including letters written to his wife Marion and some other correspondence
7 June, 1940
Chelsea, Friday
Dearest Mog,
Isn’t it a shame we can’t be together this perfect day? I thought how beautiful it would be to go on the lake in Battersea Park. It would really be quite safe to take Julian too because you know I have never upset a boat in my life.
It is silly of me writing like this and it may make you feel unhappy, I am sorry, but I just thought of it.
I have started a head this week and I have done two small watercolours. One of them is rather strange and I not really know what made me do it. There is the river with the factory buildings hazy on the far side. The tide is out and two women are bathing from a little boat. In the foreground another one is lying in a very lovely way with a perfect line. It is all rather faint and dreamy. There is a barge in the picture too, but it is not ugly, I had a vague idea of combining a number of things whose only relationship was that they mean a lot to me. Maybe it does not come off. Logically it’s impossible but that does not seem to matter. One day you can tell me what you think*.
* The watercolour which Clifford describes here surely marks the very beginning of his somewhat surreal ‘bather’ paintings. Please see the image below of an oil painting called ‘Quiet Flows The River’ which he completed a few years later. Editor
I would like to paint it larger but I have not got the knowledge yet, and what I have done is as far as I can go at the moment; but I think it is something I may go back to some day.
Horrible stories are going around from the men who have got back from Dunkirk. I think of them and then find myself looking out at the sky which is clear, serene and perfect, full of light – even the barrage balloons do not spoil it. One has got used to them.
My love to you and Julian. Write soon,
Clifford
‘Quiet Flows The River’, an oil painting by Clifford Hall, circa 1943. No colour photograph currently available.
11 June, 1940
Chelsea, Tuesday
Dearest Mog,
Glad to hear you got my last letter. Of course I am happy and interested to hear about Julian, only I seem to have so many things on my mind these days that I suppose I do not keep pace with them.
Well we had another shock last night, didn’t we?* One can only say that the sooner every country is in it the sooner it will be over. It is shocking bad luck for Harry. It’s a damned stupid tragedy whichever way you look at it, because I still think the Italians are simple, harmless people. And it’s just another country to be changed and smashed up before we had a chance to see it. First it was Spain.
* Italy entered the war on Monday, 10th June 1940. Editor
I hope to go on painting as long as I can. I believe it is called “escapism” but I am not yet convinced that it is; for in some way, the present does get into what one does. In my case not particularly, thank God. The idea of finding myself in a position where I can no longer hold a brush terrifies me, although, like others, I will no doubt make the best of it when the time comes. I am no longer working easily and I take out as much as I leave. Everything is taking me three times as long as it did. That’s a good sign really- if only I have the time – and then somehow I waste time.
I heard from the Artist’s Benevolent people this week. They sent £20. I have to tell the U.A.B* about this as they asked me if I had applied. This means I will get nothing from them for a good while so I must make the £20 last.
* The U.A.B was the Unemployment Assistance Board Editor
I did have hopes of our ballet coming off. Leo had started rehearsing it with the others but now the season at the Arts has been cancelled. Of course, I would have been paid for my designs.
I sent Peter Jones £2 this morning and I asked them to put the receipt to you.
Here is a quotation I came across yesterday – it is very good.
“The artist of today must bear a wound – “cette blessure” – according to Gide “Qu’il ne faut pas laisser ce cicatriser, mais qui doit demeurer tourjours douleurence et saiguante, cette blessure au contact de l’affreux réalaté”.
Roughly – “This wound which must not be allowed to heal, but must remain always bleeding and painful, this wound made terrifying by reality”.
Thank you for writing so nice and quickly. Lots of love to you and Julian.
Clifford
14 June, 1940
Chelsea, Friday
My dearest Mog,
I had your letter this morning. Everything certainly is in a mess. Try to find out about your allowance. If you cannot keep on with it, I will get one of those training jobs I told you about recently. We could probably just keep going on it – somehow.
I think I can get into it any time withing the next couple of months.
Father is just gradually getting weaker and looks very bad. It makes me miserable to see him and sometimes I am so sad that I can’t even paint. Yet I hang on to work as if my life depended on it, and yesterday I quite forgot everything and did something which I think is good.
Last night I heard Raynaud‘s broadcast – it was magnificent – and this morning it was chalked up on the newspaper bills that the Germans had reached Paris. Well, I still don’t believe they will win in the end.
I wish with all my heart that I could see you, that you were not so far away and yet I can see nothing else for it until we know what is going to happen. When the Germans have settled with France I think they will offer peace, as well go to bed with a hungry tiger, and then the real fight will begin – for there can be no victory for them until we are beaten. They won’t beat us, but it’s going to be bad whilst it lasts. You can be sure of that.
Write soon. All my love to you and to Julian,
Clifford
18 June, 1940
Chelsea, Tuesday
Dearest Mog,
Thanks so much for your letter. I know you must be feeling miserable. Your letter made me feel I had let you down by not getting something, well paid, to do before now. I did try everything as you know but there seems to be no place for people like me in the present mess – only in the ranks, and even then one has to wait until one is wanted – although by the look of things it won’t be long now. When I am in it I will try to get a commission and then there will be more money. I admit I had hoped things might have gone better and that the war would not last long but anything might happen now – probably the worst. The paper says that the call-up will have reached 32 by the end of next month, so I should be about due by September. Although it may seem unfeeling, I am hoping that our trouble at Putney will be over by then and that I shall not have that to worry about. I feel that you could not be safer than where you are and that at least is something I am thankful for. Before then I must come and see you. I want to see you. You can’t imagine what it is like with my father. They tell you that he may die at any time and on Sunday he could only speak one sentence and did not open his eyes except to look at me when I first came into the room. For nearly an hour he held my hand, sometimes very gently and then quite hard. It’s a miserable end and it should not have been like this. Every day I expect to get a message telling me to rush there at once. I have been expecting it for two or three weeks now. This sounds as if I want him to die. In a way I do – it would be best for him; he looks so utterly tired.
I think of you each day – it seems so long since you were here for that short week. I loved you so much then and I love you so much now and I still look forward to us all being at home again. It will come, I know.
The utter stupidity that made the present state of the world possible often strikes me as being so fantastic that I can scarcely believe it even now, and only you, because I love you, or a work of art, has any reality for me. You wondered how I was able to go on painting. That is why.
Let me know what came of your suggestion about East Meon. I hate to think of you having more work to do. I cannot somehow find the words to put down all I want to say to you dearest, and I feel again that I am pretty useless to you.
Give Julian a kiss from me and imagine lots of perfect ones for yourself.
Clifford
19 June, 1940
Chelsea, Wednesday
Dearest,
Your letter came this morning. I had written to you last night. The news is certainly bad, although, to me, not surprising. You must try to go on quietly and believe that we will win, perhaps sooner than you expect. I know how difficult it is for you but you are in the best possible place. I am sure and glad of that.
Although an invasion will very likely be attempted I do not for a moment believe that it will succeed and it is an advantage to us that we are now freed of the need of sending troops to France. It is appalling to think of what is happening there and it makes one furious that we were so slow in the beginning when perhaps they could have been saved. With an invasion missing fire the war will finish in the air. That seems the most likely thing and no doubt it will be terrible whilst it lasts.
I will be writing again on Friday when I send the money. All my love to you and Julian. You must keep an eye on Richard. He seems to be growing into a regular little monster. Do you think he belongs to the 5th Column?
Clifford
Posted on 21 June, 1940
Chelsea. Thursday. (20th)
My dearest Mog,
I hope you had both my letters. I am looking forward to hearing from you again soon. Do please try, for my sake, to just go on looking after Julian and thinking that everything will be right again before too long. It is a terribly difficult thing to ask you to do, I know, but everyone must do it in one way or another.
Leo came in last night. He is registering this week and still determined to object. We had a long talk about it and I think he is right although I would not do it myself; our positions are very different. He was very taken with the drawing I told you about recently; everyone else just failed to see anything in it; also a head I have just done. This almost terrifies me: it has gone really deep, I think, and I have actually produced something that I can hardly bear to look at and yet cannot keep away from. It is a very true reflection of the present age as it effects a sensitive writer.
It seems we are going to get raids every day and for an hour last night I could hear planes, where I do not know. The night was perfect and my river looked its best. It seemed as if nature was showing how beautiful she can make everything, just now of all times, to point the way, and that men everywhere are so busy smashing up and destroying each other that they can find no time to look – and wonder. But I am wrong. It has always been beautiful – from the beginning – and one is more keenly alive to it now when one realizes that one might be suddenly cut off from it all. It’s no good telling an artist that other worlds are more beautiful. There is far, far more here than I could do justice to if I had a thousand years. And if that sounds Pagan then let me be Pagan.
I saw in the paper that Leigh Henry* had been interned for the duration. I cannot help thinking that is the best thing for him. He had a dangerous side to him. Why artists, and he is one in his way, want to mix themselves up with politics in any active way is more than I can find sympathy for.
* Dr. Leigh Vaughan-Henry (1889-1958) was a British composer, conductor, poet and musicologist, strongly suspected of having pro-Nazi sympathies due to being a former senior member of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, who, having fallen out with Moseley, was setting up a rival organisation. Editor
I have painted some flowers this week- very pretty. I bought them for tuppence. I want some more materials but I hesitate to spend the money. I do not know how long I may have to make it last. I am losing Devereux soon as he is expecting to be called up very soon. Also, I am giving up the class after this week. There is nothing in it now although I have not been out of pocket and have done some good sketches for myself. Cannot altogether blame the war for that. Even the Art Schools found it impossible, in peacetime summers to get the students in. Very few have a real love for it – at least it gives more scope in the end to the few that have.
I hope, if things do not get any worse with my father, that I will be able to come and see you for a week sometime next month. It is very difficult to say. He looks terrible and yet some days he seems much better. It’s like that with him all the time.
Did you get Peter Joneses receipt?
Sala* has just come in and sends his love to you and to the baby. He is in the country – someone has left him all alone in a very big house with five servants. He says he is growing tomatoes and has to walk two miles to report at the Police Station everyday as they will not let him use his car. Nonetheless he seems very cheerful.
* (NB this is only a theory) Sala is apparently a foreign national who has sought refuge in England. He may possibly be the Spanish painter, Emilio Grau Sala (1911-1975) who fled to Paris, France, with his wife, the painter, Ángeles Santos Torroella (1911-2013) in 1936 at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. The couple were parted when she returned to Spain the following year and were not reunited until 1961. I have not, as yet, been able to find out if Sala remained in France during the Nazi occupation, or if he managed to escape to England and then returned to Paris after the war, where he evidently spent most of the rest of his life until he died in 1975. His style of painting would have been deemed “Degenerate Art” by the Nazis, so he would have had good reason to seek refuge in England at that time. Editor
All my love to you and Julian,
Clifford
Friday morning (21st)
Dearest,
I have just had your last letter. I cannot understand why mine have not arrived. I have written to you twice this week. Also a letter from Fred with £5, as you said. I will get him to take a panel which I will get framed and do the portrait when it is possible. I wish I could go down and paint it now but I could not stay long enough with things as they are now at home. You understand I should need two weeks. at least. It may be possible to manage it before I am called up, this will be about Sept I think by the way things are going. One cannot be sure. I will explain all this to Fred when I write. It’s a pity because I feel I could make a good job of the portrait for him, but I cannot rush it.
Anyway, it was very charming of him to think of sending the money.
It was sweet of Lena to write to you as she did but whatever happens I can’t have you going any further away, and think of our Julian coming home with an American accent!
The war can’t go on forever and it will probably end in a kind of stalemate with Germany beaten off when she attempts invasion and us equally unable to invade them. What then?
I hope to see you soon. All my love, Clifford
PS Do you want a pound or so extra? Tell me if you do and I will send it.
22 June, 1940
Saturday
Dearest Mog,
Your last letter came this morning and I am glad to know that you had got my two. I hope to come and see you next Saturday. Let me know if that will be all right. I shall have to be back by the following Wednesday but we will have at least a couple of clear days together. I must ask Fred if he can pick us up as he did before, it’s about 4 o’clock I think, the coach reaches Dorchester. Try to meet me there like you did last time. I will talk to you then about your passport and other things. But don’t worry so much. We won’t get beaten, and every week that passes sees this country stronger and better prepared whilst Germany is getting potentially weaker for all her recent successes.
I am too much of a fatalist to have any belief in this idea of going to Canada or America, and I have faith in our fate.
You must not worry. It seems most likely that big changes will result from all this but we will not be worse off, indeed we may eventually find things much better.
I am looking forward to seeing you and I only hope that nothing will happen to prevent me. And I am looking forward to seeing Julian although I expect he will wonder who the devil I am. Write and tell me if next Saturday will be all right. I will let you hear as soon as possible that I am coming for certain.
All my love to you both,
Clifford
25 June, 1940
Chelsea, Tuesday
Dearest,
Your letter came this morning. I will arrive on Saturday – 3.45. I hope you will be able to meet me in Dorchester. I have written to Fred to ask if he could take us back, but I have not heard from him yet. I suppose Peter will be working.
I will bring your red shoes with me. They wanted repairing so I am having that done for you.
You will have heard that we had a raid warning last night. I heard a few planes and one bomb* – a long way off. It was dawn before the all-clear sounded – so I lost a good night’s sleep.
* The first German bombing raids on England started in late May, 1940, concentrated around towns in the North East, such as Middlesborough and Stockton-on-Tees, hundreds of miles away from London. Up to this point, air raid warnings had either been false alarms or tests. Did Clifford really hear a bomb that dropped so far away? Or did one or two get dropped in the South of England at this time? Editor
I am looking forward to seeing you again with all my heart. Meanwhile, love to you both.
Clifford
27 June, 1940
Thursday
Dearest,
Thanks for your letter. I will be in Dorchester at 3.45 on Saturday and I am longing to see you again.
You must not worry too much about raids. It is more than a million to one chance of anything happening where you are at present. I am sure it is safer than most places. There is no doubt that things are really starting now but it is the ports and big industrial centres that will naturally be aimed at. I think the idea of going to Canada is rotten. You cannot go so far away and in any case I am sure we are going to win and probably quite soon.
Mother had your letter and I expect she will write before long.
Father is still the same only he seems even thinner and weaker.
I have had the red shoes repaired for you and I will be bringing them with me. Very nice of Fred to tell you he will be picking us up in Dorchester. I have not heard from him, but I know now it will be all right. I am bringing a really amusing book for you to read called “Away From It All” and it is full of stuff you will enjoy.
I am seeing Stanley tomorrow night.
Sala did not say where his country house is but I imagine it belongs to his usual woman.
I can’t think of anything more to write now because I am impatient to see you and talk to you properly.
Till Saturday, all my love to you both.
Clifford