The Girl from Station X (41 page)

Meanwhile Natasha and Charlie Johnson had left Madrid for good, for him to take up the position of a counsellor in the Foreign Office. Natasha had asked Anne if my father wanted to stay on in
the navy because, if so, she would ‘have a word’ with Prince Philip.

I do not know if my parents took up Natasha’s offer and frankly it does not seem likely that Prince Philip would have wanted to use his influence to help a naval officer he did not know
personally. In any case, my father would not have liked using such influence. Either it was my parents’ joint decision for my father to retire or, more probably, the Admiralty had ultimately
decided it; after all, despite his ‘good war’ my father had not been promoted beyond commander. The Admiralty no doubt decided to let another officer have a turn at being naval
attaché.

It meant that we would definitely have to leave Spain that October of 1952.

On 6 February 1952, my father rang from work to say that George VI had died. Anne’s
legs shook
and she was
almost in tears.
Referring to
his having had to take over on his brother’s abdication, she wrote:
the king had sacrificed his health for his country and for all of us.

The American Embassy flew its flag at half-mast and my parents’ Spanish cook observed:
‘queria mucho al pueblo’
. She said she had seen the King on
newsreels, visiting the wounded, the sick and the poor. The aftermath went on for days; the English community were
suddenly all told to wear mourning – Lady Balfour has had to
order 18 veils to be made up in 24 hrs.

My mother was proud that over 4,000 signed the condolence book at the British Embassy, a number of them Spanish Communists who had been rescued by the Royal Navy during the Civil War.

She now seems settled happily into domestic life with me and Raymond, recording, on 4 March 1952,
Elisa came down and was very nice with the Infanta, who kissed her. The children are
sweet together and love each other.

Perhaps I
had
loved Raymond. My mother certainly thought so, or wanted to think so, although I had also declared
: ‘I will skin you, I will kill
you!’
However,
the next moment, she was kissing him all over his face and on his hands.

Now she described him, at three months, as
a dear smiling little thing.

On 9 March, she and Doreen took me to the mountains, where there was still snow on top. The car broke down – a frequent occurrence – and
Elisa was sweet and v good all
day talking ten to the dozen. She threw snowballs and ran all over the place, chattering all the time and pretending to be different people.

In April, my grandmother came and she and my mother took me to the Casa de Campo –
heavenly day, warm.
Anne was gay and happy during this time; writing of the
shepherds watching their flocks – boys of about fourteen, or old men with criss-cross sandals, a blanket round their shoulders like a cloak, of the sheep and goat bells sounding an Arabic
mournful note:

Spain, as I will always see it, consists of the silent shepherds, the sheep and the cowbells, the swaying cloaks of the Civil Guard, the storks in their nests on
the church towers, a procession of loaded donkeys silhouetted against the sky as they cross over an arched bridge and these great big gentle oxen as they draw the overloaded carts guided by the
stick which they have been taught to follow blindly. I must also not forget these great black plodding oxen as they draw the wooden ploughs slowly and methodically across the great Spanish
acres.

That summer of 1952, my mother arranged the first of two holidays to Comillas, a fishing village in the north of Spain, near Santander. We two children were sent ahead with Doreen and Nanny
Benny, then, after an absence of nearly three weeks, our parents arrived. At first my mother was overjoyed to see me – I had run to meet her and my father on their arrival – and pleased
that I had learned the Spanish for ‘butterfly’ and ‘flowers’.

However, a couple of days later she was in a rage, writing:
the children are the most awful water funks
, and then, after a Madame du Pavillon had brought her four
well-brought-up French children to tea:

Elisa was most unattractive, wouldn’t play, yelled and says ‘No’ to everything she is asked. I was very ashamed. She is v spoilt now and has no
manners at all. She is a little ‘softie’ too. This always seems to happen when we leave the nurses for some time. Raymond is better, but a Nanny’s darling too. Nanny is really
impossible, a bigoted old fool, hates all foreigners and spoils the children, besides being terribly possessive with them, which makes Elisa terrible with everyone else.

It did not seem to occur to my mother, who, after all, had been enjoying herself without us in the preceding three weeks on yet another motor trip round Spain, that Madame de Pavillon was
probably ‘hands-on’ with her children, disciplining them and monitoring their behaviour on a daily basis.

I had now almost reached Diary 6, the first ‘Spain’ diary I had discovered on its own long before the others turned up. The broken sentence that began Diary 6
– . . .
flowers that smelled exactly like heather honey
–
was, I now saw, the continuation of a description of yet another excursion my mother had made, on the
afternoon of 26 August, the day she had enjoyed taking me alone to the beach. She and the chauffeur had driven to a village called Barcena Mayor,

situated amongst chestnut trees and green meadows, with maize fields . . . a village out of this world in antiquity, with muddy lanes for streets and 12th century
houses, still lived in. A dear old man took us round. The village was full of bees and they keep them in hollowed tree trunks, with a slab of wood over the top and a small round hole for a
‘door’ near the bottom. There was a young priest (the Padre of the village) who we talked to. Mass is said in the church there once a day. This, of all the villages that I’ve seen
round here was a real look back to the past. In the fields nearby were growing some lovely pink mallow flowers . . .

Here, in Diary 6, was the continuation:
. . . that smelled exactly like heather honey.
Inside the light purple cover I read:
Anne Segrave. Prado de San Jose,
Comillas, Prov. Santander.

September 1st. This afternoon, Willy and I took Elisa blackberrying. She was thrilled and kept saying: ‘Elisa didn’t prick Elisa’s self this
time’ . . . In the evening, we all went down to the plaza in the village and watched some travelling singers.

My mother then went to buy a leaving present for Nanny Benny. After escorting us back to England, Nanny Benny would end her stint with us, and Doreen, who was having a break at home with her
parents, would be in charge.

On the morning of 9 September, my mother took me, Raymond and Nanny Benny to Santander, where our ship turned out not to be sailing till 6.30 p.m.

However we went on board in a launch, to find that people were still in the children’s cabin. Elisa was crying and was nervous but Raymond was delighted with
everything. I got them organised and Elisa thought she was ‘At England’ when she arrived on the boat and said: ‘Where’s Mr Tash?’ I said goodbye to Nanny and left them
and felt very sad . . .

We would not see our mother again for two months.

The next two weeks of the diary describe the winding down of my father’s job in Madrid and yet more road trips of my mother’s, one ending in Barcelona to join my father. My parents
stayed at the Barcelona Ritz and, on the morning of 15 September,

the fleet arrived . . . the ‘Glory’ (an a/c carrier), the Eddy Beach and Destroyers – Chequers, Chieftain and Chevron. It is the second visit to
Barcelona in 22 years! The Consul gave a cocktail party in the Ritz tonight. Not v. exciting as there were not nearly enough women. The admiral Cerverea came with one of his daughters (Paquita). I
got given Spanish gin and got rather tight. (Terribly ashamed.) I didn’t drink much
[my mother as usual made excuses]
but didn’t realise that it was Spanish gin
. . .

The following day, my mother, feeling very ill, lunched with Captain Charles Keyes on board the
Chequers
:
Keyes very amusing.

There was more sightseeing, more parties on board ships and a tour of the aircraft carrier,
The Glory
. My mother was fascinated by its flight deck and by the way it could carry thirty
aircraft. She noted each type of plane, how many bombs it could carry, and at what speed it could land on the carrier – she was back briefly to her old days in the WAAF. On 20 September, she
and my father went with the consul and his wife to see the fleet sail away.

On her return to the Ritz after sightseeing with the consul’s wife, my mother found my father and the consul
in an awful state.
A young sailor, supposedly
recovering from having his appendix out, had developed peritonitis and

wouldn’t live through the day. Willy rushed off to see him and I met Don Lorenzo Correa who was taking us out to lunch. Willy came back practically in tears
and we lunched with Don Lorenzo in a great hurry, then I suddenly thought that we must get hold of the best specialist in Barcelona on that ‘disease’ to see the boy, so we telephoned
all over the place and eventually got the consul to get permission from the head of the hospital for a civilian doctor to see the sailor. We then left in a terrible rush to catch the plane,
throwing the clothes in the suitcases but knowing at least that the doctor had been got hold of . . .

Two days later, they heard that the young sailor had died. The specialist had seen him, but could do nothing.

Although very sad, this, for me, was an inspiring incident, as it showed my parents united over something important, my father’s protectiveness for those under his care in the navy and my
mother displaying maturity, presence of mind and helpfulness.

Anne spent the next days emptying our rented house in Madrid. She was back to her ‘spoilt child’ mode and made an awful fuss about it. On 28 September, she moved to the Madrid Ritz
alone and my father went to Gibraltar on naval duties. On 6 October, she and my father met my father’s replacement, the new naval attaché. My mother took a dim view of the successors,
writing heartlessly that they had a dog and
a child with a broken thumb
, that no hotel would take their dog, and that he looks
like a
co-respondent
– did she mean journalist or a co-respondent in a divorce case? Then, when my mother asked the wife if she wanted to go and meet ‘the wives’ at a
knitting party – which I wouldn’t have thought was my mother’s cup of tea either – the wife
flatly refused!
My mother dubbed her
second
rate and affected and ‘antipatica’.

She and my father stayed on in Madrid until 1 November, receiving many presents and good wishes from their Spanish friends, whereupon they flew, not home to see me and Raymond, but to Paris,
where they met the British naval attaché there and his assistant, who had wanted to be posted to Madrid. My mother wrote that he would have been a much better choice! She was pregnant and
wrote she hoped that she would not have another miscarriage.

She enjoyed meeting my father’s French cousin, Robert de Nexon, but noted that she found Paris depressing, with a
kind of heavy sad atmosphere that it never had before the
war.
She does not mention her visit there in 1945, when she first spent the night with Joe Darling. She finally flew home to England with Julia the maid, while my father returned in
the car.

My mother reached Knowle in time to see us go to bed.
Elisa has grown and Raymond is enormous. Was thrilled to see them and no miscarriage so far!
Unfortunately, she
must have then had one, as Nicky was not born for another fourteen months.

N
ow, in 1953, with my father’s naval career over, there was a big change in my parents’ lives. However, as my mother kept to her habit
of only writing diaries when abroad, there is nothing regarding our life in North Heath, about which I have so many fond memories.

From the next diary entry five months later, it appears that my father was now being assimilated into a leisured existence. On 2 March 1953, she writes of them flying to the US, where, in New
York, they attended a business meeting at the family company. They saw Peggie and her new second husband, Etienne, then flew to Palm Beach to stay with Aunt Dita and Uncle Jay.
How
beautiful it all is, I had almost forgotten.

Anne very much enjoyed this Palm Beach holiday, swimming, playing tennis, shopping and going to cocktail parties. What my father thought about all this my mother does not say, though in one
entry she comments:
How dull this café society really is!
They returned to England on 22 March and arrived at Knowle to find me with a temperature.

I have a vivid memory of the three of them, my mother, father and grandmother, all coming down the small landing staircase at Knowle. I still have a bright postcard my mother had sent me from
Florida, of orange trees and a steam train.

The following day, my mother heard some exciting news. An article by her on Spain, commissioned by the
International Women’s News
, was considered
most
excellent
and
is to be published in the April or May issue.