Tag: bomb

including letters written to his wife Marion and some other correspondence

October 1, 1940

Made another drawing today. Have plans for two more.

Yesterday, in Edith Grove, I unearthed a bottle of Vibert retouching varnish, full, intact, from under a heap of bricks. I looted it. Goodness knows when it will be possible to get it again from France, and the English substitute is not much good.

Took the little painting of Marion in red dress with green hat and veil to Putney.

Letters to Marion

2 October, 1940

Tuesday night

Dearest Mog,

Can’t remember if I answered your last letter or not, I think I did but in any case I want to write to you again. I meant to tell you that I was very glad to hear about Julian and I wish I was able to see him. I am getting worried that he may not know who the devil I am when he does see me.

The raids here are at least not getting any worse although they are bad enough. However, I sleep well every night, which is more than a lot of people seem able to do. I am also beginning to get a few drawings done: grim things, which is what I want them to be and, in a way, badly done, but the vitality of such a subject is all that interests me. I will never want to go back and polish or improve them. They simply serve the purpose, very necessary, of getting something out that won’t stay in. And that, I fear is about their only value. You can have no idea how it feels to actually find myself able to carry on a train of thought, from day to day, connected with my real work.

You said you were getting something written and I am so glad. Do go on with it.

When you get your cheque better register it and send it to me at 5 Star & Garter Mansions, Lower Richmond Road, Putney, SW15 and c/o mother. If you send it to the studio it is sure to arrive in the morning when I am not there.

I hope you are both well. I am fine. Hope too that the dress arrived safely.

Lots and lots of love,

Clifford

4 October, 1940

Chelsea

My dearest Mog,

I got your last letter. It came yesterday. I am glad you have got something to send Peter Jones and that you are getting the blankets you wanted from them.  I wish I could send you some extra and I will if, by chance, I am able to hook some in.

Nothing has fallen near the studio since one night last week when the Public Library was nearly burnt out, the little builder’s yard opposite Kitty’s entirely destroyed and three houses in Chelsea Square had their roofs set alight. It was that decided me to move some of the pictures and I have shifted about a dozen – also nearly a hundred drawings. I still feel, however, that we will not be hit. They appear to have eased up on Chelsea this last week but other districts are still getting knocked about.

I understand that there may be a chance of getting a few days off soon after Christmas. I will do my best to get them so that I can come and see you. I continue to get a few drawings done so I feel more interested in things than I did.

I have had some fine, though terrible, material for my diary lately and I think I have made something of it. Newspapers never give the truth, fail entirely to convey the “atmosphere” and sentimentalize too much; so, what I am doing may be of some interest to someone. At all events it gives me something to think about, which is the all important thing.

I notice what you say about getting more bloodthirsty as the war goes on, yet I can honestly say that not once, since it started, have I detected the slightest stirring of what is called patriotism in myself. I have and still feel a great pity and sadness that the selfishness of a very few allied to the ignorance and or stupidity of the majority can between them bring about so much sorrow. I am taking part, I am glad not in a belligerent way, yet I feel as if it all has nothing whatsoever to do with me. I am almost detached from it. I just notice and take it all in, and help the best way I can.

There are too many faults on both sides for me to take any burning interest in the affair. I am glad that I have been able to do what I am doing and not to have to spend my time learning to destroy someone or something that is largely of this county’s own making. That it has to be destroyed and that I will be glad when it is, I do not deny. Still, weak as it may sound, I prefer to be where I am.

Before the raids on London started people rather sneered at the A.F.S, and the A.R.P. services. Now we are magnificent, heroes even one reads, and rich people stop their cars and ostentatiously offer us lifts. It’s all damned silly if it wasn’t so sad. It is clear that the army is having a safe time at the moment but they may be in the thick of it before we are through, however, I think that it will finish in the air and I doubt if the invasion is going to happen. Anyway, I wish I could go back to painting, and the sooner the better.

All my love to you both. I wish I could see you again,

Clifford

On the 7th October Bill wrote the following letter to Marion

My dear Mrs All, (sic)

It was with great pleasure that your ever welcome letter came to hand and this leaves me as I hope it finds you in the pink. No, my dear Marion, I’m afraid that isn’t quite right for the witty scintillating conversationalist you once knew as Bill is temporarily but very much under the dung cart. I’m still living like a hermit and hating every bit of it. Cut off from my fellow human beings I do not flourish. I am a tender plant! As for Cliff, as far as I am concerned, he hardly exists. We spent most of last Sunday together, since I have only heard his voice. He, at any event, seems much the same although I think he is sometimes shaken to his consciousness by this rumour that a war is on. However, for the first time for I don’t know how long, we look like having a little peace tonight. The sirens screamed their dismal wailings through the night at 8.30 but the all clear went some 15 minutes later, since then I have only heard the moan of the wind in the tree tops  and shaking the windows – and an awful row the wind makes against the cables of a barrage balloon on the Heath. To my horror I see that I have left your letter unanswered for a fortnight – it came a t a time when I wavering between Sevenoaks and London, no joke, I came up and down three times in about a ten days, the journey each time taking about 3 hours. We took the children there in a hurry and stayed a week before Dumps went on with Lisa and Judy to Wadhurst. Daisy was simply unbearable while we were there, I shall never forget her conduct and that week was just about the most miserable of my life! Oh yes, thanks for the compliment that Clifford and I like dancing willy-nilly on the studio floor while bombs are dropping at the top of the road. Oh, we loved it only we weren’t there long enough, because I remarked in a dramatic staccato for which I am famous “We’d better get out of this, Cliff.” And we did – with haste – but nevertheless preserving that dignity for which both of us are so famous. We were young in those days to bombs, if now we should happen to be in the studio when the sirens went, we should be out before the noise had died away. I’m living a dog’s life, Marion, life is much worse than even I anticipated. I see nobody, go nowhere, and am shut up here alone every night from dusk on. Difficult to work very much and I simply dope myself with the piano and reading. I’ve done no painting since my watercolour of Judy knocked Clifford flat. I just showed him how it could be done and felt that I could now rest and blush on my laurels. What wouldn’t I give to see you all, all the good old faces, yourself, Cliff, Discher and a few more of the chosen spirits seated round the table downstairs and half a dozen bottles with the corks just coming out and Dumps bringing in the goulash, that ragout, the haggis and the Christmas pudding. I’m just hoping that somehow or other we can all get together at Christmas. I’m so desperate, Marion, that I’m thinking of advertising in Exchange and Mart for a mistress, but I fear it wouldn’t answer, I’m just homesick for the faces I love. This letter is beginning to sound a dirge, I’m really not to bad, not exactly happy, life now just seems a succession of days without end and tedious boredom most of the time. I miss all my nice little treats! It was amazing to be at Seven oaks and hear the bickering and quarrelling there, how can one quarrel at times like these? We are still very lucky at Hampstead, the nights with the guns going off continually, the droning of the planes and crash of pieces of shrapnel in the garden and street are not pleasant, and subconsciously nerve-wracking, but the fact remains that they do and have done very little damage in Hampstead. Touching wood and fingering my beads and murmuring the mysterious incantations of Alistair Crowley. One night last week, sick of my own company – I’ve told you that I am no longer the amusing fellow I once was, and I’m tired of all 3 of my own jokes, I’ve heard them so many times – I went down town and into the Fitzroy about 6 one night and stayed there until 7.30. Exactly six people came into the saloon bar. Two were sailors who sat at the counter and wrote letters in pencil. The atmosphere was not what could be described as either jolly or exhilarating. For the first time in my life I appreciated the piano player there. There’s a boy down the street (no Fred business this – I say this in case you are working up to an excited – now, what’s this?) who comes and sits by the fire for an hour or so occasionally. He called here and asked me to sign a petition and started explaining what it was. Don’t explain, I said, I’m all for petitions, I’ll sign anything you bring me. It was, however, for a deep shelter for Hampstead which couldn’t possible be built in under a year, so I signed it all the same but asked if I might put in a further petition that congenial female company from the west end be provided. Anyway, to return to our moutons, le garçons: it turned out that he was a painter, or so he said. Once he had been a bank clerk, you know, he said, bowler hat, blue suit and cane. That was before he became a REBEL. All this sounded promising. He said he spent a winter in Northern Canada, quite alone, minding cattle. That was dreadful, he said, wouldn’t do that again – but it was better than the bank. Now he makes a living doing odd jobs, mostly labouring or on buildings. Married, three children, with fantastic ages something like 2½, 1½ and 6 months. Another n the way? I tactlessly asked. No, there wasn’t at present. He brought his wife in one night, she was a faded creature, no life, all bone, just as I don’t like ’em – but poor devil, I thought. She looked very worn out. With her he was as dull as the proverbial dish water. And she was quite the lady in her poverty- stricken bohemian garb. Poor devil! There’s no doubt about the cunning of the Huns not coming tonight. They know very well that I shan’t be able to sleep without the usual pandemonium outside. A dirty trick. I went in and saw old Leger the other morning, he seemed quite cheerful – well, ne might, considering what has happened to the premises of most of the fine art dealers in the neighbourhood. Said he was living at Henley and how he missed his rubber of bridge every night! He had quite a good lot of pictures on show. But it’s too much of a heartbreak going into London, although actually the damage is not so very extensive and most of the buildings which have gone could well be spared. And I am so annoyed that Peter Jones hasn’t been touched. But there, I expect they’ve got a duplicate of their customers’ accounts in some safe spot. I must now be just on 1,000 words and the completion of this article – three guineas – but I’ll put in a few more to fill up an odd space.

It’s just old Cliff’s luck that the first quiet night we’ve had for – what? Six weeks? – he should be on duty. I’m glad I’ll bet he’s snoring by now. But this uncanny, wind screeching silence is going to keep me awake. Re, your idea about sending you what I believe in the slaughter yard are described as my knackers. Certainly not. With that pathetic and grim belief in fate for which I am also famous I believe in always having them about me – you know, just in case. I reckon if I go on for a year or two longer the luck must change. As to your further request that I keep myself young for you, never fear. When I signed my pact with Mephi he handed over a bottle labelled elixir of life. That that, when you begin to feel old, he said. The bottle is still in its pristine condition, the cork well in. Didn’t you know that my memoir is to be called “RUST NEVER”. Never, to misquote Byron, will my sword outwear its sheath, and never will I go a roving “by the light of the moon.”  When, dear Marion, I cease to love, I shall cease to be. And when I cease loving you – then you can write my epitaph. For that there will be no need for a long time, but there is a very real need that you will not hold it against me  that I took a fortnight to reply to your letter but that you will write me one more of your adorable letter ( I don’t think I quite like that adorable – sounds too much like Dishers famous: This is the loveliest party I’ve ever been at – as soon as you can snatch time.

It grieves me to hear that Fred is afraid of you. Shall I write him a kindly letter of advice? He’s lucky, he’s only got you to contend with but I’ve got Clifford as well. That man should have lived in Persia; I can see him swaggering about in baggie pantaloons and an enormous scimitar dangling from his side and the fiendish delight with which he would cut off a eunuch’s head whose only fault is that his hand had wandered and he had been found wanting. Never shall I forget the blood-curdling look he gave me as he climbed on a bus one night in the King’s Road and left us two on the pavement. I trust one of you, he said, gave a fearful imprecation, spat and hurled himself up the bus steps. Trust one of you! I knew who he didn’t trust.

Well, my dear, I have long since exhausted my 1,000 words, the fire is nearly out, and I’m a-cold. But I am going to take this to the post tonight so that it will go off by the 8 a.m. collection and you will possibly get it in a fortnights time. It will be grand to go out in the pitch darkness in the wind and rain and know that I shall be quite safe from odd bits of shrapnel. This silence is really uncanny.

Give my kindest regards to Pearl and if you are quite sure you haven’t a cold or any germs in your throat, you can give my godson a loving kiss form me. I am worried that he is far away and out of my influence. He should know his Nicene Creed (that shows my erudite knowledge of the church) by now and be able to say the Lord’s Prayer backwards.

All my love -no, that’s a Disherism again – but a very big part of it –

Yours ever Bill

Journal Entries

October 7, 1940

I feel ill. Certain the meat was bad yesterday. The canteen gets worse and worse and overcharges disgracefully. More than a dozen other men ill too, so it must have been something we had all eaten. Still suspect the meat. Serves me right for eating it – unfortunately they do not provide sensible food. More or less recovered this evening.

Drew most of the day disregarding the sirens. It is really impossible to play hide and seek all the time. Not worth it.

October 8, 1940

Recently I have developed an extreme distaste for sleeping on a stretcher. They make me think of dead people. I prefer the floor and do not find it particularly uncomfortable. I am always so very tired. Most of the men still sleep on the stretchers.

Although I draw most days it is weeks since I have painted and I miss it terribly. I am constantly thinking of clean white canvases of just the right texture on which I long to make exciting and beautiful things.

I think I will never work and paint from any of the sketches I am now doing. They are gruesome and sad. I draw them because I must. I will get them out of my system and then go on to other things. Also I feel that an unromantic, unsentimental record of such happenings may be of some interest. Once I have scribbled them on the paper I forget them. I do not see them as elaborate paintings.

The first exhibition of Official War Pictures at the National Gallery. Rather disappointing. Some, like Nash, simply made fine patterns coloured excitingly. A camera would have done the job far better than Eves in his portraits. Ardizzone saw humour, and I find it hard to forgive him for it, although I cannot help thinking, or hoping, that he must have produced other drawings which have not been exhibited. And because he has been humorous several of our dear critics have made him the hero of the exhibition. The English love someone who will help them not to think. Yet, I must admit that they appear to turn even this vice into a virtue in times of peril, like the present. All the same it’s wrong.

Letter to Marion

Posted 8 October, 1940 

Monday night,

My dearest Mog,

So glad that the dress arrived safely and I am sorry that I cannot see you in it. I did not know that the bill included the postage. If you have it, send it back to me as I might as well try to recover my ninepence. As it happened I grabbed it in a hurry whilst a scrap was going on overhead and quite a lot was falling down and the shop was in a hurry to shut.

I am storing all my little panels this week in the strong room I told you of. It belongs to a charming fellow who is one of our voluntary drivers. He is a fur merchant and rolling in money. It is in a Maddox Street basement with a fireproof steel door about eighteen inches thick. It used to be Tiffany’s the Jewellers.

Did I tell you that I had passed the First Aid exam – very well – 78 out of a 100; so I am quite pleased with myself as most of the lectures were messed up by raids.

I am able, somehow, to get enough sleep. At Putney mother has the divan and I have an air mattress on the concrete floor – but that is luxury. I have developed a certain dislike to sleeping on the wire stretchers since I have seen corpses lying on them. This does not seem to worry the other men but I now prefer the plain floor which is quite comfortable if you know the right way, and my gas mask, in its case, with my folded-up trench coat on top makes a high pillow. Of course, I would like a bed again, sometime, and with you there as well and we will have that once more and make up for a lot of lost time.

Julian does seem to be getting along well and should be ready to learn a few simple swear words by the time I see him again.

There is not much news in Chelsea. Only Marie has left for Somerset or some such place either because of the raids or because the wife of the fat landlord at the Bells had threatened to make her co-respondent. Also, Fiona has clicked again and this time I understand the situation looks like developing as the pills which worked miracles the last time came from Paris and are now unobtainable. One more crime to Hitler’s account!

I am still doing a few sketches. Three last week. Two the week before and one today which I had six goes at – and the final one is still wild but has something. It is called “All Clear” and is damned ironic.

All my love to you both and write again soon,

Clifford

Journal Entry

October 10, 1940

A heavy bomb in Stadium Street, near Lots Road, last night. Houses demolished and people sheltering killed. Some by the explosion, others gassed from broken mains, burnt or drowned in the cellars and basements.

A huge iron girder was discovered there in the roof of the Guinness Buildings – flung there by the force of the explosion.

Letter to Marion

10 October, 1940

Hortensia Road, Thursday night

My dearest Mog,

When you hear machine guns overhead it would please me far better if you at once got indoors and stayed there until it is quiet again. Remember that.

Except at odd moments I am as thoroughly bored with the war as I know you are with being in the country. Life has its moments even now but they are seldom the equal of those that belonged to that curious world, generally termed “peaceful” in which we lived until 1918 (sic). There is a part of me that can always remain detached and look at the colossal stupidity all about me and preserve a clear aloofness. Yet I cannot remain utterly aloof because I get so much pleasure from material things. That I bring a certain spirituality to them – or get it from them, I don’t know which, anyway it does not matter – cannot alter the fact that I do depend on the material. I remember telling you the night was beautiful, that I did not discover it until this year. It is still beautiful to me although I cannot paint it anymore because I need time and quiet to think about it and quiet no longer exists here. So, for weeks and weeks I have not painted which amounts, very nearly, to saying I have not lived. Not entirely, for I have lost myself in the little drawings I told you about. But they are very sad and I only do them because they ask to be done.

I dream of lovely white canvases and of oil paint that I feel I can put on with just the right quality, of a texture, a living surface. It means as much to me as the feel of your skin, of your dear hands on my body and of the scent of your hair. I have no doubt that I will have you again just as I will have the time to paint a few of the pictures I think of, but I resent the waste of time. There never is enough time and there is such a lot to learn.

You must not think that I am really depressed, because I am not. I do not understand the meaning of defeat so long as there is life in me, and I will go on from the point at which I was obliged to leave off: just as sure as the war ends. And you will go with me.

I fear I have not said all this very well or very clearly. My brain is dull tonight. There are a great many thoughts in my head that I cannot get into any sort of proper order, so let’s leave off and become more practical.

I am going to try hard to get a few days off soon after Christmas, when I will have been here six months, but I can’t be sure I will manage it. You can be sure I will do my utmost.

I am only sending you thirty shillings this week but I will make it up when your cheque comes. I hope it will not make things difficult for you but I am rather broke. Everything is getting so damned expensive, as you know, and I eat more being up most of the night when I am here. These all-night raids are becoming expensive affairs.

The Public Library is still there – it was only the back that was burnt out. They have carted away many cart-fulls of charred books, papers and bookshelves – but the outside of the building looks the same. I suppose the roof has gone in places.

I believe Kitty is in the country, no one was hurt when the builder’s yard caught alight.

With all me love to you and Julian,

Clifford

Journal Entries

October 13, 1940

Most uncomfortable last night. On gate guard at St Mark’s, Fulham Road entrance.

Several bombs landed about two hundred yards away, in Ifield Road. Could not hear a plane. A perfect hail of metal. It clattered on the road and on top of our hut, bringing down slates from nearby roofs.

Another bomb rushed overhead. This hit the convent in Beaufort Street. No one hurt there. The nuns had all left.

‘All clear’ went 2am. Passed the remainder of the night in a damp Anderson shelter near Fulham Road gate, sitting in a deck chair with a couple of blankets wrapped round me, and my feet bitterly cold.

Slept very little. Wondered vaguely how long this sort of life would continue, and marvelled at the capacity for martyrdom in mankind. But then, they have not much choice.

Bryce came this morning. He is back from Cheshire where he says, things are comparatively quiet. Inevitably we talked of the war. Finished by agreeing that the Church had been an utter and complete failure. They had stepped off with the wrong foot almost at the start. Could not see any use in trying to retain the Church, as such, and hoped for a time when rational thinking would take its place. Agreed also that the hope was probably a vain one. Must go on trying however.

I said the only people who had consistently raised mankind from something not very far removed from animals, were the artists, and, we decided to admit, the right type of scientists too. The rest were nowhere.

Varnished the last moonlight painting. The wax has steadied it considerably.

Rereading this bit about artists and scientists I am reminded of something Chekhov wrote which I copied into one of my other diaries. Here it is:

‘I thought at the time that an artist’s instinct may sometimes be worth the brains of a scientist, that both have the same purpose, the same nature, and that perhaps in time as their methods become perfect they are destined to become one vast prodigious force, which now is difficult to imagine.’

It impressed me deeply, and no doubt made me say what I did.

Last night’s postscript to the news was again given by J. B. Priestley. He indulged in some cheap vulgar abuse of the Dictators, thereby reducing himself to their level. He went on to make some stupid remarks about ‘indiscriminate bombing’. This may or may not be good propaganda but it is disgusting to hear a man, who, I do not doubt, would wish to be considered a serious writer, talking like a cheapjack journalist.

In my experience the German bombing has not, on the whole, been indiscriminate. Time and time again their bombs have fallen within a radius of a few hundred yards of the power stations, Battersea and Albert Bridges, factories on the Battersea side of the river, railway lines or stations.  I should say that, considering the height at which our guns and barrage balloons force the raiders to fly, their aim has been reasonably good.

Strictly speaking all bombing is indiscriminate. But that goes for both sides. Would Mr Priestley or the people for whom he works deny that our R.A.F. in their raids on enemy power stations, armament factories, railways and so on have blown to pieces the women, children and homes of German workers? Can we be sure that every bomb hits its objective? If it is a few hundred yards off the mark the chances are that innocent people will be killed. Does he expect us to believe that all Germans are monsters? No, let’s be sensible. It is splitting hairs to claim that we are more careful than they. Each side would sooner destroy objectives of real use to the other, and meanwhile if the bombs do miss their intended objective at least they will terrorize your opponent, which is all to the good.

The use of force cannot be justified by such humbug, and when, as now, force must be met with force, why not be honest about it?

Shortly before the 9 o’clock news three bombs fell in the Lower Richmond Road not far from us. There was a direct hit on a factory. The other two, near misses.

We have been told that sometimes when our bombers could not be sure of hitting an objective they have returned with a full load. I have no means if denying this, but it does not affect my argument. Nothing will make me believe that the only sufferers from our raids over Germany have been wicked Nazis, soldiers or armament workers. Yet that is what our government apparently wishes us to believe. 

October 15, 1940

Raid started last night soon after dark. Called out to Chelsea Embankment opposite the Cremorne Arms, near that wretched power station.

Shops blown to pieces, houses gone. Huge crater. Gas escaping. Roadway under water from burst main and sewage. Bright moonlight. Surprisingly few casualties, but some trapped and others dead in the basements.

Our barrage very intermittent. Bombs whistled down about one every five minutes. High explosives that shook the ground, oil bombs, incendiaries – until 1 am. it went on.

Now and again a short lull, but most of the time the raiders passed overhead unscathed. Fires started on the Battersea side. Meanwhile we helped dig out a man, delirious but still alive; his wife had been killed. I drove back to St Mark’s First Aid Post with a poor old woman from Seaton Street who had gone right out with a heart attack. Back again to the river to stand by ready to attend to the casualties that a rescue party were trying to free from the cellar of a smashed shop. All the time the bombs kept on falling. I made a few sketches. Just rough notes on the back of a twenty packet of Players.

I found myself going over in my head those wonderful lines of Poe‘s ‘To Helen’:

I went through them, word perfect, from beginning to end. This surprised me, for a few days ago I had tried to recall them and had been unable to do so correctly.

I was not so much afraid as amazed, almost incredulous, that what was going on around me really was happening. Here by my lovely river, by Whistler’s river, Greaves’ river. The spire of Battersea Church stood out just as they had seen it. My memory went back to those still, pure nights at the beginning of the war. Those nights when I had learned to love the river – had begun to understand it. When I used to gaze for hours, trying to identify myself with its mood, then hurry home, my head full of its loveliness, and go to sleep still thinking of how I would paint it the following morning. Remembering this helped me.

At last the rescue leader reported it was impossible for his men to reach the victims in the cellar. Another squad relieved us and we drove back to the depot.

I lay down in my usual corner. It seemed quieter outside. Suddenly the raiders returned and the bombing began again. A shower of incendiaries fell on and around our building. They made a pattering noise like huge hailstones.

The garage outside our gate in Hortensia Road caught alight. Other fires started all around. The incendiaries in our grounds were soon put out, but the petrol in the garage opposite ignited and the building blazed furiously. Against the rolling clouds of smoke flew brilliant showers of sparks.

We were ordered out again. This time to Edith Grove where the upper floor of a whole row of houses was burning. Fires broke out all round us. We were encircled by fire. The National Furniture Depository, next to the burning garage was caught by the flames. The church in Tadema Road. Other buildings too.

In Edith Grove we were drenched by the water that fell back in spray as the firemen played their hoses on the blazing buildings. We tripped over hoses, rubble and glass, broken bricks.

At last we found the Warden who said there were no people in the building and he did not know why we had been sent for!

Gertrude Street Post to report and back to the depot once more.

The Six Bells had a direct hit – from the back. Of the twelve sheltering in the cellars two were killed. Others escaped with minor injuries.

At last a rest and we took deck chairs to one of the Anderson shelters in St Mark’s grounds. From 3.15am onwards it quietened down. I could not sleep and several times got out to walk about outside. Clouds were sweeping along and covering the moon. I looked at them gratefully.

The Furniture Depositories were still burning this morning when I came off duty. The efforts of the firemen were being watched by a crowd of people. They stood around in small groups, not talking much, just staring in a dull hopeless sort of fashion.

Warnings all day. A big one dropped whilst I was in the kitchen having a shave. Rocked the whole building and made me cut myself. Or maybe it was a time bomb went off.

Noted that none of the bombed people I spoke to on the Embankment last night seemed to have fallen for the comic BBC and newspaper propaganda about ‘indiscriminate bombing’. ‘Wish to Christ they’d hit the bloody power station. Then they might leave us alone.’ This seems to sum up the residents’ opinion.

Again, came to the conclusion that the German bombing had been carried out systematically and was, on the whole, remarkably accurate.

Last night showed up several weaknesses. For instance we had not anything like enough buckets, sand, or shovels. When the garage caught alight the engines of Hortensia Road Fire Station were all out at other fires. A few firemen were left in charge and they had only one hose. This was full of leaks and was practically useless. So the fire got completely out of hand, almost at the beginning.

Whilst waiting for the bus this evening I met Loris Rey*. He is having a hell of a time in the AFS. Buses all full and private cars, many with plenty of room, flashed by the tired crowds wanting to get home before the nightly warning. Rey very pessimistic about the war. Thought the end would only be a carve up and we might as well have the carve up now whilst we could still hang on to a large piece.

* Loris Rey (11 Dec. 1903 – 17 August 1962) was a sculptor from Scotland who studied at the Glasgow School of Art where, after gaining a diploma and winning a scholarship, he eventually became a teacher. He then moved to the Leeds School of Art, where he worked from 1927 to 1934. Then, after briefly going back to Scotland, he moved to London, where he appears to have been based for the rest of his life. In his capacity as a wartime firefighter serving with the AFS, he had an (uncredited) role playing a fireman called J.Rumbold in ‘Fires Were Started’, a 1943 film about the lives of firefighters during the Blitz which was written and directed by Humphrey Jennings. Editor

Last night has certainly shaken my faith in our present defences against night bombers. We heard over forty bombs come down to say nothing of incendiaries. They tipped them over us by the basketful.

Some months back a friend advised me to shut the studio and store all my work in the National Depository.

The studio is still intact.

A time bomb exploded outside St Stephen’s Hospital, Fulham Road, at 7.45 this morning.

It is now 8.30 pm Tuesday October 15th. Too tired to write any more.

October 16, 1940

Must have gone to sleep soon after I wrote the above. Woke at 6, having slept through an even worse raid than the last. The whole of the other shift were out all night. Even the papers admit that London had its worst and most widespread raid. Fires, lots of houses blown to bits. The same dreary, stupidly wicked story, and yet we are in such a mess that there is no other way.

I get tired of recording the damage. Lots Road district suffered again. At the other end of King’s Road the Duke of York’s Headquarters, they say. Manresa Road and the adjoining streets, lying as they do roughly halfway between these two areas, have escaped.

Met Ruth on my way to the Depot. The house she lives in in Sydney Street was hit last night. Three Rowley Smarts somewhere in the wreckage – ruined, no doubt.

King’s Road, particularly from Milman’s Street and on past the World’s End, presents a battered, miserable appearance. Many side streets are roped off  – placarded ‘Danger. Unexploded bomb’. Pressed against the barrier are the inhabitants staring down their street, a street blocked here and there with heaps of debris. On either side ragged gaps appear where the day before a house had stood.

‘They got us last night. I lost everything. Mrs So and so has gone,’ followed by gruesome details. I hear these bits of conversation on all sides as I walk by.

A direct hit on St Stephen’s Hospital again last night. Many casualties.

The Government tell us London is in the front line, and has been for two months past. Then why not move as many as possible from the hospitals into a safer area? Difficult, but surely not impossible.

How amusing it is to read the constant references to the magnificent courage of the young people. This praise from the same old men who never tired of criticizing us before the war. Well, it was just the same last time.

If we have a lot of fires tonight things are going to be nasty. Yesterday’s raid smashed up the water mains and the storage tanks are now mostly empty. Water will have to be pumped from the Thames.

The building opposite is still burning.

Letter to Marion

16 October, 1940

Wednesday

Dearest Mog,

I got your last two letters safely. I do not see what we can do about you and Julian coming nearer to London. In the first place anywhere within reach of London is far more unsafe than where you are now and then again transport of all kinds gets worse every day. I should spend all my time travelling backwards and forwards and I am tired out as it is. It is terribly hard on you I know, but until the war develops somewhere abroad, thus making it impossible for the Germans to devote so much attention to us, I fear we must just stick it out. It would, at present, be impossible for you to come back to London. Indeed, it is nothing short of criminal that any children are allowed to remain here; nor, even with Julian in a safe place, would I want you here as things are now.

Monday night was just hell. I was out in it most of the time. Two rows of houses were blown to bits near Lots Road. St. Stephens Hospital was hit and the Chelsea Fire Services had over one hundred calls. The bombs whistled down at the rate of one nearly every minute whilst the raid was at its height. This lasted for an hour, although they kept at us from 7 pm to well past 3 in the morning. They dropped dozens of flares which our gunners shot out. Incendiaries at one time fell all around dropping like huge hail stones. There were fires everywhere and by the light of these the planes came back and dropped more bombs. The furniture depositories outside our Depot blazed furiously, the petrol in the garage next door exploded. Half of Edith Grove was alight. The Six Bells was hit. I was drenched by the fireman’s hoses, the water mains were broken and flooded some of the streets and gas was escaping from broken pipes in the demolished houses. I thought of you as I was plunging through all this confusion and I somehow felt that at that very moment you were thinking of me and then I knew that I was perfectly safe. As the night went on and I had time to look about at odd moments whilst I was waiting for the rescue men to free some poor devils trapped in the remains of their home I found time to be thrilled by the impartial fashion in which nature continues to give us something beautiful to look at. There were marvellous colours in the smoke and flames and the sky was filled with brilliant sparks, blown fantastically about before they fell on and around us. I actually stood and made a few notes on the back of a cigarette packet, having no sketch book with me. I have not had time to use them yet which is damned annoying.

Considering the number of bombs of all kinds that were dropped, and last night was even worse, the number of casualties was small as the wireless says, although like most of us here I am getting pretty sick of the way they try to minimize the severity of the raids we are now having. The West End, indeed most of London, has been getting it badly nearly every night.

The war won’t last five years, or anything like it. It just can’t I am sure: it is more than either side can stand. I think it may end sooner than many people think and in an unexpected fashion. I shall be surprised if we win but I will be equally surprised if we lose. This may not seem very clear to you. It isn’t to me. It’s just a feeling.

I am trying, when I have the time and when I am not too tired, to make a series of drawings of the things I have seen. I have done about eight so far. One shows a woman clutching a child under her arm whilst another clings to her skirt. The woman is looking, terrified, at the sky behind her two others, one points upwards. The background – smashed houses, one still burning, bricks and rubble in the roadway. It is called “All Clear”. Very sketchy, and propaganda, but vital. Another shows a dead body wrapped in a blanket like a mummy, lying on a stretcher in the foreground. In the middle distance a group of rescue men are working amid what had once been a house. The background is the now familiar one of partly wrecked buildings. This has as a title a quotation from any newspaper, any day, – “no objective of any importance was hit.” So, you see how the war affects me. You may think it strange that I should work to make such gruesome things but I feel that if I do not do them now they will give me no peace, always asking to be put down and hindering me from going back to other things when the horror is over. For I still feel sure of my destiny although I won’t deny that I get frightened at times.

I hardly see anyone these days. Travelling is very difficult and so many streets are blocked by unexploded bombs that buses make long detours and sometimes are off their usual route for nearly a mile. I believe Leo and Celia are at the Arts this week but I have not seen either of them for months but I did see Ted some days ago. He is still at the Redfern although their windows were blown in when the top end of Burlington Gardens was hit some time ago. They are trying to get another show together but I doubt anyone will go to it.

Ala Story has written and asked me to send twenty pictures to America. She has got a gallery in New York. It is a risk of course but they might as well run the risk of getting torpedoed at sea as bombed in London. What a mess! However, I will paint more in any case.

Give my love to Julian and take care of yourself and him. I wish you were far away from any bombing but I do comfort myself that you are both in a much safer place than London.

Lots of love and write again soon.

Clifford

Enclosed with the letter above was this letter to Marion from Clifford’s mother, Isobella.

15 October, 1940

My Dear Marion,

I was so glad to have news of your dear little Julian, I’m sure he is developing now, it seems everyday they advance after the first twelve months.

Yes, London is going through a very bad time, also the suburbs. The night before last the lower part of our road was bombed, a small factory smashed and a block of Council flats off the main road, but no one killed, it is a dreadful time, and one thinks the world must have got in a bad state indeed for us to suffer like this. I feel glad I am here for Clifford to come to, (very down at times) but he can have something hot, a hot bath and a comfortable night’s rest to keep him going.

The people in the flats, although I knew some of them before the Pater’s death, are very kind and good to me. There is a young Doctor and his young wife in the top flat and she gets so nervous when he is away on duty. It is a strange life, we all get undressed about 7 (the raid warning is usually at 7.15) and then we put on our dressing gowns and are ready to go down and shelter about 10 o’clock. We all lie on our divans and on the whole sleep – I am generally the first to get up at 4 and get up stairs to go to bed for an hour or so after a cup of tea.

Clifford comes every other night, so he comes up and I have breakfast ready and after a hot bath and a shave he is ready to start again. Dorothy is at (?)*. Two days after she left Esher the chimney pots were blown off and the bedroom ceiling fell in. How thankful I felt they had left.

* This word is indecipherable. Editor

One seems just to have to take their chance wherever one is. Oh, if it would only end and we all could meet again!

Do not trouble to send a rabbit, I do not eat them and transport is so difficult but it was nice of you to suggest it. I manage on the rations, but when one is alone it does not seem of much interest what you eat. Please excuse this pencil and bad writing but it is so hard to settle with the air warnings on and off all day.

I hope all your people are well.

Kiss Julian for me,

With much love

Yours affectionately,

Mater

Journal Entries

October 17, 1940

Last night quiet, at least in Chelsea. Up all night, first squad out, but we were not called.

Bad in Fulham. Land mine, Lillie Road district, that’s where Greaves used to live. Twenty houses down and many others badly damaged.

No gas at the studio. Finished a drawing I had started the day before yesterday. Also began one from the sketches I made last Monday whilst at the Seaton Street job. I think there is a painting in this.

‘Going to Shelter’, 1940, by Clifford Hall.

October 18, 1940

Landmine, Finborough Road area last night, also bomb in Ashburnham Mansions, midway between our depot and the power station. Bomb crater in the grounds of St Marks. Kings Cross station hit. This is just a little of the damage. I suppose we are all wondering how long it can go on.

Transport gets worse every day. Organization in getting streets cleared and craters filled is bad in many districts. There is far less co-operation among private car drivers than there was during the General Strike. It is comparatively rare for a car with room for two or more to offer a lift, or to indicate on the windscreen the place they are going to.

There is an every man for himself feeling, except among the poor. A brutal scramble to get under cover before dark and sirens.

After lunch Corporal Bill Rowe called a parade. ‘Men,’ he said, ‘there’s a rumour that we may ‘ave a visit from the Dook and Duchess of Kent. It won’t do you no good if they do come, and it won’t do you no ‘arm if they don’t. Anyway, I want the place swep up nice and tidy.’

As it happened they did come. I was on the gate when they walked out into the yard. They had come in at the other entrance and were accompanied by various local celebrities. The nurses and men raised a somewhat ragged cheer as their Highnesses got into the car. The gate guard, myself, saluted smartly. At that moment off went the sirens, thus giving a touch of drama to what would otherwise have been a somewhat flat exit.

Dukes, Duchesses and motor cars don’t mix. I am a romantic. Let us have them with the proper accompaniments, or not at all.

‘Dug out’, Chelsea’, 1940, by Clifford Hall. Imperial War Museum Collection.

Letter to Marion

18 October, 1940 

Dearest,

I had a letter from you yesterday, just after I had posted one to you. I am still very well and London still continues to “take it” as we are told. Actually there is nothing else we can do at the moment. I am thoroughly sick of it and I have yet to meet anyone who isn’t. One has a feeling of complete helplessness and I begin to wonder if anything is worth it. For I cannot get out of my head the fact that those who stand to benefit by the war, those few, are not the ones who suffer in any way at all. I see on all sides, a complete lack of understanding or true warmheartedness on the people in good circumstances. “It’s the poor wot ‘elps the poor” is only too true. There are so few exceptions that the contrast is all too obvious. The present Government’s treatment of the civil population is nothing short of criminal. Imagine that impudent callousness of telling a city that is in the front line and yet still leaving large hospitals filled with women and children, workhouses crammed with old people, all without any kind of proper deep shelter, of leaving these people in that very font line! Did they have the hospitals and almshouses in the front line trenches in 1914-17? It hardly bears talking about.

Someone told Churchill he looks like a bulldog. It’s most unfortunate and has apparently made quite the wrong impression! I think that neither he or his advisors have yet the faintest idea of what they are up against. They still talk of putting Europe back where she was before. Fatuous. Has Europe shown the slightest inclination of wanting to go?

Would they put back the Spanish Government? I seem to remember that our people gave Franco their tacit support not so long ago.

St. Stephens Hospital in the Fulham Road has had three bombs this week. The first made a crater in the road outside that you could put a couple of buses in. The other two were direct hits and three whole wards were demolished. You can imagine the result. We have no gas and most of the water mains are broken. Hundreds of people are homeless in Chelsea and Fulham alone and the problem of looking after them is haphazard to say the least of it. Intentions are good but everywhere hampered by silly regulations.

Your money has not come yet so I am sending 30 shilli9ngs again and I do hope you can manage on it. I am terribly sorry about it but I can’t get any extra from anywhere. If it has not come by next week I will sell my two savings certificates which I easily can do and would have done this time only I really thought your letter would have got here this week.

I believe you asked for news about various people. Well, since Snippetts went Dinah has been working at the Gateways*. Julie is a full-time Air Raid Warden. Steve is rather scared and won’t join the ARP now although he was keen enough before the trouble started and we are now understrength. Marjorie, however, is driving an ambulance. Olive Mcbullock is a canteen worker; she is here sometimes and does damn well. Mac’s art school has been bombed. Loris Rey is in the Fire Brigade – I saw him the other night. He was very fed up and said that as he thought the end of the war would only be a carve up we might just as well come to terms now whilst we are still strong enough to hang on to a big share. There seems a good deal of sense in this. If our stupid people would only come to a clear understanding with Russia, we already seem to be pretty sure of America, something might result that worked and save all this wicked and pointless murder and destruction. If things go on as they are it will not be long before much of the London we knew will be gone. In Berkeley Square the bombs completing the work begun before the war by the owners of beautiful properties full of tradition; anxious only to make more money out of the sites. Carlton House Terrace too has been damaged, yet there was a real fight to save it from the housebreakers a year or so ago. In a sense does it matter? If it isn’t one it’s the other. Leicester Square has had a landmine and the Studio offices are gone, yet how few mourned Reynold’s house a few doors away and the Academy did not try to save it when it was pulled down before the war started. All this is one of the necessary evils of a world interested almost entirely in profits. Sometimes they use a pickaxe, sometimes a bomb. In fact all over London the damage is appalling. I suppose you read about St. Pauls, St James, Piccadilly is very badly damaged. Everywhere you go is the same and each night it piles up. The wireless and the papers, of course, make as light as they can of it, but even they let the tips of the cat’s ears out of the bag now and again. He will jump right out soon, for people must go to and from work, use their eyes and tell their friends.

* Having first opened in 1931 and legally becoming a members’ club in 1936, the legendary Gateways club, situated at 239 Kings Road, Chelsea, while certainly being a place frequented by artists, may not have had, despite what is now indicated on Wikipedia, any particular association with lesbians or bohemian society at this relatively early point in its history, as management of the club was not taken over by Ted Ware until 1943. Ware also didn’t meet his future, and probably bisexual, wife and business partner Gina Cerrato at the Gateways until 1947. In any event, Gateways didn’t become a women’s only club until 1967. “Snippets” was presumably another bar or club in Chelsea where Dinah had previously worked. As mentioned earlier, Dinah was one of Clifford’s models. Editor

I am not afraid of the outcome, it will not, I feel sure be too bad and as I wrote last time, I think that if we can’t win at least, we can’t be beaten. That’s the position as I see it.

All my love to you both,

Clifford

PS I am still doing at least one watercolour a week, not bad considering, so there is nothing wrong with me. I take an intelligent interest in everything, and I am looking forward to seeing you after Christmas. I am sure I can fix it, having put out a few discrete feelers Will send you Winnie’s address when I have time to find it. Will also try to get the coat off to you soon.

‘Marion wearing a Green Scarf’ by Clifford Hall.

Journal Entries

October 19,1940

Started a drawing from some sketches I made at Seaton Street last Monday night. Walked down there after lunch for a few more details. Thanks to Ministry of Information permit I was allowed to stand in a roped off deserted street in which there was a time bomb. Coming back up Dartrey Road half a pane of glass from a top window fell on my head. Of course, I had not got a hat on. But no harm done. It simply glanced off and fell to little bits all around me.

Went up to town, 4 o’clock. In Leicester Square the Studio offices have gone, indeed the entire corner on which they stood. Lots more damage, particularly in Shaftesbury Avenue.

Arts Theatre, 5 o’clock to see Leo and Celia.

Back to Putney by underground to South Kensington and then 14 bus. 6.30pm – underground packed with people; most with provisions for the night including blankets and pillows. Lying on the stone platforms. Hundreds and hundreds of them. All the other stations along the line packed with hundreds more. First time I had seen it although it has been going on since the serious raids on London commenced. Intolerable conditions and foul air. Could not imagine myself putting up with it, whatever happened.

The ‘indiscriminate bombing’ school perhaps have some support for their statements when they cite the damage in the West End. Yet it can still be argued that to hinder traffic, smash up shops and offices, damage the telephone system, cut us off from our gas, light and water and generally disorganize business, is legitimate. It is – if you admit war to be legitimate. I don’t. The war we now have to fight is the inevitable result of a system of which we are part. When, if ever, we admit that, some progress may be made.

October 21, 1940

Row at the Depot yesterday. This has been working up for some time. A number of the men refuse to do gate guard at night unless a shelter is provided. They are also demanding that the basement is shored up and sandbagged. Not unreasonable. Actually, something is being done to the basement – after two months of Blitz – and the authorities are going to think over the question of building a blast proof shelter at the gate!

Roughed in a painting from the Seaton Street sketches. Should be able to do something with it. Rather worried about the treatment of the trees on the right. Waiting for a bus in the Fulham Road this evening saw just the trees I wanted. Will make a sketch of them some time and fit it to the composition.

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A door opens and an elderly woman steps out. She looks up at the sky, apprehensively. With one hand she pulls a black shawl round her shoulders, with the other she makes the sign of the cross. She hurries off down the street.
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