Farming, Fighting and Family
The literary talent has been handed down from grandfather to mother and then to daughter. This is a delightful account of country life in bygone days that will stir the heart of any Englishman.
Michael Dobbs, author and politician
This gentle, informative memoir draws the reader in by its telling of a superficially simple story which mirrors and throws light on the period in which it is set. It is a portrait of a country way of life which has gone forever, thrown into sharp silhouette by the life-changing backdrop of a world war.
The Second World War was an accumulation of un-numbered individual human stories like these and the book will attract both the general reader and those who collect and read everything about the war.
Michele Brown, author and publisher
Farming, Fighting and Family provides an invaluable personal insight into the crucially important contribution role which the farming community played in saving Britain from starvation in the second world. It will be essential reading for not only those interested in the conflict but also rural society in the countryside.
John Martin, Professor in Agrarian History, De Montfort University, Leicester
For Rupert, the next generation
I have … made as much use as possible of old letters and diaries, because it seemed to me that the contemporary opinions, however crude and ingenuous, of youth in the period under review were at least as important a part of its testament as retrospective reflections heavy with knowledge.
From the foreword to Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth
… if any had told me I’d be doing this [VAD nursing], I’d never have believed it. This generation’s a terribly young one somehow … doing things because it’s just happened to us & it won’t be till afterwards that we’ll realize what we did.
Extract from Pamela Street’s diary entry for 12 October 1940
Author’s Note
For the benefit of the modern reader, a note of warning needs to be given before the main text begins. In today’s multicultural society, some of the descriptions and language used in the family papers from which I have quoted might appear offensive; words such as ‘native’ or ‘darkie’ do, occasionally, crop up. However this did not imply any deliberate racism on the part of the writers. It was quite simply the natural way of speaking among people of my parents’ generation, for whom encounters with people of different ethnic groups were comparatively rare. Regrettable – and indeed reprehensible – as it may now seem, these children of the British Empire grew up with an innate feeling of superiority over ‘Johnny foreigner’, which revealed itself in their everyday language and attitude. In the decades after the war, however, such attitudes changed, even for the generation concerned. For example when, in his latter years, my father was asked which individual he had most admired during the course of his lifetime, one might have expected him to reply, ‘Winston Churchill’; his answer was in fact, ‘Nelson Mandela’. I have not attempted to edit out these politically incorrect expressions, because in my view they add to the authenticity and period flavour of the events described. I trust readers will understand their context.
Similarly I have only corrected the most glaring grammatical or spelling mistakes in quotations from the letters, diaries and journals, as in my view such minor mistakes again reflect the spontaneity with which the quoted material was written, and add to its authenticity.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Chippenham, for access to the A.G. Street literary archive; to the Royal Artillery Museum, Woolwich, for access to David McCormick’s regimental diaries for 1941, and to the Museum of English Rural Life, Reading University, for supplying the photograph of Pamela Street in ATS uniform from The Field magazine, 22 May 1943.
The excerpt from the Foreword to Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth is reproduced by kind permission of Mark Bostridge and T.J. Brittain-Catlin, Literary Executors for the Estate of Vera Brittain 1970.
My mother’s poem ‘Harvest Lament or Combined Operation’, with illustrations by E.H. Shepard, first published in Punch in 1952, is reproduced by kind permission of Punch Ltd, www.punch.co.uk.
My mother’s poems ‘Gone Away’, ‘South Coast’ and ‘Christmas’, published in The Field in January 1941, January 1944 and January 1945 respectively, are reproduced with the permission and (in their own much appreciated words) ‘blessing’ of The Field.
I am deeply grateful to Sir Max Hastings both for his earlier advice, and for his Foreword, which undoubtedly lent credibility to my typescript at the time when I was approaching potential publishers.
I am also particularly grateful to Jonathan Dimbleby for his generous endorsement of this memoir on the back cover.
I am similarly indebted to Michele Brown (Brandreth), Michael Dobbs and John Martin (Professor of Agrarian History, De Montfort University, Leicester) not only for their endorsements, but also for their advice on areas of concern to me during the compilation of this volume. In particular, Professor Martin’s expert knowledge of agricultural practice during the Second World War has proved invaluable.
I would also like to acknowledge two inspirational teachers, who took a personal interest in my studies at different stages of my education: firstly, Dr Simone Scott, my French teacher at Heathfield School, Ascot, and secondly Dr Christina Roaf, my Tutor in Italian at Somerville College, Oxford. Although their subjects were not directly connected with the content of this volume they, in particular, equipped me with the learning tools required to undertake a project of this kind. Whilst revising my typescript, I received the sad news that Christina Roaf had left Oxford – and indeed this world – forever, so this book is now also in her memory.
I am grateful to my relatives Sargeant Collier, Penelope Dodd, Catherine Mant, Leander Paul McCormick-Goodhart, April Mesquita, Clare Sanders Hewett and Diane Want, for supplying the missing pieces in the jigsaw as the typescript progressed.
I am equally grateful to the following for their help and support in a wide variety of ways throughout the compilation of this volume: Sarah Adlam, Robin Baird-Smith, James Burge, Randolph Churchill, Isla Dawes, Michael Parr, Rupert Pengelley, Nick Strachan, Joe and Frances Summers, Charles Ward, Brian Wiltshire, Nicolas Wright, and many other friends and acquaintances, some of whom have asked to remain anonymous.
I owe additional thanks to Charles Ward who, in the course of his own research for a forthcoming biography of A.G. Street, had already catalogued much of the AGS literary archive at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, this making my task very much easier.
Of all my family and friends, very special thanks are due to my son Rupert Davies and my dear friend Judy Umfreville, both of whom sat through countless readings aloud as this volume progressed, never failing to offer both constructive criticism and constant encouragement.
I am most grateful to my friend and fellow chorister Jacqueline Jackson for her professional help in the preparation of my typescript for final acceptance by the publishers.
This leads me to pay tribute to the ‘the team’ at The History Press: Shaun Barrington, Jo de Vries, Phoebe Coates, Helen Bradbury and in particular my most recent editor, Lauren Newby. I am well aware that at times I have tested their patience to the limit!
My greatest thanks of all are reserved for my friend Heather Holden-Brown. This volume would almost certainly never have seen print, had it not been for the guidance she gave me, whenever I most needed it, from the goodness of her heart rather than any professional relationship. To her I shall remain forever indebted.
Contents
Title
Praise
Dedication
Author’s Note
Acknow
ledgements
Foreword by Max Hastings
Introduction: When the Music Stopped
1 Before the War: The Streets
2 Wilton at War (1939)
3 The ‘Phoney War’ and Descriptions of ‘Dunkirk’ (January–June 1940)
4 A Defiant Nation: Nursing, Officer Training and Romance (July–December 1940)
5 A Protracted Parting (January–May 1941)
6 Heartache, Hospital and High Seas (May–August 1941)
7 Desert Life and a Difficult Decision (August–November 1941)
8 ‘Operation Crusader’ (November–December 1941)
9 Capture (December 1941)
10 Unaccustomed Activity and ATS Training (Late 1941–February 1942)
11 Missing in Action (February–April 1942)
12 A Lighter Load, a Hampered Harvest and a Moment of Rejoicing (April–December 1942)
13 American Impact, ‘Operation Husky’ and an Unwelcome Move (January–October 1943)
14 ATS Promotion and Worrying Events (October–December 1943)
15 The Build-up to D-Day and a Crisis of Conscience (January–June 1944)
16 D-Day, Dramatics and Winter Worries (July–December 1944)
17 The End of the War and an Awkward Reunion (1945)
18 Post-War Life: America, London and ‘Operation Farming’ (1946–49)
Epilogue: ‘Lest We Forget’
Bibliography
Plates
Copyright
Foreword
Miranda McCormick comes from a most interesting family, with which my own had a close connection. Her grandfather Arthur Street was a Wiltshire farmer who became well known as a country writer and broadcaster between the 1930s and 1950s. In 1951, with my own father Macdonald Hastings, he created and for seven years co-edited a delightful magazine entitled Country Fair, to which both men also contributed many articles. Street’s robust, wise and witty approach to life won him many admirers on such programmes as the BBC’s Any Questions? and as a boy I myself knew him as a delightful companion. His daughter Pamela kept a diary of her own life, especially during the wartime years, and the correspondence of both her and her future husband’s families through the 1939–45 era makes fascinating reading – I have quoted from it in my own book, All Hell Let Loose. Now granddaughter Miranda has brought together all the strands in a narrative of the Second World War experience, which paints a vivid picture of how the conflict impacted on an English family. It should find a wide readership among those who want to know what ‘ordinary life’ was like, in uniform and out of it, in those tumultuous years.
Max Hastings
September 2013
Introduction:
When the Music Stopped
My parents met at a dance at the White Hart Hotel, Salisbury, on 31 August 1940. At the time my mother, Pamela Street, was working as a VAD nurse at the nearby Emergency Military Hospital, Tower House. My father, David McCormick, had been posted for officer training to Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain. To entertain such officer cadets during their off-duty hours, dances were arranged by well-meaning older ladies in the neighbourhood to introduce them to suitable local girls.
My father readily confessed to having cheated at the dance at which he met my mother. It was during a ‘Paul Jones’, the ballroom dancing equivalent of today’s speed dating. Men would assemble in a circle facing inwards, whilst women would assemble in an inner circle facing outwards. The music would begin, with equal numbers of men and women in their respective circles joining hands and rotating in opposite directions. When the music stopped, the man and woman immediately in front of one another would enjoy a quick twosome until the music paused again, the circles would reassemble, and the whole process would repeat itself. My father was so captivated by the tall girl with the shy smile and long, dark, fashionably permed hair in front of him that he jostled his companions more than once to make sure he was opposite her again when the music stopped. The rest, as they say, is history.
* * *
The outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 affected the lives of every man, woman and child living in the British Isles. For some – initially at least – the disruption was comparatively slight, but for the majority it would soon become profound. No generation was spared. Children were evacuated from areas deemed to be most at risk, such as London and the southern coastal towns, to be taken in by complete strangers the length and breadth of the country. Men of serviceable age were called up for active duty. Their womenfolk – sweethearts, fiancées, sisters, wives and mothers – had to cope not just with the emotional trauma of the departure of their loved ones, but were required to step into their shoes in the workplace or undertake specific war work in, for example, munitions factories. Younger women enlisted for the women’s services or wartime occupations such as nursing or driving military personnel. Older men volunteered for the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV), soon to become known as the Home Guard. Everybody had to cope with the all-pervading fear and uncertainty. This fear abated temporarily during the first months of the war, a period quickly to be dubbed the ‘Phoney War’, but then in the spring of 1940 the Germans resumed their sweep through Europe and the battle for national survival began in earnest.
Today, though British people face deadly threats of a different kind, it is difficult to imagine what living through such extraordinary, life-changing events must have felt like, and for which group of citizens to feel the most compassion. I have a particular sympathy for my parents’ generation – young people who had just completed their formal education and might have expected a comparatively carefree year or two before settling down to a lifetime of adult responsibilities. Instead, duty called, and all personal desires and ambitions had to be set aside. The survival of the British nation was at stake, and they were integral to the war effort.
Although the pages that follow concentrate mainly on my parents’ very differing wartime experiences, in a sense the linchpin of this memoir is my maternal grandfather, the farmer/author/broadcaster A.G. Street, who at the beginning of the Second World War was already a household name. An ordinary Wiltshire tenant farmer, he became one of the leading voices of British agriculture during the Second World War, explaining to the nation the importance of farming as the fourth line of defence. Whilst still having his own farm to run, my grandfather Street’s contribution to the war effort was enormous. By then a seasoned broadcaster, he was sent all over the country to report on various aspects of agriculture in particular areas. He lectured to the troops stationed on Salisbury Plain. He took part in early live local versions of The Brains Trust, the precursor to the long-running radio programme Any Questions? on which, after the war, he became a regular panellist. He was the first in his area to sign up as a volunteer in the LDV (Home Guard), and was frequently on night duty. Yet despite all this, the war years did little to lessen his prodigious literary output, much of which was written for reasons of propaganda. No fewer than seven of his titles were published during the war years; in particular Wessex Wins (1941), Hitler’s Whistle (1943) and From Dusk till Dawn (1943) provide valuable insights into daily life during the Second World War from the point of view of the countryman.
Yet the real inspiration for this volume was my mother’s five-year diary, spanning the years 1937 to 1941, which I discovered whilst going through her effects shortly after her death. It proved riveting reading. My mother was 18 when war broke out, but had already started the diary two years earlier. In this volume, roughly the dimensions of an average paperback, each page is divided into five small sections in which the diarist could make a brief note of events on the same date each consecutive year. Therefore, for example, turning to the page for 3 March, my mother’s birthday, one can see how she spent it in 1937, 1938, 1939 and so forth. Her diary reveals how a naïve, somewhat indulged, yet well-meaning teenager gradually became aware of the imminence of hostilities. It goes on to describe the immediate impact the declaration of war had on her family; various types of w
ar work in which she became involved; and last – but by no means least – how her relationship with her future husband began, and her reactions when, having received his commission in the RA, he was posted overseas in the spring of 1941.
Much later in life, at a time when she had already become a prolific novelist, my mother wrote of her entries for 1940 in this five-year diary as follows:
I had not long left school and was – as I see it now – incredibly young for my age. I took scarcely any interest in politics or international affairs. Economics might have been another language. I was entirely egocentric. Riding and hunting – in which I gave no thought to the fox, one way or another – had now been superseded by the importance of growing my hair into a page-boy bob, boyfriends and making do on what seemed the princely sum of £24 a year dress allowance. And then a little German with a black paint-brush moustache turned my world upside down. The entries in my diary, naïve, comic, tragic as they are, seem to portray 1940 far better than anything I could write today.
My mother went on to become a life-long diarist. I subsequently unearthed her diary for 1941 and another for the beginning of 1942. There was then a break until the spring of 1945, but this hiatus was more than compensated for by the wealth of other family papers she had kept.
One important source for this volume was her unpublished autobiography, Time on My Side, which contained valuable chapters about her wartime experiences. Another was a couple of semi-autobiographical novels she had written decades apart. In Many Waters, the heroine and her best friend become, respectively, a VAD nurse in a local military hospital and an officer in the ATS. The later novel, Hindsight, was about the reunion of an elderly English woman and her wartime American admirer.