It is almost impossible to get more than a glimpse of the real horrors of post-war Germany from Sheila’s letters. There is the occasional passing reference to the privations faced by the German staff working with the British, or the band who tried to smuggle food from yet another sumptuous British feast in their instrument cases. There are also examples of small kindnesses shown to staff and children, as well as compassion and debate around the subject.
For the occupying forces the images of the recently liberated concentration camps, with the charred bodies, the emaciated survivors and the mass graves must have influenced their thinking about the German people. They find it hard to believe that German citizens did ‘not know’ what was going on, and so what might today seem callous behaviour has to be seen in that context.
Nevertheless, Allied policy was brutal against the vanquished between 1946 and 1950. It is thought that over two million women and girls were raped by the victors9 and that up to one million German POWs were deported as forced labour, while up to three million of them died in camps.10 Naturally few begrudged the Allies the Nuremburg Trials in order to see the architects of the Final Solution brought to justice and sentenced to death.
The Americans, in particular, with Russian backing and British acquiescence, in return for a large loan to rebuild Britain, not only divided Germany into four zones but also dismantled, rather than rebuilt, industry and rationed food to subsistence levels. The Cold War, it could be said, in many ways saved Germany as it forced the Allies to look more favourably on it as Russia became the enemy.
But for Sheila 1946 was a year of seemingly endless parties, sport – especially riding – and concerns about her future, from a work perspective but, more importantly, in the quest to decide upon her husband. At the end of 1945, she was being wooed by Ken, but holding out for an answer from Bruce, whom she is to meet on leave in February, and with whom she hopes to settle the future of their long-running ‘understanding’.
‘Life is very full’, she writes from Plön on 6 January:
Did I tell you about our New Year’s Eve party in one of the army messes here? I haven’t laughed so much for ages, and tho’ we drank of the very best (marvellous champagne cocktails) unlike my sister I remained compos mentis! I even had another proposal from a very glam and beautiful young man called Peter Shaw-Pullen – who is frightfully frightfully Mayfair and theatre, who was expert at saying the most charming things one likes to hear, but rather prone to dancing to cheek to cheek!!
The parties continue apace, including ‘one very high-level one given by the Corps commander Lt General Sir Evelyn Barker [the invitation survives] … we had dinner beforehand with the Commander and 3 Lt. Colonels from the 7th Armed Div., bespeckled with DSO’s and MC’s – but rather nice.’ She wore her old floral dress and was admired by the Admiral. The photograph, also pasted into the album, shows her in it.
Meanwhile Robin went to stay with Sheila’s parents:
… he really is such a dear, but very quiet … I couldn’t help smiling – your only comment with regard to him was ‘he’s rather a lamb’ – twice!! Well, yes, he is – and, of course, very young for his 25 years, even tho’ he has been about a lot – of course. I think it’s merely shyness because he’s like that to everyone – most retiring and often says very little – I think he’s probably very good at his job – very much ruled by the army, of course, which is natural, but a pity – He’s terribly thoughtful and kind – with a distinct opinion and mind of his own. He’s very honest and direct, too, and so sweet with his mother and sister – He really wants about six bombs behind him, tho’ – one never quite knows what he is thinking.
Lt General Sir Evelyn Baring’s party – Sheila is in her floral dress.
In news of her other swains, Rosemary has met up with Bruce in Cairo; apparently ‘she likes him very much and heartily approves’. As usual, torn between her lovers, she asks, ‘I wonder what Robin really thinks of me now?’ She has not heard from Bruce for over a fortnight and is ‘almost getting cold feet that we shall miss each other, or something terrible like that’. By 16 January she is losing patience:
I really am rather annoyed with Bruce – it’s most strange that he never wrote to R. about not turning up that time and do you know the last letter I’ve had from him was written on the 19th Dec – I just can’t make it out. I usually hear from him about every 10 days and his last letters have been full of plans re our leave and when he may be home – but the trouble is every letter says something different and I do want a reply to a particular letter of mine which says I can’t get leave after the 16th – That’s only a month from today and I do want to know soon so that I can make plans – I loathe cabling as it always seems so climatic – but if I don’t hear from him within about a week I see no other alternative. Oh dear! Perhaps he’s got cold feet!!! Well, if he has, I’d far rather know, and plan accordingly than be on the end of a sting!!!
This does not prevent her from keeping her options open and Ken has been to Plön to visit; he wanted her to share his imminent leave with him in Paris – ‘woohoo’ – but she has to decline. She is also given the chance to go to Chamonix on an official rest and relaxation break, but again she is ‘completely messed up owing to no news from B’.
To add to her chagrin, ‘in the latest bombshell’, Kay has announced her engagement!
Sheila’s leave is to dominate her letters over the next three weeks: ‘I will let you know soon as I can when I am coming – I hate to seem too “keen” or “chasing” but I must know whether B. is coming or not to make my own plans. These men!!’ Her frustration is tempered by reports of the fun she is having – skating on the frozen lakes, the addition of another new admirer, Sandy Sibun, with whom she and Kay visit Aarhus for some shopping, despite ‘everything being terribly expensive’, the birth of the puppies – and of course, more parties.
On 27 January she writes:
Yes, I have heard from Bruce now (these men!) the letter took 17 days to reach me, and the following day I had a cable in reply to mine – a very nice one – so all is well. He still doesn’t seem certain of when he is coming, but wants me to try for leave about the 20th – go home – and then wait and see when he arrives if he hasn’t already done so.
She is in a state of high anxiety and leaving nothing to chance:
Plön
7.2.46
Well now – about my leave – if I haven’t told you already – it is all fixed – I leave here on the 19th, sail on the 20th, and expect to be home sometime on the 21st – I only get 12 days, much to my annoyance, as VJ leave has been stopped. How nice of Papa to take some leave when I am home so that we can go about – At the minute alas, I am all at sea with my plans, so heaven knows how we will fit in – mine are, very roughly this – As you know the whole reason for having my leave in Feb is to see Bruce, and I am determined to do this. At the minute, he still doesn’t know when he will be coming, but the form is that when he arrives in UK he will either write, phone or wire, and we will make plans – Now if any communication from him arrives before I arrive back (you know his hand writing, don’t you? Very childish probably!) I want you to find out his address and phone number and I will phone you up from Hull whenever I arrive to find out what’s to be done – I shall come straight home from Hull, and probably go south to meet Bruce later. I do want to get this settled (I feel so nervous!) and think it would be better to meet him alone in London rather than lug him all the way up north only to find we hate each other on sight!! After all a year is a long time and I am petrified that he may have changed his mind! When in London, I also want to see Robin, and (whatever the form is with Bruce) try and clear the air there – After all, there is a limit to everything, and either way he’s got a few home truths coming to him – This may seem rather ruthless, but I feel I must know where I stand! I don’t think I shall see Kenneth before I leave as he is having an extra 2 weeks in the UK and won’t be back till the 16th – At the minute I am having rather a trying time with Sandy, who seems to have got it rather badly, but this simply can’t be allowed, and I am going to be very firm. Oh dear, why is it that it’s never the right one?!! What a curse men are!
Robin seems to be held in a ‘first reserve’ position and she is determined to see him as well on her leave, as she records in her last letter before her departure. I am amused that she calls her mother ‘mum’ in this letter, something I was not allowed to do when I was a small child. It had to be ‘Mummy’:
Plön
13.2.46
My dear Mum –
I’m so awfully sorry I’ve not written before – I’ve been waiting for my final dates and arrangements to be made – well now, the position has somewhat changed since I last wrote – but it’s now quite firm – so this is what it is – I am flying over in a Stirling from Schleswig to Bury St. Edmonds, on the 19th and from there I shall come straight home by the Harwich Express (going backwards!) – The only trouble is that no one has a UK train timetable and I don’t know how the trains run – so if you think you can get reply back to me by p.m. the 18th, do write and tell me how they go – It takes 2 1/2 hrs – the air passage, so I should arrive in Schleswig UK (must be going mad) by about lunchtime – Anyway, on arrival, I will send a wire saying what I am going to do, and then appear! I can bring unlimited baggage too, it’s a mail plane.
Well, about Bruce – I think it’s quite definitely that he is cooling off, but anyway, we shall soon find out when we meet – he is arriving in UK about the 19th and will doubtless write or ring – if he rings, please get his address or phone number, and I will contact him on my return. I have had 2 very pressing letters from Robin, who will be on leave at the same time and who is very keen to take me to a large dance at Westminster Hospital on the 22nd, so what I think I shall do is to go down to London for it and hope that by that time Bruce will be back, and that I can see him whilst I am down there. Dear oh dear oh dear!! I always seem to get into such complications and muddles – what will happen I can’t say – but I can only say I hope it will be for the best!! It really seems awful to rush off as soon as I am home – but I am sure you will appreciate what a dilemma I seem to be in – one which really must be solved! At the minute it rather looks as if I shall be back home again within the next month or two anyway – a thing I will tell you all about when I return – As I am going by air, I am going to try and get 14 days instead of 12 – but mum’s the word.
So glad you’ve managed to get the house done up – I hope it won’t be cold when I am back, as we are so used to central heating we are quite tender little flowers! You seem to have had a good time in Yorkshire. I’m so glad –
Sally plus puppy I have to take down to Kiel to an M.L. [Motor Launch] who is taking them back to UK. I do hope they will be OK. We now have 3 left. Did I tell you I have lost Desmond! [the dog that Ken gave her] Diana and I took him out for a walk and he disappeared, last Friday. I am désolé – we searched high and low too.
We had a good party last night, organised by me – we decorated the place with catkins and it looked awfully nice. I had such fun tasting the drinks and arranging the food – at the very end the German band got arrested because they were walking off with food in their violin cases – what a world!
Mummy, I must stop, as I must write a wee line to Robin – I do hope you won’t be cross because I am going off to London so soon – you do understand don’t you? If Bruce does ring – I’d rather you didn’t tell him I have arranged to go to London. I want to tell him myself. I shall probably have to go down for an interview anyway – I don’t mind you telling him that in the slightest – Personally, I think he has got cold feet – I know I have myself! Still, time will show –
So au revoir – hope to see you on the 19th or 20th – I will wire as soon as I arrive.
Heaps of love,
Sheila
The next letter home is not written until after the leave, on 7 March, reporting her safe arrival, and a ‘pleasant evening with John’ at the Mirabell. Could this have been her last meeting with John Pritty? We will never know.
There is no mention of Bruce in the following letter – indeed Ken seems to be on the scene again: ‘it was grand to see him … we tea’d and dined and went into Itzehoe to the new Officers’ Club – Shepheard’s – of which we are new members. Reluctantly, I came home at 4 o’clock – they wanted me to stay the night, and as I’ve not done a stroke today, I wish I had! What it is to have a conscience!’ She is going up to Hamburg to see him during the week, and then he is coming to see her over the weekend, when they plan to go to the officers’ club at Travemünde and stay the night.
The Hamburg meeting was not a success as Ken:
… had one of his ‘moods’ on – which he says he can’t explain himself – It never struck me before but they are probably something to do with him having been POW. I then find it very difficult to understand him and just can’t make out how we stand. We are supposed to be going up to the officers’ club at Travemünde on the Baltic for Saturday night – I wonder if we will?’
It really does sound like John Pritty all over again.
She still has not heard from Bruce by 14 March and she is ‘at a loss to know what has happened – but I haven’t written – after all, unless he’s fallen very ill (most unlikely) he could easily write to me’. She has in the interim applied to join Control Commission, the military government running Germany. She is obviously very concerned that she will either be demobbed or posted back to being a Wren in England, neither of which she is keen on. ‘I hope to hear on Tuesday what is to become of me. I want very much to stay out here – I just couldn’t come home and do the kind of job Daddy thinks I ought to do (don’t show him this!!) unless one is married or engaged or got some definite commitment in U.K. I think it’s far better to be out here – so I do hope someone will take me on!!’
Finally she hears from Bruce, as she reports to her mother on 20 March:
Plön
20.3.46
My dear Ma –
Thank you for your letter – I am so glad that you are better, but don’t forget to take care – why don’t you see a doctor – Yes, we had another bout of snow, but it has gone now – In one week I was ski-ing, riding and playing squash – not bad! Ski-ing was fun, but rather difficult – I kept falling down to begin with and got some horrific cracks!
Well – ! A letter from Bruce today – full of apologies and conscience-stricken feelings – certainly cold feet was the answer – he’s not fallen for anyone else – He returns to Haifa today, and will be out there till next November, when he comes back to UK possibly to a job in War Office – I feel rather annoyed with myself really, for not realising all this before – I did actually know it, but didn’t want to believe it, I suppose – I felt the same, but thought that a meeting would clear it all up! However, he hadn’t got the guts for that – so what!
Hope R. gets on all right with her Winter – we seem to strike suites of young men who can’t make up their minds! Ken is the same – he suffers badly from ex-POW-itis – consequently he can’t make up his mind what to do from one day to another. He seems to have made up his mind that he doesn’t want to get married, but is in no way sure of himself. On the other hand he is in love with me – but he can’t make up his mind. He’s frightened because he’s poor and this new pay thing11 is even worse than before – He even has no confidence in himself – I find it so hard to get to the root of the trouble and find out what really is the matter. We went to Travemünde on Saturday for the night and had quite a pleasant time, but this uncertainty seems to cast a cloud over everything. He has grown rather morose which consequently has a bad effect on me – so we aren’t the gayest of couples after our hilarious times before Xmas – He was going to Brussels tomorrow, but has cancelled it and is coming up here for a dance in Plön and on Saturday we hope to meet in Hamburg for a Tank party at the Country Club and stay at the Atlantic. I wonder what we will do?
You have made no comment on my proposal to join Control Commission – I hope to go down and have an interview next week – I only hope they will take me, as I don’t want to come home one bit – !
Some of the people are horrible but doubtless they will improve later on – if they accept me, I want to transfer direct without coming home, as it will be much easier –
Robin is going off either to Italy or Austria any day now – everything most involved as his original appointment has fallen through. He seems to be in great demand, and at one stage was asked to be 2nd Cd. of 2nd Tanks, much to his surprise – it appears now that he will only probably get a squadron and become Major again, but considering Ken, a regular tank man, hasn’t been able to achieve this himself, he’s very lucky to do this as a newcomer to the RAC – what influence and friends will do! Must stop now as I am going for a walk – It’s a heavenly day –
Heaps of love,
Sheila
p.s. I’ve just remembered it’s your 30th anniversary some day soon (I never know which day!) Many congratulations – now you must have one of those bottles of Champagne – I insist – a very fitting occasion – I can easily get more – Now mind you do!
S.
At the dance in Plön, with Ken.
Poor Sheila – the champagne is laid down for the wedding, and she is still keeping Ken and Robin in play although, as her next letter reveals, life is far from satisfactory on the boyfriend front. She manages to derive some enjoyment from her work at least, while waiting to hear about her application to Control Commission:
Plön
25.3.46
My dear Ma –
What’s the news from here, now? I told you I’d heard from Bruce, didn’t I? If it’s not one it’s the other! Ken has now been playing up and Sandy has completely deserted me for another mess member – this latter I don’t mind about a bit – but it seems a bit strange. However, to revert to Ken, he cancelled his Brussels trip and came up here for a dance last Thursday. We had such fun and both thoroughly enjoyed it – As you know, we were meeting in Hamburg at the weekend – there was to be a party and we were going to stay in the Atlantic. When he came up Ken said the party was off as there was no accommodation in the Atlantic and that he thought he’d have a quiet weekend for a change. I was disappointed naturally, but said no more. Later I chanced to ring up Betty Crocker in Hamburg, who mentioned that Ken and Dennis had been arranging a party for her and 2 other Wrens in Hamburg for Saturday night! Was I mad? And now Ken has had the cheek to ring me and ask me to another do in their mess on Wednesday, to which he said 3 Hamburg-ites are going – I have been distant and vague and certainly don’t intend to go. Transport is almost impossible, anyway.
I had a most interesting day yesterday and entertaining too. I went out to lunch with the French Naval Liaison Officer in Kiel. A sumptuous affair – wonderful food and drink – I felt absolutely bloated after it – Then Priscilla and I were taken on to tea with half the German nobility. Princesses, counts, countesses, generals etc. I must say it was most interesting and I did enjoy it very much. They were all charming. Well mannered and cultured. Interesting and amusing to think that their sons had all been arrant young Nazi officers. Photographs of them emblazoned the walls all round – we were principally entertained by a General who had led the Germans against us in SW Africa many moons ago. A dear old boy. His wife and daughter, also charming, were also there, and a newly demobbed colonel who was chopping wood on the estate. Conversation was naturally limited – they all have a very narrow outlook and no appreciation of what is going on outside at all. They are all evacuated and there are about 90 people living in the Schloss, of course all denounce the Nazis madly, but would have been among the first to acknowledge them had they succeeded. All spoke English well, and most had been to England. Yes, it was most interesting. In the evening I went to a party at the Admiral’s house, which funnily enough I enjoyed immensely – the food and drink again, were excellent.
Riding has started again in full swing. I have been out a lot in the last week and this morning before breakfast – but it was too much for me. I fell off and have got acute lumbago!!
Any news of Rosemary? I really must write to her – I wonder if she saw Bruce – Hope all will be well in that direction.
As you can guess I feel a bit depressed with life, but doubtless something will materialise. I hope to hear about control commission next week.
With much love
Sheila
Still smarting from Ken’s duplicity, she ‘refused to go to Ken’s party on Wednesday. Nothing would induce me to go on principle – I won’t be two-timed!! However, I think (and hope!) we shall meet this weekend – he suggested it, and rang me up today, but I was out.’
Obviously put out by Sandy Sibun’s perfidy, she adopts an equally high-minded posture over the next slight as she notes on 28 March: ‘I am at the minute having a most amusing time – there is a big party in Kiel tonight given by Sandy’s mess from which I was omitted – apparently they are now one girl short – and (can you CREDIT it?!!) have asked me if I will go to take her place!! I had great pride in saying, No, I was doing nothing, but wouldn’t dream of going! I have now invited a guest to dinner at the time when les girls are going to be picked up – and I hope they all feel darned uncomfortable – really – what do people think I am?’ Sandy was married as it transpired, so she was not averse to getting her own back.
Ken seems to have wriggled back into her good books as she goes on a short leave with him to Brussels in early April:
Plön
6.4.46
My dear Ma –
… I expect you are wondering what I was doing in Brussels – well I will tell you – to begin with I will say that I think I was foolish to go, but everyone else here has been off somewhere or other, and I wanted to as well – Kay was up in Copenhagen with the hockey team – everyone was away – Ken rang up and said he was going to Brussels on short leave – would I like to go too? Like an ass I said yes, if I could get a pass – I could get a pass – I went – The journey was long and tedious, and I didn’t like Brussels much – we quarrelled rather and in fact didn’t really make it up till the day we came back – I have never known anything quite like the prices – absolutely fantastic, they were – On the way back we had 24 hours in the train and passed through Ruhr district, I have never seen anything like the bombing – for hours and hours we passed nothing but flattened out towns and factories – and when we slowed down, hordes of small children crowded round the train begging for food – It wasn’t a pretty sight.
Her anxiety about her future is in no small part due to the fact that the barracks is closing on 15 April and she has nowhere to go. Originally she thought she was ‘possibly’ staying to do an ‘interesting and unique job – Staff Communication Officer to NOIC Cuxhaven – the snags at the minute are (a) there are no Wrens there at all – only 4 or 5 civilian welfare women workers in the whole place and (b) NOIC has to be asked whether he approves having a girl Signal Officer over his men’ – but it was not approved, as she not allowed to be the only woman on station:
[I am] completely in the air in every respect and feel rather depressed – I should like to make a clean sweep of everything but it’s difficult to know how to set about it – The one thing to avoid as far as I can see is to be a Wren in England, which would be just deadly – If I can get in to Control Commission I should like to go to Berlin or Austria if one gets a choice – I wonder? Anyway, I shall probably land on your doorstep with all my bags in 3 weeks time!
To add insult to injury she discovers that her application to join the Control Commission was sent to England, ‘so there is nothing to be done for me out here’. In fact, the military government was in the process of reducing staff, but she is determined to pull all strings possible, despite the welcome news that she is to be transferred to Kiel, in a secretarial capacity, dealing with German property. Ever optimistic, she says:
Soon I hope to get my Control Commission idea sorted out and if it’s OK, I shall then transfer – If not, it will give me a chance to look round for something else – The barracks close down tomorrow – all v. sad – I am going to a horse show – Gymkhana in Itzehoe with Ken – and go to Kiel on Thursday.
Sheila, as mess secretary, was in charge of organising the farewell party; an event dutifully recorded in her album with a copy of the invitation and formal photo:
Plön
11.4.46
My dear Ma
We gave a most successful party on Monday organised by Mills – it consisted of a cocktail party for about 120, then a dance with buffet for about 60 afterwards – The Admiral and General came to say nothing of old Brigadiers etc. We got most of the food from Denmark – drink was good, gin cocktails and champagne cocktails – Our staff are wonderful all ex-Hamburg-America line stewards who know exactly what is required – the food they made was just wonderful, too. The German band from the barracks played and we had the dance in the club room, which is a huge and very pretty room in the block where we live – we decorated the room with sprigs of young trees and daffodils. The whole thing was a great success – I asked Ken, but we had another of our famous rows – (I always seem to quarrel with my boyfriends!) However, we made it up in the end – the trouble seems to be that certain things I do annoy him – but instead of telling me, he bottles it always – Of course, he annoys me, but then I overlook these small things, which to him are mountainous – I used to be like that with John Pritty, but have grown out of the habit, Ken, having been a POW for 4 years, is that much behind me in age, even tho’ he is 29, and still a very young in many ways – I feel sorry for him, because unless he grows out of these ways, he will be very unhappy –
So, my position seems to get worse and worse from every point of view!! Heaven forbid that I return to UK for keeps!
Dance card for the farewell party at Plön, organised by ‘Mills’.
Another farewell party on 6 April; Sheila is seated with Ken on her left.
Ken stayed up for ten days and they did all kinds of things: ‘dancing, walking, rowing and even went to a Gymkhana given by his Bde [Brigade] – on Easter Monday – The stupid thing is that we really don’t hit it off much as we’d like to so I’m not quite sure what we are going to do – Our characters are really most similar – perhaps that’s why.’
She is finally seeing that he is probably not the one for her.
❖❖❖
Sheila is sorry to leave Plön, but felt she was getting in ‘a rut’. She has no idea what the social life will be like in Kiel, but they brought their horses with them and the swimming and sailing in summer might be ‘quite fun’. They are living in a large house ‘midst trees and bomb damage (which is frightful)’. She loves her new room – ‘it’s rather small, with light furniture, green carpet and looks into the morning sun – It is next to Diana and we have a small balcony – Beyond the bomb damage is the harbour – on either side, both houses are one dreadful conglomeration of rubble – funny this one missed it. People live in the basement of one of them.’
A new place requires new clothes, and she is soon making lists of things for her mother to send:
26.4
I think that I shall have to do a transfer of clothes – I would like sent out 3 cotton dresses – red floral, coloured stripes, green beige button through, my silk blue and white print, blue housecoat, old red Syrian sandals, white wedge shoes and white cleaning stuff. Also, pink cardigan – Yes, I should love the red airtex too. There is another high level dance at the Corps Commander’s mess on the 6th so I shall need another evening dress – I do wish you hadn’t sent the blue to Rosemary, as I need a change badly – I think I had better have the red brocade this time – I also need badly some hair grips from my gray case and some shampoos – Please could I have the last 3 things by return as I need them rather urgently?
P.S I have thought of more things I need – one, face powder – a box of Cyclax from my cupboard please – Damn – can’t think of the others.
Just remembered – I sent 2 parcels (reg) home with material for dresses – could you pse send them back unopened and they won’t have to be paid for again –
8.5.46
It looks as if I shall be here for some months yet, so please, I should like my things fairly soon. Oh, I got the shampoo and clips. I was most pleased with them.
10.6
Thank you for my evening dress and cardigan which I believe will have arrived as I see there is a parcel for me to collect.
It’s not all one-way traffic, however. From Denmark she sent almonds, nail varnish and swansdown powder puffs. In Germany she is buying wellingtons, sheepskin gloves, a tin of tongue and cheese for her mother, as well a ‘beautiful’ Roquefort for her aunts Rose and Dorothy to share.
In Kiel her mood lifts; social life kicks off well and she has to work hard which I think she enjoys. The yacht club seems to be the social hub, and she, Diana and Betty ride frequently. The change of scene also gives her a chance to think more clearly about her relationship with Ken. Rosemary seems to be having similar problems with her boyfriend, Winter:
What’s happened to R? … How is the big romance progressing? I feel that if he doesn’t do anything now he never will – You know what these men are! I am frightful – I can only have interest in one person at a time and thus never bother about all the people around – so that when I suddenly find all is not well in that direction (vis Ken) I discover how few people I really know or care about. I get in a very bad habit of not bothering about people who don’t particularly appeal to me, which is really a very bad thing indeed, I’m sure it’s better to be everybody’s friend, than to keep one’s circle select and small as I seem to do! I really must turn over a new leaf!
Which is indeed what happens.
Kiel
8.5.46
My dear Ma –
… I can’t remember when I last wrote but I think it must have been last week – life here has really been very gay and promises to be so in the future. I went out 5 nights running, and could have gone tonight as well, but felt I must get on with mess a/c’s and sordid things like that. We have a mess meeting tomorrow, and I want to prepare for it, as I shall have no time in the morning, as I shall be working. I am kept hard at it from 9 till 6, quite a change. My boss is a delightful old boy, most hard working and conscientious – but he does talk! He’s also a great tease and never lets an opportunity pass. But I do like him and enjoy working for him very much. The Corps Commander’s party in Plön was on Monday and Diana and I went up with Capt. Morse in his car. En route, the petrol tank dropped off and we had to get another car! The party was a great success. I knew such a lot of people there, I found. I wore the red check again, for want of something better. It has been much admired – I must say I like it too – The guards have a very good Officers’ Club at a place near here which I went to on Saturday. Food and drink are just excellent. It’s frightfully select and only a few regiments are allowed to go – the joke is they seem to let all kinds of women go – I believe half of them are Germans or displaced persons!
A nice letter from Robin this week – he seems settled in up there and is doing a lot of riding in Gymkhanas too. I always thought he must be good, but I think he really must be first class.
I think the Ken affaire will die a natural death. I am sick of being treated in a casual sort of way. It appears to be too much of an effort for him to come up here to see me. (It takes 3 hours) and his gliding seems to be all important to him on Sundays. So I damned if I’m going to rush down to Hamburg to meet him, as he suggests. I’ve turned a blind eye to many things but I can’t go on doing it. I’m sure there must be better fish in the sea somewhere! Rosemary seems to be getting on like a house-on-fire. I so hope he comes up to scratch – I rather feel that if he doesn’t now he never will.
We have been all decorated up for VE day – flags all over the ships – I wish you could see our new house – it is such a nice one, and could be even nicer if the furniture fitted in better. We have a beautiful Steinway piano, too. You don’t notice the terrible bombing all round now that the trees are out – at the minute we have no curtains – very awkward in the bathroom! …
Lots of love,
Sheila
On Victory Day, she ‘took half the morning off and went riding – in the afternoon I went out sailing with an awfully nice young Sub. here – Tom Unwin – we had such fun’. In the evening they went on aboard the destroyer Zenith, and then on to a film. ‘I reckon I had as good a day of Victory as anyone.’ So my father enters Sheila’s orbit again, but he is not without competition. In the same letter, that of 10 June, she writes of another admirer:
I have had such a pleasant week, and mostly all from mine own efforts, which all goes to show it does pay to make the effort. I have asked several people up to dinner and made up parties – have ridden a lot – sailed once – one evening I went up to the Schleswig Officers’ Club with a rather nice Engineer I met in the course of my duty – Barry Phillips – and last night I asked him back to dinner in the mess. We had a hilarious time as 2 old old friends of mine ex. Hamburg and Harwich (Wrens) came up en route for Denmark and did we chatter? In the end Barry drove us round to his little ship ‘Nautik’ where he lives all by himself and we finished the evening on champagne and Nautik specials, gazing over the rails at the water, in true troop ship style. It was fun.
She adds as a postscript: ‘not a word from Bruce, Robin neither for 4 or 5 weeks!!!!’
In mid-June, she writes about her impending leave to England in early July; she will go home for a few days and then spend some time with her cousin Hazel and her goddaughter Daphne, for whom she has knitted many a fine garment while on watch, and then perhaps spend a day or two in London.
Sheila is obviously going out with Tom a fair bit, although he doesn’t sound very attractive as he has produced some ‘frightful spots on his neck’. This on top of the terrible rash he had when she first met him in Hamburg. I put it down to his deep neurosis, which I shall explore a little later.
She tells a funny story about her lunch with some Russians. ‘One of them asked Donald Wood [an interpreter and friend of Tom] whose girl I was – Oh she works for Captain Morse was the reply – Oh no – I mean who does she sleep with retorted the Russian!! They really are most odd!!’
Barry meets her on her return from leave in mid-July. She spends the rest of the day with him, and then on to Hamburg for the evening. In the next letter, she seems to be seeing a fair bit of Barry, as Tom is away:
Kiel
21.7.46
My dear Mama –
Today is your birthday – Many happy returns, once more! Tom has gone up to Denmark and I have asked him to bring back a cheese for you if he can get one on Sunday – so here’s hoping! Thank you for your letter – I hope you are feeling less tired …
Life has been rather hectic since my return and I have laid off a bit as I felt rather tired. Two mornings running I went riding; one day we bathed at lunchtime – one evening Barry and I went to the Guards’ Club at Eckernforde – the following evening three of us returned to our old barracks Plön and dined in Rodney block (where we used to live) with the guards – It was really rather fun – they were all frightfully guard-ee but awfully nice, really – Dinner was rather sumptuous – (caviar!) and afterwards we trooped off to their new Country Club which is in the house the General used to occupy – It was very nice indeed but very empty indeed as it had only been opened 3 days – They produced a cabaret and we danced – and didn’t get home till 2.30 – ugh!
You can guess I was tired on Friday – but I rode in the evening and haven’t felt at all stiff from my efforts at all, which is marvellous change for me – In the evening Tom came round after dinner and we walked and talked in the nearby woods – Yesterday Betty, Diana and I went out to Westensee to see where we have a country house for weekends – it’s beautiful there – a large lake, with fields, woods and trees all round – we took Capt. Morse and a Norwegian with us – It was quite warm and we finished up in the Schloss drinking champagne on the terrace! Yum Yum! I ended the day by going to bed at 9.15 – heavens – Today I feel full of energy and Barry and I are going for a picnic – if it doesn’t rain! This evening we are going back to Schleswig the club which we like best – Eckernforde always rather depresses me – there’s far too much to eat – courses and courses and the band’s not very good!
I hope you have had that bottle of champagne for your birthday – I bought 2 more bottles last week – 9/- a bottle! Could you please get me another small gold coin button from Coyne’s – I should have got 5 – silly!
Rosemary seems bereft of all her friends – I wonder if she has gone to Italy?
I am very busy in my office – tons of bills to deal with which are rather complicated.
There’s no news at all for now – I will leave this open in case anything happens.
Lots of love,
Sheila
Now Sheila is the two-timer. Only this year, 2014, I discovered a cache of my father’s letters to my mother, stuffed in an old plastic bag, along with the wedding telegrams. This sheds a whole new light on their courtship and their relationship, and reveals much about my father that I suspected but could never prove, as by the time I knew him he was a hugely successful man, first in the Colonial Administration in Tanganyika and then in the United Nations.
The first letter is dated 4 July, and predates the above letter, in which he apologises for not being able to come to the UK ‘after all as the “Cdr Aylen” gang have made other arrangements’. This refers to his work with Professor Walther and other German scientists in Kiel. He adds, ‘do you know I miss you quite a lot.’ This was getting serious only after a few weeks. His other letters contain a sketch of a bleeding heart and a long love poem on Naval Message paper, obviously written by him as there is lots of crossing out; here are the final stanzas:
It may just be a reverie
Of a sub on morning watch
But that’s how you appear to me
That’s what you’ll always mean to me
At times when I am took with fright
I’d love to have you near to me
My light!
Forgive these lines
Writ down in haste
For beauty they have none
And all they really show to me
Is the damage
You
Have done!
Nevertheless she continues to see both Barry and Tom. Perhaps she was terrified of being left high and dry again as she was with Bruce, so kept her options open:
Kiel 30/7/46
My dear Ma – no news from you for ages. The mail seems to have gone all haywire. I hope all is well and that you are feeling less tired.
Life here is extremely pleasant, the highlight of the week seems to be Sunday. Tom asked me to go on a trip with him to try and look up some Russian cousins of a friend of his at home. White Russians – and with another young interpreter, Donald Wood as well, we all set off to find the place, near Ratzeburg, south of Lübeck, we had a bathe and a picnic lunch on the beach at Timmendorf and then sped on to find this place – After asking and asking and bumping over frightfully badly made up roads we found the house, a large old farmhouse packed with D.P.s [Displaced Persons] from the Russian zone and discovered the people we were looking for. They were charming, had lost everything in Berlin, were stateless as they were exiled Russians, but were still in hope that something would turn up. They had a sweet little girl of six years old who speaks German and Russian and we all three said how do you do to her in different ways in Russian (the only words I know!). After about 1/2 hour we decided we had better be on our way, but alas within a mile of the house we broke down – and had to go on foot to a neighbouring dairy to phone. This was all miles in the heart of the country. There we met a kind man who offered to tow us with his lorry into Ratzeburg, where we hoped the 10th Hussars would be able to help us. When we eventually arrived, we discovered they had no breakdown party at all and that we had to get another car from Kiel. However, they were throwing a small party for the local DP’s – would we like to join in? – We would and did and spent a most amusing evening dancing and talking to the DPs – mostly Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians. We met an awfully nice Lithuanian Colonel who was rather like a fish out of water – he spoke only French, and either Russian or German – Tom was marvellous as he is a very good linguist and the old man thought him marvellous. Eventually our car arrived at 1230 and we got home at about 0315! The dawn was rising! I was terribly tired as I had been late the night before.
Yesterday I took Barry out riding for the first time and it poured and poured with rain, we got soaked. This evening is a ladies guest night on board the ship – I am riding with Tom before, and then Barry is calling for me for the dance.
Oh, did the cheese ever arrive? I sent it off approximately a week ago in a big wooden box – cheese provided by Tom – box by Barry. I am rather worried about having two young men – both are dears – I really must be careful and not go sailing on head in air. There might be talk.
Tennis I played three times last week also, rode 2 or 3 times as well – danced 3 evenings and swam twice. It’s a good life!
How is Rosemary? I’ve heard no news from her for 2 weeks or so. Oh, I am being taken out of the dryer so must stop. (Am having hair done!)
With heaps of love,
Sheila
And so it continues with her two young men, although Tom has a trump card in his favour:
Kiel Sunday 4th/8
My dear Ma – many thanks for your letter which crossed mine – I wonder whether you got the cheese? Your apples haven’t arrived yet – George, our nice German steward, had some sent to him by his wife yesterday, and I found a plate by my bed – I felt rather awful taking them, but I always give him chocolate and cigs when he goes home – so I think he felt he would like to do something in exchange –
A very happy and busy week for me – Did I tell you how Tom and I went out riding and had a battle with an enormous cart horse stallion? We were galloping down a field to a gate, when this thing started to chase me and when we got to the gate, found it was wired up and padlocked – I got off to try and undo the wire, and left Tom to cope with the horse – luckily they weren’t mares but the stallion didn’t seem to mind, and I foresaw us all being trampled under foot. Tom was frightfully brave especially when the nasty thing got its foot caught in his horse’s reins and he had to undo the strap – all the time there was bucking and kicking going on and I was battling with the gate which I had to take off the hinge – In the end I got it off, and my horse through, and repressed the stallion whilst Tom got his through – my goodness I was frightened, tho’ we have had many a laugh over it since!
We went on to the ladies’ guest night afterwards – I in my black dress lace earrings and velvet bow tied round my neck, which brought forth rounds of applause from everyone – I am glad I brought it back.
Barry has got to go home in a couple of weeks – a blitz from above has removed his job, and he is going home. It appears that he is married, but is another one who doesn’t get on with his wife – this I don’t doubt at all, but I must say what a typical male attitude not to tell until the last minute – all I can say is it’s jolly lucky I hadn’t fallen flat for his charms, because I should have been sunk!
Tom and I had a marvellous afternoon yesterday at Schleswig where we went over the Cathedral. It has the most beautiful carved altar screen – I have never seen anything so intricate – all scenes from the New Testament carved in oak, and in the contemporary costume of the 13th or 14th century – The ceiling and pillars are all painted delicately in buff ocre [sic] and brick colours – apparently all the paintings were white washed over at the time of the Reformation and were not discovered till 1938. N. Germany was the last part of Germany to be converted to Christianity and still on the ceilings are painted 2 witches on broomsticks, old pagan gods – an organ was playing whilst we were there, and I was terribly impressed by the whole place – Tomorrow is Bank Holiday and we hope to go on a picnic. In the evening we are going to a circus in the town – later on, we hope to go to Bad Harzburg together, and Capt. Morse says that I can go – but Tom (reluctantly I’m afraid) is going on leave in 2 weeks time – so we must try and go before he goes. He really is the sweetest person – but 3 years younger than I am!
The glamorous and beautiful Sheila in Germany in 1946. This is the black dress referred to in the letter of 4 August.
I have had a very nice dinner dress made in almond green cotton-silk and I managed to get some very pretty painted wooden buttons to go with it – We got them at Eckernforde yesterday. It really is quite [sketch] sweet.
I really must stop and finally get ready for riding. It is a beautiful windy and sunny afternoon – I am going with Barry – Tom is out sailing as it is Kiel Regatta this week – They are going 10 miles outside the boom in cabin class yachts – I do hope he won’t be seasick as he says he is terribly at times.
Heaps of love
Sheila
No news from R. for weeks – is all OK?
The next letters are all Tom (although Barry sneaks in when Tom is sailing) – dining, swimming, picnicking, visiting Lübeck, driving through the country. And then Tom goes on leave ‘for a whole fortnight – Awful!’ but they have arranged to go to Bad Harzburg for her birthday on 9 September. Barry, too, has left, but not before giving her a nice hand-made black handbag, but she’s ‘glad he’s gone really – much as I liked him – Complications only ensue.’
Nevertheless, she has time for a rant about the notion that the British Army on the Rhine are to be allowed to bring their wives out, and it is revealing in what it says about conditions in Germany at the time, and her sympathy with the civilians:
Kiel
17.8.46
I think this BAOR [British Army of the Rhine] wives business is a scandal – Here, dozens of families have been evicted and there is absolutely nowhere suitable for them to go, as the town is so badly bombed – also, they have had to leave behind furniture etc. and feeling will I am sure, run very high, and rightly so – It is untrue to say that such luxuries await the wives such as the papers make out – we have hardly any furniture or anything to put into unfurnished houses and I don’t suppose the NAAFI arrangements are any further forwards – There will be discontent all round – I am sure it is a mistake bringing them over here – they will have precious little to do except gossip and I don’t suppose many will take an interest in the German problem today – Conditions in winter will be shocking – And as for giving them that luxurious train – that’s the last straw, when you consider the trains we service people travel in – FILTHY – 2nd or 3rd class for officers, not enough lights – windows often boarded up – lavatories too smelly and dirty to even enter and I suspect, infected with all kinds of livestock – If they can produce decent trains for wives and families, what about the poor old service personnel who’ve won the war for them? It makes me sick –
I attribute this outburst partly to the stress she must have been feeling with Tom away, and to his growing influence over her, as he mixed freely with Germans as part of his job. He begins to bombard her with letters, ranging from extremely witty to downright depressive, many adorned by cartoon sketches.
Some of the sketches from Tom’s letters.
The following letter was written on Salvation Army paper, while he was waiting for his train to take him on leave to England. She could not fail to have been amused by it, and this is my father though and through – limitless charm hiding a tormented soul:
Railway Stn
Bad Oeynhausen
15.8
Madam
May we interest you in corresponding with a lonely young man who is off on leave to England today?
He is a young naval officer – his plane didn’t fly owing to the weather and so train is the answer. He is rather unhappy at the thought of going home and so, knowing you, we hope you will not mind the Xian [Christian] deed involved in writing to him.
He was rather bashful of writing to you himself, but appears to be very fond of you. In fact he forgot to take his change of [unreadable] and when asked why, said ‘these bloody women, always on your mind’ from which remark you will readily deduce the depth of his love.
In the hope, dear madam, that we have not offended you by our forthright request and wishing you the happiest possible of correspondences.
We sign ourselves
Respectfully
Josiah H Turmoil
Stn. Welfare Officer
NB the young man’s address – his name is I believe known to you – is 17, Chamberlain St, Wells, Somerset.
These letters were to continue right up until their marriage in December, as Tom only returned to Germany at the end of August for a few weeks and was demobbed in mid-October. Reading them now, it seems to me that she was taking a huge risk in marrying him as he showed signs of great mental instability. It is hardly surprising when you know what he had been through, but neither Sheila nor anyone else, apart from his mother and brother, had any idea about the real Tomas Michael Ungar.
❖❖❖
Tomas (Tomy) Ungar was born on 25 October 1923 to Hermann and Margarete (née Stransky) in Prague. His father was a writer and former Czech diplomat who had served in Berlin, where he had belonged to an elite group of writers – the 1925 Group – which included Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Doeblin, Albert Ehrenstein, Willy Haas, Egon Erwin Kisch, Robert Musil, Joseph Roth, and Max Brod.
In Berlin Hermann met Thomas Mann who was to become his sponsor and, later, Tomy’s godfather. His books were Boys and Murderers (1920), The Maimed (1922), The Class (1927) and the plays The Red General, which was premiered in 1928 in Berlin, and The Arbour, which was published posthumously in 1930. He also wrote many short stories, including one about his son, ‘Tomy learns to write’. He wrote about sex and psychosis in a manner that shocked the establishment and was probably the reason why he sunk into obscurity, not helped by the fact that Max Brod, Franz Kafka’s executor, turned against him after his death – due, no doubt, to Ungar’s unfavourable remarks in his diaries, which were also published after his death. Hermann did not know the meaning of the word tact, something his son inherited.
Hermann died when Tom was six and, despite the fact that he barely knew his father, his father’s character was to influence him greatly throughout the rest of his life. As he writes in a letter to Sheila on 12 November 1946, ‘I fear you will find me a difficult man to live with even as mother found father. The trouble is I am too highly strung … always dissatisfied, always dripping …’ On 25 and 26 October (maybe his birthday made him so maudlin), he writes ‘if you marry me you are marrying a madman … this is the typewriter12 pa used to write his books on … He was mad too, mad and genial.’ A few weeks before their marriage he says, ‘it isn’t too late for you to realise you are marrying a soft fool, a dithering and undetermined semi-lunatic … I’m quite serious’.
Hermann Ungar came from a very respectable, wealthy Jewish family in Boskovice, Moravia. In fact the name Ungar was only adopted when an ancestor, a Rabbi, probably Zebi Hirschl Ungar (1730–56), had visited Hungary to spread the faith (Ungar means Hungarian in German). Although they lived in the ghetto by law, they owned the largest house, the Kaiserhaus, or Emperor’s House, and his father was a respected brewer and purveyor of spirits, sometime mayor and leader of the local Jewish community. One of my father’s early memories is visiting his grandparents in the summer holidays and going round the vats of fermenting schnapps, running his finger under each tap, and licking it to get the taste of the spirit. The house dominates the square in the restored ghetto (Boskovice is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site), with a plaque to Hermann Ungar, and is still in use as a pub.
Emil, Hermann’s father, was extremely well read, fluent in French and Russian, although German was their first language (my grandmother used to say, ‘Czech is for peasants’) and his wife, Jeannette Kohn, would give French lessons to the Grafin (Countess) in the local Schloss. Jeannette was a direct descendent of the High Rabbi of Prague, R Schmuel ABD Prague Ha-Levi (1756–1834). One of Hermann’s stories, ‘Colbert’s Journey’, published posthumously with a preface by Mann, is a gentle dig at his father’s bourgeois pretensions.
Hermann was sent to the local grammar school in Brno, where he was a nervous boy and was treated by a neurologist at the age of 13 for ‘sexual urges’. In his late teens he fell in love with his cousin and, after the affair finished several years later – it was not suitable as they were first cousins – he had the first of many nervous breakdowns. He went on to study law at the universities of Berlin, Munich and Prague, and joined the imperial army in 1914 to fight on the Russian Front. He broke his leg, and later suffered from various ‘nervous complaints’, including depression, and was declared ‘unfit’ for frontline duty. The terrible things he saw during the Russian campaign were to affect him forever.
Hermann Ungar.
As a young man he had been an ardent Zionist; his sister Gerta had emigrated to Palestine in the 1920s and, although he became disillusioned with religion to such an extent that his two boys, Tomy and Sasha, were brought up ‘out of the faith’, he was claimed on his death by the leading Jewish writers’ groups, and has always been categorised as such. His tragic death at the age of 36 was as a direct result of being considered a neurotic hypochondriac – he died of peritonitis because no-one took him seriously when he said he felt ill. My father and his brother both inherited this obsession with their health.
Tom’s mother Margarete, or Greta, was also from a respectable wealthy Prague Jewish family. She had already been married when she met Hermann, and the boys had an elder half-brother Hunza Weiss (John West). He and his father had fled to England before the war started, and later emigrated to Canada. According to reminiscences of friends and acquaintances, ‘Margarete – in contrast to Hermann – was “a healthy, happy, powerful and earthy person”, “statuesque, somewhat taller than Ungar, very attractive appearance”, “a very beautiful woman, richly endowed with female charms”, “a force of nature”.’13 She was an operetta singer, and held salons in their smart Art Noveau apartment overlooking the banks of the Vltava river. We scattered my father’s ashes there in 2012, looking on to his family home.
Tom travelled to London, aged only 16, in 1938 to join his brother John and to study agriculture. In 1939 he used his last pennies to call his mother and brother to encourage them to leave immediately, which they did. The Ungar parents and Hermann’s younger brother, Felix, his wife and two children, dithered in Boskovice and Prague due to Jeannette’s ill health, although his Stransky niece and nephew were among the last to leave Prague on the Kindertransport. They were only 2 and 4 years old. Their parents Otto and Louisa Stansky, along with Greta’s mother, Paulina, and the rest of the Ungar family were not so lucky and disappeared in 1942, first to Terezin, and thence to Auschwitz, and were never heard of again.
Greta Ungar with her three sons, Sasha, Hunza Weiss and Tomy, c. 1927.
Many years later I questioned my father about his denial of his Jewish roots, and he said his mother had told them that once they arrived in England they were to claim to be Catholic. She, and as a result my father and his brother, was terrified that if the Germans won and it was known they were Jews, they would face the same problems all over again. He never lost that fear of anti-Semitism, and it explains why he continued to keep quiet about his ancestry and why he devoted much of his life to helping refugees.
Greta and her two sons were evacuated to Wells, Somerset, where, aged 17, Tom joined the Home Guard. His mother worked in an armaments factory and Alec, as Sasha became from then on, managed to get into Bembridge school – both boys had been sent to the English school in Prague so spoke good English. Tom later joined Military Intelligence at Caversham because of his value as a German speaker.
In 1943 he joined the Royal Navy’s Special Branch, training first at Skegness, where they were billeted in a disused Butlins camp, before joining HMS Pytchley at Fishguard, and then the Hunter, to provide Channel escorts, including for the D-Day landings. In 1944 he patrolled the Norwegian fjords aboard the Grenville.
Later in 1944 he was posted to Scapa Flow where he served under Admiral Phillips and his role was to interpret Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine HF and VHF traffic. From there he served on various ships in the Russian convoys, often on the admiral’s or commander’s ships as the intelligence given was crucial to the convoy’s survival. However, the closest he came to death was when he missed his footing jumping from a small lifeboat onto the HMS Lioness and ended up in the freezing water, sinking under the weight of his huge radio transmitter, which he was forced to relinquish, much to the fury of his commander. In early 1945 he joined HMS Hart under Commander Michael Sherwood on a mission to rescue valuable equipment from Germany of use to the Allies.
His finest achievements came towards the end of the war, when in 1945 he was posted to Kiel under Commander, later Rear-Admiral, Jan Aylen, who was commanding the Walterwerke project. In addition to targeting a list of the top forty or fifty German scientists, including the inventor of the doodlebug, the primary objective was to persuade the inventor of the high-speed, hydrogen-peroxide fuelled submarines, Professor Walter, to give over his blueprints and defect to the West. Aylen, who did not speak German, received the credit for the mission, but it was Tom’s charm and fluency in German that was critical for its success and the eventual delivery of their equipment to the Vickers shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness. It was while Tom was working at Kiel that he met Sheila, probably at the yacht club, although it would have been normal for naval officers to socialise in such a small place as Kiel, surrounded by the former enemy.
❖❖❖
By the end of August, Tom has returned from leave and it appears from his letters that they are contemplating a future together – in his last letter from Wells he writes, ‘let us hope that we, perhaps, shall achieve our Shangri-La. If there is a God – and I don’t think there is – he certainly should favour us. We have both deserved peace of mind and body.’ However, none of this is revealed in Sheila’s letters to her mother; symbolically she loses John Pritty’s ring while out on a walk at this time:
Kiel 11/9/46
My dear Ma – Many many thanks indeed for your nice birthday card and letter – the only one I had! I had such a pleasant birthday but I will tell you all about that later on in the letter –
… I’m afraid I lost the scarab ring for good this time as it slipped off my hand ‘somewhere’ while out for a walk last weekend, and although we searched and searched we could find it nowhere – maddening.
Well, now for all my news – about ten days ago, soon after Tom came back from leave we had rather an unfortunate car smash, at 10 mph crashed into a tree – all so unexpected that I pushed my head through the windscreen and consequently got rather cut about. However, I was so beautifully stitched up by a German doctor that you can hardly see any scars at all even now and they say they will disappear completely with time. I may have to lose a tooth, that’s all. Poor Tom, so upset about it all, got the best black eye I’ve ever seen! He’s still got it too – after all this, our weekend at Bad Harzburg was doubly welcome, and we drove down there last Friday – It’s as beautiful as ever – and we walked for miles over the mountains amongst the pine woods – we really didn’t do much else and the weather was really quite nice –
We drove back yesterday without rushing it and went through Brunswick and saw what it is like – Tom had been there before the war; it has been very bashed about and some really beautiful churches and old buildings have been extremely badly damaged – We stopped for lunch south of Lüneburg on a heath – lovely heather which isn’t quite the same as ours – Eventually we had tea in the Atlantic at Hamburg, and arrived here at about 6.45, not wanting to be back at all!
I haven’t signed on for the WRNS. Most of the Wrens will have gone from here after the end of the month, and, even if they accepted my volunteering it would probably mean going home to H.Q. – I couldn’t be a signal officer, that’s one thing certain – I think I have done right – life in the service I should think would be rather pointless in peacetime – I am thinking of applying to take domestic science course lasting a month in October, which can be taken out here – You take that as the main subject with 2 auxiliaries such as art history, economics etc …
Lots of love,
Sheila
My poor mother, the scars of that accident were to remain with her physically – her face was badly cut – and mentally as, in later years, she would blame my father for ruining her face and her teeth. Meanwhile, the Nuremburg trials are nearing the end, and Tom, who is being demobbed shortly, has managed to get a new job back in England:
Kiel
5.10.46
My dear Ma –
… Did I tell you about Tom’s good job? The powers that be are trying to get him to stop on in the Navy as they say his work here is so important. It is, of course, but there’s not much future for an RNVR sub if the Navy doesn’t promise a permanent commission. He leaves here in a week; I shall miss him tremendously.
The last photos of Sheila before the car crash.
After the crash: ‘Wounded warriors – unfortunately the printer has wiped out my white bandages, thinking they were a flaw in the negative. But Tom has a beautiful black eye and bump on his forehead.’
The results of the Nuremberg trials gave rise to a few precautions here in case there was any trouble from the ex. German Navy, who were very fond of Doenitz and Raeder14 – we were all CB’d [confined to barracks] from Sunday to Tuesday and everyone rushed about with rifles. The ships here all sent to action stations in the harbour. In fact there was more Flap than that about it all! However, nothing at all happened.
We met a very interesting man here last week – an American scientist from California University – we had him to dinner in our mess and took him on to see ‘Theirs is the Plan’ a very shocking film. We had a visit from the 1st officer from Hamburg yesterday, she’s rather the schoolmarm type – I went to an excellent concert with Tom in the evening, a bass from Berlin – The place was packed with most enthusiastic Germans, and he encored and encored at the end. We went on to the Yacht Club for dinner and got muddled up with a crowd of yacht crews, ending by singing ‘Viola Viola’ in company at the band stand. All very raucous and great fun. Tom hates dancing, but when he actually does it, gets on quite well and enjoys himself!
On Thursday we went to the Opera ‘Falstaff’ by Verdi, an opera I didn’t know existed – it was excellent. The story of the merry wives of Windsor and so funny. Costumes and decor were very good too. Today we are going over to Travemünde to a party given to one of our young Lieutenants being demobbed, who is very keen on a German girl there. The party is being given by Germans, I wonder what time we shall get back – Tom went over last week, and returned at 6 am!!
I do hope you are well – It looks as if I shall be here for another month at least.
Heaps of love,
Sheila
Tom left Germany on 15 October, travelling by car to Cuxhaven, but before leaving he gave a ‘bumper party in his office for all his employees, both English and German and what a collection appeared – The 3 officers themselves, 2 marine drivers, German drivers, German friends and so on – It really went off very well – only one of the marines got really tiddly – Tom and Jack gave a combined farewell drinks party on Monday. It is strange for me to be here without Tom as we have done everything together for the past 3 months. He starts his new job in London straight away.’
Sheila then goes on a three-week domestic science course at Bad Oeynhausen, to prepare her for the real world. She is planning to be back in England towards the end of November. On 25 October, she writes:
I’m enjoying the course very much. Tho’ a lot of the stuff I already know – I would be quite content to cook and dressmake all the time. However, one picks up quite useful hints on washing, ironing, cleaning and valeting, as with a how to repair fuses and tap washers etc. – we spent one morning on those horrid treadle sewing machines – so difficult to make them work – and I believe we have to make ourselves a garment or leave the place!
I have cooked scones, shortbreads, a sponge cake and helped in preparing lunch of roast mutton and 2 veg, trifle and coffee – the shortbreads were a howling success – we cook entirely with butter as we can’t get anything else!!
It is not until 30 November that she rather archly admits to her engagement. Many of the details she gives of Tom’s life are wrong – not much of a surprise with hindsight:
Domestic Science Centre
Bad Oeynhausen
30.10.46
My dear Ma
… You will probably be surprised to hear that I am contemplating matrimony – the lucky man being Tom Unwin – As you know, he has returned to UK and is in London now, with his new job – we have been thinking of this for some time now, but had to wait and see whether he got the job or not, and various other considerations. Well now, the thing is to get somewhere to live in or near London – and we’re afraid it will be terribly expensive – a small service flat in Town would be the answer, in which case I should probably get a part time job to keep me occupied as you know I hate London! If on the other hand we could get a small flat or house just outside London – it might not be so dear, and I should then have to stay at home and look after it – Tom’s job earns him £600 a year, which I think is very good to begin with – It is with a branch of the N.F.U. [National Famers Union] and will probably move abroad in the summer of next year – So we don’t want to get any furniture.
I think you will like your future son-in-law, tho’ you may find him a trifle unorthodox – He is 3 years younger than I am – tall, fair, gray-eyed and well built. He is Czech by birth, and lived in Prague till 1939 when he came to England to study – now being naturalised. Subsequently, his mother and young brother, Alec, came over and settled in Wells, Somerset. His mother is a widow, her husband having been in the Czech Diplomatic Service, I think and who died of appendicitis when Tom was 9 – Of course, they have lost almost everything. They have much property in Czechoslovakia, but of course that is all Russian now.
As for Tom – he is an extremely clever linguist – and no one could tell he wasn’t English, as he gabbles away faster than we normally talk. His German is the same – He is far-seeing politically, and deeply interested in world affairs, and – a Socialist!! A terrific peace-lover – almost to being a conscientious objector! He is brilliant and almost fanatical in his views and ideals, and everyone who knows him well says they think he will go far. I hope he will. He loves music and the country and has had to do everything for his mother and brother since they came over here. Alec is now studying forestry at a school in the south. They have a stepbrother in Canada.
I’m sure you will find him most loveable and easy to get on with – He’s sweet with children and when in Travemünde in 1945, held classes for German children to teach them English under the name of Uncle Tom – This was stopped by the N.O.I.C. as being unsuitable (!)
He is temperamental and often gets fits of depression regarding the state of the world – But not the sort of temperament that flings frying pans about!
Anyway, having eulogised my Tom for a couple of pages, you will now have gathered that he is no ordinary person. His main worry at the minute seems to be, can we live in the comparative comfort we desire on £600 a year – I shall be interested to hear what you think – (he hates dancing, by the way, and seldom drinks!) He is so worried that he mayn’t be able to give me all I desire, that he repeatedly gives me the chance of backing out if I want to. Personally, one has to draw in one’s horns on leaving the Navy, anyway, and I don’t think we should live in too much discomfort – The transition from service to civilian life is bound to be difficult, anyway.
There won’t be any grand wedding, anyway, as Tom loathes ceremony and is all for rushing off to a registry office without any warning – a probable relief to you! A most unconventional young man! (But very sweet!) We don’t think the difference in age matters as we get on so well.
No more now, must write to Tom.
Heaps of love,
Sheila,
DON’T MAKE A SONG AND DANCE OF THIS – PLEASE. You know the family.
The very thought that her mother would settle for a registry office wedding, and in London, is impossible to contemplate: I reckon Sheila was trying to get some of her own back for her unhappy childhood but, as we shall see her – and Tom’s – wishes were overruled.
❖❖❖
My father was a man who kept secrets: we know that he kept secret his Czech nationality from his employers, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), and then got in a real pickle because he could not get his naturalisation papers through; he had even kept it secret from Sheila until after their engagement, as this letter shows:
Wells
19.8
Darling
I’ve got something on my mind – a confession, in fact. I don’t tell everyone because it only leads to millions of questions I have answered before: I am not really British, I am Czech by birth and my naturalisation is only just under way …
I had to keep all this quiet during war-time otherwise it would have been very dangerous in case I got captured. I didn’t tell you from the first as I thought you might not ‘go much on it’. Sorry if I underestimated you. Very few people at Kiel know as it is – it saves so many silly questions and is very much easier all round, but I do think you ought to know, if anyone …
It meant that he was extremely nervous about the wedding announcement lest there was mention of the name Ungar and his employers spotted it: ‘if they insist on putting daughter of … and son of … it’ll be a bit awkward in my case from the pt. of view of the aforesaid NFU problems, unless one lied a little and called it all Unwin … oh how dreadful all these formalities are – but do we care? DO we hell.’
His two much greater secrets, which he never revealed to my mother, were that he fathered a child in 1944, and that he was Jewish.
He had befriended Joyce, an attractive young woman with two small children, whose husband was away at war. Greta, who was not a particularly nice woman, lied about the baby that arrived after Tom had left for Caversham, and pretended it was the husband’s, so Tom only got to know the truth much later. According to him, not until the 1980s when he and Joyce met again, and his daughter, Bonnie, became a part of his life (and mine in 2009); according to Bonnie, Tom ‘visited my mother at her place of work in Esher, Surrey, in about 1946. He said he saw me in my cot asleep. Mother says he picked me up and referred to me as “our baby”. Mother also tells of visiting him in his London flat – without telling him she was coming – and Sheila being there!’ What they both thought of this meeting, history does not relate. Tom must have been beside himself with anxiety that this secret would come out; he only told it to me when he thought he was about to die and felt I should know about my half-sister, who is in fact older than my step-mother, who of course knew nothing about his first family either.
Suppressing his Jewish background and the terrible events of his childhood and teens was, I believe, to have lifelong repercussions on his character, and goes a long way towards explaining the tormented letters he writes to Sheila during their courtship and in the run-up to their marriage. Some forty-seven letters survive and while most of them have florid and intense descriptions of his love for Sheila, they are also mixed with serious doubts as to whether he is fit to marry her: ‘my love for you has become a deep and lasting affection – as it is not the wild passion of fiery youth – not entirely anyway. And that is why I still feel, sometimes, that I may be doing the wrong thing in marrying in these circumstances of uncertainty.’
The passion is mixed with a penny-pinching pragmatism – probably born out of his refugee status – which was also to become more prominent in later life: ‘for goodness sake don’t buy too much bric-a-brac in the form of glasses and things. Much more useful if you buy sheets and pillow cases’; he then goes on to say his mother has advised him to dye his white shirts in to more ‘useful colours’ like grey and blue. As for wedding presents, they must be ‘useful … iron; anything from carpet to lavatory brushes’.
His annual salary of £600 was equivalent to that earned by an MP but he suffered from angst throughout this correspondence about where and how they could afford to live on it. The letters are full of sketches of the various rooms he is considering and cost-of-living calculations, depending on whether they cook for themselves, take meals with their landlady, or even commute, which was an idea at some stage.
Like his father he had an ‘ambivalent attitude towards middleclass standards, of which the marriage was part. Whilst Ungar theoretically promoted sexual freedom and also made use of it as his right, he proved to be a jealous spouse.’15 Tom was desperately jealous of Sheila meeting up with both Robin and Barry in London just before they marry, but is shameless when he talks in an offhand way of other women he has slept with in the past.
Tom seems to accept being overruled on the registry office but is adamant that there is to be no fuss: ‘I presume that it will NOT be a pukkha [sic] wedding where I would have to wear tails or something? Please darling, anything but that.’ But when he finds out that it is to be a conventional occasion, he rails against the arrangements Sheila’s parents are making for the wedding:
Now why the hell do your people want to put it in the paper? I am very much against it. There can be no practical argument for it apart that we shall have a lot of mail to answer, and its just middle class pomposity and you can tell them I said so, or I’ll tell them myself. NO I am ABSOLUTELY against it.
And in a later letter: ‘oh you wretch, so we are going to have to be terribly suburban and have cards and cake ...’ Signs of his meanness come to the fore again in relation to the cake and the guest list when he says ‘shall we just confine it to your friends?’ and reluctantly agrees that spare invitations can be sent to German friends, ‘but no cake, it would be like a mockery.’ His socialism was very much on display.
Again, like his father, he was obsessed with sex, or at least the thought of it. He talks about their ‘little problem’ and says that ‘self-denial and so forth is right but inwardly I ha’e me doots’. On 30 October he tells her he has consulted books and written to various Harley street doctors to get advice on the best way of losing her virginity painlessly, and of preventing pregnancy. He goes into all this in great detail, describing ‘sheaths’, ‘pessaries’ and the pros and cons of condom use in married life: ‘it’s essentially an unmarried sinner’s method … and is unsatisfactory as you don’t get the right “contact”.’ He makes her an appointment with a specialist and reverts to this subject again and again, exhorting her to visit the doctor before they marry. On another occasion he says how ‘wonderful it is we can talk and correspond about these things without embarrassment.’ I must say I do rather wonder how my mother felt receiving these explicit letters on sex education!
But his biggest neurosis by far was his anxiety over the state of the world. Obviously depressed after being demobbed and cast adrift, he was lucky enough to get a well-paid job with IFAP (International Federation of Agricultural Producers, an offshoot of the NFU) which ‘square[d] with my ideas … a chance to do something to improve international relations and to provide food.’ His time in the navy, on the Russian convoys and in post-war Germany, has made him into both a pacifist and an idealist, verging on being communist. He dreams of going abroad and escaping this ‘war, war, war’ – he is haunted by Hiroshima and Nagasaki – and living in a little cottage in New Zealand, or of ‘teaching Negros in Kenya’, living a life ‘of absolute goodness and, of gentleness and non-violence and understanding others, of easy, peaceful leisure and contentment. I do so passionately desire to be a pacifist and a vegetarian … will you come?’ It is a romantic prospect on paper, and he writes very seductively.
These letters are long and rambling, and reveal a very tortured soul, who doubts until the very last as to whether he should marry or not: ‘I have been pretty lonely since I was about 15 and got launched into the big alien world and I have therefore become rather independent’, yet still he declares his passionate love for Sheila in every letter. Sadly, I think she must have been swayed by his good looks, his sense of humour and fun, and a sharing of ideals to such an extent that she overlooked the clear signs of someone who would, as he forecast, be very difficult to live with, and who never left behind the inheritance of his father’s notions of sexual freedom.
She was not to know of the terrible damage that had been done to his psyche by losing his whole family, apart from his mother and brothers, in the Holocaust. One wonders how much he even knew about what had happened, as information was hard to get and verify. I am not saying my father was a bad man; on the contrary, he was a devoted and loving father (I adored him as a small child, in fact I was known as ‘Daddy’s girl’) generous of spirit, witty and charming with a terrific, if sometimes cruel, sense of humour – that Germanic Schadenfreude – just an unsuitable one for my mother to marry. He retained a compassion for others less fortunate than himself throughout his life, working in development and with refugees for the United Nations after he left Tanzania in 1964. He passed on to me his hatred of inequality and gave me a social conscience, and for that I am forever in his debt.
❖❖❖
Sheila’s final two letters are all about the wedding, naturally enough. Given how much she came to hate her mother-in-law in the future, it is amusing to see her getting Sheila’s highest accolade, ‘a dear’. Even Tom is not always so polite about his mother, ‘… mother seems to be losing a little of her class … can that really be the woman who dined with Presidents.’ He worries about her ‘petty little swindles’ (when I was about 11, I remember her teaching me how to shoplift in Canada, where she ended up after the war), but he does approve of her domestic abilities above those of the English housewife. ‘Perhaps mummy could come up for a while and teach you how to cook and other housewifely achievements. And mummy is an excellent housewife, much better than yours probably, because English standards of housekeeping are shamefully inadequate. Polish the brasses, sweep the shit under the carpet and “Oh where’s the tin opener, dear”?’ In fact Grace was an excellent cook and housekeeper, far less slovenly than Grandmother Ungar, who had never had to lift a finger before the war. I did say tact was something he had not inherited from his father!
He obviously held out little hope for the benefits of Sheila’s course as he urges her to learn how to cook ‘meat – not stews except Irish stew, how to roast and stew as it is difficult; omelets and pancakes, custard and pastry; not vegetables the English way, awful, you will have to learn from mother’… and semolina as he ‘loved it as a kid’. This bossy tone is present in many of the letters; he was a controlling man and he even admits to it in relation to work (he was a workaholic): ‘I like to be an absolute dictator in the office.’
As for Sheila, he is torn between the need for her to work to earn money or becoming the vision of domestic bliss, ‘once you have got a home to run you’ll be quite busy, and if you’re not you can always get a part time job.’ The next minute he is sending her job advertisement clippings and seriously toying with sacking his assistant, Miss Fagg, who is older than him and useless, and employing Sheila as his secretary. In the end, unable to make up his mind, he says he would feel like a ‘cad’ if he were to do this.
B. Oeynhausen
8.11.46
My dear Ma – Many thanks for your letter. I was beginning to think you disapproved or were checking up on my Thomas. His name is UNWIN – Thomas Michael. It used to be UNGER [sic] but he had it changed by deed poll as in time of war and with the possibility of capture. Things would have been very hard for a Czech with the Germans – his mother is still Unger, I believe, but Alec has been changed – Tom’s naturalisation is now under weigh [sic] –
Well, we have got a flat, or at least Tom has paid £5 deposit and I have to say Yay or Nay on my return. It is in Maida Vale, in a house belonging to a solicitor and his wife, S. Africans, whose daughter was a Wren Coder in Alex – It is £4 a week (quite cheap for London) furnished, and has two bedrooms, sitting room and kitchen/hall. The only snag appears to be that there is no running water, but I’m not clear what Tom means – whether no bath or lav. only (and we share theirs down below) or whether there isn’t even a sink to do the washing up – I don’t mind the former, as he says there are illimitable baths to be had down below – but I must have a sink!! Think of Tom shaving in the morning! However, I think the latter will probably be the case in which case I expect we shall take the flat as the rent is cheap – they provide crockery, but want help with sheets – what quality can you buy these days? I am keen to get coloured ones, are they obtainable? And of course is nice to have our own blankets, which I prefer coloured also. Do find out about these for me, please. I wrote to Draffens in Dundee, asking them to send my beaver lamb coat down to Durham (it will have to be remodelled at Jayson’s) and asked them to get me new details of sheets and blankets they had in stock – as they are an excellent shop, and it’s possible that Scotland may be better than Durham.
The flat has an electric cooker and the Theophilles will do our shopping for us if I’m unable to – it means preparing breakfast and dinner – I might get a part time job – Tom is keen for me to join him in the N.F.U., as his assistant (a girl) is hopeless and in time he will have to do a lot of travelling and naturally wants me to go too. I don’t know what the N.F.U. would say to a husband and wife combination – frowns I should think – and again we may get tired of seeing so much of each other (!!) But actually it’s quite a good idea as the work is most interesting.
No comment from you on the actual wedding, pretty certain it will be a registers’ office affair and no fuss – (as Tom loathes fuss), no family, friends, or relations, and no reception. OK by you? A few days honeymoon in the country and then back to London – as things stand at the minute, I plan to arrive in UK about the 21st or 22nd – go and be demobbed in London or wherever it is – see you for a day (or 2 perhaps), come up North – dump uniform – and collect things together for 5 or 6 days, return to London and then either go down to Wells to see Mrs. Unwin, or get married – I had such a nice letter from Mrs. U. by the way, (did I tell you?) She really does sound a dear, and writes letters very much like Elizabeth Vedgi – English and writing the same – I am certain we shall get on OK and not have any of the traditional mother-in-law trouble! She is very keen for us to get married, as she thinks her Tom needs someone to look after him, and she and Alec are going to Canada when the visas come through – She wants us to go too – but I don’t think we will, unless Tom’s job moves there.
I don’t think I shall have much trousseau, either – another of Tom’s unconventionalities! Not that he’d dislike me to have lots of pretty things – but it would never occur to him that lots of girls have an enormous bottom drawer and that I might do likewise! However, I have really got quite a lot of pretty undies – and my civilian clothes are in quite good condition – I only need a few new things – such as a really nice housecoat/dressing-gown for the winter – a twin set – if I can get one, and another cardigan – I think I’ll wait till spring for another suit – which I really need, as that green tweed one I’ve had for 7 or 8 years – tho’ you wouldn’t think it. I’ve lots of stockings and R. is sending me a pair of snakeskin walking shoes from Cairo – I have also asked her to look out for camel hair rugs and carpets which are very cheap and attractive, and which she could have sewn up in sacking and bring home if she accepts a WAAF draft back at Xmas –
The cooking! Brandy snaps today, turned into flat moorish biscuits – but we didn’t have brown sugar, which may be the fault –
Please reply to Kiel on receipt of this letter – I shall be back there by the 17th –
Lots of love
Sheila
Am off to Berlin for weekend tonight! Has my box arrived?
In fact they were never to move into the flat she describes, as they opted to stay in his digs where they got the very good value of ‘breakfast and dinner (Irish of course) fish or chops, or bacon and omelet – almost as good as Kiel, no joking’ as part of the rent. It must have hurt him to lose the £5 deposit! In the following letter, it sounds as if mother is remonstrating about the wedding arrangements. Tom’s anxieties about his origins are obviously rubbing off on Sheila too, for different reasons:
B. Oeynhausen
11/11/46
My dear Ma –
Many thanks for 2 letters which arrived today – really, the mail has gone quite haywire – one of Tom’s took 8 days!
Please don’t make too much fuss about everything – Tom does hate it so – we really can’t have a slap-up wedding – Tom can’t possibly get away from his new job which he’s only just started. We shall get married in London, and I expect in a Registry Office – I know it’s not very glamorous etc. but much more sensible and suitable – I honestly don’t think Tom would survive a proper wedding with hundreds of relations and guests – he’d probably get up and say something awful, or shocking and completely put the tin lid on everything. He’s quite liable to!!! Don’t put anything in the papers – not yet anyway – And (and I wouldn’t have told you this if I’d thought you were going to tell everyone) please don’t rush round telling everyone I am marrying a Czech. They will at once conjure up pictures of somebody akin to the typical Polish officer they have seen in UK during the war. I think Tom’s father was in the Diplomatic Service – but I’m not sure. I’m certain I didn’t make a definite statement – so please, again, don’t go rushing round and tell everyone. Besides, why should everyone know Tom’s ancestry etc? It’s purely a family matter and I hate to think of all the busybodies in Durham clicking their tongues over the latest bit of gossip.
How sweet of Aunty Dorothy to ask if we would like Thurfield – I wonder how far it is from London? We would so much rather live in the country – but I don’t want Tom to have too much travelling to do as he really works very hard.
A long letter from Aunty Rose today, who loved the cheese and (don’t laugh!) wants to know if I can get her some more!!!! I may be able to have a day trip to Denmark on my return to Kiel, but I rather doubt it.
I had a very nice weekend in Berlin – one night there in a most luxurious YWCA, and a sleeper there and back. The first day I borrowed a bicycle, and sped around the ruins and on Sunday I went on a conducted tour arranged by CCG, visiting the Chancellery – now a shattered ruin, but it must have been an awe inspiring place – all marble – the bunker where Hitler is supposed to have committed suicide, and many other places of interest – It must have been a truly beautiful city, such wide streets as I have never seen before, one of them, the Kaiserdamm is a dual carriageway. Each road being far wider than Whitehall, for example – In comparison with other German cities, the people seemed better dressed, and there were a few little shops with trinkets and antiques, and one or two dressmaker’s shops as well, with quite smart clothes in them.
Today we were let loose in the kitchen and each of us had to prepare a meal for 3 people – made shepherd’s pie and marvellous treacle tart –
I’m not very expert at pastry, and it was terribly short, but most sumptuous! I dressmade this afternoon, and now, after all that, and a somewhat disturbed night in the train – I feel worn out! Only Tom’s Turkish Delight is keeping me awake!
How far is Thurfield from the station and shops? It would really be necessary to have a car, which is entirely out of the question as we could never afford to buy – Tom hates being without me, but perhaps the I.F.A.P will turn up trumps!
Please don’t be cross with me for my words of caution – I expect you are almost as thrilled as I am – and naturally when people ask questions – out it all comes. But I can’t bear to be the subject of bridge party gossip and I know Tom would collapse if he thought he was causing such a stir.
No more,
Lots of love
Sheila
Sheila’s letters to her mother gloss over the utter turmoil that was going on behind the scenes and which is revealed in the letters Tom wrote to her every day, reflecting his insecurity and anxiety, inability to make his mind up (something he never lost) and his deeply depressive nature. On a couple of occasions he was in fact contemplating suicide:
… because life just didn’t seem worth living … I now know what they mean when they talk of ‘balance of mind disturbed’. I wonder whether these periods are not really not periods of very intense sanity, when one sees things so clearly, so unembellished by day to day palliatives that one takes the logical answer and draws one’s consequences.
He was his father’s son indeed.
❖❖❖
It must have put great stress on Sheila when she came home for the wedding after leaving the WRNS. Presumably overjoyed at seeing one daughter married, and apparently charmed by her future son-in-law, nevertheless I suspect Grace, like most bourgeois British people, was a little disapproving of his foreign background and unconventional ways. Sheila would have had to do a lot of defending of her choice, especially when he was compared unfavorably, no doubt, with the likes of John, Bruce or Robin, all conventional and successful career soldiers, who would have been a much better match in the eyes of the bridge players of Durham city.
Several times Tom asks Sheila about the ‘battle royal’ and encourages her by saying, ‘it wont be for long, she’s losing a daughter now, so be nice to her for your last few days of iniquity.’ After his first visit to meet her parents in early December, he writes that he ‘rather liked your folks. Don’t put their backs up the last week you are with them. I think when your Ma talks about “Findlay says this” or “F says that” she really means SHE suggested it to F and he weakly nods approval. I don’t suppose he gives a damn one way or the other.’
As the day draws nearer, he seems to be a bit more sympathetic: ‘How is the battle on the home front? Don’t let the buggers get you down, it’s our wedding, our life. So even if they have their own way a little, well, Maleesh, sweetheart. Once we are out of that kirk, its just you and me ever after and damn the last man.’
❖❖❖
They married at St Cuthbert’s Church in Durham on 23 December 1946. They then went on a short honeymoon to the Lake District, staying in Coniston, before returning to the flat in Leinster Square. Tom soon became fed up with IFAP as he felt it was not aggressive enough, especially towards the Americans, who were hide-bound by the ‘power of Yankee farmers who want more money and command lots of votes now … I will NOT work for an organisation whose aims run counter to the general prospects of mankind.’ Marriage had not dampened his ideals.
He managed to obtain a position with the United Africa Company to be part of the Groundnut Scheme, the brainchild of the post-war Labour government, with the aim of providing food – groundnut oil – for ration-weary Britain. Sheila was to join him in July 1947. They spent the next three years of their marriage living in a tent in the middle of Tanganyika.
When the Groundnut Scheme failed in 1951, Tom managed to switch to the Colonial Service where he became first a District Officer, then a District Commissioner (DC), before becoming Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, working for the new Prime Minister, then President, Julius Nyerere, until 1964. Sheila worked on and off from her arrival in Tanganyika, for the head of the Groundnut Scheme in Kongwa, in the District Office according to the opportunities afforded in the middle of nowhere and, later, for the British Institute (of Archaeology) in East Africa.
My parents on their wedding day, 23 December 1946, St Cuthbert’s, Durham City.
I was born in Kilwa in 1957, where my father was DC; their marriage, already shaky, disintegrated completely in 1966 and they were divorced in the early 1970s.
There is no denying that Tom made a huge impact on Sheila’s life, even if the marriage was unhappy. It enabled her to fulfill the wanderlust she had inherited from her father and had nurtured during the war; living in Africa gave her the freedom and opportunity to develop her passion for ethnography and archaeology and, most of all, to further shape her own compassion for others. Without him, she might have become just another army wife, living her mother’s suburban dream. Instead she developed into a feisty and fascinating woman, loved and admired by many, from all backgrounds and races, young and old.
As her beloved cousin Hazel said to me as I was completing this book, ‘she would have been so happy that you did this for her.’ It is only thanks to Sheila and her mother, keeping this collection of letters over the decades, that I have been able to do so.
9 The victorious Russian army even raped survivors of the concentration camps, according to Sarah Helm.
10 Peter Stuyvesant, National Journal 20/3/2012
11 The army had introduced new pay scales, which in fact left personnel worse off than before.
12 I still have the typewriter.
13 Excerpt from Dieter Südhoff, Hermann Ungar: a Life and Works.
14 Both Commanders of the Kriegsmarine; Raeder received life imprisonment and died in 1960, while Doenitz only received 10 years, despite briefly being President of Germany after Hitler’s death.
15 Excerpt from Dieter Südhoff, Hermann Ungar: a Life and Works.