Churchill's Wizards (61 page)

‘Let thinks be thanks,' wrote Auden. Everyone in the team at Faber and Faber has been very kind. I am grateful to Julian Loose for nurturing and protecting the book, and to his assistant, Kate Murray Browne, who was always a tonic when gloom descended; to Jon Riley for provoking an extension of my original notion; and to Lucy Davey, Gavin Morris, Anne Owen, Anna Pallai, Paula Turner at Palindrome, proofreader Peter McAdie and indexer Alison Worthington for all their careful work.

The Tippexed and typed-over manuscript of my first book, twenty-two years ago, was thickened by literal ‘cut-and-paste'. There was no internet for civilians then – you researched in real libraries, posted letters and bought second-hand books in shops you actually visited. This new book, of course, also owes much to Abebooks, Google and Hotmail as well as other online resources like the
Oxfor
d
Dictionary of National Biography
, available through my borough library service in Brent. Older institutions I am grateful to include the British Broadcasting Corporation, the National Archives at Kew and the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth, all of whose staffs try to keep the flame of public service flickering. On the private side, it is always a pleasure to prowl the battleship decks of the London Library in St James's Square.

I started writing this book in one writers' retreat and added the final licks of paint in another. I am grateful to Mrs Drue Heinz and the Trustees of Haw-thornden Castle in Scotland for the Fellowship that allowed me to stay there in the spring of 2004, and to the Committee of the Fondation Ledig-Rowohlt in Lausanne, Switzerland for inviting me and my wife, in the summer of 2008, to stay at the Château de Lavigny, which once belonged to a great German publisher and his English wife. These places have been small heavens of cool green in a hot and thirsty terrain.

Among those I have talked to in the last four years I am grateful to the following for their help and encouragement: Julia Abel-Smith, Dr Paul Adamthwaite, Oliver Bernard, Anne Bingaman, Hardy Blechman, Jasper Bouverie, Malcolm Brown, Jimmy Burns, Anne Chisholm, Felix Delmer for trusting me with some of his father Sefton Delmer's papers and stories, Aaron Delwiche, Michael Diamond, Moris and Nina Farhi, Roger Fenby, Maggie Fergusson, Professor M. R. D. Foot, Harriett Gilbert, Henrietta Goodden, Professor Barbara Goodwin and her husband Michael Miller QC (my pal, who died before he could read this book), Stephen Gottlieb and Jane Dorner, Colin Grant, Dr Toby Haggith, Roger Hardy, Caroline Herbert, Susannah Herbert, Hesketh Prichard's grandchildren
(whose full names are in a tragically lost black Alwych notebook), Sally Higgin, Thaddeus Holt for his friendship and guidance (his own book,
The Deceivers
:
Allied Military Deception in the Second World War
, was a major resource), Richard Ingrams, Robert Irwin, the brilliant David Jones, P. J. Kavanagh, Dr Douglas Kerr of Hong Kong, Wesley Kerr, Dr Alan Knox, Julia Korner, Shen Litznaisky, Andrew Lycett, Andrew Lownie and Kate Macdonald for help with John Buchan, Hugh MacDougall for ‘jiggery-pokery' and Merlin's stone, Margaret Macmillan, Nicholas Mays, Glenn Mitchell for gallantly enduring a first draft, Caroline Moorehead, Ingo Niebel (
bruder im geist
), Bob O'Hara, Drs Andrew R. Parker and Robert Prys-Jones of the Natural History Museum, Hayden Peake, Lawrence Pollard, Timothy Prus, Tom Read, Michael Redley, Zina Rohan, John Ryle, Anthony Rudolf, Dan Shepherd, George Steer for his memories of Dudley Clarke and the loan of Kenyon Jones's autobiography, James Taylor, Claire Tomalin, Nigel West, the late Sir Charles Wheeler, Dr Andrew Whiten, Hugh Whistler, Caroline and Malcolm Winterburn, and Patrick Wright, the son of my old Shrewsbury Headmaster. Forgive me if I have forgotten your name here. Of course, all errors are my own: ‘Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance', as Dr Johnson explained.

Most of all I want to thank family. First, my dear siblings: Charles in Malvern, Sarah in Ipswich, Trina in Bury St Edmunds and my elder brother, John, for the long-term loan of Buchanalia and for our battlefield trips to France, to Crécy and Le Cateau, to Ypres and Dunkirk. I particularly wish to remember our late and always beloved great-aunt, Gwynneth Constance Stallard, an Englishwoman of the old school, who died in 2005 at the age of 103. Our grandfather, Colonel Geoffrey Page, was her only brother, and their ashes are scattered on the Ashdown Forest less than a mile away from the secret ‘Aspidistra' site. Since Winston Churchill was her hero, it felt apt to write some of
Churchill's Wizards
in her home, Gorse Cottage, where all our family found such happiness. I thank my lovely, witty daughter Rosa Rankin-Gee and, above all, her mother, my wife.

The author and the publisher are grateful to the following for use of copyright material. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of material quoted in the text. The publisher would welcome the opportunity to rectify any omissions brought to their attention:

Citation of King George V's personal diary (RA GV/PRIV/GVD/1917: 8 March) and the use of other material from the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle (RA PPTO/PP/WC/MAIN/NS/95) by the gracious permission of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Extracts from Sir Winston Churchill's letters, speeches and books, including
M
y
Early Life, Thoughts and Adventures, The World Crisis and The Second Worl
d
War
, are reproduced by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd, London on behalf of The Estate of Winston Churchill, © Winston S. Churchill.

Extracts from the
BBC Handbook 1941
are reproduced by permission of the BBC Written Archives, Caversham; from Oliver Bernard's
Cock Sparrow
, Oliver Bernard; from the writing of John Buchan, including
The Thirty-Nine Steps
,
Greenmantle, Mr Standfast, The Three Hostages, Nelson's History of the War
,
John Macnab and Memory-
hold-
the-Door
, by A. P. Watt Ltd on behalf of Jean, Lady Tweedsmuir, and the Executors of the Estate of Lord Tweedsmuir; from Sefton Delmer's autobiographies,
Trail Sinister
and
Black Boomerang
, by Felix Delmer; from Richard Dimbleby's description of Belsen, by Jonathan Dimbleby; from the journalism of Sir Philip Gibbs, by Martin Gibbs and Frances McElwaine; from A. P. Herbert, by A. P. Watt Ltd on behalf of the Executors of the Estate of Jocelyn Herbert, M. T. Perkins and Polly M. V. R. Perkins; from Aubrey Herbert's letters and
Mons,
Anzac and Kut
, by Claudia FitzHerbert; from the script of
Desert Victory
, written by James Lansdale Hodson, by the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum, London; from Ted Kavanagh's scripts for
ITMA
, by P. J. Kavanagh; from the letters of T. E. Lawrence, by the Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust; from
Gallipoli Memories
by Compton Mackenzie, by the Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of his Estate; from
The White Cliffs
, by Pollinger Limited and the Estate of Alice Duer Miller; from the works of George Orwell,
Animal
Farm
(Copyright © George Orwell, 1945),
Patriots and Revolutionaries
(Copyright © George Orwell),
Notes on the Way
(Copyright © George Orwell, 1940),
A Review of The Thirties
(Copyright © George Orwell),
The Lion and th
e
Unicorn
(Copyright © George Orwell, 1941), by Bill Hamilton as the Literary Executor of the Estate of the Late Sonia Brownell Orwell and Secker & Warburg Ltd; from Roland Penrose, by A. P. Watt Ltd on behalf of the Executors of the Estate of the late Sir Roland Penrose; from copyright material by J. B. Priestley, by Peters, Fraser and Dunlop (www.pfd.co. uk) on behalf of the Estate of J. B. Priestley; for Crown Copyright material on early camouflage, by the Royal Engineers' Library at Chatham; from ‘Joy-Riding at the Front', by the Society of Authors, on behalf of the Bernard Shaw Estate; material ©
The Times
1917 & 1939, by News International Syndication and Times Newspapers; from
The
Letters of Evelyn Waugh
© 1980, the Estate of Laura Waugh; from
Put Out Mor
e
Flags
by Evelyn Waugh (first published by Chapman & Hall 1942, published Penguin Books 1943, reprinted with a new Introduction Penguin Classics 2000), copyright 1942 by Evelyn Waugh, by Penguin Books Ltd; from
A Brush with Life
, by Camilla Wilkinson and the Norman Wilkinson Estate.