Letter to Marion
18 October, 1940
Dearest,
I had a letter from you yesterday, just after I had posted one to you. I am still very well and London still continues to "take it" as we are told. Actually there is nothing else we can do at the moment. I am thoroughly sick of it and I have yet to meet anyone who isn't. One has a feeling of complete helplessness and I begin to wonder if anything is worth it. For I cannot get out of my head the fact that those who stand to benefit by the war, those few, are not the ones who suffer in any way at all. I see on all sides, a complete lack of understanding or true warmheartedness on the people in good circumstances. "It's the poor wot 'elps the poor" is only too true. There are so few exceptions that the contrast is all too obvious. The present Government's treatment of the civil population is nothing short of criminal. Imagine that impudent callousness of telling a city that is in the front line and yet still leaving large hospitals filled with women and children, workhouses crammed with old people, all without any kind of proper deep shelter, of leaving these people in that very font line! Did they have the hospitals and almshouses in the front line trenches in 1914-17? It hardly bears talking about.
Someone told Churchill he looks like a bulldog. It's most unfortunate and has apparently made quite the wrong impression! I think that neither he or his advisors have yet the faintest idea of what they are up against. They still talk of putting Europe back where she was before. Fatuous. Has Europe shown the slightest inclination of wanting to go?
Would they put back the Spanish Government? I seem to remember that our people gave Franco their tacit support not so long ago.
St. Stephens Hospital in the Fulham Road has had three bombs this week. The first made a crater in the road outside that you could put a couple of buses in. The other two were direct hits and three whole wards were demolished. You can imagine the result. We have no gas and most of the water mains are broken. Hundreds of people are homeless in Chelsea and Fulham alone and the problem of looking after them is haphazard to say the least of it. Intentions are good but everywhere hampered by silly regulations.
Your money has not come yet so I am sending 30 shilli9ngs again and I do hope you can manage on it. I am terribly sorry about it but I can't get any extra from anywhere. If it has not come by next week I will sell my two savings certificates which I easily can do and would have done this time only I really thought your letter would have got here this week.
I believe you asked for news about various people. Well, since Snippetts went Dinah has been working at the Gateways*. Julie is a full-time Air Raid Warden. Steve is rather scared and won't join the ARP now although he was keen enough before the trouble started and we are now understrength. Marjorie, however, is driving an ambulance. Olive Mcbullock is a canteen worker; she is here sometimes and does damn well. Mac's art school has been bombed. Loris Rey is in the Fire Brigade - I saw him the other night. He was very fed up and said that as he thought the end of the war would only be a carve up we might just as well come to terms now whilst we are still strong enough to hang on to a big share. There seems a good deal of sense in this. If our stupid people would only come to a clear understanding with Russia, we already seem to be pretty sure of America, something might result that worked and save all this wicked and pointless murder and destruction. If things go on as they are it will not be long before much of the London we knew will be gone. In Berkeley Square the bombs completing the work begun before the war by the owners of beautiful properties full of tradition; anxious only to make more money out of the sites. Carlton House Terrace too has been damaged, yet there was a real fight to save it from the housebreakers a year or so ago. In a sense does it matter? If it isn't one it's the other. Leicester Square has had a landmine and the Studio offices are gone, yet how few mourned Reynold's house a few doors away and the Academy did not try to save it when it was pulled down before the war started. All this is one of the necessary evils of a world interested almost entirely in profits. Sometimes they use a pickaxe, sometimes a bomb. In fact all over London the damage is appalling. I suppose you read about St. Pauls, St James, Piccadilly is very badly damaged. Everywhere you go is the same and each night it piles up. The wireless and the papers, of course, make as light as they can of it, but even they let the tips of the cat's ears out of the bag now and again. He will jump right out soon, for people must go to and from work, use their eyes and tell their friends.
* Having first opened in 1931 and legally becoming a members' club in 1936, the legendary Gateways club, situated at 239 Kings Road, Chelsea, while certainly being a place frequented by artists, may not have had, despite what is now indicated on Wikipedia, any particular association with lesbians or bohemian society at this relatively early point in its history, as management of the club was not taken over by Ted Ware until 1943. Ware also didn't meet his future, and probably bisexual, wife and business partner Gina Cerrato at the Gateways until 1947. In any event, Gateways didn't become a women's only club until 1967. "Snippets" was presumably another bar or club in Chelsea where Dinah had previously worked. As mentioned earlier, Dinah was one of Clifford's models.
I am not afraid of the outcome, it will not, I feel sure be too bad and as I wrote last time, I think that if we can't win at least, we can't be beaten. That's the position as I see it.
All my love to you both,
Clifford
PS I am still doing at least one watercolour a week, not bad considering, so there is nothing wrong with me. I take an intelligent interest in everything, and I am looking forward to seeing you after Christmas. I am sure I can fix it, having put out a few discrete feelers Will send you Winnie's address when I have time to find it. Will also try to get the coat off to you soon.
Journal Entries
October 19,1940
Started a drawing from some sketches I made at Seaton Street last Monday night. Walked down there after lunch for a few more details. Thanks to Ministry of Information permit I was allowed to stand in a roped off deserted street in which there was a time bomb. Coming back up Dartrey Road half a pane of glass from a top window fell on my head. Of course, I had not got a hat on. But no harm done. It simply glanced off and fell to little bits all around me.
Went up to town, 4 o'clock. In Leicester Square the Studio offices have gone, indeed the entire corner on which they stood. Lots more damage, particularly in Shaftesbury Avenue.
Arts Theatre, 5 o'clock to see Leo and Celia.
Back to Putney by underground to South Kensington and then 14 bus. 6.30pm - underground packed with people; most with provisions for the night including blankets and pillows. Lying on the stone platforms. Hundreds and hundreds of them. All the other stations along the line packed with hundreds more. First time I had seen it although it has been going on since the serious raids on London commenced. Intolerable conditions and foul air. Could not imagine myself putting up with it, whatever happened.
The 'indiscriminate bombing' school perhaps have some support for their statements when they cite the damage in the West End. Yet it can still be argued that to hinder traffic, smash up shops and offices, damage the telephone system, cut us off from our gas, light and water and generally disorganize business, is legitimate. It is - if you admit war to be legitimate. I don't. The war we now have to fight is the inevitable result of a system of which we are part. When, if ever, we admit that, some progress may be made.
October 21, 1940
Row at the Depot yesterday. This has been working up for some time. A number of the men refuse to do gate guard at night unless a shelter is provided. They are also demanding that the basement is shored up and sandbagged. Not unreasonable. Actually, something is being done to the basement - after two months of Blitz - and the authorities are going to think over the question of building a blast proof shelter at the gate!
Roughed in a painting from the Seaton Street sketches. Should be able to do something with it. Rather worried about the treatment of the trees on the right. Waiting for a bus in the Fulham Road this evening saw just the trees I wanted. Will make a sketch of them some time and fit it to the composition.
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A door opens and an elderly woman steps out. She looks up at the sky, apprehensively. With one hand she pulls a black shawl round her shoulders, with the other she makes the sign of the cross. She hurries off down the street.
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Stretcher Party man meets Demolition man - ' 'Ow are things, mate?'
'Orl right.'
'Wot 'ave you been doing?'
'Burying 'em, mate.'
'Caw, where from? That church in Cheyne Row I suppose.'
'Yus.'
' 'Ows ole Tom?'
'Dead, mate.'
'And his missus?'
'Dead and buried mate.'
'Well I never. Pore ole Tom. I liked 'im. And his missus too. Wot about Bill?'
'Dead mate. Buried 'im meself this afternoon.'
'Well, well. Say, that job ought to be worth extra beer money.'
'I should bleen well think so mate. We put in for it.'
' 'Ope you get it, mate. Goodnight.'
Letter to Marion
21 October, 1940
Monday
My dearest Mog,
Just got your letter with the cheque. I think, next time, you had better register it, particularly as it is not crossed. I am sending a cheque for £1 now; I expect Peter or someone will be able to change it for you as it is such a small amount.
It is quite certain that I will be able to come and see you sometime within the next two months, as it has at last been decided to give each man one extra day off every six weeks. I want to leave mine until I can get two extra which will then give me two days for getting to and from Dorset and two clear days with you. Don't you think that is best? I am looking forward to it greatly. I do not know what travelling is like now, pretty difficult I believe, but the dodge is to put one's uniform on and hitch hike in lorries. Most of the men do that and I will if there is any difficulty about trains or coaches.
It is discouraging to hear about people who do not want to put up evacuees from London; but it bears out much I have observed here. It does not touch most people until it actually happens to them; only then do they think differently.
The morning after a raid I have walked back along the King's Road and seen literally a hundred or so people standing about with nowhere to go. Mostly in the World's End district. Either their house and all they possess has been blown to bits or there is a time bomb in the street which is roped off and no one is allowed to enter it. And when, in the course of several hours, or it may be days, it does explode, very likely yet another home disappears. This has happened to several of our men and in nearly every case the only offer of accommodation comes from another poor family of their own class. It's not good enough. Not nearly good enough. And although it has been bad enough here in Chelsea other parts of London are far, far, worse.
Since last Monday and Tuesday nights it has been quitter here. They have been paying attention to other districts instead. I do hope things are not too lively with you.
All my love to you both,
Clifford
Journal Entry
October 22, 1940
Another fighting speech broadcast by Churchill last night. Cannot take him very seriously. No doubt he is well fitted to help us 'win' the war. No hope if he remains in charge afterwards. Doubt if he will, however.
On top of the bus which was making a long detour through cheap back streets as the usual route is blocked. Two men are sitting together behind me. From their loud conversation it appears they are living, comparatively safely, in Surrey. They have taken a Green Line coach to a point from which they could bus it Citywards.
Each street we pass through has lost one or more houses. The scene is desolate. 'Seem to have done a bit of damage round here,' says the first man. 'Yes,' replies his friend, airily, 'but then even if they destroyed the whole of London it wouldn't make much difference. We would still win the war.'
Talking to one of the men at the depot who used to be a butler. Got on the subject of tips. 'I soon sort 'em out,' he told me, 'the ones who never give anything and are just out for all they can get. I have a way of dealing with them. I have a special cocktail for them. I've never known anyone take more than two -and it looks just like the others. I don't hold with that sort.'
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'To seek the truth and to utter what one believes to be true, can never be a crime. No one must be forced to accept a conviction. Conviction is free.
' Sebastian Castellio, 1551. From 'The Right to Heresy' by Stefan Zweig (Cassell).*
* This quote is generally attributed to Michael Servetus. Sebastian Castellio denounced his execution in 1553.
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Headlines to use as titles
'In one district there were some casualties' - Evening Standard, 12.10.40
'- but damage was slight and the number of casualties very small' E. Standard 12.10.40
'No severe damage was done but some casualties were caused' - News Chronicle 14.10.40
Letter to Marion
26 October, 1940
Saturday
Dearest,
At last I have time to write to you. I had your letter yesterday telling me all about Julian. I expect he will be walking quite well when I see him again. I wish I could have seen the first attempts. As far as I can say I will be coming to see you about the 25th of next month and I should have two clear days with you. I am looking forward to it with all my heart and the time will soon go- only one more month.
Blitz
CLIFFORD HALL'S JOURNAL ~ 1939 - 1942 P11
including letters written to his wife Marion and some other correspondence
I expect I do sound bitter in some of my letters and so I am about the war which I realize is only being fought to protect the interests of a more or less useless minority. But I am not unhappy. I gave up being unhappy a long time ago. I have days, of course, when I regret the passing of time when we should be together, of time when I should be painting and living in a rational way but I am learning a lot from my life at present and behind everything I have my sure knowledge that I will be given the time to do what I have to do. You are the most perfect help anyone could have and I will make you happy when we are together. You are silly to wish to be doing any other work. You are doing the most important thing you could and I believe you will find that out. Julian is a sweet child and I will give him a wonderful life because I know the secret of it. I could only fail if he should turn out to have a nature utterly unlike yours or mine, but I don't believe that possible.
All my love,
Clifford
PS
I will send your coat at the beginning of the week.
Journal Entry
October 30, 1940
Since the last entry it has been fairly quiet here. There have been 'incidents' of course, and men and women killed; but the main attacks have been elsewhere.
Yesterday I lit the stove in the studio. I varnished eight canvases and started an oil painting, 20" x 16", of the Seaton Street bombing. Planes and gunfire several times during the day, but they didn't disturb me and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
Bill came about 4 and we had tea at Jimmies. We were the only customers.
Stanley is sending the following oils to *Ala Story in New York:
1. Gypsies
2. Dancer with a Pink Shawl
3. The Juggler
4. L'Après midi d'un Faune
5. Clowns Waiting Their Turn
6. Rue Norris
7. Rue Moïse, Marseille
8. The Café Table
Damned good of him, for I certainly could not have sent them myself. The watercolours and drawings I must decide on this weekend.
Letter to Marion
30 October, 1940
Dearest Mog,
I sent your coat yesterday. I am sorry I have been so long about it and I hope it is the one you wanted.
I had a lovely day yesterday. I lit the stove in the studio, varnished eight pictures, and actually painted for nearly five hours! I was tired out at the end of it. I have started an oil of the Monday night I told you about on the Embankment. A bit like this
Moonlight, a huge pile of debris which had once been houses and tiny black figures clambering up it to rescue people somewhere in a top floor. One searchlight beam and two shell bursts like golden starts.
I made some sketches at the time and I have already done a watercolour.
Since that furious night, nearly two weeks ago, we have had a much quieter time. That is Chelsea, otherwise London continues to get knocked about. Turner's house on the embankment has been badly damaged. The house from which he used to watch the sun. So many things we will never see again.
It seems a long time since I heard from you. Twice this week I have been able to wrangle a few minutes off on duty days to hop into the studio in the hope of finding a letter. I am writing this at Hortensia Road. Perhaps there will be one from you when I get back tomorrow morning. You must tell me if Milton Abbas is now in a restricted area, for it so I will have to see about getting the necessary permit when I come to see you next month. It will be wonderful to see you again and it won't be very long now. Less than a month! It is very infuriating to have to spend two precious days in travelling but I will have two clear days with you.
Poor Bill has got a huge bomb crater almost directly opposite his house. Six houses on either side of him have been condemned as unsafe but his has passed the test, although there are big cracks in the walls. Luckily, he was at Sevenoaks when it happened. He is back in Hampstead now, sticking it out again. He says anything is preferable to seeing a lot of his sister. I don't blame him.
I expect Julian won't know me at all now which makes me rather sad, however, I will put that right someday. In fact I am more and more convinced that the war will be over next year. Not that the worst is over yet but the end seems nearer. It's going to be pretty difficult afterwards I think and the best solution seems to be to work and the cultivation of one's individuality and concentration on one's circle of sensible lovable people.
I have almost a horror of finding myself suddenly taking a terrible interest in politics, of joining the Communist Party, and certainly my drawings these days are just pure anti-war propaganda. Religion has failed to save the world and Art can only save the individual. I suppose Religion can do that too but I put all my money on the other horse. People should, must, have a certain material security. Emotional security is quite another matter. Not so desirable, except perhaps in doses - and at the very end. Yet I don't know. Perhaps I am foolish to write about such things for I am getting something out of life, even as it is now and it's certainly grim enough.
Yesterday, as I was crossing Putney Bridge, I saw a huge barge coming towards me. It was just about the time for the nightly sirens, almost dark. There was a single man on the barge slowly guiding it with his long sweeps. He kept it on its course for the centre arch of the bridge. I wondered what he would be feeling when, in a few moments the alarm went, darkness came and with it the barrage, falling shrapnel, raiders and their bombs and flairs. And I imagined that he would just continue rowing that huge unwieldy bulk until he had reached his destination. Indeed, what else could he do? It seemed symbolic.
All my love and write soon,
Clifford
Kiss Julian for me. I will bring him a funny toy.
Journal Entry
October 31, 1940
6.20am. Just awake, after a night of sleeping on and off - lightly - unable to relax because expecting to be called out at any moment. All equipment on. No 'incidents', except two men badly wounded by one of our own shells which exploded when it fell near the World's end soon after 10 o'clock.
'All clear' went at 3.30am. It woke me from a doze. A very dark, rainy night.
Dreaming, I was again in Crookham Road, at number 15. René Quinn* was there and the little rooms were strangely magnificent and his pictures all finely framed.
* René Robert Quinn (1904 -1934), was the son of a successful Australian portrait painter called James Peter Quinn (1869 -1951). His mother was a French woman from Paris called Blanche Marie Louise Quinn, née Guernier (c.1882 - 1961). His parents were married at St Stephen's Mission Church, Putney, London, England in 1902 and René's older brother, Rodger, was born that same year. Soon after René's untimely death, his father went back to Australia in December 1935, apparently leaving his estranged wife in England. She is known to have died in Wandsworth, London, in or around March 1961. Crookham Road is in Fulham, London. Although Clifford clearly held René in high regard as an artist, René's work appears to have vanished without a trace.
We talked about painting, just as we used to when we were both students, inseparable companions. Sometimes we agreed, sometimes we disagreed. 'Deep down in you,' he said, 'there is a little bit of dirty Cockney.' 'Very likely,' I replied, feeling rather proud of it for the first time in my life, and dimly realizing that it could be an advantage. The next moment, it seemed, I was awake. I remembered him so clearly. His amazing talent, his purity of aim, his terrific power of sustained work: all day long, year after year. Then an evening at the Royal Academy Schools when he told me his eyes were going, that all the afternoon he had been trying to see the model's ear where he knew it should naturally be, and all the time it appeared to float just a few inches away from the head.
The gradual change in him - he got thinner and thinner until his clothes hung on him, like the garments of a scarecrow. He shut himself up in his studio and would never let anyone see his work. Sometimes he came to see us. He brought his own food and insisted on eating it, for he was convinced there was a plot to poison him. He wore a dagger in his belt and always placed it, unsheathed, by the side of his plate.
The last time René came to the studio he suddenly asked me would I mind if he kissed Marion. I told him 'No,' I would not mind. He kissed her and then he bent over me and kissed me on the forehead. He said he must go and I went down the stairs with him to the street door. I cannot remember what we talked about, I only remember the terrible look in his eyes. I know that something inside him was crying to be helped and I could not help. He died raving mad.
They used to say when we were students, that if he had a bit of me and if only I had a bit of him there would be a really good painter. Whatever that opinion is worth, one thing is certain: he gave me a great deal - far more than I could ever give him.
I will go to Crookham Road and try to contact his mother.*
6.30 p.m. Have had another good day in the studio. Painted a sketch for the Seaton Street picture. Two raids, but went on working. Very tired now.
* Later I did go to Crookham Road. Mrs Quinn had left, no one knew where she had gone. CH.
On the 31st October, Bill wrote the following letter to Marion
Thursday
Dearest Marion,
Of course, I should have written ages ago and of course every day I have been going to write. But the days go in a flash and every night now someone comes to stay. Steve and Marjorie are constant visitors, I find Steve a generous hearted well meaning dull tedious cove. He did a watercolour of me the other night, full of his commercial tricks and making me look as tedious and dull as he is. Well, perhaps I am! It's raining like hell and the clouds seem to be almost touching the trees, I thought it would keep the bastards away today, but it hasn't, the sirens have just screamed and there's one clanking over the Heath somewhere.
A bomb dropped in this road about a fortnight ago - one Sunday night at 7.45. It didn't do a lot of damage, except that it went deep enough to split the main sewer. People were in houses, no-one hurt. You can bet I had a shock when I cam back on the Tuesday. Four houses opposite condemned, including the famous Pentecost, and this side numbers 80 to 82, and 92 and 94! Lu8cky me! I escaped with cracked walls and ceilings and a fortnight's work clearing the place of soot and plaster and breakages. Nothing broken that I valued, just relieved to think of what I might have had to face. Fifty incendiaries in the road and last Sunday they dropped four on the railway station at the bottom.
Dumps wrote: Who is it looks after you, God or the Devil? I have my suspicions. It has it's funny side. Pentecost: the students there sang hymns every night from 8 to 11. That's finished. There was an old cracked out of tune Victorian piano there, poor beast of burden, a succession of young men banged out hymns, psalms and other religious nonsense on it. The other day all the furniture was out in the middle of the road awaiting removal. One of the salvage men sat at the piano all the morning playing ragtime and jazz.
Cliff is well and cheerful, I saw him yesterday, was glad to find him painting, and to see eight pictures on the floor marked for America. Such old friends of mine! I had loved them all. I think he's coming here on Saturday. Dumps came for the day on Monday. She phoned at 1 to say that she was at London Bridge and on her way, but it was 4.30 before she reached here. Hung up in tubes because of air raids and couldn't get out. Then she had to catch 7.45 back and we got to the station at 6.45 to make certain of the train! She travelled in a pitch-black train and got to Wadhurst at midnight. I'm still looking for a mistress but no luck yet, can't find anyone at all like you. Haven't had a moment lately, most of the day helping neighbours to get their furniture away and making tea and meals for them.
How is my godchild? I fear you have a big responsibility. Chelsea is still bloody but unbowed, there's rather a grim atmosphere over there these days, but the devils have been much quieter the last few nights and I feel we've seen the worst of it - for the time being and until the Spring. London is a heart break. I hate to go there. Judy sends her love, whenever she writes she mentions you. One letter she said: How is Mr Hall and have you heard from Marion? Please send my real love if you write to her because I don't want her to think I only remember her at holiday time and when I see her. And I thought that was a rather nice way of putting things. Russel Square is a terrible mess and Jeanne has been bombed out. Sometimes she sleeps here, other times at office, Lyons Corner House, the Brasserie, shelters and the Dorchester.
A few more months and I think we shall see the end of this wretched business (it could end now right away for all I care!) and we shall all be together again and trying to find humour in the loneliness and misery of this last year. Coraggio!
I am doing some short stories - a series - tentatively called Studies in Sex. They will never be published, but it gives me pleasure to write them and I like to feel no-one could write them as I am doing! I think they are good. Perhaps later on I'll send them to you for safety - I know you wouldn't be like Burton's wife. I called on Beadle (Charles) recently but he had gone with the wind, left no trace, and perhaps that's as well. Dumps is not too happy, sometimes it seems to me that we had to go through this catastrophe to find out how much we all really love each other! I don't really think so.
I mustn't write more now, have so much to do before the bloody black out, but I will NEVER let you go so long again without a letter!
I send you a small but most vital piece of my heart.
Things here at the monastery are comparatively quiet, I shall be going into retreat next week. If it weren't for the daily routine of the lavatory, I should be in danger of forgetting certain organs tacked on tom the middle of me. What Lisa refers to as my tap.
Write to me soon, there's a dear,
Yours, as ever and always,
BILL
Mrs Ala Story, art dealer, at the Stafford Gallery in St James's Place, London W1, in November 1939.
Photograph by Tunbridge for The Bystander magazine.
