including letters written to his wife Marion and some other correspondence
Letter to Marion
2 October, 1941
Thursday
Dearest Mog,
I do hope you are coming on Saturday. I have got the Sunday off. We can go to the Chelsea Fair. It is really worth seeing and a great success already and then have a wonderful night together. Come straight here. I have a terrible lot of cleaning up to do. Have not had a moment this week. Do come.
Longing to see you. All my love to you both,
Clifford
PS Dumps will be coming on Saturday too.
Journal Entry
October 4, 1941
I dreamed of her last night.
I was walking down a long arched passage. It was filled with hurrying people. Suddenly I saw her. She wore a long dress of dull gold and her hair hung in dark heavy masses. And she put her hand on my arm, so gently, the merest breath of a touch. She said she had been waiting for me.
For a moment I saw her absolutely distinctly, saw the actual drawing of her that I know so well. But only for a moment.
Then I was awake.
Letter to Marion
4 October, 1941
Dearest Mog,
I was very sorry you could not come today but of course it is no fun if you have a bad cold and much better to leave it until next weekend. I wish I could have said more to you last night when you phoned, but the office was full of people.
I do hope you will soon be better. Come next Saturday. I will get the day off and it will be far better for me than Friday as I must go to the Redfern in the morning and go back to the Depot in the afternoon to collect my pay; so it would a cut up day. Far better to come on the Saturday and try to stay ’til Monday if it is at all possible.
I would have liked you to have seen our Fair, particularly Ray Farmer as a mermaid. It has been a great success.
I hope Julian is better. Do try to get a little rest and look after yourself so that you can enjoy yourself next weekend.
All my love to you both,
Clifford
Journal Entries
October 6, 1941
Unexpectedly, Celia came to see me today. We walked in the park. Evening – saw The Sleeping Princess – Sadlers Wells Company, New Theatre. A poor production, but what did that matter, I was with her. She will come and pose on Friday. ‘We must do something that will make people cry when they see it – not because it will be sad, but because it will be so lovely.’
Someday, my dear, if you read this I want you to know how I understood the reasons for your unhappiness, and how I want to help you, always. I remember those few big tears. I felt them against your face when I kissed you. Neither of us spoke of it; yet I understood, I believe I understood. And I believe too that you knew it.
I am writing this during a lecture on fire bombs and this sentence has just forced itself on me. ‘Advance towards the bomb holding the half-filled sandbag on a level with your face, to protect the eyes. Do not throw the sandbag at it. You might miss: but place the sandbag carefully, almost tenderly on the bomb.’
October 13, 1941
Marion stayed for the weekend. She left this morning. I was very sad and did not want her to go. I need her and I need Celia. There is no way out of it. I have them both, and I am alone.
October (?), 1941
By his side, palely golden, her coils of dark hair spread over the cushions. It is night and the boat moves slowly across the water. The sail shows a dull rich red in the moonlight. The oars of the rowers make short even strokes. On the far bank stand great buildings with painted columns and here and there a flaming torch lights up the strange pictures of the Gods and Goddesses that decorate the walls. He had seen this many times before and it seemed the boat started from nowhere and arrived nowhere. He had no recollection of beginning or ending the voyage. The boat, the night, the painted temples, the red sale curving in the breeze; these were always the same. And by his side palely golden in the moonlight her coils of dark hair spread out over the cushions.
The boat became a bed. His companion had not changed. He realized that she would never change, and that she would return again and again all through his life. Perhaps she would become less and less real, until …..
Letters to Marion
18 October, 1941
Saturday
Dearest Mog,
Saturday
Dearest Mog,
How are you? I have made a few shillings extra this week so I am sending you some of it. Next week I will be able to send you more. You must come here again soon. I think I will get some more leave before Christmas – unless raids start here soon. It is difficult to say. Things look pretty bad to me. I only hope I am wrong. Please do not be unhappy. We will be happy again I promise you. I did not see you for anything like long enough last week.
Don’t forget about the cards if you can find the time. I could easily colour some in the evenings if you draw them out. Draw one then make a tracing of it and mark through, half a dozen or a dozen, the same, does not matter; and just redraw the traced ones here and there where they may need a bit of sharpening up.
Write soon. Lots of love to you and Julian. Tell me how he is – I am very well myself only continually exasperated and either full of life or utterly miserable and worried about things I could not name, vague, formless fears with no real foundation. I have stuck to the no smoking!
Clifford
29 October, 1941
Dearest Mog,
I got your letter yesterday and I know how worried you must be about Julian but all you told me is an inevitable part of the wretched business and he will get well again. I should take the doctor’s advice about the injections. He should know. I will try to get some leave next month so that I can come to see you, but you must tell me if you would sooner I waited until Julian is better. I wish I was with you now. It might be some help.
I will send some more money as soon as I can. I am sorry to send it in little bits at a time but that’s how I get it and if I waited to save it up, well, it would just go on other things, you understand.
Send me a few lines whenever you can and let me know how Julian is – and yourself too. Look after yourself, and you must rest if only for a little while each day. Be good and try.
Lots of love to you both,
Clifford
Journal Entry
November 3, 1941
Commenced to paint the panels of the doors in Margaretta Terrace, for Bill.
Letters to Marion
Undated letter – probably written on 5 November, 1941.
Wednesday
Dearest Mog,
I had another small instalment on the picture from Rugby. Here it is, before I spend it. Will send some more next week, I hope. Write soon. Is Julian worse? You said this was the bad week.
Is your cold better? send me a postcard. Will write again on Friday. Lots of love to you both,
Clifford
6 November, 1941
Dearest Mog,
Thank you for your letter with the cheque & money. I am sending you a cheque for £3-12-0; you can fill in the doctor’s name. I also sent you a pound yesterday. Keep that towards other expenses. There is no need for me to send you less than the two pounds a week. Anyway, I suppose there is the rent bill to think of so I will send you extra to put towards that whenever I can. It won’t hurt him to wait a little while for that. Others keep me waiting and why should he be outside the vicious circle?
I do hope you’re better soon and that and this week will see the worst of it over for Julian. I think of you both every day.
I am sorry I have not sent you very long letters. Everything is such a rush and I have had a great desire to paint and have been painting. I have done, since I last saw you, a 24 x 20, two 18 x 14’s and some drawings, and now I am painting the doors in Bill’s sitting room. I can’t afford any more canvas and I must paint on something. I have taken the river as a theme*. In the top left panel I have done the early morning, low tide, the buildings on the far bank very lovely in colour. In the right hand panel a perspective of the Battersea reach by moonlight, very romantic with starts in the sky. These are the two tall panels. I have not done the two square shaped panels underneath but I hope to complete them soon. In one I plan to put women bathing, rather like the panel I painted last year; and in the other, I think another night scene with the embankment and two lovers leaning against it looking across the dark waters.
* In May, 2021, Bill’s daughter Janet wrote us an email in which she recalled: “In the sitting room, which had foldback doors into the dining room, Clifford had painted the panels with embankment scenes. Sadly, a long, long time later, when my husband and I peered through the windows of the house which was for sale, the doors were bare.” – Does this mean that Clifford’s paintings were painted over, or were the foldback doors replaced? We do not know. Editor
It is beginning to look very lovely and I might get a commission out of it some time, who knows?
There is to be another United Artists show at the Academy next January. I have an invitation and, for a change, several pictures to choose from. There is the usual difficulty about frames, but that will be solved somehow.
I think I will be able to come and see you at the end of the month. You can let me know, in a week or so, if that will be all right.
It is very cold here, but I guess it is in the country too. I hear all our men are to be called up next month – up to 35 – so I am still on the safe side. I have no hesitation in being glad about it. This is a perfectly horrible job and gets me badly at times, but I never forget that it does give me some time to work at something that matters.
Write soon. Lots of love to you both,
Clifford
Undated letter – probably written on 7 November, 1941.
Friday
Dearest Mog,
Here is the chocolate at last. I hope it is not bust when it arrives.
I started a bit larger painting today. Really a hell of a problem which, at my present rate, will probably keep me going for six weeks. It’s very interesting and I hope to take it a long way.
I am seeing Stanley tonight and will bring the picture here and clean and varnish it – it wants doing badly.
Love to you and Julian. Write soon,
Clifford
8 November, 1941
Dearest Mog,
I hope you and Julian are better. Do look after yourself as well. This is very cold weather. Let me know if you got my last letter with the cheque in it. I think I can be certain of coming to see you at the end of the month. I am going to try for five days. I miss not having seen you for so long. As soon as Julian is better you must start coming up again. The raid was nothing serious the other night. I believe there were a few bombs somewhere in the north west of London, a lot of gunfire but it was soon over. I was out at the time.
Write soon, and I do hope you will have better news to tell me about Julian and about yourself. I lie awake at night thinking of you and wishing you were with me.
Lots of love,
Clifford
PS You must certainly come and see the show at the RA in January. The last one was really good, and if it is quiet here you must stay like you did before. I will let you know when I write again if I have been able to get my leave. It should be all right – on compassionate grounds!
Vive la liberté!
I am putting a letter from Bill in with this.*
* Unfortunately, this letter is missing from the envelope. Editor
11 November, 1941
Dearest Mog,
I was so happy to get your letter and that Julian seems to be a little bit better. I am sure you must be feeling pretty bad yourself and I do hope that you are over the worst of it now. I could come and see you on the 28th of this month and stay for a few days. Let me know when you write again if that date is all right as I want to fix it definitely at this end.
I have finished the doors and I really think I have made them look exciting and very pictorial. I am now thinking of decorating the mantelpiece and other parts of the room. Of course I will do some for you someday and make them very beautiful.
I saw mother on Saturday and she is much better. I will have a talk to her about Christmas but she will have her own way, just like her mother I met Casson * this morning – she was up, for the day, from Essex. And sends you her love. She still likes the country.
I’ve got two pictures in the Civil Defence Artists show which opens tomorrow. Ian Gordon gave me a nice mention in this month’s Studio.
Write soon. Lots of love to you and Julian,
Clifford
18 November, 1941
Tuesday
Dearest Mog,
I have fixed to come and see you on the 29th – Saturday week – and I hope I will not have to go back until the following Thursday. That will be a nice long time. I hope Julian is now beginning to get better and you are having a bit easier time, although I expect that with Lena ill you are still having a hello f a lot to do. I do hope she will soon be all right again. I wish you could get away for a while and if I can make the money, I will let you have it. I don’t suppose I would be able to come myself. Things are very unsettled here. All the men up to 35 will be called up and my lot were given the choice of the fire service or the army. Needless to say I chose the former, although only four did *. There is talk of disbanding our lot entirely. It all seems a muddle. It may not, however, come to that and people of my age may stay on as we are, no one seems to know. I cannot begin to say how completely tired I am of the whole business and the mess it is making of life – but there is absolutely nothing one can do about it, so far as I can see. We are all caught up in something far bigger than ourselves and sometimes I think that the man who can forget about himself and rush into the thick of it is best off in the end – even if the end comes quickly. It is so bloody difficult to work and yet my head is full of things that I can’t get rid of.
* Clifford was 37 at this time. In the event, he wasn’t conscripted into the army or fire service. The intensive period of bombing of London by the Germans, known as “The Blitz”, ended in May 1941. There then followed a period of about two and a half years, known as “The Lull”, when only a few small air raids took place. Then, between January and May 1994, the Germans launched a new campaign of bombing raids which Londoners came to call the ‘Little Blitz’, or ‘Baby Blitz’, which caused the deaths of 1500 people. Then in June, shortly after D-Day (June 6th), the Germans commenced firing their new missiles, known as V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets, from mainland Europe at Britain. From June 1944 to March 1945, a total of 6725 of these weapons were launched at Britain. Of these, 2340 hit London, causing 5475 deaths, with 16,000 injured and over 1.5 million homes damaged or destroyed. Editor
At times I cannot let myself think too much of the present, or of the past that is gone. I wish you were here but I can only tell myself that someday you will be. Let’s have a few happy days at the end of the month, and for the moment forget everything else.
I read “Nocturne” years ago. I remember telling you to read it. I thought it was very lovely but very sad. Loveliness always has something of sadness to me. Perhaps others feel differently about it and I am morbid. I believe that’s what they call it.
“Careless rapture” never meant anything to me. I believe it is utterly impossible to alter one’s nature, one has to accept the material that is at hand and make something out of it.
I am sorry this is such a miserable letter but remember that I love you and I am longing to see you. And I will hold you in my arms, warm against me in the night, and so forget for a while all my sadness and I will remember that there is still plenty of time and I am strong enough to do all there is to do.
Love,
Clifford
Journal Entries
November 19, 1941
At breakfast in the canteen I felt all my resolution slowly ebbing from me. How this place saps my energy!
Went to Conduit Street and painted a sketch of Emie*. Had decided on this days ago.
* Emie, aka ‘Emie of Conduit Street’, worked as a prostitute in Mayfair during the war. She posed for Clifford in the mornings, for free, and worked in the afternoons and evenings. She was probably French or Anglo-French and was evidently interested in art and literature. She is the subject of a number of paintings, drawings and etchings by Clifford Hall. Editor
Back at the studio I got my paint box ready, picked it up, then told myself I was too tired and would do a drawing instead. It took less effort. I went through this performance twice. Told myself again I must paint, grabbed the box and hurried out.
Emie was sleepy and the stove was not lit. I sat in her terrible little waiting room looking at a brochure issued by a nudist camp somewhere in Hampshire; trying to avoid seeing the ghastly reproduction of a highland glen in a shiny black frame hanging on the wall in front of me. Meanwhile Emie made the bed and lit the fire – even made coffee.
I asked her to take off her blouse and skirt. She threw them over a chair and sat on the bed in the pose we had last week. I started to paint. My hand just would not keep steady. It horrified me. I found no interest in the pose. ‘Change it,’ I said, ‘lie down coiled up.’ She arranged herself. Excellent. That meant something. With turpentine and a clean rag I wiped off my first start and commenced again. Very soon I was happy. Emie did not move. She slept, and snored gently. She remained perfectly still for nearly three hours.
Back in the studio at 2 o’clock. Workmen were repairing the gutter and the broken skylight. A scaffolding took up half the floor space, the long pole thrusting out through the windows to support a narrow platform on which one of the men worked.
I put my sketch on the easel and did a little more to it.
High up, behind me, in an empty space left by a broken pane of glass in the skylight sat the other workman. With hammer and chisel he chipped out the old putty. Bits of it fell on to the floor. He spoke to me. He had an Italian accent. He stopped chipping as I turned round and smiled down at me. ‘She looks nice sleeping there,’ he said. He spoke as if he shared a secret. As if Emie had made a sort of bond between us. As if it was understood that all painters had love affairs with their models, and nothing I could say would make him think any different.
I spent the evening with Bill, listening to music.
‘Emie Asleep’, 1941, by Clifford Hall. No colour photograph currently available.
November 23, 1941
Worked at the picture of Jack Neave. Think I have improved it.
Letter to Marion
22 November, 1941
Dearest Mog,
This time next week I will be with you. I will bring some margarine and some lard and some sugar. Do you remember what you did with your deposit book? I paid 18/1 into the bank for you this week and they told me there was still eight bob or so in there. I have started saving again and I should have waited longer before opening the box but I wanted you to be able to get a pound out if you wanted it.
I hope Julian is still getting better and that you are having an easier time. I am looking forward to seeing you very much. Your last letter made me very happy.
How is Lena? Better, I hope. Don’t worry, I have got my fur coat on the bed now.
I had a letter from Hunter this week. He asked after you. He wants to buy two drawings. I fear there will be some delay as I have to get a permit before I can send them to Belfast. I hope it goes through before Christmas. I must spend some money on frames but I’ll send you some of it when it arrives. Ted has given me a frame, about 6ft by 4ft. One day I will do a full length of you in a velvet dress for it. I feel I could do it well now.
Lots of love to you both,
Clifford
PS If you know, don’t forget to tell me times of buses when you write. Do you want any matches? I can bring some if you do. Chocolate very hard to get now, but will try.