of the empire a week or two ago, a simple, homely, moving little speech delivered in a quiet, clear voice. Sundry working women have said to me: ‘She might have been an ordinary woman in an ordinary house like this.’

The war goes on, getting more and more terrible, but our anti-aircraft force is wonderful and up to now the German air force has never penetrated inland. In many cases, they never even reach the coast. A girl was telling me about her mother, who lives 15 miles in from the coast of Yorkshire. Some German mines washed ashore all those miles away and every window in her village was smashed with the explosion. Her father has started to keep fowls. He has two black cockerels which he has named Hitler and Stalin. None of the hens will have Hitler anywhere near them!

December 12, 1939

The New York Times made me very cross reporting that four of our fleet had been sunk by German aircraft. Up to the time of this writing, their aircraft has never managed to hit any ships at all. Nor have their bombers ever got through our coastal defenses. Not yet. But at the rate they fly now, we are about eight minutes flight from the coast. So by the time you receive this, U-boats and mines permitting, we may have had a horrid time. But I have great faith in our air defenses.

December 28, 1939

A neighbour was very interested in the picture in the Rochester Times Union of the British aircraft sinking the submarine. Such pictures are not allowed in our newspapers. Next week we shall be rationed for butter and bacon. We are allowed four ounces butter per person per week. As I easily eat eight ounces, I’m going to have to scrape (literally.) One of my friend’s brothers is going to get me two pounds next week.

January 7, 1940

The Germans broadcast quite frequently that their planes have been over Britain. Up to the time of writing, no enemy plane has penetrated our defenses. They have all either been met in the North Sea and driven off or else they have been shot down at the coast. This makes quite a number of people think we are safe from attack always, but sensible folks know only too well that state of affairs is hardly likely to last until the end of the war. Some planes are bound to get through at some time. They may get into Britain, but they are very unlikely to get out again! Besides, once they begin bombing civilians the Germans will have to have a taste of their own tactics.

Tomorrow we begin rationing three-quarters pound sugar, four ounces butter, and six ounces bacon each. The maid and I will have one-half pound of bacon for breakfast per week between us instead of our usual two pounds! I am not complaining – no one complains – but what is one to eat?

We have had very keen frosts and thick fogs for almost a fortnight. The sun came out for about half an hour this afternoon and now the fog is as thick as ever. It spells safety from air raids but, oh dear, it does make things so black!

Today at midday we were told by BBC news that enemy planes penetrated over the Yorkshire cliffs, so they were not very far away. Anyhow, they were driven off without doing us much damage. They were also over Thames estuary, Newcastle, Firth of Forth, and Norfolk coast. They are beginning on us at last. Yesterday a.m. I was at work in my study enjoying the bright sunshine which was flooding the room, when I suddenly heard the sirens – air raid warning! I jumped up and looked out of the windows and a friendly van driver called out: ‘Don’t be alarmed. It’s only practice!’ I had completely forgotten they were practicing all over Yorkshire to see if the sirens and equipment were all in working order. The siren quite close to this house is awful. You can have no conception what it sounds like. The wailing of the damned in torture is an angelic choir compared to ‘Wailing Willie’ as I have named it. It’s awful going up and down, makes you go cold through and through. Your stomach drops down and your heart jumps up and your legs feel like daisy stalks. After a few minutes you are able to walk about, but feel like an empty cocoon when the insect has left it.

Each night when we go to bed, we fill the kettle with water. We are not allowed to draw water during an air raid in case of poisoned water. Set a little tray with teapot and cups and saucers, leave a candle and matches in readiness in case all electricity has gone. Upstairs we place a thick, warm coat and frock together with our gas masks where we can find them without delay in the dark. I always have my handbag with the door key and my money in it. No one knows what they might have to do and if we had to run out of the house because it was being bombed. I might as well take such money I possessed with me!!!

Yesterday I sent off two local newspapers which gave descriptions of the bombing and machine gunning of fishermen trying to get into their lifeboats after the vessels had been sunk – barbarous and disgusting behaviour. What a day of reckoning awaits the German nation! I only hope they won’t destroy all our vegetation with poisonous gases. Apart from the loss of crops, we do not want our gardens, nor ‘England’s green and pleasant land’ utterly ruined beyond redemption.

January 30, 1940

The snow in the garden is four feet deep. Thousands of folk had no milk or newspapers yesterday. The country is having the worst weather since 1869 – in Sheffield the keenest frost ever known. Nine out of ten houses have no water. Traffic everywhere is disorganized. Yesterday we had no bread or newspapers. I have not had my Sunday Times yet and it is Tuesday! Many main lines on the railway are blocked with snow. Everything is very bad connected with transport. The Germans somehow know. Yesterday they attacked the whole of the coast from Shetlands down to the English Channel at 9 a.m. all at once. Not one broke through our defenses! So they bombed and machine gunned ships that were unprotected, that is had no guns on board and there were some sad homes as a result. As soon as our aircraft come to grips with them, they turn tail and scatter off to Germany as fast as they can.

The maid is going out bread hunting, as my baker for some reason unknown to me is unable to deliver up here. Although I rang him up and ‘said a few words.’ So I will bring this to a close and she will post it for me.

March 5, 1940

I am wondering what Mr. Sumner Welles (Under Secretary of State) will say to America when he gets back. I cannot think that an astute people like the Americans will put much faith in any of Hitler’s peace proposals.

What I tell you about conditions here are absolutely true and there are some things I’d love to tell, but we are asked to be most careful, as information of no seeming value might be very useful if it fell into enemy hands. We have been asked to let friends and relatives abroad know how we are going on, as in some parts of the world there is great anxiety about friends in Britain owing to the exaggerated broadcasts of the Nazis. Their bombers have been very active off the east coast. A girl was telling me this a.m. that she had just come back from the Yorkshire coast (her home) and was having tea in a house overlooking the bay of a famous watering place, when they saw two of our destroyers and German aircraft having a battle. Everyone seized coat and ran out to watch. The Germans didn’t hit anything more than the sea and when our airmen arrived on the scene they turned tail and flew back as usual with everyone on the front cheering like mad!! Many dead bodies have been washed up on the coast and the undertaker told the girl’s father that the skipper of a fishing vessel had been so badly hit with machine gun bullets that his body was like a sieve. He had hardly been able to prepare the poor fellow’s body for burial, so riddled with holes was his corpse. The fishing vessel did not happen to be armed, so they could not protect themselves. Who would want to be governed by people who could behave like that to innocent unarmed folk pursuing their daily occupations as usual? The lifeboat went out to the rescue of some men who had their ship torpedoed under them and the Germans bombed and sank the lifeboat.

There are no food queues and there is no food shortage and up to the moment of writing, no enemy aircraft has got into England. The one brought down at Whitby (Yorkshire) was of course at the coast. There is plenty of food though not always of the kind one usually prefers. The alleged lamb that we had at the weekend was I am sure the identical ram that accompanied Noah on his cruise on the Ark and I am wondering if after hours of stewing once more, it will be less like India rubber than it was when we tried to eat it on Saturday! Tho’ in all fairness, I am bound to admit that our meat is not usually so tough.

I too wish the war was over, but I am afraid there are some very bad times ahead for all concerned and I am quite sure it will spread and that there will be neutral countries who have to come in out of self-protection. The Nazis will stop at nothing to gain their own ends.

How lovely to be free from food rationing, blackouts, scarcity of some of the things one loves and is used to, but that are not strictly necessary such as flowers, beautiful colours in materials, paper, etc. and above all the ever lasting uncertainty whether one will be alive even in a few hours time. The nuisance of carrying one’s gas mask if one is going more than five minutes away from home. The restriction of all forms of transport, the need for care in one’s speech about friends serving with the forces. This England of ours was once the Home of the Free. It is still and always will be and every one of us is absolutely willing to do all we can to ensure that freedom. We grumble, of course we do, we shouldn’t be British if we didn’t. We find fault with our leaders, both national and civic. Why shouldn’t we? Our music hall comedians make great fun of Mr. Chamberlain’s umbrella, Winston Churchill’s hat, Lord Halifax’s rationing, air raid shelters and the blackout and everybody roars with laughter and nobody bothers about their dignity. All the inconveniences to which we are subjected are the cause of fun, but underneath it all, we are determined to see it through. That does not mean that we are not very anxious and worried, but it does mean we are not going to give in.

March 16, 1940

Meat rationing came in last Monday. You can tell men are at the head of affairs, for instead of allowing us so much weight per head, they are allowing each person one-tenth per head per week. Everyone is racing for the cheap cuts and the better meat is not so popular. My normal meat bill for one week is seven-sixths at cost. My maid and I together are now allowed three-eighths per week. I have eaten so much mutton lately that I feel like baaa-ing. But I shall not grumble at the butcher, poor man, he is having a hard time.

Every newspaper and magazine you send me are passed on and eagerly read by a number of folk who are eager to know America’s point of view. My young doctor in France wrote that he had been slow in acknowledging the last lot I sent him because six of his men had been doing a very unpatriotic thing, having German measles.

NOTE: In another letter written in March, Miss Graville reported that she had met a William Millspaugh, who had been raised in Branchport (near her cousin’s home in Penn Yan) and attended the early years of Keuka College. His father was Levi Millspaugh, who ran a wagon shop in Branchport for years and whose house on the lake later became Chateau Dugas. William Millspaugh, a mechanical engineer who got his start in industry in Ohio, between 1933 and 1948 owned a foundry in England (Millspaugh Ltd of Sheffield) that made castings in steel and bronze. He lived with his daughter and her husband not far from Miss Graville.

May 10, 1940

Mr. William Millspaugh called to see me one night and told me a good deal about Penn Yan and America. He seems to be a wonderful man for his age. He was very interesting about conditions in western Europe, concerning business and the lives of the people. He has personal friends in several of the now warring countries. But I think his favourite is Norway. He told me a good deal about America. Apparently there is little to choose between the poverty of Britain or America. He told me I should see a great difference in some of the places in the US after having lived in the fifth largest city in the kingdom. I told him I hoped I should not meet any pro-Germans over there for the fur would fly!!! He thinks England a lovely country to live in. He was delighted that I sent him the article by Verdi Burtch (of Branchport) and he told me of some of their boyhood times. He drew me a plan of your lake. (I can’t spell it without looking at the map.)

The news this a.m. is dreadful. I have been wandering around the garden looking for buds and shoots to try to cheer myself up. Poor Europe to be at the mercy of such an evil gang as Hitler & Co.

NOTE: After what had been a seven-month ‘Phoney War’ with very little activity in Western Europe, the German Army and Air Force began a six-week campaign on 10 May which would end with the surrender of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and, in June, France. Also on 10 May, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned and was quickly succeeded by Winston Churchill.

May 12, 1940

Your letter was so nice to get just after all the dreadful war news. I had been awake all night listening to the drone of airplanes overhead. Our folk were watching and guarding us carefully, but I wish they were not quite so noisy about it. Up to the moment of writing our rations are still the same, but we may have butter and bacon reduced.

During the week I saw a military convoy pass. I had better not say where. It took nearly two hours to pass. I realized what a mechanized thing war is today. There were numbers of what I took to be anti-aircraft guns, very long and slim, every one with names painted on what Doris would call ‘the spout’ and I said I thought that was the barrel, tho’ I may be wrong too!! Some humorist had been busy. I cannot remember them all, but some stuck in my mind. ‘Hell Fire’, ‘Suicide Pal’, ‘Calamity Jane’ (I regret a number of them bore feminine names). ‘The Avenger’ sounded too much like a warship, but who on Earth was ‘Tony de Wop?’ They had their mouths tied up with red flannel for all the world as if they were suffering from toothache. The camouflage on the military wagons was wonderful and the soldiers’ ‘tin hats’ looked as if they would do with a good polish. The tin hat of one of the officers looked as tho’ he’d been white washing in it! The cars of the staff officers looked like poultry vans tacked onto ordinary car engines. Mere lieutenants rode in the vans with the men. There were funny little cars like water beetles and scores of motorcycle dispatch riders, some of them with maps fastened onto their handlebars and others with big white boards across their chests. Vans full of the weirdest instruments. I cannot imagine what they were for! Bren guns, which in my ignorance I mistook for tanks and which made you feel seasick to watch cavorting up the road for all the world like nervous hunting horses anxious to take off. Goodness knows where they were going to. I felt safer from parachute troops after I had seen them, for I am only 45 minutes walk from the great stretches of moorlands and parachutists might try to land there.

We were very upset over the manner of Mr. Chamberlain’s resignation. The country as a whole was deeply ashamed of the abominable treatment of the Labour parties to a man who is a gentleman in the true sense of the word and who had been a fine leader. If it was necessary to change leaders – and some thought so who were of Mr. Chamberlain’s own party – he should have been told in a more kindly and courteous manner. The country was disgusted. Mr. Chamberlain, brave old man, announced his own resignation over the wireless in a dignified speech without any bitterness or reproach, though you could tell it was emotional and appealed for loyal support for Winston Churchill. The very fact that the Nazis loathe Mr. Churchill so, shows that they are afraid of him. The Germans cannot learn that however much we quarrel amongst ourselves, we are united against them!

I wonder what Italy will do. It will be suicidal for her to go in with Germany as the Abyssinians will rise up at once and we will then have the Italians bottled up in the Mediterranean. This war ought surely to be a strong warning to all countries never to submit to a dictator. In countries under dictators there is no liberty of thought, action, or even of soul. Hitler has stated he is to be King of England, emperor of India, Canada, Australia, and ruler of Europe. He will never be King of England anyway because the British have been free too long to put up with dictators dictating! The row in our House of Commons could not have happened in any country under a dictator. Under a dictatorship, the same feelings might be felt and would smolder underneath causing a hidden fire to break forth some day in a manner horrible to think of. As it is, in Britain we had the row, the change was made. It is over, we are now carrying on as usual. In a few days, all unpleasantness will be forgotten and no lives lost over it.

Such lots of people stop to admire the front garden. At present there is a border the whole way round and round the inner rose bed of blue forget-me-nots. These flowers, along with primroses, always have a special appeal for Britons. There is also a lovely yellow azalea out, covered with richly scented flowers, as it is next to a silvery grey leaved shrub. The colour scheme is very lovely and seems to be appreciated by passersby. The copper beech by the gate is also out and its young foliage is glorious. When I look out the window and view my handiwork (greatly assisted by nature) I feel the world to be a lovely place. Even Hitler and his evil gang are temporarily forgotten.

We have got so many balloons up now that they are almost as thick in the sky as stars. There is only one direction free from them and as I love sky and clouds, I look that way most often.

I enclose a snapshot of myself in my gas mask. If you look at it through a magnifying glass, you will see how terrible it looks. I can assure you it feels 50 times worse than it looks.

It is impossible to find out when the mails are leaving for the US. If the post office authorities know, they will not say. So I just have to hope I’m lucky and then in about a fortnight’s time after posting, I try to picture you receiving my epistles and hope that you have sufficient time to read them!

Did I tell you that everything you send in the way of mags and papers are passed on to many folk? I have today sent Time to my doctor’s brother, a major in the RAMC (Royal Army Medical Corps.) The doctor called this a.m. to see me. They are rather anxious about him. He was home on a leave a fortnight ago and told us he was stationed in the very front line of the Franco-Belgian-German front. He said he wished something would happen. He will have had his wish ’ere now and, as the Germans have bombed a military hospital and fired on doctors, nurses, and wounded alike, we are wondering about him. I spent all yesterday sitting quietly reading as I was too poorly to do anything else. Your papers were a godsend. All ours, even the mags, are full of war.

I have always wished I lived further out on the moors. Now I am glad I do not. It seems parachutists are a real danger. But I’m not too nervous, as we are ready and waiting. But the moon is rising and we may expect them any night now. Sheffield is one of the places they are anxious to reach and South Yorkshire is the place they have to land. By the time you receive this, goodness knows what the evil beasts will have done.

May 16, 1940

Did I tell you I have a book nearly completed of flower arrangements with my own illustrations – photography? I am wanting to try USA with it. Nothing doing here at all in that line at present. Won’t be till all this awful slaughter is over.

Am disgusted with Queen Wilhelmina (Netherlands), after all she said to us about not wanting our help. Then she and all the lot of them come chasing over here. Good old King Haakon and Prince Olaf didn’t leave Norway.

May 19, 1940

It has been a terribly anxious week. The war is so wickedly pursued by the Germans. It seems like devilry let loose. Even many British feel that now the only way to teach the brutes a lesson is to bomb Berlin until not one stone is left on another like they did in Poland. If fate decreed that they should win – and no one here believes or intends that they should – the world would be given over to bestiality, oppression, and misery worse than anything in the Middle Ages.

Anthony Eden broadcast an appeal for volunteers to cope with the parachutist troops. Before he had finished, men of all ages were besieging the police stations etc. anxious to defend the country from that awful menace. It is just the sort of thing young men the world over would enjoy. A young neighbour of mine studying at the University to be a dentist told me they have formed defense corps to guard the University itself for reasons anyone can guess for themselves.

I am sitting in the garden in blazing sunshine with flowers all around me – mostly forget-me-nots. The sky is absolutely cloudless and for the moment, there are no balloons up to remind us of the awful struggle going on in the continent and which any minute may be brought here.

Britain is proud of the navy again this week. I have been wondering very much if J.M. has been taking part. If he has, he won’t be allowed to say. I am worried about my Dr’s. brother. A fortnight ago he said as he went down my path to his car after a short visit: ‘I wish something would happen.’ I said: ‘But you are safe while it is like this.’ He replied: ‘But it’s been so boring, eight months of doing nothing. I might as well have been at home looking after my patients.’ We are all wondering very much if he is one of the doctors deliberately bombed by the Germans as they make definite attacks on hospitals, ambulances, and Red Cross units. His mother called to see me yesterday and is very worried. We are all telling her no news is good news. I think she knows perfectly well that we do not really think so in this case, any more than she does.