PRISON WAS TO lie like a scar over the rest of Diana’s life.
It was the realisation of all her most dreaded fantasies, the ones that as a child had fuelled her terror of boarding school – lack of privacy, constant forced proximity to others, the stripping away of natural dignity, physical discomfort and a harsh, unsympathetic ambience lacking all softness and beauty. She was accustomed to linen sheets, excellent food, servants, exquisite furniture and pictures; she was naturally fastidious and the comfort and charm of her surroundings had been of paramount importance to her since her childhood. More than anyone else in her family, she required space, mental, emotional and physical, in which to flourish. Prison, with its small, dark, airless, claustrophobic cells, its dirt, squalor and surpassing ugliness, was an experience drawn up from some dark well of nightmare. (Mosley, on the other hand, when asked after the war how he had managed to stand up so well to being jailed, replied, ‘Oh, after Winchester, prison was nothing.’)
For all prisoners, whether convicted of a crime or brought in, as most of the 18Bs had been told, ‘for a few days’ questioning’, life in Holloway began the same way: hours of confinement in an enclosure so tiny that it was almost a straitjacket. This was a four-by-four metal cell, its wire mesh roof increasing its resemblance to a cage. Here the new prisoner awaited the admissions procedure, whiling away the time with a large mug of cocoa and two slices of bread and margarine. Diana remained shut in this coffin like ‘box’ for almost four hours. Then came the routine of fingerprinting, delousing bath, weighing and examination by a doctor – during which prisoners were asked if they were pregnant – and inspection for venereal disease, headlice and scabies.
Finally prisoners were taken to their cells. These were twelve by seven feet and nine feet high, with whitewashed brick walls and floors of stone or wood. The heavy door was made of metal, with no interior handle; at eye level there was a two-and-a-half-inch peephole, through which a warder could survey the entire cell. Six feet above floor level on one wall was a solitary small window, consisting of fourteen panes, each six by eight inches, only two of which opened. The only other light came from a 25-watt bulb. Cells were furnished with a plain wooden chair and table, a bucket, washbowl and jug, a tin plate and either a knife, a fork or a spoon, a large handle-less mug of thick china stamped with GR and a crown, and a low bed of planks. The coarse sheets and blankets, so narrow they were almost impossible to tuck in, were stained and grey despite innumerable washings. A single ‘clean’ one was issued once a month. ‘I was amazed at Holloway. I thought it would be like an Army camp – very spartan and regimented and very clean. But it was filthy,’ wrote one prisoner, Louise Irvine.
Worst of all were the lavatories. In the middle of each landing was a recess, containing one or sometimes two lavatories to serve twenty to thirty cells, with washbasins beside them. Prisoners seldom used these lavatories, for the simple reason that when their cells were unlocked ‘slopping out’ (the emptying of chamber pots) made this impossible. The lavatories were often blocked and the floor around them covered in excrement. Most women preferred the row of outside lavatories that flanked one side of the paved exercise yard. Early in her imprisonment Diana, seeing one miraculously empty one morning, made a beeline for it; when she emerged, she was told that the red cross on its door meant it was for those with venereal disease (current mythology held that one way of catching this was from a lavatory seat). ‘All the lavatory and washing facilities were archaic and absolutely filthy,’ recalled another inmate.
Holloway was built on a radial plan, with half a dozen blocks, or wings, each with four floors, converging on a central point. Prisoners with skin diseases were usually sequestered in A wing, D was for first offenders and E for remand prisoners. Pregnant women and most of the prostitutes went to C wing. In 1940 B and D wings held a mixture of convicted prisoners and interned enemy aliens – Germans, Austrians and Italians; some were Jewish refugees and some married to Britons. Those imprisoned under 18B were at first placed among the convicted prisoners. Later, most were put in F wing.
Diana, who had arrived at Holloway at about three forty-five, was released from the admissions cage at about seven forty-five to see the ‘unsympathetic’ Doctor Rougvie. This was well past the time – six p.m. – that she usually fed Max and her breasts were swollen and painful. Still believing that she was only in Holloway for a day or so, she told Doctor Rougvie that she had brought a breast pump with her and would prefer to deal with her condition herself. Without having been examined, she was taken to her cell, on the third floor of F wing. Here she began to prepare for the night, as lock-up time, when all lights were switched out, was at eight-thirty, but when the wardress came round she found there was no lock on the cell door. Diana’s statement made to the authorities a month later describes what happened then.
Thereupon I was taken to a completely dark, airless and very dirty cell on the ground floor. The tiny window was entirely blocked by sandbags. There was no light or air. Here they swilled the floor with water in an attempt to remove some of the dirt. There was no bed. They put a mattress on the floor, dumped some dirty blankets and grubby sheets on it and locked me in for the night. By then my breasts had become rather painful and I was terrified to touch them because everything was begrimed with dirt and, as everyone knows, cleanliness is of the highest importance when there is milk in the breasts.
This cell was in the notorious E wing, which had been unused for ten years and was later to be filled with internees waiting to be sent to the Isle of Man. The windows were so filthy that the dirt had to be scraped off with a knife before anything could be seen through them. The cell was so damp that the straw mattresses were soon soaked through. This wing had also contained the condemned cell and execution shed and its atmosphere of bitterness, fear and despair was almost tangible.
At the time Diana was too frozen with wretchedness and bewilderment to complain. Only a determination not to break down in front of her jailers prevented her from weeping with misery and outrage. Thus the warder who was on duty when Diana was admitted and had to transfer her to a different cell was correct when she wrote, ‘Mosley made no comment on the manner in which it was cleaned.’
Diana was not alone in her disgust at the miserable, filthy conditions. The prison authorities, it was true, had done what they could to spruce the place up. The chapel had been renovated, with green and cream paint instead of the previous brown and orange, and the condemned cell – said to be haunted since the execution of Edith Thompson – had been turned into a storeroom. But the antiquated building, the primitive sanitation and the pervasive London grime meant that dirt appeared to have seeped into the very walls.
‘It would be very difficult to describe in detail what my cell looked like to me as the pale morning light filtered in through the grimy window,’ wrote Nellie Driver, who had also been detained as a keen fascist. ‘The walls were running with damp and the mattress was filthy. My bed was a few planks on the floor, and my limbs were so stiff I had to raise myself, inch by inch, and roll off the mat.’
Diana could not bring herself to sleep on the damp, thin mattress, between sheets engrained with dirt. She sat up all night with her back against the wall of the cell, contemplating her position – bereft of her children, her husband out of reach, her home gone and the mere two days’ detention the police had thought likely now looking like some delicious mirage. When her cell door was unlocked at 6.30 the following morning she felt ill. ‘My breasts were very swollen and painful,’ her statement continued:
One of my fellow prisoners gave me some Epsom Salts. At about 9.30 a wardress came and told me to collect my belongings and bedding. She took me to E Wing and put me in a cell on the top floor. The cell I had in F wing had not been used before or since and had apparently been condemned as being unfit for occupation. There were not many people in E Wing at the time and they for the most part were Germans. During the afternoon Dr Rougvie came into the wing and I asked for Epsom Salts and cotton wool. These appeared 24 hours later but fortunately a fellow prisoner had already given me some . . . Owing to the dirt everywhere I was afraid I might get an abscess.
She remained in acute pain for several days. On Monday she was told to wash the stone landing with a bucket of cold water and an ancient rag. No one was allowed a kneeler; Diana, who could barely move her arms because of the pain of her swollen breasts, found it more difficult still. Eventually, a kindly fellow prisoner took her rag from her and did the rest of her portion of floor.
Almost as bad as the dirt was the cold. Even in summer an icy chill emanated from the walls. Most prisoners slept with all their clothes piled on their beds. During the day the limited exercise – half an hour in the prison yard – gave little chance of combating the cold with vigorous movement. Lack of fuel meant that, like much of Britain, prisoners could only have two hot showers a week.
The prison diet was sustaining but generally ruined by staleness, careless cooking or the poverty of the ingredients. Rations were eked out with bread, soup and potatoes, boiled in their skins and often with the soil still clinging to them. Breakfast was porridge, tea, bread and two pats of margarine. On Monday the main meal, bacon and haricot beans, was reasonably tolerable, but the fish pie which appeared on Tuesday and Friday, made from Icelandic stock fish, smelt so putrid that even the hungry prison cats refused it. On Wednesday and Thursday there was generally some form of stew (‘quite decent’, allowed the prisoners), on Saturday a soup full of vegetables. Sunday’s corned beef was the treat of the week, the only prison meat that Diana was able to stomach. There was always cocoa for tea, ‘unlike any cocoa known elsewhere’, records one prisoner. ‘It had a thin layer of grease on top – we would let the cocoa cool, skim off the grease with a bit of toilet paper, and use it as face cream.’ No prisoner ever saw her butter ration.
Disgusted by the prison plates, their many cracks harbouring unknown germs which could not be eradicated in the cold water used for washing up, Diana asked Sydney to bring her in a plain china plate as soon as she realised she was not going to be released immediately. For the single utensil prisoners were allowed, Sydney brought her a fork, while the enormous prison mug was exchanged for a smaller one.
Meals were served from tin cauldrons so heavy it took two women to carry them. A warder escorted the prisoners who were fetching the meals to and from the kitchens. She locked and unlocked each gate or door in turn, adding to the general clangour as they walked through the central courtyard, through a garden where a few Borstal girls worked, past the nursery where prisoners’ babies lay in wicker clothes baskets and finally arrived at the kitchens. Fetching meals was a sought-after task. In the kitchen, there were other women from different wings; messages and information were passed, gossip exchanged. Once back, the food was ladled out, sometimes in darkness by the light of a warder’s torch – the dim, shaded blue lights on each landing were extinguished in air raids. Any pudding was put on the plates at the same time. Sometimes the bread was so mouldy it was thrown into the yard, where the pigeons and rats made short work of it. Diana, unlike many other women, had no desire to be a ‘carrier’ and never became one. When she first arrived, she was too ill to carry anything so was omitted from the rota; once overlooked, her name was forgotten by authority.
She was soon sent back to F wing, which housed most of the ninety-odd BU members. It was an immediate improvement. She preferred being high up – she had a corner cell on the third floor, with a tiny gothic window instead of the usual small four-pane square – and she was among her husband’s sympathisers. In addition, the members of F wing, like the interned aliens, were treated in a more relaxed fashion than convicted prisoners. As the Home Office had pointed out to the prison authorities, 18Bs and internees had committed no crime and were not in jail for punitive reasons, merely to keep them out of the way until an Advisory Committee could decide on release or further detention.
Their life was easier in many small ways. They could wear their own clothes, instead of the blue and white striped prison uniform, and use cosmetics. Those who could afford it could have food sent in from shops outside and they could use the kitchen to boil a kettle for coffee – if they had any. Some fried up the tiny potatoes they had gleaned after the gardeners had been round. They could invite a friend to tea in their cell, the guest bringing her own chair, plate, mug and so forth and, if it was cold, blanket. Under prison regulations attendance at the service of the church to which, on admission, she had said she belonged was compulsory for the convicted prisoner, but for internees and those detained under 18B this was optional. They could also alleviate the darkness of their cells by making small lamps out of shallow tins, soaking the string wicks in sardine oil – Diana, who quickly discovered these lamps were useless for reading, did not bother to make one – and were allowed sweets and cigarettes. If, however, the 18Bs were caught passing these to the convicted prisoners, who craved them, they got the same punishment, the ‘black cell’, or solitary confinement. Otherwise, their paths and those of the convicted prisoners crossed most frequently in the chapel, where they were all allowed to listen to BBC news bulletins.
As it was generally the most outspokenly dedicated fascist women who had been arrested, Diana was warmly welcomed. Many wanted to show their devotion to the Leader by cleaning Diana’s cell, making her cups of tea and scrubbing the passages when it was her turn to do so. Diana was determined to be treated like everyone else, although she did eventually let one particularly devoted older woman, Florence Hayes, clean her cell from time to time or fetch things for her.
Despite her hatred of communal life, Diana did her best to show solidarity with her fellow fascists. Two or three days a week she would join them at the long table on the ground floor where they met as a self-elected ‘club’ for lunch. She was invariably put at the head of the table.
But though her fellow prisoners remembered her as natural, unaffected and friendly, her clothes, her voice, her background, her preference for reading in the seclusion of her cell rather than, like the others, seeking company, set her apart. So did her beauty, which worked powerfully in her favour. The first time Louise Irvine saw her she was wearing a plain camelhair coat:
a tall slender figure, her hair blonde and simply cut, and extremely beautiful. Quite involuntarily the description of Helen of Troy from Tennyson’s ‘A Dream of Fair Women’ went through my mind: ‘A daughter of the Gods, divinely tall and most divinely fair’ . . . She looked thin and pale but her smile lit up her face. Later, when I got to know her, I was to find that her smile and her laughter were very much part of her.
These were also effective in the face of the warders’ often sneering attitude. ‘Letters for Mosley!’ they would sing out, or remark sarcastically that prison must be very different from what she was used to. Smiling, she would agree. Most soon smiled back.
But alone in her cell, she wept bitterly. The realities of the situation were gradually becoming apparent. The ‘few days’ that she had been told her imprisonment would last had long passed; she was not a criminal yet no one could tell her when she would be released. She was not allowed to see her husband and she could have only one half-hour family visit a fortnight. Every time she thought of her own children she began to cry. The older ones were at school, but she missed the two babies with a physical agony. Nanny’s letter from Rignell, a fortnight after her arrest, made her ache with longing.
I was so pleased to hear about you and to know you were feeling better and no more discomfort from the milk. You will long to hear about your babies. Alexander is very well and happy but still a bit squeaky. He does want his own way but really has settled down, and the little girl [nursemaid] is very good at amusing him and keeping him happy when I am busy with baby’s bath and feeding. We are all happy. Max had a milk bottle which seemed to agree with him but he was hungry before the next meal was due. I think he will be entirely on cow’s milk this week. He is bonny and such a lovely colour and sleeps so well and is just a sweet pet, always a happy smile. He gained seven ounces last week, which is 4 lb. 3 oz. in three months, and is 26 inches long . . . We went to Banbury one day and got Alexander a red mackintosh. He looks the dearest pet in it, and loves to parade in front of the glass. He is very proud of it. I do wish you could see them . . .
Slowly Diana became accustomed to prison life, fighting the cold with hot-water bottles and warmer clothes. ‘I am sending the highnecked grey jersey, and have asked Mabel to send the rug and green coat and skirt,’ wrote Pam on 21 July, three weeks after her sister’s arrest. Diana found the prison food largely uneatable, and existed mainly on the prison corned beef (‘delicious’) and Stilton sent to her by Mosley, which she would eat accompanied by a glass of port – detainees were allowed to have a little alcohol sent in, and Diana had ordered several half bottles of port.
The only organised entertainment was an amateur concert party from a charitable organisation which sang sentimental songs from the altar steps – reducing Diana to such agonies of stifled giggles that she had to bite her tongue not to burst out laughing. Far more enjoyable were the gramophone recitals given by a rich and generous poule de luxe, brought in on suspicion that her German birth would cause her to lure young officers into betraying their country. Furious at being arrested, this girl had somehow browbeaten police and warders into allowing her to bring both her jewellery and her large collection of classical records with her – these included Beethoven symphonies, works by Chopin, Wagner, Scarlatti, Grieg and Massenet. She would also send out for any piece of music not in her collection, if someone asked for it.
But nothing could make up for loss of liberty with no foreseeable end. As Nellie Driver later wrote:
Nobody who has not lived in that endless-seeming imprisonment could realise the hopelessness, the cruelty and the mental agony of it all. To have committed no crime, to be branded a traitor . . . Years of imprisonment because ‘in certain circumstances’ you might commit an un-named, unspecified act against your own country? How many citizens could be imprisoned on the supposition that ‘in certain circumstances’ they might commit a theft or murder?
In the world outside, opinion was divided. Letters flowed into the Home Office. ‘At last somebody has had the good sense to arrest Mrs Mosley,’ ran a typical one. ‘Ordinary people are getting a bit fed up with this protecting of monied people. Why should British food be used to feed traitors like Mosley, Mitford and Redesdale?’
In the House of Commons, the ethics of detention without trial were questioned constantly, and the uneasiness it provoked was reflected in the columns of national newspapers. ‘Sir Oswald Mosley and his fellow fascists should be tried,’ declaimed the liberal News Chronicle. ‘If they are found guilty the British public will be able to stomach whatever penalty the State may inflict. If they are innocent they should be set free.’ But this was not to be – not then, or for a very long time.