CHAPTER 22
Adventures, Problems and Losses
Didi’s delight in being reunited with Jacqueline in England, together with her relief that they had both survived the war, seemed to mask the state of her health, which was in fact precarious. In May, just after she had returned, she had been examined by an Army doctor, who listed a string of complaints from which she was suffering and gave the opinion that “she showed marked evidence of nervous instability probably due to psychological trauma sustained while on active service. It is probable that this patient will be permanently disabled as a result of her war service which involved in her case very severe mental strain.”1
As the months went by Jacqueline worried that her sister was still not well but, as she felt so much better than she had when she arrived from Germany, it did not occur to Didi that there was anything wrong. She tried to reassure her sister, but Jacqueline was still concerned, remembering only too well how she herself had felt on her return to England. Her condition—she weighed less than 48 kilos 2—had been caused by work alone, whereas Didi had been captured and abused by the Germans. Jacqueline could not therefore believe that Didi was as well as she claimed. But Didi was adamant, so they put their wartime experiences to the backs of their minds and tried to return to some semblance of normality.
Although their parents had remained in France, both girls decided not to go back to the family home to live. They didn’t want to return to Grenoble and the house they had never really regarded as a home; after everything they had both been through during the war, they did not relish the idea of returning to the kind of sheltered existence they had had before coming to England. Both felt that they had earned the right to their own independent way of living, but not having seen their mother and father for three years, of course they intended to visit their parents and brother when an opportunity arose.
Jacqueline had been looking for work in England since the end of the war, and in the autumn of 1945 she was offered a position as a secretary at the newly formed United Nations Organization, which had come into being on 24 October that year. She accepted the position and began work in London in November. The following month it was decided that the UN should be based in New York City, and work began on a headquarters building on the banks of the East River, between East 42nd Street and East 48th Street. Until the building was completed in 19523 the temporary headquarters was situated at the Sperry Gyroscope Corporation’s offices in Lake Success on Long Island.
In April 1946 Jacqueline boarded the Cunard liner Aquitania4 at Southampton docks and set sail for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on her way to New York to begin what would be a very successful career with the United Nations Organization, having been reassured yet again by Didi that she was doing fine.
For Didi, who had been reunited with her sister for less than a year, it was heartbreaking to lose her again, but she didn’t want to stand in the way of Jacqueline’s chance of a good career and a new life in America. She knew, of course, that Jacqueline would visit her in England. One of her conditions of employment was that she could take extended home leave every two years and Didi hoped, too, to visit her sister in New York when she finally regained her health.
A month after Jacqueline started her job in New York, Didi attended a medical board arranged by the Ministry of Pensions. The members of the board had been told not to ask her any questions about what she had suffered in the camps; their sole purpose was to see if she was well enough to work or if a disability pension should be awarded. Their conclusion was that Didi’s working capacity was “virtually nil at present. They have recommended, therefore, 100% for twelve months. This is a case which should materially improve at the end of that time, but… in view of all the circumstances the initial assessment should be a high one.”5 The Ministry of Pensions accepted the board’s recommendation and awarded Didi the full disability pension of £175 per year for at least twelve months because of her “exhaustion neurosis,” for which she had been receiving treatment from a Dr. Pennington Jepson in Harley Street.
Throughout the spring of 1946 Didi went from one doctor to another. Staff Commander Mason of the FANY then sent her to have another medical examination. This revealed several troubling complaints that showed no immediate signs of subsiding, including palpitations, breathlessness, sharp chest pains, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, burning sensations in the stomach, night sweats and hot flushes during the day. She was also thought to have become very absentminded, forgetful, restless and unsettled. She disclosed to the consultant, Mr. J. J. M. Jacobs, that while she was in one of the camps she had developed a sore throat, which she thought had been diagnosed as diphtheria, and she had been given injections by the camp doctor. This revelation was particularly worrying, given the nature of the treatment dispensed in the so-called camp hospitals, but there was no way of knowing what she had been injected with. Jacobs gave her a thorough examination and reported:
She is tense, anxious and apprehensive. She displays some difficulty in remembering dates and is inclined to lose the thread of the conversation. Physically she displays tremors of extended fingers, tongue and eyelids. She swayed on testing for static balance; her palms were very moist; pupils were slightly unequal, the left being larger than the right; her pulse rate was variable 90–100. Though I did not examine her heart at all carefully, the sounds were suggestive of a mild toxic myocardial condition. There was no swelling of the ankles.
This girl is, in my opinion, suffering from an anxiety state following her war service and should be admitted to a Psychiatric Clinic for treatment.6
On 22 July 1946 Didi was admitted to the York Clinic for Psychological Medicine at Guy’s Hospital in London.7 When Jacqueline found out, she wished that she had not listened to Didi’s reassurances about her health, and regretted that now she was in the US she was unable to return to help her sister. Odile, the family friend with whom she and Didi had lived in Stamford Hill, took over as Didi’s surrogate sister and visited Didi as often as she could, giving her all the support she needed. She was happy to do so, despite having two small children to look after alone, her husband being away in America, and even brought Didi home for a weekend towards the end of her time in the hospital to see how she would cope.8
During her time as an in-patient at the York Clinic, Didi had individual psychotherapy and participated in group therapy as well. She was also given electroconvulsive therapy. By the beginning of October her doctors felt that her condition had improved greatly and believed she was well enough to leave, discharging her on 5 October after a stay of two months and 11 days. Their subsequent report said that she was “No longer depressed. No complaints—eating and sleeping well—mixing with the group and taking part in occupational therapy. This patient still reports weekly to the clinic—she is at present unemployed but she has the promise of a job as Ground Air Hostess at Croydon Airport.”9
Jacqueline was anxious to hear how Didi was getting on and to her relief Odile wrote to her the day after Didi’s release:
She looks very well indeed and is so glad to leave the clinic, she was beginning to find it very depressing indeed. You can imagine how glad and happy we all are to have her back again… The doctor spoke to me yesterday before allowing me to go up to fetch her. He said that she was well but must be kept busy. He said that if I had any affection at all for her I would make her work all day, anything but she must not just sit and think. “Treat her as your child.”
It would appear that she was very good at modeling clay, and she would do well if she went to an art school for it. Also she seems to be interested in being an air hostess…
I heard Didi singing in the bath a few hours ago and my heart sang with joy. Just now she has gone with Ricky [Odile’s three-year-old son] to play in the park. They are the greatest of friends. He loves Didi very much.
Every night when he says his prayers he thinks of you. I have never had to remind him. He always asks God to bless you.
Jacqueline, meanwhile, was doing very well in New York. She had quickly settled down to her work at the United Nations and was enjoying it immensely; and in her letters she told Odile that she also liked America.
Initially there were only 51 member countries of the United Nations, each one being allocated a liaison officer from the Protocol section. These 51 countries were divided between three women and one man, who became the liaison officers to the countries’ delegates. After a short time the man, Mr. Podsianko, and one of the women, Sylvia Grove-Palmer, went on to other positions within the organization and the countries were divided between four women. Jacqueline was responsible for the representatives of Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Greece, Haiti, India, Lebanon, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Her colleagues—Mrs. C. K. Young of China, Rosita Escala of Ecuador and Janine Blickenstaff of France—each had a fairly even number of representatives to look after from the other 38 countries.
The letter written to Jacqueline by her friend Odile, telling her about Didi’s progress after being released from the clinic.
The liaison officers were there to handle any problems the delegates had, as well as arrange accommodation, transport and secretarial assistance. They also helped to organize parties and receptions on behalf of their own delegates. In this they were helped by Sylvia Grove-Palmer, whose new title was Special Assistant on Social Functions. Jacqueline proved to be good at this particular task and was soon working alongside Miss Grove-Palmer in organizing social functions in addition to her other duties. In order to help the representatives of her designated countries, each liaison officer had to have a thorough knowledge of the workings of the UN so that she could give proper advice to those in her care, and she was also responsible for making introductions that would help her representatives with their work within the United Nations.
At the beginning there were many unanticipated problems that had to be quickly resolved. Captain Johan de Noue, Chief of Protocol and Liaison, was particularly annoyed about the ceremony for the signing of the World Health Organization Constitution in July 1946, and wrote to Andrew Cordier, the executive assistant to the UN Secretary General, Trygve Lie, complaining:
To use the words of the Acting Secretary General, the signing of the World Health Organization Constitution, was an example of how not to carry out an official function. Of course, it must be recalled that the choice of the Henry Hudson Hotel Ballroom for such a meeting could not be worse. The acoustics, the size, the air-cooling system, all helped to create disorder, confusion and lack of dignity… It might also be considered advisable to notify the different officials concerned, for example, the Security Officer, Officer of the Day, Officer in Charge of Room Arrangements, etc. of the part played by the Chief of Protocol, since nobody yesterday seemed to realize that I had been made responsible at the last minute for the ceremony.10
It seems that the delegates were not always aware of what facilities were available to them, and Jacqueline and her three liaison colleagues often had to sort out difficulties created by delegates who, not having thought to contact their own particular officers for help, had instead fired off letters of complaint to those higher in the chain of command.
Gradually everything quieted down and the Protocol section began to function very efficiently.11 It must have been a strange situation for Jacqueline. Since she had spent the war in such a dangerous and important role the sometimes very petty concerns of the UN members must have seemed trivial in comparison. But she tackled her various UN tasks wholeheartedly, with efficiency, tact and diplomacy. She not only enjoyed her work, but also thought it important and one of the best ways to unite countries to ensure that wars like the one she had just lived through would not be allowed to happen in the future:
I know of nothing more desirable than peace and I wholeheartedly believe in the United Nations as a means of preventing wars. I decided when I left the service that I wanted to be definitely connected with, and work actively for, the organisation’s future. Of course I am only a small cog in a big wheel but I feel the same about this work as I did about my underground work in France. I believe people like myself are just as necessary to a successful United Nations as the top delegates. We keep the wheels in motion.12
While the position of liaison officer was primarily a job, it also became a lifestyle. There were often occasions when Jacqueline was required to work at weekends, and Captain de Noue had decided from the start that liaison officers should always be on the guest lists for all social functions and should attend as much as possible, as it was hoped “that not only can they enjoy themselves at such parties, but that they can take those opportunities to become better acquainted with the Delegation members and their families, as well as being introduced to the members they have not already met.”13
On many of the social occasions the liaison officers were allowed to invite guests themselves. They were charged $1 a head for their guests and Jacqueline used this privilege, inviting people from her ever-growing circle of friends. Over the many years that Jacqueline worked at the United Nations, her name could often be found on the guest lists for luncheon and dinner parties held in honor of important and well-known people; she was also invited to private parties held by some of those people. She attended functions for such luminaries as HM King Hassan II of Morocco, HM King Constantine II of Greece and his wife Queen Anne-Marie, HRH Princess Irene of Greece, and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller III and his brother Nelson who, under President Gerald Ford between 1974 and 1977, became the 41st US vice president.
Every two years Jacqueline took her home leave and returned to England to visit Didi and her brother Frederick, who had also settled in England after being demobbed from the Royal Air Force in October 1946. The first few times she came back to the United Kingdom she did so by ship, sometimes getting permission to add her annual leave to the home leave so that she could also spend time visiting her family, and friends such as Lise de Baissac, at their homes in France.
When she made her first trip home in the autumn of 1948 she went to France, having been invited to a ceremony at the town hall in Boulogne-sur-Mer on 27 November by the Mayor, Jean Febvay. During the ceremony she was made an honorary citizen of Boulogne in recognition of her wartime service, the city’s population regarding her as one of their own because she had lived there for six years as a child. When her leave was over she returned to the United States on the SS America and, as the ship approached New York harbor, received a shore-to-ship telegram which welcomed her, as an honorary citizen of Boulogne-sur-Mer, to New York.
During her other visits home, she, Didi and Fred also took holidays together in places that brought back memories of their childhood. Later Jacqueline abandoned the cruise across the Atlantic and traveled by air, which gave her more time with family and friends. In the years between her biennial home leave she liked to spend her holidays in Barbados.
Jacqueline had many friends in New York, including artists and playwrights. One of her oldest friends, whom she had known since her childhood in Boulogne, was the former SOE agent Brian Stonehouse, who had also left England in 1946 for America, where he lived in Washington and New York, working as an illustrator for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and cosmetic company Elizabeth Arden until 1979, when he returned to England.14
Jacqueline liked to spend her spare time with her friends, having dinner, going to the theatre or playing cards, particularly canasta. She attended exhibitions, concerts, plays—sometimes Broadway first nights, at other times plays or musicals written by one of her friends—and she led a very full, happy life in America until her retirement. One of her New York friends, a man named Freddy, recalled attending the opening night of a play written by a mutual friend. It was not a good play and the newspaper reviews the next day were scathing. At 9 a.m. Freddy received a telephone call from Jacqueline in which she said, “Poor X. All alone in his apartment with these ghastly notices. Someone really ought to telephone him.” Freddy thought it would be better to leave the playwright to digest the bad notices first but Jacqueline believed that all his friends would think the same and, as a consequence, no one would call him and the poor man would be left completely alone. She decided to call him straightaway and, according to Freddy, “The author of the play never forgot that she did.” Jacqueline had that rare quality of always knowing the right thing to say or do at exactly the right time, and her many friends loved her for it. Freddy himself said of her, “Every time I saw her, Jacqueline always made me feel that life was a bit better and brighter, more hopeful and more fun.”15
Sadly nothing ever came of Didi’s hopes to become either a beautician or an air or ground hostess at an airport but, because of her doctor’s encouragement and his comments about her clay modeling, she was able to enroll at the Hornsey School of Art in 1947.
One of the effects of electroconvulsive therapy can be that the patient’s symptoms gradually return when the treatment stops, and so it was with Didi. At a medical she attended in August 1947 she was found to be suffering once more from headaches, a mist in front of her eyes, palpitations, oppressive sensations in her chest, and a feeling that the walls of her bedroom were both receding and closing in on her. She had become forgetful again and lacked concentration, but she was sleeping better than she had before and she had managed to gain a little weight. She had also moved from Darenth Road and Odile’s good care to accommodation in a three-story Victorian terrace in Dunsmure Road, Stamford Hill, a few hundred meters away.
Despite her poor health, Didi stuck to her art course, although she only managed to attend for about two-thirds of the hours that were available to her. Nonetheless she did what she could and one of her instructors, Mr. Holger, was of the opinion that although she followed her own inclinations rather too much, she worked hard and by the end of the first year had made a slight improvement. Other instructors commented on her occasional interesting work, but it was obvious that although she had artistic talent, her delicate health and the aftereffects of life in a concentration camp meant that she was unlikely ever to make a living from art. In many ways this did not matter, as her creative work helped her to come to terms with what she had been through. After she left art school she continued to paint, and produced some vivid and rather strange abstract paintings that some regarded as beautiful but others believed to be disturbing and sinister.
By 1950 Didi had obtained a position as a trainee teleprinter operator for the Post Office and had moved again, this time to St. Kilda’s Road, Stamford Hill, where she lived with her brother Fred. Her medical condition had not improved and an appointment was arranged with Harley Street psychiatrist Ellis Stungo, a former major in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He examined her and made a very full report, in which he noted:
She has premonitions which are invariably correct and believes she has second sight. She exhibits psycho motor overactivity. She talks to herself and writes poetry and highly imaginative stories. She identifies herself with characters in books. She has feelings of unreality and detachment. She has ideas of reference and is suspicious. While waiting for interview she [illegible] some characteristically schizoid representations.
She exhibits many schizoid characteristics, but feels better since commencing training as a teleprinter operator.16
Stungo himself was a rather controversial character. The previous year the BBC had broadcast a program about telepathy in which he was a witness to a supposed demonstration of telepathy between a married couple. After he surprised the listeners by declaring “I’m sure there is no possibility of a fake,” his unexpected evidence was reported in newspaper articles in places as far away as Australia. Six months after examining Didi he was again in the news, this time because of a court case in which he was accused by a former patient of having fathered her child after he had taken her to live in his own home. Although it was said that there was evidence that the patient had lived with him as his mistress, the case was thrown out. Eight years later Ellis Stungo found himself in court again, this time at the Old Bailey, where he was accused of counseling a Dr. Newman to perform an abortion on one of his patients. Newman did as he had been advised but the patient died, and the doctor was convicted of criminal abortion and manslaughter, and sentenced to five years in prison. Stungo was not convicted because the judge found that the prosecution’s evidence against him was insufficient to put to the jury. The adverse publicity about one of her doctors can have done nothing to boost Didi’s confidence about the treatment she had received but she quietly got on with her life, continuing to work as a trainee teleprinter operator and receiving her disability pension, although the amount had gradually been reduced from 100 to 80 and then 50 percent.
Then, in December 1950, Mariquita Nearne, Didi’s mother, died at her home in France. Her death was a blow to everyone. Although she had not been well for much of the year and had had several weeks of bed rest while being treated by her doctor, her death had not been expected. She was only 63 years old. Didi packed her bags and made arrangements to go to Grenoble immediately. Whether or not she (or indeed Jacqueline) had been to see her parents after the war is uncertain. The precarious state of her health would suggest that she had probably remained in England, but she and her parents kept up a regular correspondence. After her mother’s untimely death Didi remained in Grenoble for several months, helping her father come to terms with his loss. Although Jack had been keen to go back to Boulogne (in 1949, he commissioned an architect to draw up plans to renovate the family home there17), without his wife at his side it no longer seemed a priority and he remained in Grenoble until 1962, when he died at the age of 72.
Fred had also gone to Grenoble for his mother’s funeral, so the accommodation in St. Kilda’s Road that he and Didi had shared was vacated, as neither knew when they would be returning to England. Didi wrote to the Ministry of Pensions on 20 December from France, explaining why she was away and that she would be away for several more weeks or months, and giving her temporary address as care of her father in Grenoble. She asked if her pension could be sent to her in France via the British Consulate in Lyons and also mentioned that she no longer had any pension checks, the last one having expired on 30 November. A reply was sent to her at her father’s address, telling her that as she was only going to be in Grenoble for a temporary stay, her pension could not be transferred there but that it would be paid, as usual, in England when she returned. This did not seem to be a problem for her during her stay in France, but Didi forgot to tell the Ministry of Pensions that when she returned to England it would not be to her previous address in St. Kilda’s Road, Stamford Hill.
Throughout 1951 and well into 1952 the people at the Ministry of Pensions tried to get in touch with Didi to sort out where she was living so that she could continue to receive her pension, but letters sent to St. Kilda’s Road were returned with “Not known at this address” written on the envelope. Someone was eventually sent to the address to find out where Didi was and spoke to the new tenant, who said that she had moved at least a year before without leaving a forwarding address. In the end they stopped trying to find her and her pension was canceled, with a note being placed on the file that said it could be reinstated if Didi contacted the office again.
When she finally returned from France several months after her mother’s death Didi found a place to rent at 33 Hampstead Hill Gardens. Without her pension life was more difficult but she received help from her family. It didn’t seem to have occurred to her to contact the Ministry of Pensions again until 1954, when she reapplied for the pension. Her letter reached the Ministry, its arrival being noted in Didi’s records, but she received no reply to her request.18
At the end of 1951 Fred Nearne married a girl called Marjorie Collins and the couple also lived in Hampstead for a time. Their only child, a daughter whom they named Odile, was born in 1954, by which time they had moved to Essex. As a consequence of this move Odile has only a few childhood memories of her aunts, but she clearly recalled one visit by Jacqueline while she was on home leave from the United Nations. Remembering that her small niece was not a fan of dolls, Jacqueline brought her a bright-red toy car, which Odile loved. She recalled that whenever she was back in England Jacqueline always brought some little gift for her young niece and Odile never forgot her gentle, elegant aunt who was always so kind to her.
Her early memories of Didi were not so happy, as Didi was still very troubled by her experiences. She vividly remembered visiting Didi one day with her parents and, when her aunt heard the doorbell, she poked her head out of the window and yelled at them to go away as she did not feel well.
Didi remained in Hampstead for several years and liked the area. When she decided to move again she found herself another bedsit in Hampstead Hill Gardens and lived there for six years. The man who owned the building had been told something of Didi’s background and he mentioned it to a lady named Jenny who lived next door to Didi, asking her to “be nice” to her new neighbor. It was now the beginning of the 1960s and the two women soon became good friends. Jenny was a nursing sister at the nearby Royal Free Hospital, and when she heard that there was a vacancy for a nursing auxiliary she thought of Didi and recommended her for the position. Didi got the job, working on a permanent night shift at the hospital, and it seemed that, at last, she had found something that she really enjoyed. Jenny remembered that Didi hated bugs and insects, so she did not tell her that there were thousands of cockroaches in the hospital. Then one night Didi found a cockroach in a patient’s bed and was so disgusted that she handed in her notice immediately. It reminded her of the filthy conditions in the camps.
But she liked taking care of people, so she found a similar position, this time as a care assistant at Branch Hill home for the elderly in Camden, where she again worked on a permanent night shift. She enjoyed her work, and was appreciated by patients and staff alike. Now less troubled by the problems she had suffered after returning from Germany, she settled down to the pleasant life she so richly deserved with a job she enjoyed and friends with whom she spent her free time.19
In 1970 Fred Nearne was taken ill. After visits to doctors and specialists he received the news that he was suffering from cancer of the stomach. Having moved back to the Hampstead area he spent the last few weeks of his life in St. Columba’s Hospital, where Didi used to go after her night shift had finished to keep him company and help him in any way she could during the final days of his life. He died on 21 December 1970, exactly a month before his 52nd birthday. His elder brother, Francis, had died prematurely, too. Resuming his old job after he managed to return to France at the end of 1945, he was once again able to look after his family and was content to be back in their home near Grenoble, wanting nothing more than to be with his wife and son. For nearly 20 years he was perfectly happy with the quiet life he led but, tragically, the domestic bliss did not last. He died on 21 April 1965, just before his 51st birthday, it is believed from cancer. His son, Jack, was also diagnosed with cancer and died in 1983 at the age of just 43, while Thérèse Nearne outlived both her husband and her son.
By the mid-1970s Didi had decided that she wanted a change of scenery and made up her mind to move again. She found a studio flat in Belsize Square on the borders of Hampstead and Swiss Cottage, just a mile or so from her work. Jacqueline was worried that she would not be able to afford it and suggested that she ask if there was another smaller room that might be less expensive, but Didi was confident there would not be a problem. Jacqueline, who had been helping Didi with a check each month, wrote in reply to a letter telling her about the new flat:
I received your letter this morning—I was very shocked that you haven’t received your cheque for April—because the cheque was sent by the bank on the 18th of March and you should have received it for the end of the month, verified by the bank. Perhaps they will deposit the cheque in your account without notifying you…
I’m glad you’re happy in your apartment… the main thing is that you like the area and that you’re comfortable and peaceful—and if you can afford it—stay there for now and look leisurely for something better. Have you bought a little trunk? I would if I were you so you can get rid of all the boxes. Do you have closet space in your room? Are you close enough to your work?
It’s very important to have a nice place to live, it greatly influences morale.20
Jacqueline understood that everyone needed somewhere to go where one could shut out the world when the difficulties of life became too much; somewhere to feel safe, a place in which to relax, alone or with friends. It was what she had always had during the years she had lived in New York and it was what she wanted for Didi. While she was in America there was not much she could do except send Didi money each month to help with her bills. But all that changed after she retired and returned to England. After finding herself somewhere comfortable to live in London she suddenly realized that there was something that she might be able to do for her sister after all.