The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (39 page)

When my husband asked me how I would feel about going, I assured him that if he thought it might be helpful I should be delighted to go. Knowing that the North African invasion was coming off soon, he said that in addition to observing the work of the British women he wanted me to visit our servicemen and take them a message from him.

The trip to Great Britain seemed to offer me a chance to do something that might be useful. I asked Tommy if she would be willing to go with me, since I did not want to obligate her to make a trip that might entail some risk. She was entirely willing. I suppose the saving fact for all human beings at such times is that they never think anything is going to happen to them until it actually happens.

Before I left the United States, Harry Hopkins had told me not to pay too much attention to our ambassador, Mr. Winant, but to be sure to consult Averell Harriman on everything. I had known Mr. Winant for a long time and I had great respect and admiration for him, as did my husband. I made no answer to Harry’s suggestion except to say that I had known Averell Harriman since he was a small boy because he had been an intimate friend and schoolmate of my brother’s, so I certainly hoped to see him in London. I firmly determined, however, that I would consult Gilbert Winant and take his advice. I was sure that Averell Harriman would not have agreed with Harry, because he knew what a wonderful reputation Mr. Winant enjoyed with the British officials.

After Mr. Winant met us I was relieved of many anxieties. On the train we went over the proposed itinerary. I thought it was a bit strenuous, but later it was expanded to include much that I had never dreamed of doing. The itinerary had been gone over by the Queen and by Lady Reading, who was to take charge of me during a part of the visit. Mr. Winant would come for me the next morning; when we left the palace his apartment and maid would be at our disposal. I was not conscious of the need for protection, but both the prime minister and the ambassador felt I would be safer and have more privacy in his apartment than in a hotel.

I had been worried by the thought of having to visit Buckingham Palace, but I was determined to live each moment, aware of its special interest. Though certain situations might be unfamiliar and give me a feeling of inadequacy and of not knowing the proper way to behave, still I would do my best and not worry. Nevertheless, as we neared London I grew more and more nervous and wondered why on earth I had ever let myself be inveigled into coming on this trip.

Finally, we pulled into the station. The red carpet was unrolled and the stationmaster and the head guard on the train, both of them looking grand enough to be high officials of the government, told me that the moment to get off had arrived. There stood the King and Queen and all our high military officials. The only person in the whole group whom I felt I really knew was Stella Reading.

After the formal greetings, the King and Queen took me in their car, while Tommy was taken in hand by the lady in waiting and two gentlemen from the royal household, and we drove off to Buckingham Palace.

The King and Queen treated me with the greatest kindness. The feeling I had had about them during their visit to the United States, that they were simply a young and charming couple, who would have to undergo some very difficult experiences, began to come back to me, intensified by the realization that they now had been through these experiences and were anxious to tell me about them. In all my contacts with them I gained the greatest respect for both the King and the Queen. I did not always agree with the ideas expressed to me by the King on international subjects, but the fact that both of them were doing an extraordinarily outstanding job for their people in the most trying times stood out.

When we arrived at the palace they took me to my rooms, explaining that I could have only a small fire in my sitting room and one in the outer waiting room, and saying they hoped I would not be too cold. Through the windows they pointed out the shell holes. The windowpanes in my room had all been broken and replaced by wood and isinglas and one or two small panes of glass. Later the Queen showed me where a bomb had dropped right through the King’s rooms, destroying both his rooms and hers. They explained the various layers of curtains which had to be kept closed when the lights were on; informed me that there would be a messenger outside my door to take me to the drawing room at the proper hour for dinner, and then left me to my own devices.

Buckingham Palace seemed perfectly enormous to me. The suite I had was so huge that when Elliott saw it he said that after this I would have to take the long corridor at the White House for my bedroom, because the one I had would never again seem adequate. The wardrobes were wonderful, the kind one longs for at home, but the 55-pound limit on baggage made my few clothes look pathetic hanging in those wardrobes. I wondered what the maid thought when she unpacked them. One evening dress, two day dresses, one suit and a few blouses, one pair of day shoes and one pair of evening shoes comprised my wardrobe for a visit to Buckingham Palace! One of the newspaperwomen, for want of something better to write about, later reported that I had worn the soles of my one pair of shoes through. The head usher at the White House read the story and thoughtfully sent me another pair.

Everything in Great Britain was done as one would expect it to be. The restrictions on heat and water and food were observed as carefully in the royal household as in any other home in England. There was a plainly marked black line in my bathtub above which I was not supposed to run the water. We were served on gold and silver plates, but our bread was the same kind of war bread every other family had to eat, and, except for the fact that occasionally game from one of the royal preserves appeared on the table, nothing was served in the way of food that was not served in any of the war canteens.

My visit to Great Britain was the beginning of a real friendship with Gil Winant. He was a shy person, but he had great intellectual integrity, a vivid imagination, which enabled him to understand situations that he had never experienced, and a sensitiveness to other people that enabled him to accomplish things many of his friends thought beyond his powers. He grew to love Great Britain and her people, and I think the statesmen who bore the brunt of the burdens during the war trusted and depended upon him.

I myself can never be grateful enough to him for the kindness with which he mapped out my trip and for the things he told me which helped me to carry out my task among the British people better than I might otherwise have done. He was a selfless person who gave little thought to his own comfort, but much thought to helping his friends. He made the time I spent in London both pleasant and comfortable. I shall always miss him, for he came to be one of the people that I looked forward to seeing from time to time. I cannot describe what it was he gave his friends. I do not even know that he considered me any more than an acquaintance, but I prized highly what he gave me; and I had a feeling that he shed light in dark places. He worked unceasingly in the hope of a better world for future generations.

With the King and Queen I had my first real look at the devastation—blocks upon blocks of rubble. Our first stop was at St. Paul’s Cathedral, partly because the King and Queen wanted to give the faithful watchers who had saved the cathedral the satisfaction of a visit from them and partly so that I could stand on the steps and see what modern warfare could do to a great city.

I spent a weekend at Chequers, the country estate given by Lord Lee to the British government for the use of British prime ministers. There I watched Prime Minister Churchill playing a game on the floor with his grandson and noticed the extraordinary resemblance between the two. Mr. Churchill once remarked that his grandson didn’t look like him, he just looked like all babies.

Mrs. Churchill was attractive and charming. One felt that being in public life she had to assume a role and that the role was now part of her. She was careful not to voice any opinions publicly or to be associated with any political organizations. Over the years, my admiration and affection for her have grown. She has had no easy role to play in life, but she has played it with dignity and charm.

For security reasons I had to have a code name, and someone with a sense of humor—I suspected my husband—had decided that “Rover” was appropriate. A hypothetical organization called “Rover’s Rangers” had been organized by the young men at the United States embassy in London, with my husband as the “Starter.”

After lunch one day we were scheduled to visit Elliott’s unit at a place called Steeple Morden, but the chauffeur, who, for my protection, was a Scotland Yard man and not a regular driver, lost his way and we could not find the camp. No one who was asked would tell us how to get there—also for security reasons—so finally someone telephoned back to the United States embassy: “Rover has lost her pup” and asked for directions!

With Mrs. Churchill I went to visit a maternity hospital, and also to see how the women in the several branches of the military service were trained. During one of these visits, the air-raid warning sounded, but the girls went right on with what they were doing and paid no attention. I saw girls learning how to service every kind of truck and motorcar and to drive every type of vehicle; I even saw girls in gun crews, helping the men to load the guns. I visited factories in which women did every kind of work, and I visited one group of girls whose job it was to fly planes from one part of the country to another. Since it was unwise to keep a concentration of planes anywhere in Great Britain, these girls took over the plane when a pilot landed and flew it either to a place where it would be well camouflaged or to a repair shop.

At one time or another during this trip I visited Red Cross clubs of all types—our own American Red Cross, the British Red Cross, and St. John’s Guild. At that time Harvey Gibson, the dynamic head of the Red Cross in Europe, was expanding its facilities in a remarkable manner, and though I occasionally heard that this or that particular club was doing something that my informant considered detrimental to the morale of the men or women, on the whole I thought the Red Cross was doing, in its recreation program at least, an outstanding job.

During this visit to England I started the practice, which I continued on subsequent trips, of collecting from the boys to whom I talked the names and addresses of their families, so that I could write to them on my return to the United States. I had quite a collection before I was through.

I also made a tour of the camps where our servicemen were stationed and ended it by spending one night with Queen Mary at Badminton. This was something that Franklin had particularly wanted me to do because King George V and Queen Mary had been kind to his mother when she visited England. He thought of Queen Mary as in some ways rather like his mother, and therefore made a point of my seeing her.

Here again I had the same sense of strain that I had felt before visiting Buckingham Palace. I was told that we must arrive at six o’clock—not five minutes before or five after, but at six sharp. To my surprise, Queen Mary met me at the door and took me to her sitting room, the only small room in that house, as far as I could see, and one which had a good fire. After a talk, she took me to my room, which, though cold and barnlike, was furnished grandly with Chinese Chippendale furniture. She showed me where the bathroom and the w.c. were, and they were cold too.

Tommy’s room was as cold as mine. We dressed and went down to dinner, arriving in good time. At dinner I sat on the Queen’s left, the princess royal on her right, the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort, the young relatives who owned Badminton, at either end of the table. General Knox, who seemed to manage the household, Lord Hamilton, gentleman in waiting to the Queen, and a lady in waiting completed the party.

After dinner, which was not a hilarious meal and during which I made valiant efforts at conversation, we went into the drawing room and stood for fifteen minutes. Queen Mary looked regal and every inch a queen, with many ropes of pearls and many sparkling bracelets and rings. She wore a black velvet evening gown and an ermine jacket. Then she asked me to her sitting room and also asked the princess royal if she wished to accompany us. Tommy was left with the others and soon escaped. I looked in on her when I was politely dismissed to go to bed, and found her already in bed because it was the only way to keep warm. However, I really enjoyed my visit and had a great admiration and real affection for Queen Mary after that.

She gave me, to bring back to Franklin, a photograph of herself, fully dressed with hat, veil and gloves, sawing a dead limb off a tree, with one of her dispatch riders, a young Australian, at the other end of the saw. She told me to tell my husband that she cared as much about the conservation of trees as he did and was sending him this photograph to prove it. Nothing I brought him from that trip gave him more pleasure than the photograph and the message, and he always felt that Queen Mary was a grand person.

Under Stella Reading’s guidance I visited universities and innumerable factories, stayed on estates where the grounds were now being used for agricultural purposes and in country houses whose owners, now living in one small part of them, had turned them into nurseries for evacuated or wounded children. I saw the way the Women’s Voluntary Services had organized to perform innumerable duties, from moving into a town which had just been bombed and needed everything from food to laundry service, to looking after the billeting of workers who had been moved from one factory to another.

Our days usually began at eight o’clock and ended at midnight, but I was so interested that at the time I did not even realize how weary I was gradually becoming. We wrote the column every day at whatever time we could fit it in, and sometimes in rooms so cold that Tommy’s fingers would hardly work.

This was a nation at war, going through moments of great uncertainty and stress. But what I have often marveled at has been the people’s stanchness and their ability to carry on during the years after the war and to accept the drabness of their lives.