Beaches and Bombers - by Ruth Downie

North Devon's 'Pages of the Sea' event, Saunton Sands, 2018

Pages of the Sea was a chain of gatherings on beaches across the UK to commemorate the end of the First World War. This summer we’ll see more events on Saunton Sands: this time to honour the soldiers who trained there for the D-Day landings seventy-five years ago.

All this is distant history for my generation, but to my grandparents the First World War was a living memory. The Second World War was a formative part of my parents’ childhood, and it affected them in ways that were impossible to predict.

In 1939 my father was 12 years old, and living in Ilfracombe, a small town just along the coast from the beach in the photo. Sifting through typescript of his unedited memoirs, I came across his account of the chaotic early days of the war, and the unexpected effect they had on his family’s fortunes:

"The day war was declared… all our plans were thwarted, for the air raid siren sounded shortly afterwards, and remembering Stanley Baldwin’s dictum that 'The bomber will always get through' we made our way down to what was then regarded as the safest place in the house - the coal cellar under the stairs. Remember this was early September; we obviously had not bought in the winter coal supply.

"Father was a Sergeant in the local Special Constabulary and so donned his uniform replete with steel helmet, and went off on duty. Mother prayed with us for his safety, and with gas masks at the ready, we awaited a visit from the mighty Luftwaffe.

"Now, of course, it all seems ridiculous. It transpired that the sirens had sounded everywhere (we were all going to get bombed at the same time!). Ridiculous now, but assuredly not then. The whole nation was on tenterhooks, and the authorities were too. It later turned out that a lone aircraft was detected coming into Croydon airport (or ‘aerodrome’ as they were known then) bringing some French military people to London for a conference. Nerves were taut, and off went the sirens. As for us, in obedience to orders, thereafter we kept a stirrup pump and buckets of sand and water in the hall to deal with incendiary bombs. Thus ended our first experience of the war.

'The little town of Ilfracombe changed almost overnight.'

"The little town of Ilfracombe changed almost overnight. Evacuees poured into town by rail - not only children. Thousands of adults left London and other big cities determined to avoid air raids, and the indiscriminate use of gas. Some had obviously made arrangements with relatives, but most simply packed a few belongings, got on the train, and started knocking on doors when they arrived. My parents took in a lady called Miss T— and a Mr and Mrs B—, also from the capital. They turned out to be a Jewish couple hailing originally I think from Russia.

"The holiday season had not yet ended. The town was already full with visitors. Many expected them to return home immediately war was declared, but very few did. They probably thought that this could be their last holiday for some time, and determined to make the most of it.

"In addition to those who were were evacuated here (many of the children came, not as individuals, but with their school), there also descended on the town an influx of troops. Among the first to arrive was a cavalry unit, equipped now with tanks, yet still, strangely being issued with riding breeches. The tanks, or rather their drivers, found Ilfracombe’s narrow streets difficult to cope with. I remember one turning down into our road from the High Street, and taking a lump out of the kerb in the process.

You'll have to imagine the narrow streets in this blurry pic from 1949.

"The breeches were ghastly. Shapeless, baggy and not at all smart. At this point we will leave the tanks and follow the breeches, for reasons which will become apparent.

"Now that we were at war, my father thought it might be an appropriate time to renew links with his old Regiment. The reason for this was that he could see no future for the business he had started. Stock would be difficult to acquire. The ‘season’ wherein most of the business was done was at the least, uncertain. A return to the Army seemed a much more certain means of employment.

A more certain means of employment? 1916, my grandfather seated in the centre.

 "Accordingly, he wrote to the relevant authorities offering his services if required. He was then aged 44. He was asked to wait a while to see how the situation developed, and this is where the breeches come in.

"As I remarked, the aforesaid breeches were unsightly. Answer? Go to a tailor and ask him to ‘wing’ them. This process made them flare out in the right place (the thigh) and become tighter fitting around the seat and lower leg. The soldiers were delighted with the result; the news spread throughout the unit.

"The town was filling up rapidly with Service personnel, every one of whom wore a uniform, and very few of the uniforms fitted. Almost all needed something sewn on (different Regiments had ‘flashes’ of various colours) and many needed repairing or pressing.

"Thus it was that W.B. Hancock, Tailors and Outfitters, never looked back."

Extract from the unpublished memoirs of Bill Hancock, 1927-2014.

 

 
In later years Dad developed a passion for history and one of the periods that especially interested him was the Second World War. His memoirs bring alive not only the experiences of one family, but also the wider context of the upheaval going on around them at the time. 

Pages of the Sea, 2018

At its best, isn’t that what historical fiction does, too? 

Providing they miss... Clare Hollingsworth: 1911 - 2017 - Celia Rees

Clare Hollingworth
1911 - 2017

Last Wednesday, it was announced that Clare Hollingworth, doyenne of foreign correspondents, had died in Hong Kong at the age of 105. During her long life she reported on conflicts around the globe, thriving on the thrill and the danger, maintaining with typical bravura that there was 'a certain attraction in being shot at - providing they miss.' 

Clare Hollingworth in 1932

Born to upper middle class parents in Leicestershire, she quickly escaped the life of marriage and motherhood that had been mapped out for her. She took a secretarial course and went to work for the League of Nations in Geneva and then in Poland for the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia.   She helped many refugees to escape from Germany. Too many. She was asked to leave Poland. She returned to Britain and in August 1939, she got a job as a reporter with the Daily Telegraph, working with Hugh Carleton Greene in Warsaw. Her career in journalism began in spectacular fashion. As a novice stringer stationed in Katowice, she managed the scoop of the century: the outbreak of the Second World War. The day after her arrival, she borrowed the British consul's official car 'for a day's shopping' over the border in Germany. The first town she came to was deserted. Then, as she drove on the the next town, she was passed by 65 dispatch riders. She stopped for lunch before driving back to Poland. On her return journey, she noticed that the sides of the roads were obscured with hessian screens. As one blew back, she saw rows and rows of German tanks. They belonged to von Rundstedt's Army Group South. Her story appeared on the front page of the Telegraph on 29th August, 1939, with the headline: '1,000 tanks massed on Polish frontier'. The next day, she woke to the sound of German bombers overhead. She rang in her story. The war had begun. At first she wasn't believed, until she put the telephone receiver out of the window and shouted, "Listen!"  

She escaped from Poland, going first to Hungary then to Rumania where she was nearly arrested by the ultranationalist Iron Guard. From Rumania, she went to Bulgaria, then to Greece, always just a step ahead of the German forces. Eventually, she escaped to Egypt in an open boat. Once there, she went on bombing missions with the RAF and joined patrols behind enemy lines.

Most of her Second World War reporting was done from the Middle East. She reported from Persia on the Anglo Russian invasion and conducted the first interview with the Shah when he ascended the Peacock Throne. He remembered her and, decades later, she was the only reporter granted an interview when he abdicated in 1979.

She went on to cover conflicts in Algeria during the '50s, Malaya, Borneo and Aden (Yemen) in the '60s and the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965. She was in Israel during the struggle for independence and again to cover the Six Day War in 1967. She was in Vietnam and Communist China, always at the centre of the action, tough, fearless and relentless in pursuit of a story. She continued to obtain notable scoops, reporting Kim Philby's escape from Beirut on a Soviet ship in 1963 (a story suppressed by her paper for fear of libel), Chairman Mao's severe stroke in 1974 and tipping Deng Xiaoping as China's eventual leader. Although her stories were often initially greeted with scepticism, her reporter's instinct remained unerring.       

She continued to work as a Far East correspondent with the Sunday Telegraph. Based in Hong Kong, she covered the handover of the colony in 1997. When failing eyesight and hearing made it impossible for her to continue her work, she still had the papers read to her everyday and held court at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents' Club over a gin and tonic. Kate Adie recalls being told of her presence with the words: 'There's a legend upstairs.' 

She was a role model for generations of female reporters and correspondents and, to the end, she slept with shoes and passport by her bed, ready to go anywhere should the call come. In a career that spanned over fifty years, she covered every major conflict from the Second World War onwards and is rightly regarded by many of her peers as one of the finest journalists of the 20th Century.   

Celia Rees

www.celiarees.com