1. A Vicarage In The Blitz
A Vicarage in the Blitz, The Wartime Letters of Molly Rich 1940 – 1944 describes the effect of the war on daily life in Chiswick.
Molly Rich was the vicar’s wife at St Nicholas Church on Chiswick Mall, and the book is beautifully illustrated by her daughter, the artist Anthea Craigmyle. An image from the book appears on the mural at Turnham Green tube station, The Chiswick Timeline: A History in Art and Maps.
“The letters were written to Otto, a 20-year-old refugee from Vienna who came to live with us at Chiswick Vicarage early in 1939 and quickly became part of the family,” writes Anthea in the introduction. “Fourteen months later, as Hitler invaded Europe, Otto was arrested as an Enemy Alien and sent to internment camps in England and then Australia. Otto was considered a fifth child by our mother, who wrote to him throughout the war
“She described the life of an ordinary family living in a part of London that suffered badly during the Blitz. While trying to keep the household clean and clothed and doing a great deal of parish work, our mother dug the lawn to grow vegetables, created an air-raid shelter in the cellar and helped the Women’s Voluntary Service and the Mothers’ Union, often after a long night of fire-watching. She managed all the cooking with wartime rations and did the shopping on an old racing bike.”
Copies of the book, signed by Anthea, were on sale at the exhibition, with some of her original sketches. You can read an interview with Anthea which was published on chiswickw4.com in 2013 when the book was launched.
The book is on sale at Fosters Bookshop in Chiswick High Road.
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2. Exhibition: Chiswick, the Blitz and the V2
In September 2015, to mark the 75th anniversary of the Blitz, the Chiswick Book Festival staged a panel talk at Chiswick House, ‘Books and the Blitz’, and an exhibition, ‘Chiswick, the Blitz and the V2’. A Vicarage In The Blitz was featured in the exhibition, which was compiled by James Wisdom and Val Bott of the Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society, with the help of the Local Studies department at Chiswick Library.
In November 2019, St Michael & All Angels Church displayed the exhibition again as part of its Remembrance commemorations, marking 80 years since the start of WWII and 75 years since the V1 that hit Bath Road and the first V2 which landed on Staveley Road.
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3. Ralph Miliband in Chiswick during the Blitz
Ralph Miliband, the Marxist sociologist (and father of the Labour politicians David and Ed Miliband), settled in Chiswick at the age of 16 in May 1940 after escaping from Belgium with his father Sam on the last boat to leave before the arrival of the Nazis. They made their living by clearing furniture from bombed Chiswick houses during the Blitz:
“When London began being bombed in the autumn, we [i.e., Ralph and his father – L.P.] took up work, namely removing furniture from bombed houses, an arduous business which was made a lot easier by the fact that the man who led the team of five or six removers and who drove the lorry (all English except us) believed in doing the very minimum possible and would park the lorry off Chiswick High Street as often after lunch as he could, and would lead us all to the cinema, the Hammersmith Gaumont/Commodore for the afternoon, or otherwise pass the time, for instance in expeditions to Kew Gardens. However, the work, when we worked, was hard; and we found out about middle class meanness and snobbery, and kindness; and I found out about the curious combination of kindness, cunning, ignorance, feigned servility and subordination, actual contempt which this particular part of the unskilled working class had for their masters.”
See also: Arthur Sanderson and Chiswick Library
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4. Field Marshal Lord Montgomery honoured in Chiswick
In July 1945, just weeks after the end of World War 2, one of the architects of the Allies’ victory, Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, was honoured with the Freedom of the Borough of Brentford and Chiswick. The ceremony took place at the Chiswick Empire theatre and was filmed by Pathe News: ‘Honour for Monty’ – clips online. They show him driving through cheering crowds in Chiswick in the open landau in which General Eisenhower had recently driven through London.
He is also seen speaking at the ceremony: “Mr Mayor, ladies and gentlemen. I have come here today from Germany, from Berlin, to accept this high honour which you have conferred on me, and I would like to say that it is a very great pleasure for me to come here… The war in Europe is now happily over and war in the Pacific will be pressed relentlessly to its absolutely certain conclusion…” Six months later he became Viscount Montgomery of Alamein.
‘Chiswick’s favourite son’ – as the Pathe News report calls him – grew up in Bolton Road from the age of 13, going to St Paul’s School. In 1927 he was married to a widow, Mrs Betty Carver, an artist who lived on Chiswick Mall. The ceremony took place in her parish church, St Nicholas in Church Street W4 – where Molly Rich was later the vicar’s wife (see section 1 above).
Read more: Field Marshall Lord Montgomery – Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society
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5. Pat Davies receives France’s highest honour
“A Chiswick woman received the Légion d’Honneur, the highest French order of merit today for her work during the Second World War” – The Chiswick Calendar, 2019.
Pat Davies was one of the ‘Bletchley Girls’, working at listening stations around the coast, eavesdropping on German naval radio transmissions and relaying the content to the code breakers at Bletchley Park.
“It was interesting work – exciting and serious in equal measure. We didn’t know the significance of the messages we passed on, but we knew the work we were doing was important” says Pat Davies (then Patricia Owtram).
See full story on The Chiswick Calendar
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6. Lotte’s War
The late Lotte Moore wanted to tell as many primary school children as possible about her experience as a child during the Second World War and the bravery and sacrifice of the wartime generation. Her book ‘Lotte’s War’ was first published in 2016 and has been adapted as a theatre production. She appeared at some 80 primary schools reading from the book and making a presentation with her husband Chris on what life was like as a child during the war.
Lotte was the granddaughter of writer and politician A.P. Herbert, a friend of Winston Churchill’s, and was used to parties and dinners with famous people from childhood. Sitting in the spacious living room of her Georgian house on Hammersmith Terrace looking out at the river, she recalls Boat Race parties and a swimming party at Chartwell with Winston Churchill as an old man floating in the pool. Read the full story on The Chiswick Calendar below.
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Chiswick Timeline Writers Trail
Read more stories via the Writers Tales page.
The Chiswick Timeline of Writers & Books lists almost 500 writers who have written a book and lived in Chiswick W4, or written books about the area. See A Quick Guide.