Julie Summers' "Our Univited Guests" by Janie Hampton

Trainee agents on the rope bridge across the muddy River Cam 
at Audley End, Essex. ©Polish Underground Movement 

Oxford writer Julie Summers has written another extraordinary book about the realities of life in Britain during the Second World War. ‘Our Uninvited Guests’ focuses on the people who had to leave their homes and start new lives in places where Hitler's Blitz could not reach them. Oxfordshire coped with over 37,000 evacuees moved from more vulnerable areas of southern England. Nobody then had heard the rumour that Hitler would never bomb Oxford, when Blenheim Palace, about 12 miles up the road from Oxford, was colonised by schoolboys.
When in September 1939, Malvern College in Worcestershire was requisitioned for civil servants, the private school was moved into Blenheim Palace. They brought with them 55 van loads of books, iron bedsteads and musical instruments, including 20 pianos. The laundry was converted into physics and biology laboratories, while the riding school became the gymnasium. The windows of all 187 rooms had to be blacked out so that no chink of light could be seen by the Luftwaffe. The boys slept in the state rooms where valuable artworks were covered with board to protect them from stray darts and ink bombs.

Items transported from Malvern College, Worcestershire to Blenheim Palace, 
Oxford shire, included twenty pianos and 400 beds. © Country Life

Pregnant women from the East End of London were evacuated to Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire to give birth to their babies. Still a splendid house, it had been the home of Lord Melbourne, Queen Victoria’s favourite British Prime Minister. Lady Melbourne had decorated the principal rooms for her lover, the future George IV. Mothers recovering from childbirth slept in hospital beds in the lavish surroundings of the Prince Regent’s suite, stripped of its red and gold pagoda double bed, but not its beautiful Chinese wallpaper. The new born babies were bathed next to the wine cellar in the basement.

In Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire, mothers recover from childbirth in the Prince 
Regent’s suite, decorated in early 19th century Chinese wallpaper. 
© Imperial War Museum 

Summers toured round England and Scotland, finding out the role of Britain's stately homes and country houses. Using extensive research and interviews, she describes in rich detail, life in some of Britain’s greatest country houses which were occupied by people who would otherwise never have seen such opulent surroundings. People from all walks of life often found the splendour and opulence at odds with their needs. The Rothschilds’ magnificent French chateau-inspired Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, housed one hundred children under the age of five evacuated from London. They ate lobster, rabbit curry, and Woolton Pie - a vegetable recipe named after the Minister of Food, Lord Woolton. Over in Warwickshire, Lord Bearsted moved his bank ‘Samuel & Co’ from London to his country home Upton House. There his 23 employees were provided with wellington boots and ate rook pie.
Coleshill House in Oxfordshire was a 17th Century mansion with no heating, no electricity and water pumped by hand. Recruits to the ‘Auxillary Units’ – a secret band of saboteurs preparing for invasion by Germans - lived in the stables. They each received a crash course in unarmed combat, petrol bombs, booby traps and explosives to attack the invading army’s supplies and transport. At night they roamed the surrounding countryside to practice this art of ungentlemanly guerrilla warfare. Over 600 underground operation bases were constructed all over England for the stay-behind saboteurs to attack from behind. Their whereabouts was top secret. Had there been in invasion in 1940, the life expectancy of saboteurs was estimated to be about 15 days.

Operation bases for saboteurs were constructed
underground and their locations kept top secret. 

‘Our Uninvited Guests’ captures the spirit of upheaval when thousands of houses were requisitioned by the government for the armed forces, secret services and government offices as well as vulnerable children, the sick and the elderly, all of whom needed to be housed safely, or secretly. In Essex, Polish special agents were trained in the grounds of Audley End House, a royal palace in the 17th century. In the old nursery and the extensive woods, they learned the skills needed to make their way back into occupied Europe and carry out sabotage and subterfuge.
I have to confess that Summers and I are friends: we go on regular walks with our dogs on the Thames towpath. We support each other in the trials and tribulations of writing social history – the excitement of new discoveries; the brain exhaustion of writing it into a readable book; and the joy of publication. Our books cover similar periods in European history, so we often share ideas and swap contacts. Once we went to interview the same person together - an elderly woman who was both a WWII evacuee (Julie’s interest) and a Brownie Guide (mine). It was fascinating to witness how we extracted quite different stories from the same person. But I’m not the only person who has enjoyed this book, which has been well reviewed. Craig Brown wrote in The Mail On Sunday, 'Julie Summers has an amazing instinct for unearthing good stories and telling quotes.' 'Summers is a good and knowledgeable writer…powerful, emotional stuff' stated The Independent newspaper, while BBC History Magazine said the books is 'A poignant, lingering account. ' 

A student midwife bathes a new born baby next to the wine cellar
at Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire. © Imperial War Museum 

 Summers is a former History Girl blogger, and her most well-known book is ‘Jambusters’ a history of the Women’s Institute during the Second World War. This inspired the ITV television series ‘Home Fires’ which ran for two exciting seasons. Sadly, we were all left wondering who had died in the final scene of a plane crashing into a house. We had to content ourselves with the knowledge that the people inside were fictional, and not the real members of a rural Women’s Institute. Summers’ latest thought-provoking and evocative narrative captures a crucial period in the social history of Britain.

‘Our Uninvited Guests- the Secret lives of Britain’s country houses 1939-45',

 published by Simon & Schuster, 2018. 

                 Janie Hampton            Julie Summers

Hitler and Marigolds by Julie Summers

Edith Jones' diary
May 1945

There is nothing more delicious than discovering a private diary, written moons ago, that was never intended for publication. It has been my great good fortune to find several in the course of my work on the Second World War but the jewel in the crown for me were the diaries of Edith Jones, which form the golden thread through my book about the Women's Institute, Jambusters. When I tell people I have worked on the WI for over six years I get mixed reactions. Some pity, some incredulity that a women's organisation with a reputation for jam and Jerusalem would be of any interest to an author and sometimes, just sometimes, a nod of acknowledgement that this is a great topic. Well, let me reassure you that those in the third category are right.

As this is my first blog for the History Girls I thought I would kick off with the WI. This year is the 100th anniversary of the Women's Institute of England and Wales. Scotland has its own Scottish Rural WI. Born in Llanfairpwll on Anglesey in 1915, it was founded in part to help with food production during the First World War. However, its main aim was, and remains, to educate its membership. The full story of the WI is told in a new book Women's Century: an illustrated history of the Women's Institute by Val Horsler and Ian Denning.

It is a handsome publication that fulfills its promise by charting the 100 years in a gallery of mainly black and white images. Some are hilarious but the majority tell a tale of versatility, determination and good humour. The authors thread the story neatly through the book, focusing on the WI's key activities: education, campaigning and public affairs.

Wartime WI meeting

We all know about the Calendar Girls, and yes, they are there. As is the Queen, a member since 1943. But the more unexpected aspects of the WI's work is also celebrated. When do you imagine the WI resolved to get a ban on smoking in public places? 1964. They were 15 years ahead of the UK Green Party in lobbying the government to do more about recycling and researching renewable energy. And the Terrence Higgins Trust paid them a great compliment in 1987 when they campaigned for the use of condoms for safe sex: 'The WI does not flinch from the more difficult issues.' Indeed it does not. And it certainly did not flinch during the Second World War.

My brother, Tim, is responsible for the title Jambusters but he could have no idea how accurate a title it is for the WI's wartime activities. At a fundamental level the WI bust bureaucratic logjams and kept the countryside ticking. Their general secretary, Frances Farrer, had a reputation for phoning government ministers before breakfast so she could be sure to get their attention. She ordered 430 tons of sugar on 6 September 1939 in response to calls from members all over the country worrying about the bumper harvest going to waste in gardens and orchards that had been evacuated. Result: 1740 tons of jam by October. Over the course of the war the WI made jam for the Ministry of Food, it collected herbs for the pharmaceutical industry, it advised the government on housing, sanitation and education and much more besides. But it also kept its membership entertained, informed and in touch.

Dame Frances Farrer
Gen. Sec of WI 1929-59

When I was writing Jambusters my biggest problem was too much information. The WI archives at national, county and village level offer minute and fascinating detail about anything and everything they have ever been involved in. But it is all impersonal, in the form of minutes, records and letters. Occasionally there is a hint of fury in Miss Farrer's letters to the Ministry of Mines about petrol rationing but by and large it is factual detail. Yet the WI is an organisation full of personalities and I needed to get into someone's head. This is where Edith Jones' diaries came in. She was WI to the core and embraced the organisation from the moment it started in her remote village on the English/Welsh border in 1931.

Christine Downes with her
great-aunt Edith's diaries

She was a tenant farmer's wife and had little opportunity to broaden her horizons or go beyond the market town of Shrewsbury until the WI arrived. This gave her the chance to travel - she went to London in 1938 to attend the National Federation's AGM - and to meet women from other WIs in Shropshire. She recorded her everyday life in brief but delicious detail in diaries given to her by the Electricity Supply Company. That was an irony: Red House Farm, where she lived, did not get electricity until 12 years after Edith retired and moved away. Some of the juxtapositions are delightful. In September 1943 she wrote: 'Italy surrenders. I put new flower in hat.' On another occasion her puppy had fleas. On that day, 20 July 1944, she recorded the following: 'Hitler's life threatened by bomb. Puppy is very lousy, so Margaret is sorry for him & gives him a sound bathing and dressing.' How extraordinary that she heard about the failed Stauffenberg plot on the day it happened.

Edith Jones with Leonard 1937

All during the war there was a running thread of anxiety in the diaries for the safety of her nephew, Leonard, who had lived with her since he was a boy of six. He survived the war, returning from Africa in 1945. So although Edith saw no action she was aware of the constant threat to her family life. Five days before the war ended she read about Hitler's suicide. That day she recorded simply: 'Hitler confirmed dead. Jack sows marigolds.' I found that extraordinarily poignant when I first read it. The madness of the war was over and her husband, Jack, planted marigolds to keep flies off her flowers and vegetables. And what did Edith Jones do the day after the war ended? She went to her WI meeting where they discussed bringing electricity to the village: 'no agreement' she wrote. She carried on going to WI meetings until shortly before her death. For her the WI was a way of life and the war represented merely an episode in that long life.

Christmas cards by Janie Hampton

Over the years I have collected interesting cards from old scrapbooks and jumble sales.
As now is the time for sending out Christmas cards, I shall share some with The History Girls. 

Christmas card sent as World War One began, in 1914. 

 A pretty girl in the 1920s. 

Approaching Christmas 1938, a British man called W.J. Bassett-Lowke sent out a card with a political, rather than religious, message which seems especially relevant now. Only weeks after British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich in a British Airways aeroplane, his announcement of ‘Peace for our time’ was already being misquoted as ‘Peace in Our Time’ from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. ‘The desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again,’ said the Anglo-German Declaration signed on 30 September 1938 by Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler.


While most of Britain was celebrating this victory of peace over war, Mr Bassett-Lowke was less convinced. His cartoon Christmas card makes the point that Britain was already involved in fighting, in both Palestine and India. Below Chamberlain is a scowling portrait of Hitler, about to invade Czechoslovakia, saying ‘I am always prepared for peace.’ Then beside an air raid over Spain and an Italian soldier attacking an Abyssinian, Mussolini says ‘Fascism marks the beginning of real peace for everyone.’ Next in line is the grimacing French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier saying, ‘ France will respond to a man to defend the peace’. Having failed to ratify the 1936 Franco-Syrian Treaty of Independence, a French soldier is depicted firing a machine gun at a Syrian, while another French soldier marches with a flag announcing ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.’ And finally a jolly US President Franklin D. Roosevelt exporting munitions ‘To the Far East’ saying, ‘We must do our part to make the world safe for peace and democracy.’    Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose…
“ ‘May they practice [sic] what they preach in the New Year’ is the earnest Christmas wish from W.J. Basett-Lowke Northampton”. So who was he?

 Wenman Joseph is the small chap in a frock, Northampton 1880s.

Wenman Joseph Basett-Lowke (1877-1953) may have misspelt ‘Practice’ but then he did leave school at 13. Bassett-Lowke’s grandfather and father were engineers and boiler-makers and he used their skills and equipment to produce high-quality model trains.

With advertisements in The Model Engineer and mail-order catalogues, the company expanded, with strong links to Germany. His ‘Gauge 0’ train sets, models of ships and engineering equipment were perfect replicas. Among the model figures of passengers waiting for trains were Charlie Chaplin and Bassett-Lowke’s friend George Bernard Shaw. He depicted himself as ‘A Model Manufacturer’, with briefcase in hand, striding purposefully down the platform. The company also made ride-on garden railways and even a solid silver dining-table train set for an Indian Maharajah.
Bassett-Lowke was an ardent supporter of Modern Design and in 1916 he commissioned Charles Rennie Mackintosh to redesign the interior of his terrace house in Northampton, using the latest plastics to decorate the furniture. Ten years later, he commissioned the German architect Peter Behrens to build a house in Northampton. ‘New Ways’ was possibly the first modernist home, in white concrete with a flat roof, reminiscent of an industrial factory. Basett-Lowke was a Fabian socialist and supported the German-Jewish Bing family, also model train makers, when they fled to Britain in 1933. He was proud of Northampton and founded the Northampton Repertory Theatre, was a Town Councillor and an alderman. His Mackintosh home, 78 Derngate, Northampton, is open to the public as a gallery. In 2013 a steel sculpture to commemorate Bassett-Lowke, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the poet John Clare were placed by the River Nene in Northampton.
I don’t know who drew his Christmas card but Bassett-Lowke employed the best draftsmen for his mail-order catalogues and in the 1940s wrote illustrated Puffin books on Locomotives and Marvellous Models.

 Back to Christmas cards.

Here is a more traditional three-dimensional Nativity scene from the late 1940s. 









Happy Christmas to all The History Girls and our readers. May 2016 bring us all world peace…