THE BLITZ WAS now at its height. During October 1940, according to German records, 6,500 tons of bombs were dropped on London. The rise-and-fall wail of the warning siren usually sounded at about five o’clock. In Holloway prison, where the glass roof made ‘blacking out’ difficult, electricity was immediately switched off at the mains, leaving the inmates in darkness until the following morning. All cell doors were unlocked and the women groped their way into the cells of friends, often using the flashes from anti-aircraft guns to light their way. Prisoners from the top two ‘dangerous’ floors were expected to come down to the lower floors. Surprisingly, there was only one terrible accident: a French girl who fell from a landing and broke her neck.
It was possible to get a good view from the top floor of F wing by standing on a table in one of the cells. Many of the fascist women came from the East End; from a top window they would peer, distraught with worry about their families, at the glow of the fires lighting up the sky as bombs rained down on the Docks. Without access to a telephone, they had to wait anxiously for the reassurance of the next weekly visit. The noise was incessant – there was an anti-aircraft battery just down the road – and the dark hours of night seemed endless. ‘The crash of guns and the falling bombs nearly drove us mad as we crouched in our cells or tried to snatch a few hours’ sleep on our planks. Our longing was for light, light, light!’ wrote Nellie Driver.
On the night of 14 October, B wing, which held many interned aliens, was hit by a bomb. It tore through the roof and several landings, blew in most of the doors, cracked walls and started a number of fires. There was rubble and glass everywhere but fortunately no one was killed. Because of the pressure on space, prisoners were put back into cells which in some cases were barely habitable, with wind whistling through cracks or rain pouring through gaps in the roof. Gas and water were cut off and drinking water was strictly rationed.
Diana was not frightened by the air raids – she hardly cared whether she lived or died. The defiant bravado with which she had faced the Advisory Committee had evaporated in the face of her continued detention and she could see no prospect of release. She was physically below par, cold, hungry and wretched, and the winter lay ahead. She was reading Carlyle’s History of the French Revolution and she thought that, like the prisoners he described, if she had to stay long in jail she would prefer to die.
She could not understand the basis on which those chosen for release were selected and gradually the feeling took hold that in some obscure way she had been made a scapegoat. Florence Hayes, the devoted adherent who had insisted on doing menial tasks for her, had been allowed to leave prison. ‘I can’t understand why they released her,’ she said to her mother (in a conversation recorded by the attendant warder). ‘She was such an ardent follower, a great speaker and a good organiser. Of course, like the rest [of the fascists] she wouldn’t do anything against this country. But I’m positive nothing will change her views, so it’s really amazing why they let her out.’
She asked Sydney to send Miss Hayes £5 – but she could not tell her mother her most secret thought: a growing conviction that she had been imprisoned in Unity’s stead. In the public awareness Unity, rather than Diana, was the more notorious for her close friendship with Hitler and for her sympathy with the Nazi cause. Diana was well aware of the revulsion her sister inspired in a large section of the public. Nations, as much as individuals, looked for scapegoats. But Unity, by turning the gun on her own head, had pre-empted any idea of punishment or revenge. Poor, sick Unity, destroyed by the bullet, could no longer be the sacrifice demanded.
Diana had plenty of time to brood on such thoughts. Visits were now permitted every week, but only for fifteen minutes. Sydney came regularly, often bringing Debo. They would make the journey from their house in Kensington to Holloway by bus. On one occasion the conductor sang out, ‘Holloway jail! Lady Mosley’s suite! All change here!’ Looking daggers, Sydney descended from the bus with Debo. She was forceful about conditions inside the prison, once writing in the visitors’ lavatory ‘This lavatory is a disgrace to H.M. Prisons’. She campaigned constantly for Diana, talking of the injustice done to her daughter every time she met someone she thought could help, writing to MPs and lobbying the influential. She also devoted a lot of time and energy to making Diana’s life more comfortable.
After I left you I went to Harrods and sent you a siren suit and a very warm jumper [she wrote on 20 October]. I only hope they are the colours you like, and the right size. They were rather expensive, suit £4 and jumper £2.10s. Nanny and I are going to look for another thick one among Bobo’s masses of clothes. Nanny is here and I go tomorrow back to Swinbrook. Debo has gone to Andrew [Cavendish] for the weekend, he has leave. I hear there is no water at the Dorchester or Claridges. I don’t know if it is true. I also sent off your Malvern water and your Elizabeth Arden. Nancy here last night. She is very tired, I fear, and couldn’t sleep as she had hoped, but she is going away to the country for a week on Monday. I am sending a deposit for you to Harrods of £10. All these things I bought today I paid from my account and will repay myself from your money [Diana had arranged that Sydney could draw on her account at Drummond’s Bank]. So now you have £10 clear at Harrods. I went to lunch at the Cordon Bleu [a restaurant in Sloane Street] only to find a notice on the door ‘Shut – no gas’.
One November morning Diana’s general wretchedness was pierced by an agonising worry. Jonathan, at school, had suddenly developed appendicitis and had been operated on a few hours later, at 5.30 p.m. His headmaster tried to telephone Diana at Holloway, but was not allowed to speak to her, so sent a telegram. ‘What a fright Jonathan successfully operated on for acute appendix just seen him quite happy and as comfortable as possible writing Evans Summerfield.’ This, however, was not given to her. Instead, the Governor told her that Jonathan had had an emergency appendectomy the night before and was very ill. She begged for permission to go to him, but this was refused by the Home Office. Distraught, she walked frenziedly up and down her cell all that day and the following night, unable to think of anything except her son, perhaps even then dying, but there was no word. It was not until the following morning that the Governor sent for her and told her that Jonathan had ‘turned the corner’.
It was Sydney who told Diana that Mr Evans had not only telegrammed but sent a letter. As Sydney’s constant efforts on behalf of Diana continued unflaggingly, as she arrived faithfully to visit, whatever the difficulty or, sometimes, the danger, so Diana’s admiration and love for her mother increased. Once distant, resentful and rather scornful of Sydney, she had been changed by her time in prison into a loving and devoted daughter.
By now letters to the Hon. Lady Mosley, 5433, cell 23 F3, were flowing in. One of the earliest had been from Gerald Berners, who described taking Jonathan out from Summer Fields, to Fullers, a favourite Mitford haunt in Oxford.
I gave him a good blowout – two maple ice cream sodas, three slices of chocolate layer cake and a walnut sundae. I deposited him at Summer Fields with his great coat bulging with sweets. I only hope he won’t have a bilious attack. Luckily, most boys of his age have stomachs like the interior of a tank. Then when I got back I heard that you had been jugged. I was very upset. I do hope you are not too miserable. I read in the paper that you would not be allowed to see Tom but I can’t believe it. I don’t know if you will be allowed to write. If you are, please send me a line.
At first Nancy neither wrote nor visited, possibly feeling that any contact after her efforts to have her sister put in prison would smack of hypocrisy. She also refused to believe her mother’s accounts of conditions at Holloway and of Diana’s pale, depressed appearance. In November she wrote caustically to Mrs Hammersley, ‘I would die of the lights out at 5.30 rule wouldn’t you? I suppose she sits and thinks of Adolf.’
As the year wore on, the 18Bs tried to keep fit, clean and tidy, washing their underwear with scraps of soap in their cells, playing ball in the prison yard. They learned the tricks of prison life: how to make coffee of a sort, putting used coffee grounds from the kitchen (it was before the days of instant coffee) into a mug and adding water from the hot tap in the washing section. They hammered milk bottle tops into toast racks and other small gifts for each other, they climbed the wild cherry tree in the garden to reach the cherries before the birds got them. Many, desperate for affection, tried to adopt one of the cats that had found their way in from bombed houses or had been dropped as kittens over the prison wall into the Governor’s garden. Others did their best to keep their spirits up with whist drives; tins of sardines, sent in from outside, were the prizes.
One woman threw a note out of her window, saying, ‘I am dying of starvation’ (no one took any notice), but few complained about the poor, scanty food. Everyone knew that it was the same ‘outside’, where making the rations go round was a constant preoccupation. What they minded much more was the dirt and the icy, bone-clenching Holloway chill. Sydney brought a rug or jersey almost every time she visited. Diana wore an old raccoon jacket day in and day out and knitted herself a two-piece suit, from thick grey unrationed wool so stiff it almost stood by itself. It was the first thing she had ever made and she was inordinately pleased with herself.
November brought Diana the first glimpse of her husband that she had had since her arrest. It took a libel case to make this possible.
Stories about the Mosleys had been appearing regularly in the press, mostly to the effect that for them prison was a bed of roses. The hardest hitting had been in the Sunday Pictorial of 4 August, which claimed that Mosley, unlike other 18Bs, was somehow managing to lead a life of luxury in jail. It was alleged that he played Bridge, drank champagne, wore silk underwear and had breakfast, lunch and dinner sent in by car. Mosley counter-claimed that this was libellous and sought an injunction to prevent the story’s repetition. The judge, however, refused an injunction on the grounds that to say someone did this in prison even at a time of national emergency was not libellous although it might be untrue (as it was). ‘There is no harm in playing Bridge and drinking “bubbly”,’ said the judge. ‘Many of us do. I do.’ It was not quite the answer wanted by Mosley, who in other circumstances would have agreed with him.
Emboldened by this decision, newspapers continued to print further damaging stories. Behind many of these fantasies was the truth that the authorities had decided that since the 18Bs were not criminals they should be treated as remand prisoners: consequently from 1 August permission was given for detainees to order food, sweets, flowers, cigarettes, cosmetics and half bottles of wine or bottles of beer from outside. Diana ordered cakes, honey, fudge and chocolate from Harrods (giving up her sweet ration) to send on to Jonathan and Desmond at school. It was the only thing, apart from her weekly letter, that she could do for them to show her love. Sometimes these parcels were simply sent on unopened (parcels that arrived from a shop and remained sealed did not have to be opened and examined by warders whereas anything coming from a relative was searched), sometimes she repacked them in wrapping paper from her numerous orders of books. The parcels and the port she ordered surfaced in the press as ‘a life of luxury’.
Finally, and perhaps inevitably, one writer went too far. Under the headline ‘Privation’ the Daily Mirror unleashed a torrent of indignant sarcasm, a tour de force of imagination unimpeded by fact:
All right-thinking folk will be angered by the fierce rigidity of our internment regulations that allows rich fascists to be reduced to a harsh diet of chicken washed down by magnums of champagne [the writer began]. I learn on good authority that the most prominent fascist is being victimised by a ruthless menu which includes the rigours of daily bottles of red and white wine attended by the merciless persecution of a private batman. Further indignities are inflicted on this gentleman by the despatch of his silken shirts to a Mayfair laundry.
Mosley, who enjoyed legal battles, pounced. As another article, in a paper in the same group, had implied that Diana had pulled strings to delay her arrest (‘What strange delay has led to Lady Mosley being at large for weeks after her husband’s arrest? It is perhaps significant that she has been allowed her liberty until after the birth of her baby son. Does the law act with such delicacy to ordinary women delinquents?’) Mosley instituted proceedings in their joint names against Daily Mirror Newspapers Ltd. It was an extraordinarily bold action, as their unpopularity in the country and the prejudice against them was such that a jury might well have refused to find for them. Mosley usually represented himself in libel actions but, possibly fortunately, prison made this impossible and so demonstrably untrue were the stories and so powerful their legal team – their counsel was the noted KC, G.D. (‘Khaki’) Roberts, assisted by Gerald Gardinerfn1 – that the opposition caved in, and settled. Diana spent her share of the damages on a fur coat, lined in her favourite pale grey rather than the usual brown, chosen and ordered for her by her mother. It was ready by March 1941, after which she seldom took it off her back.
When the Mosleys met in court, each was shocked by the other’s thinness and pallor, Mosley’s enhanced by the beard he had grown because of the difficulty of shaving in the icy prison water. His phlebitis, too, was recurring. After giving evidence, they were allowed a few moments together in a conference room in the presence of ‘Khaki’ Roberts. Soon afterwards, came the visit resulting from the Churchill note.
Back in Holloway, a grand Fancy-Dress Ball heralded Christmas. One woman went as the Mistletoe Bride; Nellie Driver, who had found an old handloom in a top-floor cell, went as a weaver, complete with shawl, shuttle and reed. Some concocted costumes out of blackout material, including the winner, a Mrs Winfield, who went as Old Mother Hubbard in mobcap and shawl, walking on her knees for the entire parade to make herself look short enough to ‘live in a cupboard’. Most striking was the girl who came as Hitler (some of the German women took this very badly so at the next Fancy Dress Ball she appeared as Anthony Eden). The motor-cyclist champion Fay Taylor, arrested for being a BU member, produced the Holloway Cabaret.
Gradually, Diana emerged from her despair. She had never lost her fighting spirit and, as she later told Mosley, even on her worst days, ‘I always felt, “Isn’t it lovely to be lovely One?” when I looked around me.’ (Mosley found this remark so hilarious he retailed it to Nancy, who put it in the mouth of Cedric in her novel Love in a Cold Climate.) As Diana’s natural good spirits began to reassert themselves she would sometimes drawl out a joke. ‘Of course, they were expecting to see me in chains,’ she said after her Guinness children first visited her. On a good day, she sometimes sang to herself or to friends, old childhood favourites like ‘She Wore a Wreath of Roses’ or ‘My Grandfather’s Clock’, which she and her sisters had sung grouped round Sydney at the Asthall grand piano. The flow of letters cheered her and, thanks to the constant efforts of their solicitor, Oswald Hickson, permission had been given for Mosley to visit her once a fortnight rather than the monthly visit suggested by Churchill. When the raids slackened off at the end of December, she felt that it was at last safe for her to see her younger children. Sydney brought Alexander and Max to Holloway on 7 January 1941.
For this visit, the first time Diana had seen her babies for six months, she was given an hour instead of the usual fifteen minutes. Max stared at her solemnly; Alexander, aged two, had begun to talk. The warder in attendance reported that Diana asked her mother to beg for help from Lloyd George in gaining her release, as ‘he is not in this filthy government’.
In January, too, came the first letter from Nancy (‘I had no idea I was allowed to write’). Even then it was a response rather than an initiative: a letter of thanks for the Christmas present of money which Diana had sent her through Sydney. But at least it broke the ice.
More welcome were Nanny Higgs’s comforting bulletins from Rignell.
We had a most successful day. Alexander was very tired going home, but had a nice sleep on the way and quite recovered when we got back and ever so hungry. He enjoyed his day I am sure but the time was far too short. He keeps saying ‘Mummy today’. I am sure he knew you. He was sweet with Sir Oswald and talked in his funny way but had a tumble but soon recovered. He really is brave over his falls. His Daddy thought him very goodlooking and quite fat enough . . . I am glad you are warmer and comfy.
In February she reported that Alexander
says lots of funny things. You would eat him if you heard him. He often says ‘a kiss for Mummy’ and looks at your picture . . . Mrs Jackson went to Oxford yesterday and had the [Guinness] boys out for a short time. They say they write to you every week.
At the beginning of April there was a dramatic amelioration in the treatment accorded to the 18Bs. Orders were given that their cells should be left unlocked from ten a.m. until seven p.m., and they were allowed to leave their cells or walk in the exercise yard without a warder in attendance. This distant echo of a former life in which they had been able to move about freely made them all more cheerful. On a fine day Diana, wrapped in her fur coat – now that she was so much thinner she felt the cold more – would read her book in the garden. With the German-born Mrs Swan, another detainee, she had been reading the great German writers, including Goethe and Schiller, throughout the winter. She was still wretched, but she no longer felt that death would be welcome.
In April Debo was married to Lord Andrew Cavendish. There was a choir of girls because no choirboys were available, but Debo’s wedding dress, a huge and exquisite affair of tulle by Stiebel, made up for any shortcoming, as did her going-away hat with its blue taffeta ruche. The Mitfords dressed up to the nines. ‘Bobo wore a pink dress, navy blue coat and a pink hat made of veils and ribbon, Nancy had a tartan silk dress, Woman [the family nickname for Pamela] had a tiny little doll’s hat, her dress and coat were brown and hat brown and pink,’ wrote Sydney in her account to Diana on 20 April. ‘Duchess Mowcher [the Duchess of Devonshire] had a magenta flowered dress and magenta coat, black hat with magenta feathers. She looked wonderful. I had a grey dress and navy blue coat and blue hat and feathers.’
As Diana’s morale improved, so did her determination to fight what she saw as the cruel and inhuman circumstances in which she unjustly found herself. Urged on by Mosley, she made an official complaint about her initial treatment at Holloway. It was despatched by Oswald Hickson to Norman Birkett, who sent it on to Sir Alexander Maxwell on 17 April. Mosley had already stated his worries about Diana’s health during his own Advisory Committee hearing the previous summer and Birkett, a humane man who was in any case uneasy about the morality of imprisonment without trial, had made immediate enquiries on the committee’s behalf, but the Holloway authorities had replied that Lady Mosley was perfectly well and the matter had been dropped. Now Birkett caused a further letter to be written. It was tactful and polite but the hint of steel was unmistakable.
‘If the facts in the statement of Lady Mosley are correct it would appear that the Committee was seriously misled. It is possibly a matter which you may think worthy of a little enquiry,’ it began smoothly. ‘I ought to add that we have been informed by Hickson that Lady Mosley is either bringing or has brought an action against the Home Secretary for damages for breach of statutory duty.’
The response was immediate. On 29 April the Governor of Holloway wrote to Maxwell, refuting Diana’s claims of mistreatment; he said that she had expressed no dissatisfaction at the time and that her own doctor, who saw her soon afterwards, had said he was perfectly satisfied by her health. Of her chief complaints, the filth and the cold, there was no mention. On 9 May Birkett received a letter from the Home Office saying that there was no foundation for Diana’s complaints. There was little more he could do.
The following day, 10 May 1941, London was battered by the worst raid of the war. There was a full moon, but its light was soon extinguished by the glare from the fires raging all over the city. The Law Courts, the Tower and the Mint were all hit and the Docks set ablaze. Westminster Hall was set on fire, Westminster Abbey badly damaged and the House of Commons gutted. In the British Museum, 250,000 books went up in flames. Every bridge across the Thames between the Tower and Lambeth was rendered impassable, and Marylebone was the only main-line station that did not have to be closed.
For the prisoners in Holloway, the most terrifying feature was the noise, an inferno of din that lasted all night long. The anti-aircraft battery down the road fired constantly, shaking the thick walls of the main hall. Shell splinters fell like heavy shot on roofs and tiles, dust filled the air and all the time there was the roar of guns, the whistle and crump of falling bombs and the terrifying sound of explosions. Some of the prisoners, frantically trying to judge if their neighbourhoods were ablaze, watched from their usual vantage point – a barred window which overlooked most of London in the direction of St Paul’s. As the bombs rained down, they saw blazing incendiaries, firemen and ARP workers dashing to burning buildings. Diana, blocking her ears, remained in her cell as long as she could, then, with sleep out of the question, joined a group at the top-floor bathroom window, taking her turn at climbing on the only chair.
Holloway itself was hit again: one bomb fell on the roof of C wing and a ‘Molotov breadbasket’ of thirty-eight incendiaries scored a direct hit – one burned a hole in the wooden roof of the Catholic chapel, another set fire to the carpenter’s shed. The prison officers accounted for thirty-seven of these bombs; the thirty-eighth was found later by a prisoner gathering dandelion leaves for a salad. The red blaze of burning London could be seen from Cuddesdon Hill near Oxford and – by the bombers of the Luftwaffe – from above Rouen. By the morning of the 11th, more than 3,000 Londoners were dead or seriously injured.
But the Blitz was over. Months would pass before there was another raid. Even so, 18Bs who went down to the kitchen after dark to brew tea still sat under the table until the kettle boiled and automatically kept away from the windows.
The war news was miserably depressing. At the end of May Diana asked if she could have a wireless sent in; the authorities refused on the ground that all wirelesses should be communal. In June Germany attacked Russia. It seemed as if the war would go on for ever. Diana, looking out at the sunshine, wondered how many summers would pass before she was free again. A large number of 18Bs had now been released; all the women with small babies apart from herself had been freed several months earlier. Many more were sent to the Isle of Man where, though interned, they would enjoy much more freedom, accommodated in some of the island’s many boarding houses. Diana was terrified that she too would be sent there: family visits would be impossible and she would be further away from Mosley. Almost worst of all was the thought that she would probably have to share a room, her familiar early nightmare about boarding school. Unpleasant though her cell was, at least she could seclude herself in it at will.
She was reassured that she would remain in London by Sir Walter Monckton, another who had courageously called on Mosley several times (‘Still a prison visitor?’ asked Churchill one day). But when this kindly man asked her if there was anything she wanted, the brave face she was able to maintain to the prison world collapsed. She began to cry as she spoke of her children and of how not being allowed to write more than two letters a week cut her off from those she loved. ‘I miss my freedom,’ she sobbed. ‘I never was in one place for more than a week before,’ and she asked pathetically if the Prime Minister knew what it was like for her. ‘He does,’ replied Monckton. ‘It is through him that I am here.’
Monckton spoke the truth. There had been frequent representations to Churchill on the Mosleys’ behalf, all saying roughly the same thing: if they could not be freed, could they at least be imprisoned together? This question had been under discussion for several months. Sydney had been writing constantly, arguing for her daughter’s release. In July Baba Metcalfe had approached Churchill. She had been to see her former lover in prison and horror at his deteriorating physical condition overcame her anger at the way he had behaved to her. ‘I thought for my sister’s sake I couldn’t just not do something,’ she said later, in explanation of this generous action.
Two months later (on 23 September) Baba was writing in her diary:
A most entertaining dinner: the P.M., Mrs Churchill, David Margesson, Edward, Dorothy [Lord and Lady Halifax] and self. Winston started by coming and plumping himself down on the sofa at once and speaking of Tom [Mosley]. I had asked Edward to talk to him about the prison and efforts to get them moved to the country. This had been done and Winston was charming, most ready to listen and saw no disadvantages in putting the couples together but Herbert Morrison will be the stumbling block. He is hard, narrow-minded and far from human about a matter like this, and in this case he has a special dislike of Tom . . . One rather telling remark I thought was when I said it was awful to see someone like T in prison. Winston said: ‘Yes, and it may be for years and years.’
Tom Mitford, now a serving officer in the Queen’s Westminsters who went to see his sister whenever he had leave, was another campaigner. One day he told Diana that he was dining in Downing Street that night; was there anything she wanted him to say. ‘Only the same as always,’ she replied. ‘That if we have to stay in prison, couldn’t we at least be together?’ At other times, Tom was able to drop into the ear of his best friend Randolph Churchill accounts of Diana’s despair and her misery at the separation from her husband, knowing that Randolph would repeat these to his father and, as Diana’s devoted admirer, argue robustly on her behalf. Meanwhile, a doctor sent down to check Mosley’s physical condition reported that if he spent another winter in Brixton he might easily get pneumonia – the last thing the government wanted was to turn Mosley into a martyr.
For Diana, living on fifteen minutes a week of the company of those she loved and their letters, little seemed to change. There were letters from Nanny, giving longed-for news. ‘Baby Max is a pet and does try and talk and so pretty.’ ‘Yesterday we all went over to tea with Lady Alexandra Metcalfe. Alexander behaved just nohow. He rushed back to the car as soon as he saw our hostess and children.’ Others were distressing, such as the one from Jonathan that she sent to her solicitors: ‘here is the thing that I really must tell you because although it might hurt your feelings it would greatly hurt the feelings of the maid who called you and me traitors and German spies. She is foul. I was caned yesterday.’ There was a tart rejoinder from the Headmaster of Summer Fields:
As a result of my enquiries I can state that anything that was said by the maid to whom you refer, to Jonathan Guinness, was more than justified by the insulting rudeness of the latter to this maid. To this he has frankly admitted and intends to apologise. Jonathan Guinness is a boy for whom I have the highest regard but I am afraid that his conduct behind my back is not always as pleasant and commendable as it is in my immediate presence.
There were reports on Unity from Sydney (‘We walked round Selfridges and bought a pair of shoes and she loved it. Bumped into a friend in Piccadilly and Bobo gave such a loud scream that I had to quell her’), and visits from Unity herself, recorded by Doris Andrews, the Mitfords’ favourite warder, whose accounts invariably began, ‘Miss Mitford appeared to be very excited.’ ‘The conversation was very difficult to understand,’ one such account began in October. ‘Miss Mitford spoke at great speed and laughed almost incessantly . . . before leaving, Lady Redesdale told Lady Mosley that things would soon be better. “As Tom [Mitford] said in a letter yesterday, something is being done about Kit being allowed to live with you.” I could not follow any more as Miss Mitford was very excited.’
The autumn cabaret came round again, its programme full of jokey references. ‘Snorers, please close your doors, we want to hear the guns.’ ‘Dancing: Miss Jean Wallace, Holloway Mansions, with chorus The Holloway Hoofers.’ ‘Mrs Winfield’s Registry: housemaids, parlourmaids supplied, all highly untrained.’ ‘Lady Mosley’s rock buns, as good as their name and better than rotten eggs. Store for future use.’
But behind the scenes change was approaching. On 15 November 1941 Churchill wrote to the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison:
Feeling against 18B is very strong, and I should not be prepared to support the regulation indefinitely if it is to be administered in such an onerous manner. Internment rather than imprisonment is what was contemplated. Sir Oswald Mosley’s wife has now been 18 months in prison without the slightest vestige of any charge against her, separated from her husband.
This was as far as the Prime Minister could go if he were to retain the support, essential to a united government, of the Labour Left. Morrison, for his part, felt able to take note only of the last phrase. He agreed that the fifteen 18B couples still remaining should be transferred to married accommodation.
For most of them this meant the Isle of Man, where many of the wives were already. Official opinion was that while there were certain couples whom the authorities did not wish to send to the comparative freedom of camp life on the Isle of Man, it would be wrong to keep these husbands and wives separated if the others were allowed to live together.
Into this category fell the Mosleys, Major and Mrs de Laessoe, and a consultant engineer and BU member called Swan, married to Diana’s prison friend Mrs Swan. The Swans were to be released so soon it was not considered worth while sending them to the Isle of Man. Major de Laessoe, who had won the DSO and MC in the First World War, had, like his wife, been imprisoned for his BU membership. Mrs de Laessoe had proved herself ‘very troublesome’ in the Port Erin Camp on the Isle of Man and the authorities were glad to send her back to Holloway to be reunited with her husband.
On 11 December 1941 a press release was issued:
It has been decided to allow certain married couples detained under Defence Regulation 18B to live together in a camp on the Isle of Man. Certain other couples detained under the Regulation whom it is not proposed to transfer to the Isle of Man may be accommodated, if they so desire, in a separate block of Holloway Prison which has been set apart for this purpose.
By 20 December the accommodation in Holloway was ready. The next day, Sunday 21 December, Mosley was brought over to Holloway from Brixton. ‘We should like to give the Mosleys a day or two to settle down before any other couples come in,’ wrote Carew Robinson, Chairman of the Prison Commission. For Diana, Mosley’s arrival meant that ‘one of the happiest days of my life was spent in prison’.
fn1 Geoffrey Dorling Roberts was a well-known KC always known as ‘Khaki’ Roberts. He was later one of the prosecuting counsel at the Nuremberg Trials. Gerald Gardiner, a Quaker and a pacifist, was later a distinguished Lord Chancellor.