World War II London Blitz Diaries 1939-1945

Woo Hoo There is an article in this magazine Pages 38-40 and I am in it picture and all!!

2012-02-28T19:50:00.000-05:00

Excerpts:2-25-1944 to 2-28-1944 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 3

2012-02-26T14:36:00.000-05:00

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Friday February 25, 1944

We had another raid last night, from nine-thirty p.m. until ten p.m. It was not so heavy as before in this neighborhood, but have heard today it was the other side of London that got the worst of it, bombers brought down at Wembley and Ealing. Mrs. Whitbread was here today. She tells me a one thousand ton bomb fell in the middle of Hainault Road one night this week; nobody was killed, but there was much damage to the property. It is Harold’s thirty-sixth birthday today.

Sunday February 27, 1944

We had no raiders last night. It is 2:15 p.m. now, and a most peculiar darkness has fallen over us. It is not fog, nor yet darkness like night, but, a green-yellowy blight, obscuring everything. It began soon after one o’clock, whilst we were at dinner, and has gotten worse and worse. If I turn out the electric light the room is as black as a coalhole. Ted has just gone out “to walk around the block” for curiosity. Not a sound to be heard. It is most weird. It makes us think of that day in May when France fell, and a similar peculiar darkness fell over England. It makes me wonder: What is happening right now? Has the invasion begun? Has France broken into open revolution? Has Hitler been assassinated? One can’t help feeling that this worst peculiar, most unnatural, most frightening atmosphere and darkness are an omen from Heaven of some great world gloom and doom. What is it?

Monday February 28, 1944

No raiders over last night. On Saturday Ted received a letter from Artie, with an enclosure for me; this is it: “23, February 1944. Dear Mother, It was very kind of you to purchase a film for me at Forster’s and send it on. I had it on order and they are so hard to get. The Chesterfields too were more than welcome and I was pleased to have them. I am sending you the money with this to cover the film. I hope you are feeling better and not disturbed by the raids. Love and prayers, Fred.” That’s all.

Excerpts: 2-22-1944 to 2-24-1944 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 3

2012-02-25T07:56:00.001-05:00

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Tuesday February 22, 1944

Elizabeth Coppen came this morning and brought me an egg, straight from the hen. She made me promise not to make pancakes with it! It seems this is Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day, but I hadn’t realized it. I shall boil it for my tea, and eat it with thankfulness. For Ted I will boil some leeks. This diet question is an awful business. Everyone is craving fresh food, and there isn’t any. I crave fresh fruit, fresh meat, and some real bread. The National Bread gets worse and worse, and it is horribly indigestible. However, we survive it. We are increasing terrifically the weight of our bombing over Germany. Two thousand allied aircraft, including a very large force of heavy bombers, made a daylight attack on Sunday; following a night attack of nearly a thousand R.A.F. bombers the previous night, on Leipzig. They were out in force again yesterday; and all this morning I heard droves of planes flying over. Tonight I expect the Germans will come back at us. Will there be any world left at all? What is so appalling is how we have all come to take destruction for granted. Oh God, when will this awful war end?

Wednesday February 23, 1944 Ash Wednesday

We had another bad raid last night. It was just midnight when I came downstairs and one thirty a.m. when the all clear went. It was a terrible raid. I thought one bomb was falling in our side alley, but no, it wasn’t. When I went back to bed I saw from the bathroom window a big fire blazing across the tracks, Victoria Road or Brentwood again, I suppose. At eight a.m. the B.B.C. said we brought down six bombers during the night. Yesterday Churchill spoke in Parliament reviewing the war. He says our attacks on Europe will increase all during spring and summer and we must expect increasing retaliation. Naturally, but the complacency with which men, men who don’t have to fight, talk about war, infuriates me. God, how I hate old men! I think “our elder statesmen” enjoy themselves over the war. Blast them! Shall we ever know a natural life again? I wonder. I am miserable. I don’t know what to do with myself. Existence is almost unbearable. Weather is abominable. The house is gloomy, I am tired from lack of sleep, and I had bad cramps last night in my left thigh, to add to my troubles. Churchill’s speech is most depressing. The war stretches forward indefinitely. Hell, hell, hell!

Thursday February 24, 1944

We had a bad raid again last night. It began at ten p.m. and went on until eleven-thirty p.m. This was the fourth successive night. However, we had not gone to bed, so were at least comfortable with our clothes on. When it started I felt I wanted to cry. Really I feel I can’t stand much more of this war. If it doesn’t stop soon I feel I will go mad. I made myself read the Wordsworth book, Herford’s, but really couldn’t take any pleasure in it. Yet I force myself to read whilst a raid is on, endurance is a little easier. I find I don’t pray anymore, or if I do it is because my resistance is cracking, prayer now seems to intensify the sense of danger rather than alleviate it. Prayer it seems, like other experiences, love, religion, hunger, even fear, comes to an end. Apropos of love, and the insatiable appetite of men. Concupiscence and the insatiable sex hunger of men. Presumably because a bad raid was finished and we had a sense of being able to spend the rest of the night in peace, and because the bed was warm, and because my coughing had ceased, and because he felt like it, Ted “loved” me before settling down to his sleep. This was the climax of his Ash Wednesday. What is this? It isn’t love, it certainly isn’t passion, and it is not my idea of desire, it is simply the simple basic nature of a simple man. It is the nature of a man to be un-romantic, un-refined, and un-important as a simple bellyache. Yet it is inescapable, fundamental, the rock bottom base of a man, of all men.

Excerpts: 2-17-1944 to 2-21-1944 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 4

2012-02-23T20:10:00.001-05:00

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Thursday February 17, 1944

I had a letter from Eddie yesterday, written in January, in reply to my last letter to him in which I told him dad wanted me to make a will, and asked him if there was anything particular he would like left to him. He writes: “It amazes me to hear you talk about legacies (either of you), I hope you and Dad enjoy yourselves and don’t leave a dime to anyone. I think I’m safe in saying that all of us over here would prefer you to enjoy whatever you have, all of it. Hell, it’s yours! If you and Dad ever have any thought of leaving any money, don’t, spend it and enjoy it, and the easiest way is an annuity. Turn your money into an annuity for yourself. “

Sunday February 19, 1944

We had a bad raid last night between one and two a.m. The B.B.C. says more raiders than usual got through to London, but no details are given yet. There was news yesterday from Russia of the annihilation of the encircled German divisions in the Dieppe Bend, and the capture of Nikopol. This was the trapped German eighth army. Stalin announces 52,000 Germans killed and 11,000 taken prisoner. It is said that the Germans were issued with triple doses of rum and told to try and cut themselves out, and ordered to commit suicide rather than surrender to the Russians, Hitler’s orders. Do young German’s still think it glorious to die for Hitler? I wonder! Oh God! When will men return to their senses?

Sunday February 20, 1944

We had a bad raid this evening, lasting from nine-twenty p.m. until ten-forty five p.m. The B.B.C. says we were out over Leipzig last night “in great strength.” We lost seventy-nine bombers.

Monday February 21, 1944

There was another raid during the night, lasting from two-thirty a.m. until three fifteen a.m.

Excerpts:2-12-1944 to 2-16-1944 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 4

2012-02-22T18:28:00.005-05:00

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Saturday February 12, 1944

We had a raid last night between seven-thirty and eight-thirty p.m. Southeast England, and the London area. Reports the B.B.C. bombs dropped in several places and “some” casualties reported. I was sick with fright, as usual, and shook so uncontrollably that I am still tired from it today. I feel as though I have been beaten. Oh this blasted war! When are the lunatic men going to stop it? The weather continues bright, cold and frosty, every healthy.

Monday February 14, 1944 St. Valentine’s Day

I am just back from town. I went to get Ted’s newspaper, and to draw some money out of the post office bank. I withdrew three pounds, and will withdraw another three pounds tomorrow. With what I have on hand this will give me a total of ten pounds to take to town on Wednesday. Perhaps I shall spend it all, and perhaps I shan’t, what I don’t spend if any I will redeposit on Thursday. I am determined to myself the Wordsworth and the Shakespeare. Money in the bank is only good to be spent these days I think, we may be dead tomorrow, anyone of us. Last night we had a most awful raid, lasting from eight thirty p.m. until ten o’clock. It was awful. This morning the B.B.C. laconically reports: “We brought down four bombers last night, out of a more numerous lot than have been sent over during the last three or four raids. Idiotic! We know they “were more numerous” all right! During the raid Ted kept saying: “Well, I’d rather them come now, early, than after I had gone to bed.” How convenient for slumber! The milk boy this morning said he saw one brought down at Havering. It fell in a field, three men in it killed, but one man escaped by parachute. Poor boys, poor German boys! They were only doing their duty, the same as our boys over Germany. I grieve for all the young men destroyed horribly in this bestial war, whether friend or foe. Poor lads, they didn’t start the war, they only have to fight it. Oh lunacy, lunacy! Bestial hellish madness! It does not bear thinking on, that way madness lies.

Wednesday February 16, 1944

There was shocking news at one o’clock. The B.B.C. said we were out over Berlin last night, and made the heaviest air attack ever made on any objective in this war yet. Over 2500 tons of bombs were dropped on Berlin, commencing at nine o’clock in the evening. Of over a thousand of our planes sent out we have lost forty-five. Also yesterday we bombed the monastery of Monte Cassino, in relays of one hundred Lancaster’s and Fortresses at a time, and the monastery is completely destroyed. The Germans had been using it as a fortress for some time, until finally we decided we must attack it. The Abbot of downside spoke a few words about it at the end of the news. He deplored its loss, but said he had sure confidence in our military leaders judgments, and so the attack was a case of military necessity. He added that the loss of the great abbey was another crime to be charged against the Germans. He also said he deplored the loss of brave young lives, but he considered the life of even one man more valuable than any building, no matter how beautiful, historic, or venerable. Good for him! He said the war must go on until the curse of Nazism is purged utterly from the earth. Also we have been given the figures of our casualties in Italy. Since September 3, until February 12, they amount to over 36,000, roughly 7000 killed, 23,000 wounded, the rest missing. My God My God! This weary weight of this entire unintelligible world! Where is the end of all this lunacy?

Excerpts: 2-6-1944 to 2-11-1944 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 4 (History is never quite as real as when it is told by those who lived it.)

2012-02-21T19:57:00.001-05:00

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Sunday February 6, 1944

It is all Quiet, no raids yesterday, nor last night. Miss White and Daisy came today, and told us that last Thursday a whole street behind the cinema at Upminster was demolished, and many houses at Great Nessing, near Chelmsford. I have not been to church. I guess my resolution is not so much to remain a Catholic, as not to become an Anglican.

Monday February 7, 1944

A letter from Artie to his father, acknowledging the receipt of a parcel with battle-dress and shoe, and a letter from Eddie which Ted had forwarded. He said Eddie’s letter gave no family news. At the end of his letter he wrote: “Fondest love to you and to Mother.” This is the first mention he has made of me since he went away. I suspect Eddie must have said something about me in his letter to Artie, and thus pricked Artie’s conscience. However I do not feel pleased at all. Artie has been silent too long, repudiated me too thoroughly, I do not feel I want his love anymore it has proved rather a worthless love I think. I think the boy has no filial principles. Suppose Hilda did dislike me, what of it? She is at liberty to dislike me. That he should go away, behind my back, as he did, with no word of farewell, and then to treat me with silence. I am afraid he is an expediency man. Why didn’t he stand up to Hilda, and say, “No, I don’t treat my Mother like that. I will take you back to Scotland, since you wish it so much, but not underhandedly. Not sneaking away.” Why doesn’t he say to Hilda: “Alright, dislike my mother if you must, but you can’t stop me loving her.” Artie has behaved abominably towards me. He has treated me with disdain, or as though I were dead, and it makes me feel as though he had died. “My fondest love to Mother.” I don’t think it means anything. It’s just a phase. I don’t believe it.

Friday February 11, 1944

Mrs. Whitbread was here, so I went out shopping as well as to the Library this morning. At Forster’s the chemists, Mr. Forster produced a roll of Selo Film, which he said he was saving for Artie. This I have made up into a small parcel, with a few Chesterfield cigarettes, and a very short note, and posted off to Glasgow. I had thought I would never write to Artie until he had first written to me, however, perhaps it is necessary for me to break the ice, so I have done so.

Excerpts: 2-1-1944 to 2-4-1944 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 4 (History is never quite as real as when it is told by those who lived it.)

2012-02-20T06:26:00.001-05:00

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Tuesday February 1, 1944

When Miss Coppen visits me on Mondays she brings me her Sunday papers, The Sunday Times, and The Observer. Today there is one item worth noting. First, this from the Observer: “The Journal de Genève” reported yesterday (that would be January 29,) that Himmler had been relieved of his position as Minister of the Interior in Germany. “Possibly he has been executed,” added the report, which mentioned rumors that a “brutal elimination” of Hitler had been planned inside Germany. —B.U.P.” Lets hope all this is true, but I think it very unlikely.

Wednesday February 2, 1944

War, I think, is man’s prerogative, and so, I think, is religion, or rather, not religion, but Theology, along with the churches. Religion is that living contact between the soul and its maker, an experience of the spirit; but theology is something very different from that. For men, like as with war, theology is a game that they play, a game that is mainly only word spinning, but one that can lead to death and torture, if played hard enough. Comparatively only a few men take their theology seriously nowadays. The fanatics like my poor Ted. Mostly the churches are dead. Then why am I bothering so about church?

Friday February 4, 1944

I have been given an answer to my religious problem, but not through the workings of the sub conscious but through the workings of Hitler. Between a quarter to five and a quarter past six this morning we endured another very bad air raid. It was frightful. Sitting in my corner, retching, shaking, praying, I looked across at Ted who was reclining on his sofa, and all at once I saw what I had to do, and that is, stay in the Catholic Church, at least “for the duration.” I thought, supposing I was to get killed in one of these raids, what a distress it would be for Ted if he couldn’t bury me as a Catholic! So, for Ted’s sake, I must stay a Catholic. I am resolved to put out of my mind all my irritations and disbeliefs about Catholicism, and all my attractions to Anglicanism. I will believe what I can and all I can. I will meditate on the fundamental doctrines of Christianity and ignore, as far as I can, all those aceretionary dogmas, which float my intelligence.

Excerpts:1-26-1944 to 1-31-1944 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 4 (History is never quite as real as when it is told by those who lived it.)

2012-02-19T17:49:00.002-05:00

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Wednesday January 26, 1944

The air ministry and ministry of Home Security stated last night that it is now known that a fourteenth enemy aircraft was destroyed during raids on this country last Friday night.

Saturday January 29, 1944

An alert sounded last night just as we were going up to bed, about ten-thirty p.m. Ted went up, I stayed down, until the all clear came, about an hour later. Gunfire in the distance only, not in the immediate neighborhood, very alarming just the same, as you know it may come closer at any moment. After I got to bed Ted was very loving. I regarded this as a nuisance. I felt too tired to be bothered, but he was set to love, so he loved. I thought; this! This! And I thought, what is the use of bothering about philosophy or religion or politics or anything, when this is the only thing that matters to man! Oh, I’m tired, tired of love and marriage, tired of thinking, tired of working, tired of England, tired of winter, tired of the war… Now I’m cooking the dinner, and I’m tired of housekeeping. I’m tired of everything and everybody.

Sunday January 30, 1944

Last night we had a most awful raid, it began about 8:30, and went on for two hours. It was worse than the one a week ago; it was sickening. I found myself praying like mad, the Catholic prayers, calling on the Virgin, begging for protection. When it was all over and we were still safe, I offered prayers of thankfulness, and I said, I will go to mass tomorrow. So, I have been but I really don’t know what good it has been, either to the church or me. I thought last night the Catholic prayers had a sort of authenticity, but in the church this morning I couldn’t feel it. The Church was crowded, as usual, of course, but the crowd oppressed me. It was so predominantly Irish, so foreign, it alienated me, and I do not belong with these people. The only thing that pleased me was the collect for the day, the fourth Sunday after the Epiphany. I know that it is fear, and nothing but fear, which drives me to any intense realization of God. When I am afraid I call upon my God. It is atavism. I despise it, but I act it, suffer it all the same. I cannot help myself. In these awful raids, when we are in danger of destruction, when an awful death may strike us any moment, when we can do nothing what ever to help ourselves, or help anybody, when we are sick with terror, when all superficialities vanish, then our souls, our primitive souls, cry out from their depths, oh God, save us! God be merciful to me, a sinner! Our father who art in heaven, save us, save us! Jesus, save us! Mary save us! Oh God be merciful to me, a sinner! Deliver us from evil, deliver us from evil! He does save us, and we say Thank God! Thank God! Thank God!

Monday January 31, 1944

The Times reports: “over two hundred German fighters were destroyed by American bombers and fighters in their attacks on Germany on Saturday and yesterday. One hundred and two were claimed after Saturday’s attack on Frankfurt, in which fifteen hundred aircraft collaborated, and the following report of yesterday’s operations adds ninety-one more. The R.A.F. destroyed sixteen in the offensive over France. The allied losses were ninety six bombers, twenty five fighters, and three intruder aircraft.” My God!

World War ll London Blitz Diary Season 2 Episode 3

2012-02-19T08:54:00.001-05:00

Excerpts 1-23-1944 to 1-25-1944 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 4 (History is never quite as real as when it is told by those who lived it.)

2012-02-18T23:05:00.002-05:00

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Sunday January 23, 1944

A report that yesterday allied troops made another landing in Italy, at a place named Netinho, thirty-two miles south of Rome. The enemy was taken by surprise, and the report says it was two hours before he fired a shot at our troops.

Monday January 24, 1944

At Rainham two hundred houses have been destroyed, but casualties not stated. At Warley, landmines were dropped. At the Brewery, great destruction in the bottling section, but the Shelter, thought only a wall away, was not touched. This is a large public shelter, and is used as a sleeping place by many of the American Soldiers when they are on leave in this town. Had that received the bomb, the casualties would have been high. Only thirty of the bombers got through to London, and most of the damage done there was in Chelsea. We say now that we brought down twelve bombers, fourteen percent of their ninety.

Tuesday January 25, 1944

I am feeling rather ill today. My stomach has been upset ever since the night of the raid, and now I have diarrhea, and also am feeling very nauseated. Probably something has disagreed with me, most likely the bread, which gets more and more peculiar. What a treat it will be to have a piece of real wheaten bread, spread with some real butter1 I’m terrible tired, unnaturally tired. I hope I am not coming down with the influenza. Outside the day is cold and blowy, very blowy, lots of low cloud, and no sun shining, in fact, a very disagreeable day.

Excerpts 1-22-1944 to 1-24-1944 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 4 (History is never quite as real as when it is told by those who lived it.)

2012-02-18T07:41:00.002-05:00

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Saturday January 22, 1944

I am cooking the dinner. It is a blowy stormy day outside. Last night we had a very bad raid, it was like one of the old blitzes of 1940 and 1941. It lasted two hours, from eight-thirty to ten-thirty p.m. and planes going over all the time, and vey heavy gunfire. Sometimes Gerry seemed right on top of us. I do not know what damage has been done in Romford, thought several times we heard the bombs fall. Our radio is out of order, and was taken away by Stanley’s for repairs yesterday, so we shall be without the immediate news for a week or so. The milk boy said this morning that the Brewery, on the High Street, was hit, and was still burning. Ted may bring in more news when he comes to lunch. The papers won’t have much news because it would have been too late for them. I expect London got it badly. Anyhow this was expected before, seeing how heavily we are bombing Berlin and boasting about doing so. . God! How I hate the boasting! The war in itself is horrible enough and I know it must go on but the bragging about it is sickening.

Sunday January 23, 1944

Monday January 24, 1944

It is now evening and Ted brought in news of the damage done in this neighborhood on Friday night. On Victoria Road a public house was hit, and all around it many incendiaries through the houses, it is reckoned about fifteen hundred in just that small section. No bad fires resulted as all were taken out in time, but house roofs have been holed like pepper pots, and in the gardens Ted saw many pieces of furniture standing about, sofas, chairs, cots, those pieces which had caught the sticks. At Rainham two hundred houses have been destroyed, but casualties not stated. At Warley, landmines were dropped. At the Brewery, great destruction in the bottling section, but the Shelter, thought only a wall away, was not touched. This is a large public shelter, and is used as a sleeping place by many of the American Soldiers when they are on leave in this town. Had that received the bomb, the casualties would have been high. Only thirty of the bombers got through to London, and most of the damage done there was in Chelsea. We say now that we brought down twelve bombers, fourteen percent of their ninety.

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Excerpts:1-18-1944 to 1-21-1944 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 4: (History is never quite as real as when it is told by those who lived it.)

2012-02-17T18:28:00.000-05:00

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Tuesday January 18, 1944

We received another letter from Artie in Glasgow, to his father, in which my name is not mentioned in any way at all. We also received a letter from Eddie, a good letter.

Wednesday January 19, 1944

Here came a knock on the door and I opened to an American Air force man. He introduced himself. He said he was from “Home”, Knickerbocker Road, Tenafly and Johnnie had given him our address. His name, he said, was Stevie Clarke. For a moment this meant nothing to me, then light dawned, it was Dr. Clarke’s boy, of course, young Stevie, whose birth I remember as waiting for. He is now twenty-one. Here he is, one of the American boys in England. My clearest memories of him are of his being a bouncing two year old in a perambulator, in charge of his grandmother, Mrs. Lemon, and of her sitting on the beach with me under our maple tree whilst we chatted, and he amused himself in the baby carriage. After his sister Lydia was born I did not see much more of Stevie, though I was always hearing about him from our boys, especially our Johnnie, who was very fond of the Clarke’s and spent much time over in their house. When I was in Tenafly in 1933 their house had been pulled down, and the family had moved up to Cornwall, Connecticut. Johnnie paid them a visit whilst I was there; and the twins visited them when they were over here in 1938. Lydia is in college, and Stevie was in his third year of college when the war called him. Doctor Clarke died last year. Billie is running the farm at Cornwell. Billie married a girl from Poughkeepsie, N.Y. and lives in the farmhouse proper; Mrs. Clarke lives in the big house, with the lady doctor, Dr. Ebbarts, as companion and housemate. Mrs. Clarke has taken up painting as a hobby. She began with pastels, but now works in oils. “And she paints the darndest things,” says Stevie. “Not a landscape like any other painter. Oh no! Just a lop-sided tree that what she’ll pick out to paint, or if she wants to paint a room, she doesn’t do the whole room, only just a corner of it!” Sounds like Cezanne or Van Gogh to me.

Friday January 21, 1944

Last night the R.A.F. made another very heavy raid on Berlin, thirty-five bombers were lost. I ought to be in the middle of my children and grand children, instead of which, I am thousands of miles away from them, living alone with Ted in a poky English Street and that is not enough for me. Ted alone can’t satisfy me, pacify me. I want life and more life, young life, the world of tomorrow swirling around me, not Ted’s world of yesterday and all the pieties of yesterday.

Excerpts 1-11-1944 to 1-17-1944: World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 4 (History is never quite as real as when it is told by those who lived it.)

2012-02-16T21:59:00.003-05:00

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Tuesday January 11, 1944

A letter has come from Artie. It was addressed to his father, and came from Scotland, written on the ninth. He said, “You will be glad to know I now have two legs again.” He added the information that he was remaining in Glasgow, would attend the limb-fitting center there, and had arranged to have his medical board exam there. He said he was well and happy and Hilda sent her love.

Friday January 14, 1944

This infernal war goes on and on. On Tuesday we were told that the American’s had made a big daylight raid over Germany, but no facts were given, which was ominous, and portended a failure of some sort. This morning “ corrected” figures were given out. We lost sixty bombers out of a company of 700 sent out, and five fighters; for a loss of 152 fighters to the Germans, and some other “probable’s” brought down by the lost sixty, but not reported. Report says we hit our targets successfully and destroyed three large aircraft plants and other objectives. The attacks were on the Focke-Wulf factory at Oschersleben, the Junkers plant at Halberstatdt, and the Messerschmitt factory at Brunswick. General Arnold, Chief of the U.S.A.A.F. has stated that the huge air battle over Germany inflicted one of the hardest blows yet struck against the German Air Force, at a cost of approximately five percent of the American aircraft making the attack. I can’t see how sixty out of seven-hundred is only five percent, but there you are, reporting. Probably all the escorting fighters are counted in, and we are not told how many of these were sent out. War, damnable war. It is intolerable, and yet the fool world of men goes on with it. We had an alert here last night, the first one in eight nights, luckily it came about eight in the evening and the all clear came before nine. Somehow it is more endurable then when it is in the dead of night, though it upsets my stomach just the same. Oh, when, when will it cease!

Monday January 17, 1944

There was a bad railway accident at Ilford last night. The express from Norwich ran into the back of the Yarmouth train, which was stationary. Nine people were killed, and over thirty seriously injured, nearly all of them service people, squadron leaders and men from Bomber Command and many of them Americans too. The accident was due to the fog, of course, which was the very worst one of the winter. We have had too much fog this year, no snow or deep cold, but constant fogs. How exasperating to the fliers it must be to suffer death and mutilation in a railway smash, instead of in the air, doing their jobs. There it is, no man knows where his death awaits him. Poor fellows, may their souls rest in peace!

Excerpts:1-2-1944 to 1-4-1944: World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 4 (History is never quite as real as when it is told by those who lived it.)

2012-02-16T07:31:00.004-05:00

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Sunday January 2, 1944

No, It can’t be done. I can’t conform. I can’t live as a practicing Catholic, which has become absolutely impossible for me. If I was in a strange town I might attend mass, or in the city I could go and pray in Westminster Cathedral, but to go and sit through mass in our Romford Church, no, I simply cannot do it. Be one of Father Bishop’s parishioners, no, I cannot. Go to confession again? I never shall. As a Catholic I’m finished absolutely finished. I’m through, really through.

Tuesday January 4, 1944

No word from Artie. Last week we forwarded him, by telegram and mail, a notification, which came for him from Roehampton, directing him to present himself at the Hospital there, at two p.m. January 4, to receive his artificial leg. So he must have come down from Glasgow in time for that. Also, he has an examination before a medical board set for January fourteenth. I thought perhaps he might have been traveling yesterday, and would have come in late last night. He did not come, nor is there any word from him this morning. Perhaps he traveled last night, and will go straight through to Roehampton this morning, I don’t know, but even so, he could and he should have notified us what he was doing, unless he has cut loose from us altogether. Maybe he’s done that. Maybe Hilda hates us so much not only is she not going to come here anymore, she is not going to let him come either. Quite likely, for she comes from the class of people who behave like that. She is definitely no class. What a fool it makes Artie! Well perhaps he is a fool, really, certainly there is something lacking in Artie’s mentality that he could ever have chosen such a girl for a wife. Certainly the adage is proved in Artie’s case, “a son is a son until he takes him a wife.”

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Episode 2 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 1

2012-02-13T07:06:00.002-05:00

Edited by Victoria Washuk - Episode 2 - World War II London Blitz Diary - Season 1 -Episode 2 #iTunes

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Listen to Episode 1

2012-02-12T19:55:00.000-05:00

Season 1 episode 1 - Listen to World War ll London Blitz Diary Episode 1

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Excerpts 12-8-1943 to 12-30-1943 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 3:: (History is never quite as real a when it is told by those who lived it.)

2012-02-06T21:20:00.003-05:00

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Wednesday December 8, 1943

Last night I had another of those instructing, illuminating, warning and guiding dreams. I hope I never forget it. The facts, which induced it, I think, are there; these last few days I have been working again on my “This Heroine” story. I have written a whole chapter on Angel Road, and of course this mean I have had my mother continually at the bottom of my mind. Then here in this house there has been discomfort because of Hilda, who will not be genial or pleasant. I also spent yesterday writing to Eddie, which makes me terribly homesick for America; and I wrote him of my dream and intention of returning to the States once the war is over, and staying there, Dad or no Dad. Well in my dream I was in America, staying as a guest with Ruth Eason. I was in her house, yet it had our porte-cochere, and was filled with our furniture. None of my sons came into the dream even for a minute. Two elderly ladies came to visit Ruth, and somehow I was made to know that not only was I an unwanted guest, but I was a positive nuisance. Ruth refrained from introducing me to her guests, with whom she was effusively welcoming, and I found myself relegated to a sort of charwoman who was expected to tidy the dining room and then wash up the dishes. I found myself out on the porch, shaking the tablecloth, and suffering poignantly. “I am not wanted,” went my thoughts;” I am in the way. What can I do? I’ve spent all my money, and I can’t get anymore, so I can’t go away. I should have saved some money, enough for passage-money, but I didn’t, so now I must stay here, and she doesn’t want me. Oh what a fool I’ve been! I want to go home, back to Ted, and I can’t go home. Misery, misery.”

Saturday December 11, 1943

It is ten-thirty a.m. and I am cooking the dinner. I have a very disagreeable incident to record. Extremely disagreeable, but here it is. On Thursday morning at breakfast time things reached a climax in the house. It was a cold, dark morning, but nothing unusual in that, considering this time of year, but when Artie and Hilda came down they complained of the weather as though that too was my fault. That was the last straw, and I exploded. I told Hilda that what she wanted was exercise, she should go out and take a walk around the block to make her blood circulate, and blow her cobwebs away. I pointed out that she went out even less than I did, and that she stuck too close to Artie. Then she replied, that she couldn’t go out with Artie, and walking with him was too slow. “ I can’t walk quickly with a crippled husband.” I could have felled her. To allude to Artie, in front of him, like that, and in the tone of voice she used, was unforgivable. She voiced what must lie in her secret heart a resentment of Artie’s loss of limb. I flared. She turned to Artie, who was saying nothing, and said: “You! Can’t you say anything? Are you going to let her talk to me like that!” Poor Artie still said nothing, but did put his arm around the back of her chair. I was sorry at once, and rose at once to leave the room. “Oh, never mind,” I said, “get on with your breakfast. I’ll go and dress” and went upstairs. Then I found myself in such a state of exasperation, I thought, I can’t stay in this house today. I’ll go and see Joan, and when I get home this evening we shall all feel better,” and so I dressed for the street. I concluded all the necessary preparations for lunch, and worked out things for tea. I also put out a hoarded box of chocolate candies for them. I told them of all this, asked them to tell Dad I had gone to see Joan, said goodbye, and left in time to catch the eleven-fifty train. I had a pleasant visit with Joan, and as the moon was almost at the full I remained until evening. I got home soon after nine o’clock, St. Edwards Church clock striking the hour as I walked up this road. In the house I found only Ted, but I thought perhaps Artie and Hilda were out at the movies. I got myself a snack meal, and then Ted said: “Well Lady, you’ve got your wish. The lovebirds have flown. They gave me my dinner all right; but told me I should have to get my own tea as they were leaving for Scotland. However when I get back at teatime they were still here, delayed, I suppose, by Hilda taking the usual hour to do her hair. Anyhow they had to wait nearly an hour for a taxi, and then went off about five -thirty, with a couple of valises. I presume they are traveling all night. What a night for the journey! I must say the house feels better already without them; that awful oppression has lifted. Yes, I had a short talk with Artie. He was quite friendly with me, but said they couldn’t stick it here any longer. I told him I thought he was acting very foolishly, but of course he could do, as he liked. He said he would write, and I told him to tell me if he wanted me to still get him a house or flat, otherwise I should do nothing further in that matter. I also told him that I thought you were in the right and that Hilda did not behave well towards you. I also told him of her very bad habits of whispering in company, and of her petting in public, and said he ought publicly to stop her, that such things weren’t done in polite society, and were in extremely bad taste. He agreed. Poor Artie! Poor fellow! Anyhow he’s gone, Lady, and he left this for you.”

Tuesday December 14, 1943

I have just come in from a walk around town. As I turned down this street I passed the visiting priest whom I’ve seen taking the mass at St. Edward’s. Of course he did not know me so no acknowledgement passed between us. I was glad, for his appearance disgusts me. He is an elderly man, chockfull of all the signs of good living, paunchy and with a toper’s complexion. He was wearing an expensive overcoat and a silk muffler, and he paused to light himself a cigar. I thought he is exactly the type of the prosperous priest, a stuffed pig, and a cleric who makes a derision of the religion he stands for. I thought there is nothing spiritual about him, so how can he expound or show forth the spiritual life? I thought could any woman go to confession to this priest? Of course not. Such a man could not have anything to say to anyone that would be of the slightest use. This sort of specimen of a priest should be kept out of the public view, for the mere sight of him is a scandal to his cloth. I remembered Miss Radenacher, back in the old Bayonne days, telling us how her mother used to advise her children not to get socially acquainted with their parish priest, as a personal acquaintance ship would prove a mistake. “After all,” she’d say: “priests are only men, but if you get to know them as men you will lose your respect for them and then possibly lose your religion also. So let the priest stay in his place, in church, don’t ask him into the house, never make a friend of him. Friendship with a priest is fatal to your religion. “ She must have had the fat and smug ones in her mind, though I think she meant all priests were to be socially evaded. Well, I guess she was right. The mere sight of today’s specimen passing on the street is sufficient to damn the entire priesthood.

Saturday December 18, 1943

Love, after sleep, deep in the night. This is how and when I like it, when I can best respond to it. Today, I am serene in my mind, and well in my body, content and happy.

Monday December 20, 1943

We were up twice in the night for raids. We heard one bomb fall which sounded fairly near; we have heard this afternoon that the railway line was hit between Stratford and Bethnal Green, nobody killed but several linesmen injured, traffic stopped all morning, but has resumed again now.

Influenza is rather serious just now, quite an epidemic, last week there were eleven hundred and forty eight deaths from it in England alone. However this is the first really bad health of the war. This is Ted’s Home-Guard night, so I am going to take my tea now, and read awhile in cozy solitude. So Au-Revoir.

Monday December 27, 1943 Boxing Day

Mrs. White and Daisy called this afternoon and were our only Christmas callers. This year Christmas is less like Christmas than any of the last years yet. We had news at midday that we sunk the battleship “Scharnhorst” yesterday, somewhere in the Arctic Circle. So that’s disposed of at last. No word from Artie, not even a Christmas card.

Thursday December 30, 1943

I remain very serene, calm, and shall I say “happy”? News the R.A.F. bombed Berlin again last night. I am sorry about that. I know the warring has to be resumed, but I wish our authorities had felt they could let the Christmas respite last a little longer. However…

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Excerpts: 11-21-1943 to 12-1-1943 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 3 (History is never quite as real a when it is told by those who lived it.)

2012-02-05T16:14:00.001-05:00

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Sunday November 21, 1943

A hell of a row this morning at the breakfast table, precipitated by Artie saying he had begun, whilst in the army, to read the Old Testament, but could not get far with it as it disgusted him, God and the Jews had a continual bribing match. At once Ted was up in arms and practically told Artie to shut up. “You must think again, “ he said: “you ought to know better, but of course with your mother, she’s hopeless; but I won’t listen to you, Artie, talking about things you know nothing at all about. You are a very ignorant young man, but your mother does know what’s right, only she won’t acknowledge it.” Naturally conversation dried up, but when the young people went upstairs Ted turned on me again. “I wasn’t going to have you talking about Abraham, sneering! I make allowances for you, you can’t help yourself. I wasn’t going to have you contaminating those two. You, and your crooked ideas. Look at the results in Harold, the first of your sons to leave his wife! All because of you and your infidelities. If Harold loses his religion, because of you, of course he can’t live right…”

Sunday November 28, 1943 Advent Sunday

The B.B.C. tells us that during the past eight days the R.A.F. have bombed Berlin five times, dropping in all six thousand tons of bombs on the city. This is awful. It makes me weep. I weep for Berlin, as well as us, and for all the dead, the dead in Berlin, and our boys who will never return. War, damned ghastly fiendish war! Is this the only way men can settle the affairs of he world? One wry joke comes in. The B.B.C. reports that a spokesman on the German air told the Germans that Berlin was carrying on in the debris, life as usual, including even the theaters, and listed two of the plays still running as, “Queen of the Night,” and “Love’s Glamour Over All.” What irony!

Monday November 29, 1943

It’s a year today since Mother died. We have had fogs throughout this November like last years. It was the fog that killed mother, and this year too it is killing the old. I’m feeling homesick for Angel Road, Mother’s home. Of course in actuality Joan has annilated it, she “has got rid of” the greater part of Mother’s belongings, and what she has retained she has rearranged in strangeness; instead of the crowded and cozy Victorian home Mother kept, Joan has made a cold, forbidding, sparsely furnished barracks. Joan is strictly utilitarian and the house is now ugly and cheerless; a place that would give Mother the shivers as much as it does me, and from which she is so banished that it is almost impossible to remember her in it. I was thinking today I have never been really at home in the world since I left Angel Road. None of the homes I have made with Ted have been homes to me. Maybe they have meant home to my children, I hope so, but they have never meant home to me. Home was Number Six Angel Road, and no place else. Perhaps that is what home is, the house where one lives with one’s parents, where one is a child supported by love, by love and discipline. I don’t know how men feel about this, but I know a husband has never given me “home” in the way my parents did. I felt at home in Angel Road, no matter what the tumult, and I felt to be myself there, but I have never felt at home with Ted, never felt, either, to be my true full self with him. To go home, no, no more can I ever do that. Perhaps that is why those who love God can feel about death that it is going home. Oh, I wished I lived alone and could do as I pleased.

Wednesday December 1, 1943

It is the first anniversary of Artie’s wedding. I was in hope the pair of them would go out somewhere to celebrate, but no, here they stuck, I wished them to blazes. Hilda gets on my nerves more rather than less as time progresses. Last night Ted said there was a rumor that a certain flat on the Brentwood Road was likely soon to become vacant, and perhaps Artie would like it, if it fell into the market. Artie said, yes, but he couldn’t’ plan anything until after his next medical board, in January, he might not be discharged from the Army; therefore he wouldn’t furnish now. Quite right. It might pay him to pay the rent just the same, to hold it, in case he was going to be free to live a civil life very shortly. After all, it would only be a few weeks, and anyhow the flat isn’t even vacant yet, and may not become so, this is only a rumor of possible vacancy. I, too, am impatiently waiting for January and the decision of the Army Medical Board. Some decision will be made then about Artie’s future, and what ever it is I hope it will take him away from this house. If he is to remain in the army he will have to go to some military depot, if it is civil life he will have to find a job. In either case he could leave these premises, and I certainly wouldn’t keep Hilda here without him. If he remains in the Army most likely she would go back into the W.A.A.F’s; and if it is civil life, he will have to rent a place for himself somewhere or other. If he was alone he could stay here indefinitely, but married, and to this dull boring girl, he can’t remain indefinitely, for I simply can’t tolerate this girl. She suits him all right. She doesn’t suit me, and she never will. I can’t stand her about the place. Heighho!

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Excerpts: 10-22-1943 to 11-9-1943 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 3:(History is never quite as real as when it is told by those who lived it.)

2012-02-04T06:52:00.000-05:00

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Sunday October 24, 1943

Monday October 25, 1943

Saturday November 6, 1943

Monday November 8, 1943

Tuesday November 9, 1943

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Excerpts: 10-18-1943 to 10-22-1943 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 3

2012-02-03T18:34:00.001-05:00

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Monday October 18, 1943

There was a very heavy raid again last night. Rockingham Avenue, about a mile or a mile and a half from here, got a direct hit, ten houses down and six people killed outright, several others injured and taken to the hospital.

Tuesday October 19, 1943

There was a raid again last night. It’s moonlight of course. Nothing fell here, thank God. Yet somewhere else got the bombs. Oh, when will this damn war finish! What frightful times we are living in! What infuriating ones, for none of the world’s troubles need be. Men have made the world the way it is. Men destroy society and civilization. Fool men. Wicked men. Goddamn men! God does damn men. We are all damned.

Wednesday October 20, 1943

I am very restless and very tired. Another raid last night so we are all losing sleep, and that’s making us all cranky. Ted is on my nerves excessively. I do think him a fool. He fusses about nothing and too pious for words. I loathe his piety. Why oh why can’t he be a normal man? I think he is a maniac, and I am so tired of him I do not know how to go on living with him any longer. He’s good and he means well, but the fact is, I can’t bear him. I’ve had too much of him. Marriage last too long. I hate marriage. One night soon, perhaps tonight, he will want his pleasure, and he’ll take it. Will he say his prayers over that? Of course not. In the morning he’ll be up and off to mass, as per usual. Habit.

Thursday October 21, 1943 Trafalgar Day. Salute to Nelson.

We had another very bad raid last night, between one and two this morning. I trembled so incessantly that this morning my limbs ache as though I had climbed a mountain and even my arms ache. I retched so much I am feeling my ribs are bruised, as though somebody kicked them. I am so tired from lack of sleep my eyes are smarting. During a raid like last nights it is easy to understand how human beings can die of shock and fear. Once I held my breath thinking the house was surely hit, but it wasn’t, nor anywhere immediately near, so far as I know. War. This fiendish war, the sport of men.

Friday October 22, 1943

There was a raid again last night, between two and three a.m. and another this evening about half past seven until nearly nine. This evening was a very heavy one. The Gerry’s have got through to London every night now for a week, but it was the last quarter of the moon yesterday, so we may hope for quieter nights next week. We are all very tired. Since Gerry came early this evening we hope for an undisturbed night tonight.

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History is never quite as real as when it is told by those who lived it.

2012-02-02T22:10:00.001-05:00

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Excerpts: 10-8-1943 to 10-14-1943 World War ll London Blitz

2012-02-02T20:09:00.001-05:00

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Friday October 8, 1943

We have had air raids every night since Sunday. Last night’s was the heaviest yet. Two bombs dropped on the Golf Links. I actually went outside to look at the sky and saw a Gerry caught in the searchlights. The moon up, the stars shining, the lights criss-crossing, colored flares dropping, it is a beautiful night, but what a devil’s beauty. During the evening Ted wrote me two checks, one for my hats, the other to cover Jo Tibb’s dressmaking bill. I duly thanked him.

Tuesday October 12, 1943

The Devil to Pay. Last night there was a hell of a row here over Hilda. I say curse Hilda. This girl behaves towards me absolutely insolently and she goes in and out of the house as non-chalantly as she would go in and out of a cinema or a restaurant. She never says good-by or hello. She comes down to breakfast and never says good morning, she goes up to bed and never says goodnight. She sits up in her room, or in the parlor, until a meal is ready, then comes to the table when she is called. I resent this. She ignores me more than she would ignore a servant. This house is not a hotel, nor do I live for the pleasure of cooking her meals. This is a home, where she is receiving complete free hospitality and I expect her to pay the due courtesies of a home. I expect her to cooperate a trifle in the chores, and I expect her to smile and be pleasant and friendly. She is disagreeable and a dour unlikable person. All she wants is admiration and adulation and to be waited on, and for why? Simply for her pretty face. She is one of the most ignorant girls to be found in the kingdom, she knows nothing, and she does nothing. All she wants is to go to the movies everyday, and, presumably, to look like a movie heroine. She is rude to all the people who come into the house, whether they are Artie’s friends or mine. She simply won’t cooperate about anything. She’s sly and underhanded; there is much of the usual deceit of the born Irish Catholic about her. Well, Sunday night I spilled over. She had done nothing in the house all day except feed her face, and most of the evening she spent in the parlor with Ted and Artie. I stay alone here in the dining room, but quite content to be alone. Ted came in at nine o’clock to hear the news, and then returned again to the parlor. A little later Artie came in, and crossed the room to kiss me goodnight. Hilda stayed out in the hall, awaiting him. She never said a word. She did not even come to the door and smile a goodnight. Well, I boiled over. I waited until the pair of them was upstairs, but then went through to Ted and exploded at her bad manners. She’s not my daughter, and I don’t count it a privilege to work for her, but seeing that she’s living on the premises I think the least she can do is to treat me with ordinary politeness. She doesn’t. So I exploded, and called her a little cat, and a blasted bitch, and meant it too. Unfortunately in my anger I didn’t stop to close the parlor door behind me, so my words carried upstairs and she heard them. I didn’t mean for her to hear them, but there you are! So yesterday, of course, there was trouble with Artie, and general glooms all around. Sulks. Well, I hate sulks, so at teatime I spoke out and said: “Hilda, I want a few words with you before you go to bed tonight. I think we need to come to an understanding.” She looked frightened, but went off upstairs, where she and Artie stayed all evening. Early in the evening Doreen Peel came in, and stayed until after ten. When she had gone Artie came down, in his bathrobe, and said “I have come to say goodnight, and to say goodnight for Hilda.” I jumped. I said “Oh, isn’t she going to face me? Or is she too tired? If so we can have our talk tomorrow morning.” Artie said, “No, I won’t let her. She’s my wife and I won’t have her bothered.” Then we talked for half an hour, both Ted and I pointing out her faults and annoying actions, and Artie, in true bridegroom fashion, excusing her. Naturally. I’m sorry for Artie, for he’s between two women, his wife and his mother. I don’t want to hurt Artie, on the other hand, I don’t want to be hurt myself, and I’ve had three months of the girl’s barbarities and uncouthness, and I can’t stand any more of her. This girl is poison to me, and if she doesn’t either change or get out, I shall have a nervous breakdown.

Wednesday October 13, 1943

It is Arthur Thompson’s birthday. Had he lived I suppose he would have been fifty-seven or fifty-eight by now. When Hilda came downstairs she actually addressed me first, and said “Good morning, Mrs. Thompson.” Good! Maybe she’ll practice manners yet.

Thursday October 14, 1943

It is a rainy day. I spent it with Joan. She read out to me parts of Aileen’s last letter. Aileen writes, that she judges two out of three of my boys are neurotics, but does not specify which. Charlie, she prefers to the others, she says he is kind, affectionate, sincere, and very Boy Scout. She says Johnnie is the handsomest and cleverest of the boys, but is bogged down in domesticity, and that you feel that inwardly he is very unhappy. She says that Harold has the least brains of any of them, that he is “terribly confused,” that Ted has confused him further with the curse of conscience, but that he is kind and good and very high principled. This contradicts Kay’s accusations, so probably my guess is right, and Kay is still slightly mental. Aileen says that although my boys are good normal Americans, still they are disappointing to her, they have too much of Ted in them and too little of me, that they lack the Side family vividness and aggressiveness and wit, and that Ted has confused all of them with his ideas and his religion, and she says, “Again, say, curse, religion!” She finishes, “To see them makes me sad, they are only dim reflections of Ruby in a receding mirror.”

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Excerpts: 9-24-1943 to 10-4-1943 World War ll London Blitz Diary

2012-02-01T18:09:00.002-05:00

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Friday September 24, 1943

I have received this letter from Kay, written from Bayside, September 13,
“Dear Mother, Its six a.m. and I find that if I get up an hour earlier than usual I accomplish so much more. Harold left us two weeks ago, I am sick at heart and lonesome but I must take it. There is no one so important to Harold as his own self. Four little children? Bah! They don’t count, religion? It’s for fools. The boys feel badly about the stinking mess and have told me, should I ever need help, they will give it to me. When Harold left, I told him that wherever I am, it’s his home, when he sees fit to come back.

Saturday September 25, 1943

I am so miserable I feel literally sick. Not only have I had this distressing letter from Kay, I have had also a letter from Marjorie written from the Sanatorium in Pomona, New York. She definitely has tuberculosis. Then there is my own immediate trouble about Hilda. My aversion for this girl increases daily. I can’t bear her around the house. “Damned interloper!” I think. She has no breeding at all. She is a slum child, nothing else. To think Artie has married such a one. Oh, it is an angry grief.

Wednesday September 29, 1943

There is a queer idea which seems to lie ineradicably at the base of all Englishmen’s thinking, the idea that man is the superior sex, that woman exists for the benefit of man, and that a husband owns his wife, also his children. Well, I do not assent to it. I did not marry Ted to be his housekeeper and unpaid servant, which is quite certain. There’s no quid pro quo in marriage or not in an English marriage. As for our monies, I must account for every ha’penny passed to me, but Ted never accounts to me for the monies he spends. When he buys a house, he doesn’t consult me, anymore than he does when he buys a suit of clothes, or goes on a holiday. What does he spend on barber and tobacco? I don’t know what does he give to the church? I don’t know. He is a law to himself, but I’m only his wife.)

Monday October 4, 1943

It is old Herbert’s birthday, he is seventy-five today. I was talking to Hilda at breakfast about history. She does not know even her own Scottish history; I asked about Mary Queen of Scots, her answers showed that she confused Mary with Elizabeth! She thought they were the same person! She knew nothing at all about Darnley, Rizzio, or Bothwell, all she knew was that Queen Mary was to be regarded as a martyr; she thought the English called her “good Queen Bess.” The depth of this girl’s ignorance is incomputable. So I asked her what school did she go to? A Catholic Church school? And she said, yes, then a Catholic High School? She replied, no. In fact, she has been to no high school at all, but she isn’t going to say so. This girl was born in Glasgow of an Irish father and a Lancashire mother. The mother was a convert after marriage. The father is an ardent Catholic, presumably the usual fanatical ignoramus. The children are made to go to mass, and to the Catholic elementary school. Hilda is one of the expected products. She can read and write and is familiar with elementary arithmetic, but that is apparently the complete sum of her education. She knows neither the geography nor the history of her own country, Scotland, though she has a few hazy notions about it. I suppose she knows Mary was beheaded; but why, she has no idea. Mary was a martyr, that’s all she knows. I suppose the nuns who taught school couldn’t possibly mention Darnley or Rizzio because they were “lovers”, or Bothwell because he was a “Protestant.” Perhaps even the nuns themselves were ignorant of these persons and events. As for Hilda she doesn’t want to know anything. She has no hunger for knowledge, so she will never seek it. She isn’t a natural fool, but simply a colossally ignorant person. Nor has she an accomplishment of any sort at all. She can neither sing nor play, she can’t sew, she doesn’t even knit, or even play cards. What Artie is going to do with her as time goes on, I’m sure I don’t know, but I’m sure when his love-fever burns itself out, he is going to be a very bored husband. I think he is going to be ashamed, too, for her ignorance of all rules of politeness, of etiquette, of good manners, is on a par with her ignorance of the usual school subjects. She isn’t vulgar or rude, she’s just blank. She knows enough to say please and thank-you at the table, but not enough to say goodbye when she goes out, or goodnight when she goes to bed. She treats this house like a hotel. She doesn’t show disrespect to Ted or me, but she certainly doesn’t show respect. She exists only for herself. Courtesy, she has none. That she should have regard for the other person apparently has never dawned on her. She is one of the most unlikable persons we have ever met. Ted feels the same way about her.

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Excerpts: 9-18-1943 to 9-22-1943 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 3 (History is never quite as real as when it is told by those who lived it.)

2012-01-31T21:23:00.000-05:00

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Thursday September 16, 1943

The Germans were over this area again last night, and dropped bombs in three different London areas. Nothing dropped here, but it might have done. What’s the use of money in the bank to a dead woman? So I went and bought two new hats and very becoming ones at that. At least I’ll look all right, even if I don’t feel it. Now I have got to cook this afternoon. Mushrooms to be fixed for tea, and I suppose I had better do something about the pastry. What a life!

Saturday September 18, 1943

Artie and Hilda are upstairs, titivating. This annoys me, for not only do I consider that the girl wastes endless time dressing and making up, but I feel I am not at home in my own house, for I should venture to go upstairs myself I am made to feel an intruder. This girl is too idle to suit me. I have just finished preparing the days vegetables, on which I have been working on nearly two hours, three quarters of an hour to string beans alone; yet this girl makes no offer or attempt to help. She comes down stairs to eat her breakfast, and then retires upstairs again until luncheon. It is true she does clear away the breakfast things, but Artie wash’s them. She doesn’t want to put her hands in the dishpan because the water would spoil her nails. What nails! They are pointed talons, painted bright red. Actually she has a very ugly hand, a thick wrist, and puffy fingers. It is the calm way she assumes that I am naturally here to the work, which annoys me. She’s not my daughter; it is no pleasure to me to work for her. Oh God, how I hate her. Every day she remains here my aversion to her deepens. I can’t bear her. She has no manners, no breeding, no education, no true cleanliness even; she is a gold digging painted slut from the Glasgow slums, and she’ll never be anything else. Probably it is only the fact that her father is a practicing Catholic, which has kept her straight, for I expect she was a virgin when Artie married her but there is nothing else about her which I can discover which is satisfactory. Brains she has none, but with the wiles and a pretty face and the help of the war she has caught a husband. Oh yes, she’s smart enough for that, but not smart enough not to boast about it. Yesterday she was reminiscing with Artie about how their acquaintanceship began. She was one of the waitresses in the N.A.A.F. I. at the O.C.T.U when Artie went there two years ago. She said there was a strict rule that no N.A.A.F. I. girl was to be allowed to go out with a cadet, and that if any girl of the staff was seen walking with an officer inside the barracks, she would be dismissed at once, and moreover the cadet would lose his promotion also, back to the ranks for him. The girls volunteered for the N.A.A.F.I. because they hoped to catch husbands there. Some of the girls did, but they lived in terror of being found out and could only meet them after dark, and outside. Had her boss known she was meeting one of the cadets outside, she would have been sent away at once. The rule was very strict, she said.

Tuesday September 21, 1943

It is the first day of autumn and the re-opening of Parliament. There was a long speech from Mr. Churchill, who returned from America on Sunday. He said that the bloodiest part of the war is yet to come.

Wednesday September 22, 1943

It is a beautiful morning. I hope the weather will be as nice tomorrow, for I am booked to go to Hammersmith for the day. I have been making a large pan of Irish stew, so that there will be enough dinner tomorrow as well as today, so that Hilda will have nothing to do to make dinner except warm up the remains of today. This afternoon I will cook rice pudding and applesauce, so that there will be desserts on hand tomorrow also.

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Excerpts: 9-8-1943 to 9-14-1943 World War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 3 (History is never quite as real as when it is told by those who lived it.)

2012-01-30T18:28:00.004-05:00

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Wednesday September 8, 1943

Italy has surrendered. At half past five this evening General Eisenhower broadcast from Algiers, that our armistice terms have been agreed to, without reservations and the Italians having laid down their arms, fighting against Italy has ceased, the armistice commencing at once. So Italy is out of the war. Eisenhower also added a promise to the effect that if Italy is attacked by any other power, we, the United Nations, will help her fight her attacker. This, presumably, is for the benefit of the Germans. Will the Germans round on Italy? Quite possibly. They signed a peace pact with Russia in 1939, but that didn’t prevent them from invading and attacking Russia in 1941.So what next?

Thursday, September 9, 1943

Day by day I simmer in a state of exacerbation. My immediate family is on my nerves so excessively that occasionally I scarcely know how to keep calm. Hilda and Artie, as a combination, bore me, but Ted bores me to the limit of exasperation. Literally I am sick and sated of Ted Thompson. I consider him a silly old fool, a platitudinous old gasbag, a petty domestic tyrant, and a censorious interferer in affairs, which don’t concern him. Really, he’ s intolerable. Actually of late he says such silly things I begin to wonder whether maybe he hasn’t actually crossed the threshold into senility. To listen to his meanderings is to be struck dumb, literally, for there are no replies to his inanities. He’s a fool, a silly damn fool. God, how I long to get a way from him! We do not quarrel and that is only because I will not quarrel; but I am in a fury of exasperation often, too often. Ted antagonized those who belong to him, but he doesn’t know it. He’s antagonizing Artie now, just as he has antagonized all his sons. Ted can’t leave anyone alone, can’t refrain from criticism. Of course he simply wallows in self-righteousness. He is good, but with a goodness that is sterile and hateful. Hilda and Artie, as newlyweds, are on his nerves, just as they are on mine; ostensibly he is pleasant to them, but directly they go out of the room he begins picking on them, to me.

Friday, September 10, 1943

I am afraid I’m getting very perilously near a complete physical and nervous breakdown. Day after day I wake up with the feeling that I cannot face the day. I don’t want to see anybody, I don’t want to do anything, I just want to continue lying in bed, and doing so indefinitely. I don’t want to cook, to keep house, and to look after people. As for the people in the house, alas, more and more often do I find myself regarding my husband with positive aversion, and the children with impatience. Artie, my son, has vanished in the bridegroom, I realize I have said goodbye to him forever. As for Hilda, his wife, she is completely mediocre or below mediocrity. The marriage is an obvious misalliance. The girl has stepped up in the world and Artie has stepped down. Hilda is a beautiful dumbbell. Artie has been snared by a pretty face. The girl has neither brains nor breeding. She comes from Glasgow Irish, a low lot. She will probably make him a good cow like wife, she will be at least while her youth and beauty lasts, a satisfactory female in his bed, but nothing will ever turn her into a lady. Her education is elementary, and she hasn’t a single interest above the movies and her own personal appearance. She hasn’t a single accomplishment, no conversation, and not a glimmer of an idea of how to behave in society. My guess is she is a child of the Glasgow slums. She is “good” a good Catholic. That’s fine, for Ted! What a daughter in law to have foisted upon one! Well, Artie married her. He’ll have to make the best of her and so must we. (Ted is just as much disappointed about her as I am) Now I must get lunch.

Sunday September 12, 1943

I have been full of anger of the most devastating kind; in fact, I think I made myself ill with it, for I could not sleep last night from temper, and I got up this morning with an excruciating backache. However I am feeling much better now, thank heaven, almost back to normal serenity and hope to keep serene. It was Hilda who enraged me, or perhaps Artie or the pair of them. This is how things are in the house: Ted and I are giving hospitality to Artie and his wife, until he gets a leg and a job and can establish himself in a home of his own. Our idea, apart from natural feeling, was that by living here with us Artie might be able to save and accumulate a little money. He doesn’t save. Hilda is a gold digger. The first week she was here Artie took her shopping every day and bought her a coat, hat, dress, stockings, shoes and knickers, also bottles of scent and various expensive cosmetics. This was surprising, as she should have had a supply of clothes, a trousseau, but these were lacking. Nor did she have any money. Nor has she saved any, nor begun to accumulate linens, etc, for her home. The girl was in the W.A.A.F’s, where her expenses were nil, and she received pay into the bargain; also she received a regular allowance from Artie since December, when she became his wife. We suppose her money went into her parent’s home; anyhow, she has none, nor anything. I didn’t like this evidence of shiftlessness and carelessness. It made we wonder what kind of upbringing she had. Well, yesterday Artie took her out again and bought her a tailored suit. I certainly felt annoyed. Why should we keep them here to help them, and increase our own household bills, only to have Artie spend his money buying the doll glad rags? After all, the extra money we are spending to keep them is money we wont be able to spend on ourselves. The girl ought to have clothes. A husband doesn’t ordinarily expect to buy clothes for his bride until at least a couple of years have gone by. Yes. I felt might resentful yesterday when she appeared in yet another suit. They treat the house as a hotel anyhow. I felt, why should I put myself out for them, and do all the work while she gets all the ha’pence? Happily I was able to refrain from comments, but inside I was furious.

Tuesday September 14, 1943

Joan was here for the day yesterday, and we had a much good talk together. She gave me news of Aileen, from whom she received a letter last Friday. In the letter was a message for me; she sent me her love, and, said Joan, she added this: “ I know Ruby must hate me forever having not written to her since I came to New York but I couldn’t write the sort of things I knew she would like to hear, so I didn’t write at all.” Joan didn’t produce the letter for me to read myself, but explained its meaning as follows; she said Aileen knows and likes all the boys, also tells Joan she would love the Thompson Tribe, meaning all the children: but that the boys are disappointing, have too much of their father in them, and Aileen says it makes her sad to see them “because they have only a shadow of Ruby in them” and she ends up about them saying “curse religion.”

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