Journal Entry
October 10, 1940
A heavy bomb in Stadium Street, near Lots Road, last night. Houses demolished and people sheltering killed. Some by the explosion, others gassed from broken mains, burnt or drowned in the cellars and basements.
A huge iron girder was discovered there in the roof of the Guinness Buildings - flung there by the force of the explosion.
Letter to Marion
10 October, 1940
Hortensia Road, Thursday night
My dearest Mog,
When you hear machine guns overhead it would please me far better if you at once got indoors and stayed there until it is quiet again. Remember that.
Except at odd moments I am as thoroughly bored with the war as I know you are with being in the country. Life has its moments even now but they are seldom the equal of those that belonged to that curious world, generally termed "peaceful" in which we lived until 1918 (sic). There is a part of me that can always remain detached and look at the colossal stupidity all about me and preserve a clear aloofness. Yet I cannot remain utterly aloof because I get so much pleasure from material things. That I bring a certain spirituality to them - or get it from them, I don't know which, anyway it does not matter - cannot alter the fact that I do depend on the material. I remember telling you the night was beautiful, that I did not discover it until this year. It is still beautiful to me although I cannot paint it anymore because I need time and quiet to think about it and quiet no longer exists here. So, for weeks and weeks I have not painted which amounts, very nearly, to saying I have not lived. Not entirely, for I have lost myself in the little drawings I told you about. But they are very sad and I only do them because they ask to be done.
I dream of lovely white canvases and of oil paint that I feel I can put on with just the right quality, of a texture, a living surface. It means as much to me as the feel of your skin, of your dear hands on my body and of the scent of your hair. I have no doubt that I will have you again just as I will have the time to paint a few of the pictures I think of, but I resent the waste of time. There never is enough time and there is such a lot to learn.
You must not think that I am really depressed, because I am not. I do not understand the meaning of defeat so long as there is life in me, and I will go on from the point at which I was obliged to leave off: just as sure as the war ends. And you will go with me.
I fear I have not said all this very well or very clearly. My brain is dull tonight. There are a great many thoughts in my head that I cannot get into any sort of proper order, so let's leave off and become more practical.
I am going to try hard to get a few days off soon after Christmas, when I will have been here six months, but I can't be sure I will manage it. You can be sure I will do my utmost.
I am only sending you thirty shillings this week but I will make it up when your cheque comes. I hope it will not make things difficult for you but I am rather broke. Everything is getting so damned expensive, as you know, and I eat more being up most of the night when I am here. These all-night raids are becoming expensive affairs.
The Public Library is still there - it was only the back that was burnt out. They have carted away many cart-fulls of charred books, papers and bookshelves - but the outside of the building looks the same. I suppose the roof has gone in places.
I believe Kitty is in the country, no one was hurt when the builder's yard caught alight.
With all me love to you and Julian,
Clifford
Journal Entries
October 13, 1940
Most uncomfortable last night. On gate guard at St Mark's, Fulham Road entrance.
Several bombs landed about two hundred yards away, in Ifield Road. Could not hear a plane. A perfect hail of metal. It clattered on the road and on top of our hut, bringing down slates from nearby roofs.
Another bomb rushed overhead. This hit the convent in Beaufort Street. No one hurt there. The nuns had all left.
'All clear' went 2am. Passed the remainder of the night in a damp Anderson shelter near Fulham Road gate, sitting in a deck chair with a couple of blankets wrapped round me, and my feet bitterly cold.
Slept very little. Wondered vaguely how long this sort of life would continue, and marvelled at the capacity for martyrdom in mankind. But then, they have not much choice.
Bryce came this morning. He is back from Cheshire where he says, things are comparatively quiet. Inevitably we talked of the war. Finished by agreeing that the Church had been an utter and complete failure. They had stepped off with the wrong foot almost at the start. Could not see any use in trying to retain the Church, as such, and hoped for a time when rational thinking would take its place. Agreed also that the hope was probably a vain one. Must go on trying however.
I said the only people who had consistently raised mankind from something not very far removed from animals, were the artists, and, we decided to admit, the right type of scientists too. The rest were nowhere.
Varnished the last moonlight painting. The wax has steadied it considerably.
Rereading this bit about artists and scientists I am reminded of something Chekhov wrote which I copied into one of my other diaries. Here it is:
'I thought at the time that an artist's instinct may sometimes be worth the brains of a scientist, that both have the same purpose, the same nature, and that perhaps in time as their methods become perfect they are destined to become one vast prodigious force, which now is difficult to imagine.'
It impressed me deeply, and no doubt made me say what I did.
Last night's postscript to the news was again given by J. B. Priestley. He indulged in some cheap vulgar abuse of the Dictators, thereby reducing himself to their level. He went on to make some stupid remarks about 'indiscriminate bombing'. This may or may not be good propaganda but it is disgusting to hear a man, who, I do not doubt, would wish to be considered a serious writer, talking like a cheapjack journalist.
In my experience the German bombing has not, on the whole, been indiscriminate. Time and time again their bombs have fallen within a radius of a few hundred yards of the power stations, Battersea and Albert Bridges, factories on the Battersea side of the river, railway lines or stations. I should say that, considering the height at which our guns and barrage balloons force the raiders to fly, their aim has been reasonably good.
Strictly speaking all bombing is indiscriminate. But that goes for both sides. Would Mr Priestley or the people for whom he works deny that our R.A.F. in their raids on enemy power stations, armament factories, railways and so on have blown to pieces the women, children and homes of German workers? Can we be sure that every bomb hits its objective? If it is a few hundred yards off the mark the chances are that innocent people will be killed. Does he expect us to believe that all Germans are monsters? No, let's be sensible. It is splitting hairs to claim that we are more careful than they. Each side would sooner destroy objectives of real use to the other, and meanwhile if the bombs do miss their intended objective at least they will terrorize your opponent, which is all to the good.
The use of force cannot be justified by such humbug, and when, as now, force must be met with force, why not be honest about it?
Shortly before the 9 o'clock news three bombs fell in the Lower Richmond Road not far from us. There was a direct hit on a factory. The other two, near misses.
We have been told that sometimes when our bombers could not be sure of hitting an objective they have returned with a full load. I have no means if denying this, but it does not affect my argument. Nothing will make me believe that the only sufferers from our raids over Germany have been wicked Nazis, soldiers or armament workers. Yet that is what our government apparently wishes us to believe.
October 15, 1940
Raid started last night soon after dark. Called out to Chelsea Embankment opposite the Cremorne Arms, near that wretched power station.
Shops blown to pieces, houses gone. Huge crater. Gas escaping. Roadway under water from burst main and sewage. Bright moonlight. Surprisingly few casualties, but some trapped and others dead in the basements.
Our barrage very intermittent. Bombs whistled down about one every five minutes. High explosives that shook the ground, oil bombs, incendiaries - until 1am. it went on.
Now and again a short lull, but most of the time the raiders passed overhead unscathed. Fires started on the Battersea side. Meanwhile we helped dig out a man, delirious but still alive; his wife had been killed. I drove back to St Mark's First Aid Post with a poor old woman from Seaton Street who had gone right out with a heart attack. Back again to the river to stand by ready to attend to the casualties that a rescue party were trying to free from the cellar of a smashed shop. All the time the bombs kept on falling. I made a few sketches. Just rough notes on the back of a twenty packet of Players.
I found myself going over in my head those wonderful lines of Poe's 'To Helen':
Helen thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! In yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy-Land!
I went through them, word perfect, from beginning to end. This surprised me, for a few days ago I had tried to recall them and had been unable to do so correctly.
I was not so much afraid as amazed, almost incredulous, that what was going on around me really was happening. Here by my lovely river, by Whistler's river, Greaves' river. The spire of Battersea Church stood out just as they had seen it. My memory went back to those still, pure nights at the beginning of the war. Those nights when I had learned to love the river - had begun to understand it. When I used to gaze for hours, trying to identify myself with its mood, then hurry home, my head full of its loveliness, and go to sleep still thinking of how I would paint it the following morning. Remembering this helped me.
At last the rescue leader reported it was impossible for his men to reach the victims in the cellar. Another squad relieved us and we drove back to the depot.
I lay down in my usual corner. It seemed quieter outside. Suddenly the raiders returned and the bombing began again. A shower of incendiaries fell on and around our building. They made a pattering noise like huge hailstones.
The garage outside our gate in Hortensia Road caught alight. Other fires started all around. The incendiaries in our grounds were soon put out, but the petrol in the garage opposite ignited and the building blazed furiously. Against the rolling clouds of smoke flew brilliant showers of sparks.
We were ordered out again. This time to Edith Grove where the upper floor of a whole row of houses was burning. Fires broke out all round us. We were encircled by fire. The National Furniture Depository, next to the burning garage was caught by the flames. The church in Tadema Road. Other buildings too.
In Edith Grove we were drenched by the water that fell back in spray as the firemen played their hoses on the blazing buildings. We tripped over hoses, rubble and glass, broken bricks.
At last we found the Warden who said there were no people in the building and he did not know why we had been sent for!
Gertrude Street Post to report and back to the depot once more.
The Six Bells had a direct hit - from the back. Of the twelve sheltering in the cellars two were killed. Others escaped with minor injuries.
At last a rest and we took deck chairs to one of the Anderson shelters in St Mark's grounds. From 3.15am onwards it quietened down. I could not sleep and several times got out to walk about outside. Clouds were sweeping along and covering the moon. I looked at them gratefully.
The Furniture Depositories were still burning this morning when I came off duty. The efforts of the firemen were being watched by a crowd of people. They stood around in small groups, not talking much, just staring in a dull hopeless sort of fashion.
Warnings all day. A big one dropped whilst I was in the kitchen having a shave. Rocked the whole building and made me cut myself. Or maybe it was a time bomb went off.
Noted that none of the bombed people I spoke to on the Embankment last night seemed to have fallen for the comic BBC and newspaper propaganda about 'indiscriminate bombing'. 'Wish to Christ they'd hit the bloody power station. Then they might leave us alone.' This seems to sum up the residents' opinion.
Again, came to the conclusion that the German bombing had been carried out systematically and was, on the whole, remarkably accurate.
Last night showed up several weaknesses. For instance we had not anything like enough buckets, sand, or shovels. When the garage caught alight the engines of Hortensia Road Fire Station were all out at other fires. A few firemen were left in charge and they had only one hose. This was full of leaks and was practically useless. So the fire got completely out of hand, almost at the beginning.
Whilst waiting for the bus this evening I met Loris Rey*. He is having a hell of a time in the AFS. Buses all full and private cars, many with plenty of room, flashed by the tired crowds wanting to get home before the nightly warning. Rey very pessimistic about the war. Thought the end would only be a carve up and we might as well have the carve up now whilst we could still hang on to a large piece.
* Loris Rey (11 Dec. 1903 - 17 August 1962) was a sculptor from Scotland who studied at the Glasgow School of Art where, after gaining a diploma and winning a scholarship, he eventually became a teacher. He then moved to the Leeds School of Art, where he worked from 1927 to 1934. Then, after briefly going back to Scotland, he moved to London, where he appears to have been based for the rest of his life. In his capacity as a wartime firefighter serving with the AFS, he had an (uncredited) role playing a fireman called J.Rumbold in 'Fires Were Started', a 1943 film about the lives of firefighters during the Blitz which was written and directed by Humphrey Jennings.
Last night has certainly shaken my faith in our present defences against night bombers. We heard over forty bombs come down to say nothing of incendiaries. They tipped them over us by the basketful.
Some months back a friend advised me to shut the studio and store all my work in the National Depository.
The studio is still intact.
A time bomb exploded outside St Stephen's Hospital, Fulham Road, at 7.45 this morning.
It is now 8.30pm Tuesday October 15th. Too tired to write any more.
Blitz
CLIFFORD HALL'S JOURNAL ~ 1939 - 1942 P10
including letters written to his wife Marion and some other correspondence
October 16, 1940
Must have gone to sleep soon after I wrote the above. Woke at 6, having slept through an even worse raid than the last. The whole of the other shift were out all night. Even the papers admit that London had its worst and most widespread raid. Fires, lots of houses blown to bits. The same dreary, stupidly wicked story, and yet we are in such a mess that there is no other way.
I get tired of recording the damage. Lots Road district suffered again. At the other end of King's Road the Duke of York's Headquarters, they say. Manresa Road and the adjoining streets, lying as they do roughly halfway between these two areas, have escaped.
Met Ruth on my way to the Depot. The house she lives in in Sydney Street was hit last night. Three Rowley Smarts somewhere in the wreckage - ruined, no doubt.
King's Road, particularly from Milman's Street and on past the World's End, presents a battered, miserable appearance. Many side streets are roped off - placarded 'Danger. Unexploded bomb'. Pressed against the barrier are the inhabitants staring down their street, a street blocked here and there with heaps of debris. On either side ragged gaps appear where the day before a house had stood.
'They got us last night. I lost everything. Mrs So and so has gone,' followed by gruesome details. I hear these bits of conversation on all sides as I walk by.
A direct hit on St Stephen's Hospital again last night. Many casualties.
The Government tell us London is in the front line, and has been for two months past. Then why not move as many as possible from the hospitals into a safer area? Difficult, but surely not impossible.
How amusing it is to read the constant references to the magnificent courage of the young people. This praise from the same old men who never tired of criticizing us before the war. Well, it was just the same last time.
If we have a lot of fires tonight things are going to be nasty. Yesterday's raid smashed up the water mains and the storage tanks are now mostly empty. Water will have to be pumped from the Thames.
The building opposite is still burning.
Letter to Marion
16 October, 1940
Wednesday
Dearest Mog,
I got your last two letters safely. I do not see what we can do about you and Julian coming nearer to London. In the first place anywhere within reach of London is far more unsafe than where you are now and then again transport of all kinds gets worse every day. I should spend all my time travelling backwards and forwards and I am tired out as it is. It is terribly hard on you I know, but until the war develops somewhere abroad, thus making it impossible for the Germans to devote so much attention to us, I fear we must just stick it out. It would, at present, be impossible for you to come back to London. Indeed, it is nothing short of criminal that any children are allowed to remain here; nor, even with Julian in a safe place, would I want you here as things are now.
Monday night was just hell. I was out in it most of the time. Two rows of houses were blown to bits near Lots Road. St. Stephens Hospital was hit and the Chelsea Fire Services had over one hundred calls. The bombs whistled down at the rate of one nearly every minute whilst the raid was at its height. This lasted for an hour, although they kept at us from 7pm to well past 3 in the morning. They dropped dozens of flares which our gunners shot out. Incendiaries at one time fell all around dropping like huge hail stones. There were fires everywhere and by the light of these the planes came back and dropped more bombs. The furniture depositories outside our Depot blazed furiously, the petrol in the garage next door exploded. Half of Edith Grove was alight. The Six Bells was hit. I was drenched by the fireman's hoses, the water mains were broken and flooded some of the streets and gas was escaping from broken pipes in the demolished houses. I thought of you as I was plunging through all this confusion and I somehow felt that at that very moment you were thinking of me and then I knew that I was perfectly safe. As the night went on and I had time to look about at odd moments whilst I was waiting for the rescue men to free some poor devils trapped in the remains of their home I found time to be thrilled by the impartial fashion in which nature continues to give us something beautiful to look at. There were marvellous colours in the smoke and flames and the sky was filled with brilliant sparks, blown fantastically about before they fell on and around us. I actually stood and made a few notes on the back of a cigarette packet, having no sketch book with me. I have not had time to use them yet which is damned annoying.
Considering the number of bombs of all kinds that were dropped, and last night was even worse, the number of casualties was small as the wireless says, although like most of us here I am getting pretty sick of the way they try to minimize the severity of the raids we are now having. The West End, indeed most of London, has been getting it badly nearly every night.
The war won't last five years, or anything like it. It just can't I am sure: it is more than either side can stand. I think it may end sooner than many people think and in an unexpected fashion. I shall be surprised if we win but I will be equally surprised if we lose. This may not seem very clear to you. It isn't to me. It's just a feeling.
I am trying, when I have the time and when I am not too tired, to make a series of drawings of the things I have seen. I have done about eight so far. One shows a woman clutching a child under her arm whilst another clings to her skirt. The woman is looking, terrified, at the sky behind her two others, one points upwards. The background - smashed houses, one still burning, bricks and rubble in the roadway. It is called "All Clear". Very sketchy, and propaganda, but vital. Another shows a dead body wrapped in a blanket like a mummy, lying on a stretcher in the foreground. In the middle distance a group of rescue men are working amid what had once been a house. The background is the now familiar one of partly wrecked buildings. This has as a title a quotation from any newspaper, any day, - "no objective of any importance was hit." So, you see how the war affects me. You may think it strange that I should work to make such gruesome things but I feel that if I do not do them now they will give me no peace, always asking to be put down and hindering me from going back to other things when the horror is over. For I still feel sure of my destiny although I won't deny that I get frightened at times.
I hardly see anyone these days. Travelling is very difficult and so many streets are blocked by unexploded bombs that buses make long detours and sometimes are off their usual route for nearly a mile. I believe Leo and Celia are at the Arts this week but I have not seen either of them for months but I did see Ted some days ago. He is still at the Redfern although their windows were blown in when the top end of Burlington Gardens was hit some time ago. They are trying to get another show together but I doubt anyone will go to it.
Ala Story has written and asked me to send twenty pictures to America. She has got a gallery in New York. It is a risk of course but they might as well run the risk of getting torpedoed at sea as bombed in London. What a mess! However, I will paint more in any case.
Give my love to Julian and take care of yourself and him. I wish you were far away from any bombing but I do comfort myself that you are both in a much safer place than London.
Lots of love and write again soon.
Clifford
Enclosed with the letter above was this letter to Marion from Clifford's mother, Isobella.
15 October, 1940
My Dear Marion,
I was so glad to have news of your dear little Julian, I'm sure he is developing now, it seems everyday they advance after the first twelve months.
Yes, London is going through a very bad time, also the suburbs. The night before last the lower part of our road was bombed, a small factory smashed and a block of Council flats off the main road, but no one killed, it is a dreadful time, and one thinks the world must have got in a bad state indeed for us to suffer like this. I feel glad I am here for Clifford to come to, (very down at times) but he can have something hot, a hot bath and a comfortable night's rest to keep him going.
The people in the flats, although I knew some of them before the Pater's death, are very kind and good to me. There is a young Doctor and his young wife in the top flat and she gets so nervous when he is away on duty. It is a strange life, we all get undressed about 7 (the raid warning is usually at 7.15) and then we put on our dressing gowns and are ready to go down and shelter about 10 o'clock. We all lie on our divans and on the whole sleep - I am generally the first to get up at 4 and get up stairs to go to bed for an hour or so after a cup of tea.
Clifford comes every other night, so he comes up and I have breakfast ready and after a hot bath and a shave he is ready to start again. Dorothy is at (?)*. Two days after she left Esher the chimney pots were blown off and the bedroom ceiling fell in. How thankful I felt they had left.
* This word is indecipherable.
One seems just to have to take their chance wherever one is. Oh, if it would only end and we all could meet again!
Do not trouble to send a rabbit, I do not eat them and transport is so difficult but it was nice of you to suggest it. I manage on the rations, but when one is alone it does not seem of much interest what you eat. Please excuse this pencil and bad writing but it is so hard to settle with the air warnings on and off all day.
I hope all your people are well.
Kiss Julian for me,
With much love
Yours affectionately,
Mater
Journal Entries
October 17, 1940
Last night quiet, at least in Chelsea. Up all night, first squad out, but we were not called.
Bad in Fulham. Land mine, Lillie Road district, that's where Greaves used to live. Twenty houses down and many others badly damaged.
No gas at the studio. Finished a drawing I had started the day before yesterday. Also began one from the sketches I made last Monday whilst at the Seaton Street job. I think there is a painting in this.
October 18, 1940
Landmine, Finborough Road area last night, also bomb in Ashburnham Mansions, midway between our depot and the power station. Bomb crater in the grounds of St Marks. Kings Cross station hit. This is just a little of the damage. I suppose we are all wondering how long it can go on.
Transport gets worse every day. Organization in getting streets cleared and craters filled is bad in many districts. There is far less co-operation among private car drivers than there was during the General Strike. It is comparatively rare for a car with room for two or more to offer a lift, or to indicate on the windscreen the place they are going to.
There is an every man for himself feeling, except among the poor. A brutal scramble to get under cover before dark and sirens.
After lunch Corporal Bill Rowe called a parade. 'Men,' he said, 'there's a rumour that we may 'ave a visit from the Dook and Duchess of Kent. It won't do you no good if they do come, and it won't do you no 'arm if they don't. Anyway, I want the place swep up nice and tidy.'
As it happened they did come. I was on the gate when they walked out into the yard. They had come in at the other entrance and were accompanied by various local celebrities. The nurses and men raised a somewhat ragged cheer as their Highnesses got into the car. The gate guard, myself, saluted smartly. At that moment off went the sirens, thus giving a touch of drama to what would otherwise have been a somewhat flat exit.
Dukes, Duchesses and motor cars don't mix. I am a romantic. Let us have them with the proper accompaniments, or not at all.
'Seaton Street 14 10 40' (After the Bomb),1940, by Clifford Hall.