including letters written to his wife Marion and some other correspondence
Journal Entries
September 1, 1940
A warm, sunny, perfect day. Tired out. Had been standing by until 4 this morning. Painted this afternoon until about 4.30. Slept till seven. About nine I went for a walk by the river. The intense colour of the day still lingered on the buildings, in the sky and on the water. But there was a unity about it as of the night that was about to envelop it. I stayed and watched the darkness slowly approach and I felt as though it all belonged to me and nothing else mattered in the world.
September 3, 1940
I cannot accept that belief in a sort of intimate personal relationship between God and the individual. I can see no evidence of it about me nor reason why such a relationship should exist. Beyond that I have a belief in someone who, for me, is God, but he has not got those curious likes and dislikes that the majority of Christians attribute to him. They make him in their own image. Do I make him in mine?
Letter to Marion
5 September, 1940
Chelsea, Thursday
Dearest Mog,
I had both your letters yesterday, although I see the first was written last Saturday. I am glad my present for Julian arrived safely.
These days my time at the depot is practically a 24 hour job. I never take my clothes off whilst I am there and even have to keep all equipment on most of the day and night. There was a big raid last night and I really thought we were going out at last, however, very few actually got through to central London, although Carlyle Square stretcher party were called out. A bomb fell somewhere at the top of Sloane Street but did not explode. My own work is suffering badly and will do so as long as things are like this. But it had to come and must just be gone through with, it won’t last forever.
I will send you at least eight pounds each month and more when it is possible. If your cheque reaches me a bit late sometimes I can always send the thirty shillings that week and make it up the next, when it has arrived.
I did my first aid exam last night. The sirens went when there was still an hour to go so I didn’t have time to run over carefully what I had written and so missed a few points. I expect they will allow for that. Anyway, I think I have passed it with a bit to spare.
The drawing of Simeon Solomon is a head, a late one, feeble in a sense, but most interesting. I have also acquired, in a roundabout fashion, a very fine oil of a nude man. It may be Italian but it has a suggestion of an early Géricault. It’s a fine bit of painting though and that’s all that matters to me. It wants relining but that will have to wait.
I am worried about you in a way and yet not greatly worried, if you understand what I mean, for I have no feeling that anything bad will happen to either of you.
I am happy the christening and birthday went off well and I hope with all my heart that we will have a real celebration next September when we will be together.Thank you for writing such wonderful things to me.
On no account take any notice of Peter’s stupid methods of training children. Your own ideas are the only reasonable ones and I would be most unhappy to think of Julian ever being treated in any other way.
Love to you both, I will be writing again on Saturday.
Clifford
PS Your letter with the cheque came just as I was going to post this.
I will send £2 when I write on Saturday.
Don’t worry about I am feeling very well and I love you,
Clifford
Thanks for Fairlie Harmar‘s letter. The show opens next week. I will let you know what it is like.
Journal Entries
September 6, 1940
A week of raids most of the day and night*. I am too tired to paint on my days off duty. I did, however, make a copy in pen and wash of a reproduction of a little nude by Watteau. As far as one can tell from a reproduction the picture is magnificent. It reminds me of Manet. There is the same elimination of half tones, big simple drawing and exquisite handling of the edges.
* Most of these events in this particular were probably air-raid warnings rather than actual raids in which bombs fell on London. Editor
Watteau must have thought she was very lovely and he has made me think so too. It’s grand to be able to do that.
Last night we saw three brilliant flares slowly descending apparently directly above Lots Road Power Station; in reality probably some distance behind it. They floated down very slowly, lighting up the buildings. Fascinating and beautiful to watch with their scarcely discernible little tails of smoke. No bombs followed them. Towards London the sky was red. Hortensia Road fire engine was called.
These nights are warm and starry and they have an air of unreality. Sometimes one hears the sound of a distant bomb exploding, there are flashes, and the long beams of the searchlights are everywhere. Now and again the noise of a plane that one can never see, and then a number of shells will burst, high up in the night sky. Somewhere, I suppose, amid those shell bursts is a German plane and down below, all over London, people like ourselves are suddenly blown to pieces or horribly maimed. And in Germany too the same thing is happening.
Hour after hour we sit in the dimly lit corridor with all our equipment on. The piano has been dragged out of the recreation room, someone thumps popular songs and the men howl the choruses. Others play ‘Housey Housey’ and above the singing Mac’s voice can be heard yelling the numbers, ‘Clickety click! Sixty-six! Number seven! Blind twenty! Kelly’s eye! Top of the ‘ouse! Ninety!’
I vaguely try to find some pictorial interest in the scene, but I am far too tired and the tall rubber boots make my feet and legs ache. I slowly go over in my head all the things I have done, the pictures I have painted, and the ones I am going to paint. I think of Marion and of my son and I wonder if I will ever be able to help him to understand that in spite of its apparent stupidity life is a wonderful experience.
About 3 am., after the ‘All clear’, we are told to ‘stand down’. Still dressed, I fall asleep in a deck chair, and about 6 am I wake to find that someone has put a rolled-up blanket between my head and the back of the chair and has tucked another blanket round me. My corporal, Charlie Barrett, who has a large butterfly tattooed on the back of his right hand and who can never open his mouth without swearing, is grinning at me. ‘It got bleeding cold mate,’ he says, ‘so I covered you up.’
September 7, 1940
Bill came about four. Had tea. A raid not long after. We went out in the street and saw a few planes. Pretty violent gunfire. A lot of fire engines called out. ‘All clear’ about six.
Bill left at 7.30 and I got a bus to Putney*. Another warning at 8.45 or thereabouts. Took Mother to the shelter and decided to get home. There was a vast orange glow in the sky, down river. Marvellous. Made a few lines from the top of the bus to aid my memory of the effect. Had something to eat at Jimmie’s restaurant. Walked home and arrived just before 10. I made a pastel sketch of what I had seen. Went to the Cadogan Club for a drink. The glow in the sky fiercer than ever. It must be a terrific fire. A little after 11 decided to go back and get a decent night’s sleep. The door to the King’s Road was open and just as I was going out there was a rapid swishing sound followed by a big thud which shook the building and the ground under my feet. Thought it best to shut the door and go down for another drink, which I did. Just before midnight I felt that I would get that sleep after all, so here I am. There are still bangs round about and a continual sound of planes.
* Putney was where the artist’s mother lived, in Star and Garter Mansions, Lower Richmond Road. Editor
Letter to Marion
7 September, 1940
Chelsea
Saturday
Dearest Mog,
Here is the money. It is just one raid after another now, sometimes seven a day. Nothing serious has happened at Chelsea but other places not far away have been getting a bad time. I will write more next week. Very tired now. Love to you both,
Clifford
Please write soon to me and tell me how you are.
Regrettably, most of Marion’s wartime letters to Clifford have not survived. Here is a transcript of one that has. Editor
8 September, 1940
Sunday
My Beloved Gog,
I was so very glad to get your letter. After the news of last night’s raid and all those casualties. I simply exist for your next one. I’m anxious to the point of franticness about you. It’s no use telling me not to be. I just sit here visualizing horrors with you out having to be in the midst of them. If only the brutes would stop. What can be the outcome of all this senseless destruction? I know you’ve a wonderful faith of our survival but I’m truly frightened. So needless it all is – so utterly unintelligent.
Last night strangely enough was a very quiet one for us. We were so tired, and having had sleepless and broken nights all last week, decided to go to bed at 10 sharp. I fell into a very deep sleep and it seemed hours afterwards (in reality only 1½hours) that there was a hammering on the door and Peter was urgently told to hurry up and dress and be out at the Home Guard post at once. The whole village had manned the posts and dug-outs. Harmer – the bus man – came along soon afterwards and talked to us through Pearl’s bedroom window. We asked him what it was all about but he wouldn’t tell and begged us not to go out but to stay where we were.
Shortly after he left, Peter returned for a candle – his post is at the Cricket Pavilion in the next field – and said there was talk of troop-carrying barges seen to have left Brest, working their way towards Ireland! And he didn’t return after that until 9 this morning. He’s been called out again tonight, poor thing, so perhaps there’s something in it. It seems some people now say the Germans were heading for the South Coast and some adhere to the original story. I don’t know if there’s any truth in either statement but there seems to be a scare somewhere. The wireless – peculiarly – said nothing about it today.
Hack on his way from Blandford camp to Plymouth stopped off here for tea yesterday with two colleagues. It was wonderful seeing him and I was most regretful when he had to leave. He looks very well indeed. And most smug about something. I do sincerely hope what he’s doing is effective when it does – if it does – come to invasion.
I’m so dreadfully sorry you haven’t been able to work my darling. I wonder if, after all, you shouldn’t have retired to the country and waited to be called up, working meanwhile. It’s so difficult to know what to do in a dreadful time like this.
A bright spot for me this week – last week I mean – was a present for Julian from Stanley. An egg cup and spoon in Jensen’s silver. It’s perfectly lovely. A simple economical design but beautifully heavy and rich looking. I’m so pleased with it! Do please thank him. I have already.
Oh, my dearest Gog, my love for you is so complete and yet it can’t rise to a consistent faith like yours. I’m so very worried. Do, do, write soon.
Your own Mog, who covers you with kisses.
Julian is well and progressing nicely. Shouts Moo! Boo! At the cows across the wall. And sometimes when they’re not here.
Journal Entry
September 9, 1940
Yesterday we had nearly ten hours of bombing. On gate guard in the early hours of this morning I heard the bombs rushing over my head and exploding some way beyond. Direct hit on a shelter in Beaufort Street. Nearly all the people in it killed – mostly women and children I believe. Bomb fell in King’s Road opposite Paulton’s Square. Big fire from gas main. Another bomb in Cheyne Walk near Whistler’s house; also one in south Parade near my studio. A hell of a night.
Beadle, Jeff and Bill came in at tea time. Bill stayed, the others left about five. The sirens had gone. Suddenly the now familiar sound of a plane, then the noise of a falling bomb. Too damned close. A terrific explosion. A blast of air and grit through the open window. My pictures jumped forward from the walls and slapped back again. The whole building rocked. ‘Let’s get out,’ we said, almost together. As we made for the door another bomb fell. It seemed closer still. We hurried down the stairs and across to the Polytechnic basement.
Two huge clouds of smoke hung above the King’s Road, about sixty yards away. Fainting women in the Polytechnic basement. ‘All clear’ quite soon. Went out to look at the damage. Three houses in Bramerton Street entirely demolished. Greatly fear Doctor Castillo’s is one of them, and I wonder if he was there, and his wife and children.
Walked along past the Chelsea Palace* as Bill wanted to phone. Dozens of shop windows smashed and the roads and pavements thick with broken glass. People looking around for bits of shrapnel, and finding it.
* The Chelsea Palace, now demolished, was a music hall in the King’s Road. The artist loved music hall and melodrama (he went to see Tod Slaughter in Jack the Ripper four times) and bitterly regretted their disappearance. Editor
Going back met Willson Disher*. We all went to the Six Bells for a drink. The bowling green covered with earth and broken paving stones and bricks. Bill took four small paintings back to Hampstead. Ones I would like to save, and I am not so sure about Trafalgar Studios** after this.
* M. Willson Disher, drama critic and showbusiness historian, whose books include The Greatest Show On Earth (G. Bell, London 1937), a history of Astley’s Amphitheatre, where Charles Dickens had been an enthusiastic spectator.
** Trafalgar Studios survived the Blitz but was later demolished. It stood on the right- hand side of Manresa Road, about thirty yards from the King’s Road. Clifford Hall first moved there in 1933, to studio Number 4. He subsequently moved to Number 8 in 1937, and the kitchen there was on the opposite side of the corridor with a front door of its own. Editor
Went to Putney for the night. Sirens soon after I arrived. On my way a part of the King’s Road roped off and guarded by soldiers with rifles. Firemen hosing the smouldering remains of the Bramerton Street houses.
On my way to the bus met Dinah*. We went to look at the remains of the Cadogan Club. It has almost disappeared. Kitchen blown out and nearly every bottle of drink in the place smashed.
* Dinah was an outstandingly beautiful artist’s model. Clifford later used to meet her and her husband, Jack, on his visits to Chelsea in the sixties and seventies. Editor
Writing this in the shelter at Star and Garter Mansions. Mother is asleep. Five other people from the flats also here. Very cheerful, and seems pretty quiet outside.
Letter to Marion
9 September, 1940
Trafalgar Studios, Monday
My dearest Mog,
This is just to tell you that I am quite safe and very well and that I hope to hear soon that you and Julian are too.
London got hit badly last night and on Saturday. On Saturday all the sky towards city was brilliantly lit up by the big fires burning at the Docks. And against this orange glow the searchlights paled to a delicate opal green colour. I had to go home and make a pastel of it and I hope to paint from it sometime this week. Last night was really bad. We were bombed from 8.30 until 5.30 this morning with hardly a break. At one time I was on gate guard, I could hear the bombs rushing down and across the sky. There were terrific explosions. Beaufort Street got it badly. A fire started in the King’s Road just opposite Paultons Square, the petrol in a garage caught and a gas main. The road was alight from side to side. Chelsea Square had it too.
I walked back this morning past the fire which was still burning a little, wondering if the studios would still be there. They were. All the pictures I love, perhaps too much, and not even a pane of glass cracked. It is really a good thing that you got away when you did, for I fear it is going to get a lot worse yet. But remember what I told you and do not make yourself mad with worry, but come back to me, someday, beautiful as you always were – because I will be here, I promise you.
All my love to you both,
Clifford
Journal Entries
September 10, 1940
As I feared. Castillo’s wife and children were killed. He was on duty at the First Aid Post.
There were seventy people in the Beaufort street shelter hit on Sunday night. Only seven were got out alive.
Fairlie Harmar and her husband were rescued from their house in Cheyne Walk. A bomb burst the water main in the street in front of the house. The rooms were flooded. Furniture and pictures floating about. Perhaps my little panel of Church Street amongst them.
September 11, 1940
Last night the closest – so far. In the basement canteen the doors were blown in and we were covered with broken glass from the windows. A man coming from the lavatory was thrown across the yard and hurt. Other minor casualties. There was something very like panic for a few seconds. Saved by Corporal Rowe who went on calmly pouring out tea and telling everyone not to be a lot of bloody fools.
The bombs continued to fall. All very near us. Frightened men, women and children came into the depot looking for shelter.
Soon a number of shops in the King’s Road were alight. The wall of St Mark’s college blown down. Our cars damaged. An oil bomb started another fire in the yard. Two of our squads went out. Not many people hurt and only a few killed. Most of them were in the shelters, which were not hit.
Had to wander round the grounds at 5.30 this morning looking for a time bomb. We failed to locate it. Two were discovered later in Edith Grove and Gunter Road.
Shattered windows and debris everywhere. Groups of people, homeless, standing about aimlessly. One or two of the men complain that the depot is a death trap. Right near Lots Road Power station and not even sandbagged. Talk of not coming back, but I don’t take that seriously. A few even say it is not worth going on. It’s knowing their wives and children are in danger and may be killed.
More raids today. Churchill’s speech most unimpressive*. I don’t like the look of things at all.
* Given the iconic status of Winston Churchill’s wartime speeches, this comment may, in hindsight, seem unduly negative. However, the Speech to the Nation that Churchill delivered on September, 11th, 1940, is far from being among his most inspiring, and therefore, it is one of his least well-known. Editor
“Every Man to his post”, Sir Winston Churchill’s real speech on the 11th of Sept. 1940.
Letter to Marion
11 September, 1940
Wednesday
My dearest,
I was very glad to get your letter this morning and to hear that you were both well. London has been getting it really badly for the last week or so, far worse than the papers say, naturally. And Chelsea has had a pretty bad time. Last night was rather grim and I was scared for a few seconds but here I am quite safe. I am spending my off nights at Putney for the time being. I can look after mother and also it has been too hot here to sleep in the studio. I do not want to tell you of all the things that have happened these last few days. It would only disturb you and possibly make you think that things are worse than they really are. I have only been in real danger once or twice and I still feel I will come through the whole thing. I can only say that you must try to have faith too and believe what I say.
I will write again at the end of the week.
Love to you both,
Clifford
‘Homeless’, 1940. Watercolour by Clifford Hall. Collection: Imperial War Museum, London.
‘Hortensis Road’, September 1940. Sketch by Clifford Hall depicting an ARP man (probably a Fireman) getting some rest while on standby during the Blitz
Journal Entries
September 12, 1940
Private View of portraits at the Town Hall in connection with Chelsea’s Spitfire Fund. A poor show on the whole. One or two good ones including an Ethel Walker. Dugdale weak and Mason most disappointing. I am very badly hung yet I honestly believe mine of Celia is one of the best there.
Slept at Putney. Would not sleep in the shelter but insisted on sleeping upstairs. Felt it would be better for my nerves. A terrific barrage most of the night. I heard some of it before I went off to sleep and it was still going on when I woke at 4 a.m. Had slept seven hours though. I feel lots better for it.
The barrage has cheered everyone enormously and seems to have been effective in other ways too. Lewis has just enquired if I am writing up my first aid notes.
September 13, 1940
A German plane was brought down the other day at Hornsey. As it fell the airmen bailed out. Some policemen were sent to capture them as they landed but the crowd got there first. They were torn to pieces.
These evenings one sees women with babies and small children going to the public shelters, carrying blankets, pillows, and sometimes dragging a mattress. All this some time before the sirens have sounded. They are doing this in Berlin too, and the population there no doubt feel very much the same about our airmen as we feel about theirs.
The nightly Anti-Aircraft barrage continues.
September 15, 1940
All last week I had been wondering how I would feel when we were actually called out. Although the week had been a bad one it just happened that we were the only squad not in action. However, last evening we did go.
When it came, I was almost surprised to find myself as cool as ice. We piled into the car and set off up the King’s Road, down Tadema Road and so along Cheyne Walk to Beaufort Street where the incident had taken place. The Lots Road Power Station was almost hidden by clouds of dense grey smoke drifting slowly, heavily, across the river. We passed a fire engine already at work. Others, bells ringing, dashed past us. Outside Whistler’s house an oil bomb had struck the roadway and we skidded wildly. Stopped at Beaufort Street. Only three casualties, not really serious. They were dealt with and we waited for a car to take them away.
A deep bank of dove-grey cloud hung low beyond the Battersea side of the river. Above it the sky was clear and an almost full moon, pale yellow, was poised there. The factory buildings were lilac, grey and green. A note of red on a barge. The harmony foreboding, cold, perfect.
Soon we were away up Beaufort Street to report at the Post in Cheyne Row. A swift glimpse of a woman clinging to the railings with one hand. She points up at the sky with the other. Her hair is wild, peroxide yellow. Face livid. Dark eyes, brightly painted mouth wide open as she screams and screams. Two policemen and a few onlookers are trying to quieten her.
At the top of the street we are turned back. The King’s road has been hit again. Chunks of plate glass. Dust, smoke. Road impassable. Back down Beaufort Street and along the Embankment.
In Cheyne Row a haze of smoke and choking dust. Mobile unit rescue and stretcher parties are still there. The Catholic Church of the Holy Redeemer has been hit. The bomb had fallen through into the crypt in which people were sheltering. Many dead. The interior of the church is burning. The casualties are being carried out, covered with blankets.
Before dark the fire in the church and the one near the power station have both been put out.
From Riley Street nearly as far as Sloane Square hardly a shop window is intact. I walk on broken glass.
Sunday morning: went out to look at the damage. The back of the Gaumont Palace is down and Upper Manor Street is blocked. There is a bomb crater at the top of the road. Another in Sydney Street almost in front of St Luke’s. The Polytechnic, Oakley Street, Sutton Buildings, Upper Cheyne Row: all were hit.
It is strange to walk home wondering if I will find the studio still standing. Going upstairs I slip on broken glass. Yet inside everything is just as I left it, and in the kitchen only the lower half of the window is broken.
Two more raids this morning. The planes are right overhead and we hear one coming down. It seems in the direction of Hyde Park.
King’s House Studios has been burnt out. I used to have a studio there once. I remember a party I gave, was it in 1929, and someone brought Sunita, Epstein’s model. She was beautiful, like a tigress. She told everyone’s fortune. I have forgotten mine. She said she was going back to India and would die soon after, as indeed she did.
Our poor Chelsea is beginning to look like a battlefield.
One of Castillo’s children has been dug out of the remains of his Bramerton street house. Still alive, after four days!
Letter to Marion
15 September, 1940
Chelsea, Sunday
My dearest Mog,
I got your letter dated Friday last. I wrote you twice last week and also on Friday and sent you £2, registered. I can only think that my letters have not reached you. The posts are naturally disorganized as some of the sorting offices have been bombed. I am perfectly safe and feeling very well. Have faith as I have. Nothing is going to happen to me\and we are all going to be together again. Just look after yourself and Julian, that is all you have to do. I will be all right. I am not afraid.
Chelsea has had its share this last week or so but everyone is standing up to it well and since the intensive night barrage by our AA guns there is more confidence and the raids have not been so severe. Mobile guns go round the streets and we have a torpedo boat on the river with anti-aircraft guns on it. There is only one pane of glass gone in the kitchen.
I know it is a terribly worrying time for you, but it would be a thousand times worse if you were here now with our baby. All my love to you both. I will write again soon and I only hope the letter reaches you.
Clifford
PS I was very amused to hear the results of the intelligence tests. Of course he came through well. Young as he is, teach him to love beautiful things. Nothing else matters.
Journal Entry
September 18, 1940
Everyone is settling down to a life of raids day and night. Since our nightly barrage began people have more confidence.
London is suffering an immense amount of damage. Bond Street last night.
About this time a year ago I was painting every day.
There is no real excitement in raids, bombs, fights in the air, guns and shell bursts. The last two weeks have taught me that. A fine painting, a symphony, a beautiful woman, all these move me far more deeply. There is courage, self-sacrifice, devotion; but since when were these qualities dependent on a state of war?
If this drags on for two or three years it seems possible that the peace terms will be dictated by Russia – backed with biggest and strongest air force in Europe.
I am writing this in the control room at St Marks First Aid Post where I have been sent to act as messenger. The telephone system went out of action yesterday.
Letter to Marion
18 September, 1940
Chelsea, Thursday
Dearest Mog,
I do hope you have at last got all the letters I wrote you recently, also the telegram in answer to yours. I am rather worried as to whether you have got the last two lots of money although, of course, I registered it both times.
The post is hopelessly out of order at present so when you do not hear from me for some days you must understand that it is not because I have not written to you, but simply the post office delay. This is hardly to be wondered at although everything is going on reasonably well, considering the constant stoppages caused by raid alarms. We usually get half a dozen or more each day and the nights are one long raid.
It’s a lousy time and on the whole it tends to become merely boring. Stupidity always did bore me. Now and again I get a kick out of it, but it’s a pretty poor sort of kick at best.
The sleep problem does not worry me greatly. I have got used to it and it takes a hell of a lot of noise to wake me these days. Also I can sleep at any odd time, in any place, for five or ten minutes. The result is I am perfectly well and spending far too much on food!
I hope things are quieter with you at nights now they seem to be concentrating most of their energy on London.
Let me know at once when your money from me turns up. All my love to you and Julian.
Clifford
Later PS
Your letter written last Monday has just arrived. I am sorry you read about Castello. I had purposely not told you as I knew it would make you worry. However, now you know, I was in the studio with Bill when it happened. We heard it whizz right overhead. It all happened with fatal suddenness. Two more fell just after, from the same plane. One on the flats next to the Six Bells and whole paving stones were flung all over the bowling green. Chelsea has been having a bad time but the last few nights have been a little less severe. I still know I am going to be all right. The studio is safe and I have only lost one pane of glass.
Lots of love and have faith like I told you I have.
Clifford
A note from Bill (W S Meadmore) to Marion was found enclosed in the same envelope as the letter above; it reads:
My Dear Marion,
Cliff’ is just finishing a letter to you and I thought I would write a quick note. I’ve been meaning to send you a letter but the last 10 days have been hectic. I’ve been to and from Sevenoaks twice and it is most difficult these days to settle and write letters – blasted sirens all the time – 8 warnings yesterday.
Well we’re all alive -very much so – the Devil continues to look after his own. All my family are at Sevenoaks and I’m going down again tomorrow for a few days. It’s almost quiet here although we did just miss a bomb by seconds or yards the other afternoon when we were all in the car – rubble hit car. Of course, this happened after the all clear. Our friends shall live +, unfortunately, also our enemies, but I hope for the best.
You went at the right moment. No fun in London now, even difficult to even see one’s friends. It’s now about 6 and in an hour’s time I shall make a wild rush for home. No joke being out when the barrage is on. Got caught in the tube the other night and nearly wept. Horrifying down there – people sleeping, playing cards, reading, eating, making love, everywhere – down the stairs and on the platforms to within a yard of the trains. Every tube station in London the same, stretching out to the suburbs – even at Hampstead.
Dr said today I should have another 2 month’s rest. Rest, these days! But I’m convinced the attack is at the peak and we’re over the worst. But nearly every street is a heartbreak. No, this ain’t a real letter. I’ll send you one in a few days – so this needs no reply, but thought you might like a few lines from me as Cliff was writing. He’s well, very well – but neither he or I like celibacy – we never did. You’ll see us in monk’s robes when you come back.
Love to my God Child. I’m worried about him. Please see he learns the Commandments.
Bill
PS I’ve had to be discrete in this letter because I knew C would want to read it through. He has. So you must read between the lines.
Journal Entry
September 19, 1940
St Marks’ Chapel was set alight early this morning and the roof pretty badly damaged, Another bomb very near us. More hits on the Kings Road and all around.
It is now afternoon – 2 o’clock. So far, a quiet day. Only one warning and that did not last more than half an hour. Two time bombs have gone off. Otherwise, quiet.
Letter to Marion
20 September, 1940
Dearest Mog,
I wrote you on Thursday last week, after receiving your letter, and enclosed a note from Bill. It’s very difficult keeping in touch these days and letters seem to take nearly a week. You did not say if you got my others and was the one with the money the one with a pencil note on a telegram form? And did the previous lot of money arrive? I do not seem to know.
It is a shame you had to spend so long away from me before all this daily and nightly raiding started, but then it might have commenced sooner than it did. All things considered I think we did the best thing and if you could see London now you would be glad that you did not take the risk of keeping Julian here for any length of time. You were really very lucky to get back when you did the last time. You left just about the right moment.
I find I get used to the way things are. I believe one can get used to almost anything, being in prison even, although that would be simple compared with life at present. The most worrying thing is to be cut off from work. Painting has become impossible and I only make a few pencil sketches, now and again, pour faire le main. They are not particularly good, for to tell you the truth I see practically nothing that moves me in war subjects. The most beautiful thing I have seen lately is the dawn behind Putney Bridge. I go and look at every morning I am there and it is very lovely. I often want to put it down but of course there is never any time.
Anyway, I will have a lot to do when this stupid war is over.
My only outlet these last few weeks has been to keep a diary. That is something that one can pick up and put down again like knitting; and at least it is putting my brain to some use. I think it is interesting in parts and you will probably enjoy reading it when you come home again.
Once more, do try to stop worrying about me. I am coming through this and you are going to see what a good painter I will be. That is all settled.
Love to you both,
Clifford
Journal Entry
September 21, 1940
Volunteered for an extra job today. Sent to Smith Street, twenty of us, to clear mattresses and beds from the Working Men’s hostel. Opposite this building there was a huge crater in the road and the fronts of two houses had been blown in. The hostel was grim and dirty and had an air of deep misery. The beds and bedding had to be carried downstairs, loaded into vans and taken to houses in Elm Park Gardens. These houses have been taken over by the Borough Council to accommodate homeless people from the East End.
We loaded the first van with mattresses and pillows. They were filthy. When we took the iron bedsteads apart the sockets at either end into which the wire mattress fitted were alive with bugs. A hurried message to the Town Hall and it was decided to scrap the lot. Strange no one from there had taken the trouble to look at the beds first. Called for clean overalls. Thorough search, bath and change. Found one bug. He had crawled into my note book and got squashed. No others, fortunately.
Lunch and then three hours’ work filling the houses in Elm Park Gardens with new mattresses and blankets.
Evening, Putney. Before going into the cellar for the night we stood on the towing path. I stayed there for some time after the others had gone inside. Unseen planes above following the river on their way to attack London. Brilliant flashes of bursting shells. Someone is playing the piano in the pub on the corner and I hear the sounds of the final chorus before chucking out time. A lovely night. Such colour. So lovely it is really impossible to think of anything – only take the night to myself and remember it.
Letter to Marion
22 September, 1940
Chelsea, Sunday
My dearest Mog,
Yesterday I had two letters from you. One dated the 16th and the other the 18th. You know I would be really worried if you left Julian and came here. It is not as if I could be with you all the time. As things are, although I do miss you greatly I feel you are comparatively safe, which means a lot.
I will say that I have been afraid once or twice, but it has only lasted a few seconds. Only yesterday I overheard the corporal telling someone – “I’ve got a lot, like rocks. Why there’s Cliff and Lewis calmly talking about music and pictures while the bleedin’ bombs are falling.”
It is a matter of how one looks at reality and I am fortunate that there is someone here who can see things that way too. I can assure you that not once since this started, have I been so afraid as I was during the time preceding my illness some three, or was it four, years ago. You helped me then and you have helped me since then and you must do so now by believing that I will still be safe when this is all over. And not worrying yourself to pieces. That does not help either of us.
As far as Chelsea is concerned this last week has not been so severe although other parts of London have suffered badly. I have never admired the English as I admire them now. They are a dull lot with queer ways of enjoying themselves and life is really too short to get to know them properly, but they have got something that cannot be beaten. It is the poor I think most of. The wealthier ones still show an inability to cooperate fully. Although the masses here are going to win this war very many of them are alive to the way in which they have and are being exploited and they realize the stupidity that brought us all to this pass.
As the socialists have always maintained, socialism must be International before it can get anywhere, and with human nature, poor as well as rich people, can it ever come about? Perhaps it can hundreds of years hence, anyway, it is worth trying. Sometimes I think the whole thing does not matter one way or the other and retire into my own world of thoughts and sensations in which I and those I love count alone.
Mother is amazingly well and I still go to Putney every other night. I wish I could see Julian now for I am sure he must be interesting and it is a pity that I have to miss watching his progress.
Chelsea is not the wreck you imagine. A number of houses have been entirely demolished and there are huge bomb craters in the roads which, however, are quickly filled up again. The back of the Gaumont Cinema has been knocked down. No one was in it at the time and I am sorry the whole ugly building did not go. There have been a number of fires but they have very quickly been put out and naturally one sees smashed windows everywhere. Sloane Square vicinity has been hit several times but Peter Jones still stands.
I have not seen the damage in the West End yet. I am going tomorrow, partly because I want to find out if anything has happened to my pictures at Legers.
I hope everyone at East Meon is well. I had a letter from Lena a couple of weeks ago. I replied to it. Also heard from Stanley yesterday. He seems well although the office next to his in the City has been struck and burned.
All my love to you both. Write soon.
Clifford
PS Did a bit of overtime on Saturday
Journal Entries
September 23, 1940
Putney. Watched the nightly display from the Embankment. Usual heavy gunfire, flashes, sounds of planes – the now familiar paraphernalia.
Three soldiers walk by. Overheard as they passed –
‘I tell you I am no good at snooker. Play you billiards any time.’
September 25, 1940
Went to Bond Street this morning. Leger Gallery unharmed so far – one of the few that has escaped. Road sweepers shovelling up piles of broken glass. Still cleaning it up when I went back in the afternoon for my pictures. Bond Street and round about utterly desolate. Made me feel miserable. No well-dressed women, only the whores, and there are not many of them. They are as smart as ever.
Went up Shaftesbury Avenue on my way to private view of A.I.A. exhibition at Suffolk gallery. Very mixed show. This should have been opened by J. B. Priestley. He failed to appear and John Rothenstein made an adequate speech instead.
In Shaftesbury Avenue the Queen’s Theatre on the corner opposite Jeanette’s flat was practically gutted. Went in to see how Jeanette* was getting on. She produced a bottle of Italian vermouth.
*Jeanette was a prostitute who used to pose free of charge for Clifford in the mornings (afternoons and evenings were for ‘work’). She made a very good living, especially during the war, banking around £200 per week at a time when it was perfectly possible to live on £500 per year. Editor
‘I come home this morning from the basement of the Tuscan Hotel and who do I find in my bed? The ceiling!’
The place was in a mess, littered with fallen plaster and broken glass, and poor Jeanette looking dirty and very like the women who used to sit in the narrow streets above the Vieux Port in Marseille.
The fat pink eiderdown whitened with fallen plaster, the bright orange cushions and artificial flowers on the mantelpiece, and the photos of film stars and naked women – all produced an effect in the grey afternoon light that was truly ghastly.
Went back to Bond Street. Gieves* completely burnt out. Some buildings in Albemarle Street, Savile Row and Bruton Street demolished. Top of Burlington Arcade and the archway over the entrance to the Royal Academy Schools also down. The high wall between the back of the Arcade and the side of Burlington House is partly down. The rest of it looked as if some giant had playfully twisted it out of shape. The line of it is wavy against the sky.
* ‘On 16 September 1940, at 10.06pm, a high explosive bomb struck Gieves Ltd (traditional mercers, tailors and gentlemen’s outfitters since 1785), at 21 Old Bond Street W1. The local coal gas main was also smashed open and ignited. Fire began to spread within the building.’ Source: WestEndWar org Editor
Last night a bad one in Chelsea. Roof of St Luke’s Church, Sydney Street, on fire. Fire in the public lavatory. The builder’s yard almost next door to my studio gutted. Other fires in Chelsea Square. Very few casualties, but a hell of a lot of damage. Corner of Glebe Place has been hit.
Central London and the West End suffered most. I shall never get over the senselessness of the whole business. Regent Street also damaged. Did not see Oxford Street but I hear it is the worst of the lot.
I shall never get over the utter surrealness of the whole business.
‘Jeanette nude’, 1936, by Clifford Hall. No colour photograph currently available.
September 26, 1940
Clearing furniture from bombed houses opposite our Depot, in the King’s Road.
A piano, its keyboard gone and the lower portion of the case missing. Tables, chairs and cupboards, split and charred. Soiled, still damp rags that had been curtains, bedding or clothes. All the pitiful remnants of a home; carefully loaded in a van, taken across the road to Hudson’s Depository, unloaded and packed away.
After tea went the room Lewis has use of in St Marks College. He played Chopin and Elspet, his pupil,who is wasting a glorious voice now she is at the First Aid Post, sang German Lieder – very, very beautifully. Lewis in a good mood and finished with Chopin’s Revolutionary Study. Magnificent. It made us all happy and ready for the sirens and the rather nasty night that followed soon after.
Letter to Marion
26 September, 1940
Chelsea /Thursday
Dearest,
I had a letter from you on Wednesday. I have had two others and told you this in the one I wrote ending in a note from Bill; which you say you have not yet received – it will probably turn up. I also sent you one with a postal order in it. It’s only for very little but I hope it arrives all the same.
Well, life is inclined to be boring, except the nights, for although they are full of terror for some poor people yet I cannot be anything but fascinated by their beauty. Until the war the night was just darkness spoiled by ugly lighting on buildings, now it is like fairyland and never the same. Infinitely varied in its colour and atmosphere. Sometimes I feel I should not look at it too much for its pictorial possibilities, I think, are limited.
I went up to town the day before yesterday. It was an interesting but miserable experience. There is hardly a shop window left in Bond Street. Practically all the galleries except Legers and Coolings have suffered; Grieves, a few doors down from Legers, is burnt out and all around in Saville Row, Bruton St., Albermarle St., whole buildings have been demolished. The Burlington Gardens end of the Arcade is smashed and the archway over the entrance to the RA Schools has disappeared. The end of the wall at the back of the arcade is down and the rest is fantastically bulged and twisted out of shape, presenting a wavy line against the sky. Regent St. and Shaftesbury Avenue knocked about; Oxford St., as you have probably read, is one of the worst.
Broken glass is everywhere underfoot. They were sweeping it up and loading it into dust carts when I got to Legers in the morning and were still hard at it at five that same afternoon. All the same nearly everyone is cheerful and in proportion to the damage done the loss of life is very small.
As I walked through the streets I felt I was seeing the end of a world, a little world it is true, and no doubt unimportant in its way, but as I saw it going I realized how I loved it and how I had failed to make the most of it when it was there. That is one of the tragic aspects of one’s relationship to things and people.
I am glad to hear that it is comparatively quiet with you. I do not think I would want you to be here even if you had not got Julian to look after. If I could be all the time with you I would not say this, but as conditions are you would be alone far too often.
I have really done nothing about moving the pictures in the studio, although I did get Bill to take four good small ones and I took about a hundred drawings to Putney last week. For the rest I am extremely fatalistic. In a sense nowhere is a hundred per cent safe and I have neither the money nor the time to see about getting things away. Also, I have a feeling that they will remain untouched. I have wondered what I would feel like if by chance I did lose all my work. You know what it means to me. For rightly or wrongly it is my life and I have sacrificed others as well as myself for it. No, that is wrong, not myself – I wanted to do it so it was not a sacrifice. I know that if it did happen and everything went it would be a loss. I would never get over so long as I lived, but all the same I would go on and paint I hope, better pictures to fill their place. Why, even pictures I have sold I may never see again I can call to mind almost stroke for stroke, their good passages and their bad. I made them and they are mine. And like children I love them in spite of their faults. If, indeed, they had been faultless what reason would there be to want to make more?
I want, desperately, everything to stay as it is in the studio, for it is your setting as well as mine and it is the atmosphere that I wanted Julian to know, but I have the energy to make it all again if I have to. Believe that.
Do you know that I have not slept in a bed for nearly three weeks and it is luxury to lie with a blanket on the floor. I sleep soundly whenever I have the chance. Explosions make no difference and I am still very well and still very sure everything will come right.
Here is a bill from Peter Jones, also ten bob extra which perhaps you will register and send them. It is all we can manage at the moment and their bill is a small one. In these days even they cannot stand on their dignity and money is money. However, if you think ten bob is too small an amount to send them try to keep it by you and I will hope to send another ten next month which you can then send with the first.
Friday morning
Have just got your letter. I will pay Eastmans’ bill today and tell them to register the dress and send it on to you. There does not seem any sense in keeping it here. And send the £2 I am paying Eastmans instead of sending the 10 shillings I wrote of yesterday. P.J. will have to wait a little longer, that’s all.
I am writing this in the Polytechnic basement. A warning went not long ago and as I crossed from the studio a whole bunch of German planes shot overhead, plainly in view and in good formation with our shells bursting round them. Last night was good and our barrage terrific but the blighters have managed to slip through this morning.
I have been offered the chance of putting a few pictures in a strong room and I hope to get them there soon. I suppose it is best not to take too many chances but I think your planchette is wrong about the studio.
Bill is in Sevenoaks. He has had influenza and the children have been ill so he says.
I fear you will be disappointed in the few sketches I have done. They are not particularly good as yet but they at least serve the purely mechanical purpose of keeping my hand in and passing the time. I think something may come of them, but I am not sure. I don’t quite see how to approach the subject so I am leaving it to find its own way and to present itself to me in its own good time. I have learned that I do not find things when I run around looking for them. I prefer now to stay receptive and sensitive and observant and I know they will come to me – if it is intended that they should.
Otherwise there is plenty I want to do when the war is over.
All my love to you and Julian. I wish I could see you.
Clifford
PS I am taking your bracelets, necklaces and other odds and ends to Putney this evening.
Journal Entries
September 27, 1940
Two daylight raids, and Chelsea hit again. Duke of York’s Headquarters. Several killed. Also the corner of Elm Park gardens. The very place those unfortunate East End evacuees had been moved to last Saturday.
Met Julia about 4. Went back to tea. Beresford Egan and Yvonne there. Egan very bitter about the war. Had to agree with most of his arguments.
Took some pictures to Putney in a taxi, to safety, I hope. Sylphides, Circus Orchestra, Marion, Tigers and the nude of Celia I might never be able to finish now. I want to keep it all the same.
Did this because of a letter from Marion in which she said the planchette wrote that the studio would be bombed. I feel it will not, yet I have a sneaking belief in the wretched planchette and there were the five fires within a hundred yards of the studio the other night. Planchette has given November 11th this year as the end of the war!
September 28, 1940
Saturday, 11 am.
A number of houses in Edith Grove completely demolished last night. People sheltering in the basement trapped or killed. Rescue parties digging them out now.
Later. To Edith grove to relieve Stretcher Party. 5 pm. A heap of rubble, broken doors, window frames, rafters, joists, smashed furniture, surround and partly fill a huge crater. Behind, a few bits of wall are still standing.
It is cold and the wind fills my eyes and mouth with dust. In a hole the rescue men are digging, some with shovels, baskets of dirt are filled and passed out. Others dig with their hands like so many terrier dogs after a rat. These men are covered with dust. Their eye sockets darkened and their mouths black with soot as if they were made up for some fantastic part.
Somewhere beneath all the rubble are four people. They have been there since midnight the previous day – nearly eighteen hours. The whole morning and most of the afternoon were spent tunnelling to reach them through the basement of the next house. This failed and they are now being uncovered from the top. Suddenly we hear faint cries. I am sent for a blanket – not one of the good ones – for the first to be lifted out is a woman and she is dead*. Another hour of careful digging and a girl’s head and shoulders appear. She is lying face down on an iron bedstead. The lower part of her body is still covered by a heap of rubble and a dead man has been flung across her legs, pinning them down. It is her husband.
By the side of the bed, crushed against the fireplace and wedged in by fallen bricks and plaster, is another girl sitting in a chair, unable to move. Both the girls are still alive. They have been given oxygen and hot coffee.
At last it is possible to lift the one from the bed. She cries a little. She is conscious and very brave. We put her on the stretcher with hot water bottles and many blankets. Dr Castillo leans over her and strokes her hair telling her she is safe and will soon be all right. I bend down and pin the edges of the top blanket together. Castillo asks her her name. ‘Iris,’ she says, and she looks up at us as I believe the martyrs and saints must have looked. We carry her to the ambulance and hurry back for the other. She is in a far worse state and does not look as if she can last long.
The man is brought out last. He is quite dead. His face is blackened and his tongue protrudes a little; yet there is nothing terrifying in his appearance – only a look of infinite sadness.
It is now getting dark and when we have carried him to the road we find the ambulance has gone. One of the men from the mortuary is waiting for it to return. ‘I’ll keep an eye on it, mates,’ he says. ‘He can’t get far now.’ So we leave him there on the side of the road, a strange silhouette swathed like a mummy in the cheap thin blanket, chgeap blankets were reserved for corpses, lying on the green stretcher – light against the murky violet pavement. I take a last look before going to the car. It is now almost dark and the Corporal is hurrying us. He is afraid the barrage will start before we get back.
September 29, 1940
Sunday morning.
We have just learned that both the girls died, within a few minutes of each other, after reaching hospital.
I can see no sense in it. I must remember that this is only one of thousands of cases and what is going on here is also happening in Germany. I have said this before, but I think I must remember it, or I will lose my sense of values and proportion.
Spent some hours today making a little sketch of what I had seen yesterday. Bill arrived about one. Had lunch. Went to Jimmie’s for tea. Neither of us in very high spirits and we talked about the London that is gradually disappearing. He took the nude of José Madrid back to Hampstead. I wished I could have gone with him. I remember the weekends I used to spend there in June and July when I went into the garden soon after dawn and picked flowers for the breakfast table. The war had not started for us then.
The sketch I did today is a beginning. I must make a lot more.
Castillo was grand yesterday. I imagine what he must have felt – his own family trapped in almost the same way a short while ago.
At least three priests were there too. Getting in everyone’s way, no doubt with the best intentions. They seemed to me like vultures. One was prominently labelled R.C. I suppose the other two represented different versions of the creed that I cannot help feeling has failed to make a great deal of headway in nearly two thousand years.
September 30, 1940
More work in Edith Grove. Carting bricks and rubble. There is a smell of death about the place. Two more bodies dug out and others are still to be recovered.
A short encounter in the air soon after we started. We all left off work to look upwards. The planes, as small as flies, dived and turned against a patch of blue sky. We heard machine gun fire, but after a few minutes heavy clouds hid everything and we went back to our work.
Not called out during the night. Slept fitfully. At least three times I awoke after the same dream. A wall was cracking and bulging forward, just about to fall on me. Then I saw the wrapped shape of a woman’s corpse, bundled up in the position in which she had been found; knees raised towards the chin, arms covering the head and face in a last useless effort to save herself.