the same, break the long connect.ion of

friends with 13 Fitzroy Street. From 1 ,

tember, Rodrigo has taken the top-floor

iio which used to be Geoffrey's before

moved downstairs.

hung about and helped Geoffrey
ange for the gas fixtures to be..moved
. the telephone cut oil‘, things he had
dly "thought about, and then moved
oss the street to see Pasmore. He was
>pily installed in the studio, formerly
ican Grant’s, and presented a very
erent picture, asfree from agitation
:ould be. .
[e was peace-fully painting a very pretty
, in a wide. flat, lacy hat, sitting before
easel. This is a much better way to
rid one"s last day alive than Geoffrey
i found. I met Victor's friend once
arenin Bertorelli’s, and remember a
g argument about colour—chemically,
'sically and aesthetically analysed in
iters’ terms. We had just as lively a
rate on the international situation, but
h less disao-msyment.
Ve were  the best of spirits, she
ing, ‘1 great sofa with her absurd but
sly hat. and Victor and I lolling in chairs
ifortably about tables spread with
'1tS and brushes, in this great room
1 its splendid height and widely scat-
Ed furniture and litter of canvases and
zls. and the sunlight beaming in. Victor
it out to get tea and twopennyworth of
:er, and we washed cups in the bath
ing his absence. and then all sat down
ea with a workman who was painting
bedroom . . .

)ctober 1939. At five, I was in Piccadilly,

from there I walked to Mecklenburgh
are. It is the changes to notice, not the
its anyone would come to London to

which are the interest today: the
stitutes in the turnings off Bond Street
iding at the corners so much earlier,

usual pairs. now in broad daylight and -

r colours looking sadly raw; lacking the
ts, altogether sans volupté: the latticed
3* ~closely crisscrossed’ with pale
vh:— gummed paper, which give the
ets a faintly oriental look: I wondered
t it was that appealed and stirred my
iory, until I recalled the mashrabujeh
5airo. and there is that same suggestion
ecrecy and furtive excitement in the
2 windows here. Broadwick Street has
1 half rebuilt now; two large blocks in
. compromise. modern style have ended
ramshackle air of that quarter; Soho
ire, like the others, is dug into trenches;
Zharlotte Street. Schmidt’s restaurant
the German butcher's shop lower down
3 notices declaring they are British
s whose proprietors are ex-servicemen,
nis is blindeyed and I’o_:{giolis have 21
t-out shuttering,’ covering their whole
low space; Cons;izible’s house stands
iy save for the ;.zro:2nd floor, Ro_r;ers’s
15 are quite bare and open for anyone
alk into: in ':l‘.or‘t. everyone is retreating
‘. some it-;;r or other.

.'ep.‘cmbcr 7.‘)-ff). A raid warning w:

:....L A“  1. in n\.. turn. _,,,1

Q4Q1A~1:J ...._

the car, we could hear nothing of the
planes, nor see them, but we could calcu-
late very well their course from the direc-
tion of the upturned faces of the little
groups of men and women standing in the
village streets, by the roadside, or in knots
about cottage gates. It was odd driving
through this countryside which I know so
well. and having the impression that it had
suddenly become more thickly peopled. I
have never seen so many folk about on
these roads; nobody can have taken shelter,

but all had stepped outside to watch the!

planes. Mothers were holding up their
babies even at the garden fences to point
out the planes in the sky; we seemed to
be the only ones indifferent to what was
above.

Goudhurst Street was a wonderful sight.
The hill was crowded with folk. clusters
of hop—pickers and groups of soldiers, and

_on the terrace outside the pub at the
bottom seemed even fuller, the drinkers
jammed in the doorway and overflowing
into the paved triangle in front of the
house. It was a perfect Rowlandson village
for the day: more packed with flirting
girls and topers than you could imagine
anywhere but in his drawings.

, 11 October 1.940. Father had promisedt\o
come home this afternoon for me to begin‘

a portrait, and I had just finished stretching
the canvas, and was at lunch, when he

: Suddenly appeared, to tell us that there

had been a bomb in Burgate Street, half
an hour before. He had been attending a
patient and all his windows had blown in;
the patient was still waiting there. and he

 rushed across the road to catch the next
I bus to Canterbury. There was something

very touching in the thought of this con-
scientiousness and energy kept up after a
bad shock; I thought so as I watched him—
a frail little man—running across the road
to the bus. -

I said to Mother as we sat down again:
‘It is hard luck to be worried all the

1 time, with half his practice gone, and

_ then to be nearly bombed out twice in a

_; few weeks ’: and she burst into tears; and I

found it diillcult not to do so myself in
the curious emotion and relief of survival.
One feels saved oneself, as well as the
possible victim.

I went into Canterbury. There was a

"_ rope across the street and, beyond it, a

_ crowd of men in tin helmets, busy over a
;pile of wreckage in the roadway, grey,
 dusty beams and rubble; on one side, the
3 side of Father’s surgery, a huge gap where
{Williams the furrier’s proud new shop had
lstood, and‘Carver and Staniforths’ book-

gshop; both now heaps of spiky rubbish‘

‘,with men elambering over, prising up
lshards of timber, tossing them into the
istrcct with a clatter and a pull‘ of plaster
dust ~
I l3e_vond, the scarred side wall of
Stephensons, the tailors, and the stripped
:front and the jagged hole of the shop
,below: this side, the gap a torn upper floor
ehanging into the street and a comb or‘
rafters from the roof cocked above it. In

Tlll-I I.ISTl'I.\'l'IR 1 Jl7l.\'

town, where I was the first customer, \
I had bought my books and browsed
many unread, where, only yesterday, I
in to get Ilo-rz'zo'n; and in that pile,
Carver had been killed, Miss Stan
gravely injured, and there was not
a book to be seen.

' The furrier and his customers were
too; a woman who had been stepping
her car‘ on the opposite side of the
was killed, too; old lslr Dukes, the ‘
maker, dragged, covered with ruhbis
only bruised, from the ruin of his sh
people our familiars for years.

On the other side of the road, w
teashop where we lunched and tot
friends "to coffee, the Beazley’s G
where I held my watercolour shows,
three of my drawings for Jane we:
day in the window; the secondhand
shop; the pub at the corner of th
where Beazley slipped in for his
and I sometimes, too, with Tim Jord:
now with the fronts blown in and k"
awry, with. scars and cuts all
the clumps of tiles jolted loose ~
roofs. -

I was allowed past the rope whex
told my name and business; all F
windows had been blown in, the g1:
scattered everywhere about the IOC
floors and furniture, followed by cli
plaster chips, so that it looked like .
left by its owners and abandoned
years to wind and weather. Fath
restless and could think of nothing
so I started on to clearing up, SV
first everything on to the floor, :
the glass oil the carpets and takin

. out to the garden at the back to be

collecting the loose panes that mi;
fall from the windows; then men a]
to nail muslin and boards acra

_windows, we had a cup of tea sent

looked a little more calmly about

Father had to go to see an old
and, as we walked up to the garag
into a taxi, I saw Mr Beazley, of the

‘across the road, being helped alo

young man. His clothes were indes
creased and covered with white 6
pieces of wood and plaster, his I
flaccid. pale, like suet, and his eye
tiny, so pitifully weak and watery.
to be the very type of prosperous
stout, confident and comfortable bl

He had just been to take Miss
body to the mortuary. ‘I wish it i
me. I wish it had been me.’ he s
strange. whimpering little voice. a
it was all he had left in the world
had been his secretary in Paris.
panion for 30' years; once his in
always supposed.

It was a wonderful night: tl
almost full again. quite clear and
siren came clearly to us from Ca
After supper, FI‘.lllOl‘ and I v.'.':lf:o
wav up Briclge Hill, as we us'.iall_\‘
suddenly, heard two cluttering r
bombs between us 3. cl Canterbur
started to run home and I with hir
neither of us would have done ye
not for so distant a report. har