Letter to Marion
24 July, 1940
Wednesday evening
My dearest Mog,
I was glad to hear this morning that the things had arrived. I will phone Stanley tomorrow and find out how far he has got about you going to America. I honestly think the chances of an invasion are remote. I will also write to Uncle Ernest* and ask him about Reading. He would probably be glad for you to stay with him as long was necessary; not that I will suggest that but I have an idea that he will!
* Uncle Ernest is Clifford's uncle, Ernest Charles Hall (1868 - 1959), who lived in Reading with his family.
You must not worry about me. I have settled down here pretty well and have been accepted, so to speak. Largely, I think, because they found I could climb ropes in the gym and also could run a mile after physical drill as fast as any of them and faster than some. They are just like schoolboys in their standard of judging a man and I have been made to feel perfectly at home. It's comic, but then the whole business is a comic tragedy. I was very grateful that I have not found myself in the army which together with teaching in a secondary school represents a worse hell to me than Dante ever dreamed of. After all I can spend every other day in the studio and even if sometimes I am too tired to paint as I would wish I am extremely lucky to be able to spend some of my time there. Poor horseface is going off to the army next week, although I must admit he does not seem to mind particularly.
I saw Bill last night. He is still pretty shaky and has to have another month's rest. Of course that suits him very well. The trouble is he is too weak to enjoy it.
Father is still the same. I only manage to see him once a week now.
I am glad you like the two books and the 1890s was certainly my period, it would have been fine to have lived then, however, the thing is to make something out of the epoch in which one finds oneself. Je suis de mon temps - as Daumier said. Every artist must be that. Sometimes I feel I miss it. Perhaps it is too soon to judge yet.
I am glad that what I told you about Julian has made you happy for I certainly meant all of it. And if it so turns out that I do not see him for a long time I know you will let him think the same about me as you do yourself. I probably don't entirely deserve it but I want it all the same. I would not have been worth much if I could not take him into my scheme of life as well as you who have always helped me so greatly. Anyway, I think he is sweet in himself - and that's enough. I hope and feel that won't work out like that and we will be together again before so very long. I wish I could see you now but we have just got to get finished with this wretched business and you must go on looking after him and know that I am wanting you. I only hope it won't be too long; but whenever it is we will have a fine time when it does happen.
I sleep in billets tonight so tomorrow I will be able to go on with a head I started last week. Bill is going to take some more photos next week so when they are done I will send you some so you can see what I have been doing since our glorious week together.
I wish I could do that picture of you but I expect there will be time to do it, someday.
I have got another good book of biographies that I will send you as soon as I have finished it.
Love to you both,
Clifford
Journal Entry
July 25, 1940
After I had come back from walking with her to the station, I crossed the studio to the bed and buried my face in the cushions on which she had rested. I was acutely conscious of the scent of her hair. And when I drew back and looked down at the place where she had lain, I thought I saw her still. There was the depression made by her head, and there the outline of her shoulders. Those perfect, polished, golden shoulders I love to kiss…And I quickly took the cushions off the bed. But I had only destroyed the imprint of her body.
Letters to Marion
27 July, 1940
Chelsea, Saturday morning
Dearest,
I have just had your letter. I knew you will be pleased about the £40. We have been lucky. I am glad you have had a fairly quiet week. We certainly have not, but of course only warnings. I am sending the 30 shillings and I will send some extra next week but let me know if you need it before. I will write again in a day or so.
Stanley told me had heard from you about your passport. I am seeing mother this evening and I will ask her then if the flowers arrived. I don't think it worries father much now whether he sees people or not. He has lost all count of time and hardly eats at all. And I have never felt better in my life although I get very tired and my arms and shoulders ache but it is all gone by the morning. It is strange and I can only think that one must make the most of everything when one can. You never know what the end may be like.
I am glad that you have got the pictures up and that our son actually looks at them. I am looking forward to the time when he is old enough to love better ones and all the beautiful things in the world.
I will let you know as soon as I get a reply from Uncle Ernest.
Love to you both. I will write again soon.
Clifford
31 July, 1940
Chelsea, Wednesday
Dearest Mog,
Thanks for your letter, and I am so glad that I have helped a little to make you less depressed. I suppose I am lucky now that I can find no time, or hardly any, in which to be miserable. I am told I am getting on very well; my old knowledge of anatomy has been useful and I already know how to do eight different sorts of bandages. I practise them each day I am on duty and learn another one as well. I am slowly finishing a head and I hope to start another painting this afternoon.
Sometimes when I am at the depot I seem to step outside myself, and I consider the person I am whilst I am there.And I see that all that really matters in me is just sleeping until the time when I can really be myself again every day of my life.
I heard from Uncle Ernest this morning. He says that there has, so far, been no bombing within fifteen miles of Reading. I also hear that he is trying to give up his house; no doubt if you wanted to go to Reading he could find somewhere available. In the mean time I suppose it is best to hang on at Milton Abbas for you certainly must not go to America in a boat that is not convoyed.
I do still think that it is as safe as can reasonably be expected where you are, for even if this talked of invasion is attempted, which we are all beginning to doubt, I think it will fail.
It seems to me that our real difficulties will begin when we have actually won, for the complete lack of constructive aims for peace is getting more disturbing each day. All this talk about this being a people's war does not move me, at least not in the way it's intended to. It's the people who will suffer and are being used to win it and no doubt a few concessions will be made to them at the end, if they look like getting dangerous. How funny it is now to hear conservatives refer to the heroic defenders of Madrid, those same conservatives who beat up English people here when they peacefully wanted arms sent to those heroes! It's a dirty business and a stupid one and I will have none of it, but stick to painting, when I get the chance again. And I will get that chance because it is my fate.
I wish I could see you both. When I have done three months in my job I will ask for some leave and come and see you.
Love to you both,
Clifford
PS
Will write on Friday.
Journal Entry
July (?), 1940
Portrait of Francine. She seemed to me like a painted idol, yet intensely alive. She was made up like a clown, but she was not ridiculous.
Letters to Marion
1 August, 1940
Thursday Evening
Dearest Mog,
I had your letter this morning. I am glad you liked the books Will you post back the one by Belfrage if you have finished it as I wanted to have it by me.
As for the others, I have always felt that the 19th century would have suited me. It was a time when people seemed to be convinced of something, whereas now there is a danger of finding oneself convinced of nothing. However, you know that I have my own way of avoiding that danger, and it is an infallible way. I try only to satisfy myself in my work and so to make my own world which in the end depends mostly on my brain and feelings, and so is reasonably safe from attack. I am sometimes rather angry that I was brought up to believe in the possibility of attaining a state of permanency in life, that is, of course, in a material sense, for it has taken me a long time to learn that there is no reason for expecting such a state and that you cannot be happy until you have given up the idea. I am expressing this very badly as there is a hell of a din. Someone on the gramophone is "riding on a rainbow"*. Typical of the wrong way of approaching life (20th century method). Various blokes are shouting the words as if they believed that they too could ride on a rainbow; and billiards and darts are going on as well.
* Ridin' on a Rainbow is a 1941 American Western musical film directed by Lew Landers and starring Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, and Mary Lee. The title song, sung by Gene Autry, was released on record prior to the release of the film. Although Clifford says it was "on the gramophone" it was probably being played on the radio rather than record in the ARP's mess hall. The song can be heard here on YouTube
I am pretty certain that the life I loved is about on its last legs. I can see dimly that after the war there is just a slim chance of something far finer taking its place. I am not so sure if it should come to pass, whether I will be able to enjoy it. There is the possibility of being caught between the two, so to speak. It may turn out really fine for Julian and I think I can show him how to make the most of it when the time comes.
I fear I was born a romantic and I am told it is a dying race. Yet I am certain that I can keep my point of view for another fifty years if need be, so why worry?
I send you an extra ten shillings and I should be able to send you another ten next week as I have sold two watercolours for a guinea each, unframed. The money has not turned up yet but it is safe enough and I will get it next week. There is also a chance that I may sell the head I am doing. When the war is over, I am going to paint a lot more portraits as I have discovered that I enjoy doing them and amazingly enough I seem to be able to please at least the intelligent sitters. And I think I can find enough of them to make a bit of money.
You asked me about the money for keeping father at the hospital. The position is all right at present although mother is having to be very careful. It is almost impossible to realize that he has been there nearly five months. A miserable existence and no reason why it should have happened to him that I can see. Except the purely mechanical one, but I cannot reconcile that with the religious one although mother seems to. Perhaps she is right and I am wrong and simply do not know, and I have to leave it at that until something makes me think differently. I find myself agreeing with that bit in one of the Powys stories in "Ebony & Ivory" I read when I was last with you, where he talks of disease and says it almost makes him convinced of God's malignant feelings towards man. One of my pet ideas always. The finest men are greater than God. Think what they are up against and think what they have done! And the priest tells you it is that immortal soul, the bit of God in them, that makes them struggle and create. Quite likely - but the manner of presentation of this explanation is too damned slick. Anyway, what does it all matter. One does what one feels impelled to do, sometimes the result is good, sometimes bad, so you try again. It's perfectly simple: only there is never enough time.
Friday /
Had a somewhat sleepless night, two warnings that again miss-fired. I will be glad when this week is over as my squad has a guard on Saturday night until 1am. Most of them sleep on their off days but I can't. Never could sleep in the day time and in my case I must get some real work done.
I have now found out that when I start a month's course of first-aid lectures, after which I am expected to pass an exam, written, oral and practical, that the time allowed for the same course, pre-war, was six months. So I have to also concentrate on that.
Looking forward to a letter from you soon. All my love to you both,
Clifford
Blitz
CLIFFORD HALL'S JOURNAL ~ 1939 - 1942 P5
including letters written to his wife Marion and some other correspondence
5 August, 1940
Your letter came this morning, dearest, just before I set out. I will send you another ten shillings extra this week, I hope, as I should get the money for my watercolours in a day or so. My friend in Rugby sold them for me. I have no idea who bought them. He has been to a lot of trouble for me and although the price is small it is lucky to get rid of anything these days. The head I told you about is of the French girl in a restaurant in the Fulham Road. I think there is a good chance of her husband buying it. I hope to finish it this week and I will not be sorry: she has a passion for the wireless and all through the sitting it must be turned on full. I have to listen to the news in English, Welsh and Norwegian and French, songs, dance music, talks on travel and gardening. It just does not matter so long as there is a noise and it gets a bit trying. I suppose it makes her feel at home as there is a din in the restaurant from morning to night. The painting is pretty good as she has an interesting head, as made-up as a circus clowns, but most amusing. I will send you a photo of it some time. I hope to send you some photos of other things when I have seen Bill again. He took about half a dozen last week. I will phone Stanley tomorrow morning and let you know in this letter how the position stands regarding America. It would certainly be a change for you to go to Cornwall, only won't it mean a lot of work? And you do quite enough as it is I am sure. As far as the money goes, I can let you have another two pounds or so when you want it to come to London.
This is the funniest bank holiday I have spent. This morning I was carrying stretchers and some people are damned heavy. This afternoon more stretcher drill and bandages. There is a cricket match going on now but I think I am doing far better in sitting down quietly and writing to you.
I start my lectures on Monday next so my time will be even fuller. It's too full already. There is not enough time to dream and I have realised now how much time I need to spend dreaming. Still I do not think it was wasted, and I will do it again when I get the chance.
I am glad you have been going out a bit. Even if the people are dull, and I can imagine just how dull they are, it is better than no change at all.
I spent an evening with Browning last week. He had come to town for a few days. We sat in the Cadogan and he bored me with a long account of a love affair he had recently with a nurse. It does not seem to have made him any brighter, which is a pity. I ended up feeling very sorry for the nurse and was not surprised when he finished by telling me that, strange as it seemed, she did not want to marry him.
Steve talks of moving to above headers. I heard, in a roundabout way, that one of my friends had asked him why he seemed to pinch my subjects and he was quite hurt about it!
It is not easy to paint now. I can tell you. My free days rush by and I never seem to get enough done in the time. Then I am torn away from it for twenty-four hours. I cannot live with it like I used to; but I continue, slowly, to get something done. How I hope that the war is over soon and that I can feel as strong as I do now for another ten or twenty years. What wonderful things I feel capable of doing! I feel I have not really started yet but I believe I will think that in the last day of my life, even if I live a very, very long time. And with dear Corot I will say that I hope there is painting in Heaven. The thing is so big. It holds you forever.
I have got my first savings certificate.
Someday I would like us all to go to a place in France that will have escaped the war and stay there one long summer. The first week I would do no work, we would just walk around and pick out subjects. Then I would start and paint each day, and afterwards when Julian was in bed we would sit on a terrasse and drink, watching the evening gradually fade into night. And we would walk home past the river and the trees, and through the dark quiet streets. It would be hot and still and your bare arms would be deliciously cool when I touched them.
Life's a funny business. It will get out of hand so often. I am thankful that we have had glorious times together and I hope you forgive me if I did not always perhaps make so much of them as I should have done. But I know you understand. I find myself thinking of the time we were at the Hôtel de Calais wasn't it? Of how pretty the room was, of the cabinet de toilette and the big bed. And then back at Trafalgar studios and me watching you, and I am utterly thankful that all those wonderful things really happened to me and you. And who says we cannot make them happen again?
Thursday morning
I have just 'phoned Stanley. He says things are going very slowly and that nothing is settled yet so there is no reason why you should not go to Cecily, if you want to. You did not say when you thought of going but I suppose it would be soon and not for longer than a couple of weeks. Only please do not go if it is going to mean a lot of work for you. I should think Cecily can afford to get some help now. However, you do whatever you think best.
I am forwarding a bill from D. Jones. It is only for a couple of quid and I think it can wait awhile, don't you?
Looking forward to a letter from you. I will write again on Saturday. Love to you and Julian.
Clifford
On the 6th August, Clifford's best friend, Bill ( W S Meadmore) wrote the following letter to Marion. At this time, Bill was living at 90 South Hill Park, Hampstead, London, N W 3. In an effort to save paper, he dispensed with paragraphs.
6 August, 1940
My dear Marion,
It was very odd that I should have a letter from you by the afternoon post as I had been thinking a lot about you the last few days and I was going to write to you tonight anyhow. It is a long time since I have had a letter which gave me so very much pleasure. Far from you taking a liberty in suggesting that I should be Julian's godfather, it is a compliment of which I'm very proud. Actually you could not have chosen a better person, whatever I am as a writer there is no doubt that I am a genius as a godfather. For example, there is Allen. Never once have I bothered him about his catechism but I have taken a great interest in his moral education and I could tell you a lot as to the good results I have achieved did I not fear that other and less understanding eyes than yours might read this letter. My one real regret is that I am disbarred from being present at the ceremony, such an occasion does seem to call for a binge, but there you are, it can't be helped, but all the same it is a great peg to hang a party on in the future, and I shall not let you forget that Julian's christening has not been properly celebrated. It seems to me that when we are all together again (so to speak! - you know what I mean) that we must never forget that we didn't have a party for the christening and we must make up for this with a series, say one a week, until his 21st birthday party. Clifford tells me that you are going into Devon but I could not quite understand why, he said something about having a baby by Cecily's husband, but I couldn't credit such unfaithfulness to myself. Young Geoff was here this afternoon, he says the house is more like a Russian play than ever, that is because all my family are back again, and no room is sacred from them. Dumps is very well and glad indeed to have got back safely from the front line trenches to the peace of London. She sends her love and like me hopes that we shall see you in the near future. I am slowly recovering from the nefarious attempt on my life while I was in Dorset - curse the typewriter, it keeps running off the paper. But I quickly tire and get a headache which isn't a headache most of the day but wears me out. Yes, I've had sis weeks sick leave out of this business and if I know anything (and I know the doctor) shall have a t least another month. I saw Clifford on Tuesday. He's very well but naturally tries to do too much on his "off" days and he complained of feeling tired. I told him he's get a second wind in a weak or so. All my family are bursting with life and energy but I keep out of their way! It is a terrible pity we missed each other when I was at Shaftsbury, I didn't come home until the following Saturday, I would have got in touch with you again but thought you were going home on the Thursday. When Cliff met me I was surprised when he said you weren't home and the arrangements had been altered. Saving paper and helping thus to do my share towards winning the war and not leaving two spaces and starting and starting a fresh line although this is a fresh paragraph, you are right. London is packed. I think everybody is spending their holidays in the only safe place in Great Britain. How they got the money is a mystery, everything is terribly expensive and I've never been so hard up in my life. That's a lie - I've been much worse, but before there have always been prospects and something has always turned up. Now it's only the bills which turn up. Cliff is painting better than ever. On the whole, he's fairly cheerful and is taking a strange interest in his job. He boasts to me of his physical prowess on the parade ground and of his ability to do nine different bandages, and I think he has rather a contempt for me these days that I am doing nothing towards winning the great war to make England a worse place than ever. But I won the last war and I vowed then to have nothing more to do with fighting. In fact, as far as this war is concerned, I ape the ostrich, bury my head in my own interests and ignore the wireless and press. I expect the Cliff told you that Leigh Henry has been arrested, the poor devil has been sent to Liverpool prison. I had a letter from him, he says he spends 22 hours of the 24 in his cell, not allowed to do any creative work in the way of music or writing and practically confined to reading. What a life! It's nearly post time so I must finish this letter, but I am very glad that I am to be Julian's godfather. I would like you very much to send me a photograph of my godson so that I can negligently pull it out of my pocket when I am talking to friends and they will say: What is that? Surely that lovely baby is not one of your children, and I shall carelessly say: Oh, no, that is my godson, his mother you know is that terribly good-looking girl who married Clifford Hall. And if I am asked why I was so honoured I shall just crush them with a look and say: Oh, I was just asked you know, old friend of the family so to speak.
But I shall certainly drink to Julian's health on Saturday everning.
Love from
Bill
It is interesting that Bill writes about Leigh Vaughan-Henry here with some degree of sympathy. Especially considering that Marion was Jewish. However, it should be born in mind that at the time Vaughan-Henry had a considerable reputation in the world of music and poetry. Bill probably knew Vaughan-Henry through his work, writing articles for Gramophone magazine.
In April 1940 Leigh Henry was fined and bound over to keep the peace for six months. The charge was "using insulting words whereby a breach of the peace was likely" and the words in question were "disgusting and unbridled language against the Jews". He was described at the time as being "rabidly pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic". Source: Spartacus Educational.com
She seemed to me like a painted idol, yet intensely alive. - Portrait of Francine, 1940, by Clifford Hall.
Bill Meadmore and his family standing on the steps of their home in Hampstead in August 1940, just a few days before the Germans started bombing London. Bill's wife was always known as "Dumps" to everyone, even her three children. Her real first name was possibly Dorothy, and her maiden name was Bartlett, although she had a stepfather called George Kelson. The three girls are Judy, Janet and Lisa. The house was destroyed as a result of the bombing, but the whole family survived the war.
Portrait of Bill (W S Meadmore) by Clifford Hall. Painted circa 1940, it is not known what has become of this painting.