You Never Know

An Autobiography

by Claire Lorrimer

Chapter 1

It was a cold February day when the nanny wheeled her small charge along the Brighton promenade. The little girl’s mother was pregnant with her third child and for once would be resting on her bed rather than sitting up at her desk typing one of her romantic novels.

The wind was fresh but despite the cold, the nurse stopped to listen to the bearded man standing on a box surrounded by a crowd of angry men. The orator was in full voice as he urged his audience to take note of the fact that they were being exploited by their government; that he – and he alone - was not a slave.
“Raise your hands if there is one among you poor downtrodden workers who can call himself free?” he shouted.
There was a murmur of agreement amongst the men whose mood was becoming dangerous. Suddenly a small voice piped up:
“I’m free!”
I had just had my third birthday and was proud of my advanced age.

The mood of the men changed instantly and laughter now rippled through the crowd as my nanny turned the pram round and hurried me home.
Obviously I don’t remember the incident but it was recalled in the family whenever the word ‘free’ came up in conversation.

On August 12th of that year, l924, my younger sister, Anne was born, my parents’ third child and – to my mother’s everlasting distress - the baby was yet another girl. Her first born, Eve, although not the son she had wanted, was nevertheless a remarkably pretty baby, blue-eyed, golden haired, like a little doll. I, on the other hand was not only the second girl but was scarlet-faced, bald and heavy enough to have caused my poor mother considerable discomfort when she brought me into the world on 1st February, her birthday, too.By the time Anne came along, my mother vowed to give up her hopes for a boy and devote herself to her career.

At that time, only six years after the end of the First World War, the country was in a severe economic depression. There were over six million unemployed and my father, a corn broker on the Baltic Exchange, was as a consequence, far from well off whereas my mother’s (Denise Robins) love stories were in great demand by D.C.Thompson of Dundee’s popular weekly magazines. A very deaf registrar had put my father’s occupation on my birth certificate as that of a pawnbroker - a subject of mirth in later years in the family – but which might have been far more economically beneficial in 1924 than his employment as a corn broker.

Although my father was far from happy about it, it was obvious that my mother’s financial contributions were much needed. As her literary career developed, she began writing novels and the family were soon able to move from the tiny flat in Adelaide Crescent in Hove to a small county cottage in Haywards Heath from whence my father commuted each day on the steam train to London.

At the time of Anne’s birth my parents’ wartime marriage, which had begun so romantically, was already proving less than idyllic. My mother, a young very pretty V.A.D. (women’s Voluntary Aid Detachment), had nursed my father who was convalescing following a severe leg wound. Fair haired, blue eyed, handsome and extremely courageous, he epitomized the romantic hero of her dreams. He was, however, not only very young and inexperienced but shy, reserved, in many respects inarticulate and although he loved her devotedly until the day he died, he could not offer her the somewhat unrealistic demonstrative adoration she craved and brought to life in the fictitious heroes of her novels.

In those early years, she was still loving towards him and one of the nicest of her gestures which I learned about many years later, was in the Depression when they were so hard up, my father was obliged to pawn his treasured pair of Purdey guns in order to pay the bills. Receiving a handsome cheque for one of her magazine serials, she went secretly to the pawnshop and redeemed them for him as an unexpected birthday present.

Eve, not quite two years older than me, was a shy, rather timid child, who, when she could not be close to the mother she adored, tended to look to me for assurance as, right or wrong, I was never in doubt as to what I wanted to do. She was a remarkably pretty little girl, having been a pretty baby she was now a lovely little girl, essentially very feminine and even then as a presage of things to come, attracting admiring glances from the opposite sex. My mother loved to dress us in pretty clothes, nearly all of which enhanced Eve’s charm whilst emphasizing my short sturdy frame and tomboyish demeanour. Shopping with our mother for new clothes was always a nightmare for me, knowing that whilst Eve would look lovely in her dresses I would look untidy and plain. Had I but been born two generations later, I would have been in seventh heaven in a pair of torn-at-the knee jeans!

By the time we moved to Haywards Heath, we had a governess to look after us as my mother was busy most of the day in the special hut she’d had built in the garden to use as her study. Her first novel, ‘Sealed Lips’, was published by Mills and Boon, to be followed shortly after by ‘The Marriage Bond’, ‘The Inevitable End’, and others, all of which were hugely popular. Towards the end of her long, successful career, she told me that Charles Boon had fallen in love with her – not surprising as she was a very beautiful young woman with perfect bone structure, expressive green eyes and chestnut brown hair. She was quite often likened to the film actress, Marlene Dietrich. Too strictly brought up by her Catholic convent to contemplate an affair with the publisher, they did enjoy a flirtation and it was really he who started her meteoric rise to fame.

She was rapidly becoming a household name. In l927, the actor, composer and playwright, Ivor Novello, welcomed her suggestion that she should turn his latest successful play, ‘The Triumph of a Rat’, into a novel. This was published in 1927 and Ivor wrote to congratulate her and thanked her for writing it.

By then I was six years old. Having had a lonely and unhappy early childhood, our mother had found security and happiness as well as receiving an excellent education from the convent in Norwood where she was a boarder. Thinking that Eve and I would be equally happy in a similar environment, she dispatched us to a nearby convent run by a closed order of nuns. Even the reception room where parents handed over their offspring was partitioned off with a grill through which the nun would communicate; and parcels were placed in a revolving cupboard so that she would not have to touch the hand of a male parent.

My memories of the year I spent there remain very acute. There was a large bathroom in which several baths stood in line. We were each given a voluminous rubber cape beneath which we undressed and, still wearing it, climbed into the bath where our ablutions were supervised by a nun. I don’t recall how we managed to dry ourselves under the sodden cape which, wet, cold and clammy, clung to our bodies.

I had a vivid imagination and a tendency to take everything I was told very literally. The story of the crucifixion and the mental picture of the horrifying walk Jesus took with the crown of thorns round his head and the heavy cross on his shoulders, kept me awake at night. It worried me to death that I could not go to confession as the Catholic girls did every Friday and have my ever-growing mountain of sins forgiven me. Even more worrying was the story I was told of babies who, because they died unbaptised, could never go to Heaven. A kindly nun consoled me with the news that if I repeated the names of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, a baby would be able to leave Limbo and go to Heaven. From then on (until I suppose I forgot) I spent every spare minute muttering a shortened version of the heavenly names – i.e. Jes-May-Jo, comforting myself with the mental imagine of little round, pink babies floating skywards into the arms of the Virgin Mary whose pretty statues placed all over the convent, compensated slightly for the body of Jesus dripping blood that also dominated the convent rooms, school rooms and corridors.

I do not recall anyone being unkind. We slept in dormitories with each bed partitioned off from the next; presumably yet again to keep us from seeing each other’s bodies. I never questioned the oddity of this, nor why my parents should have been asked to remove me (for polluting the minds of the Catholic children) when I was caught doing the dance of Hiawatha with only a towel round my waist and my six-year old chest exposed to my giggling audience. Eve told me that her friend, Angela, had been expelled when she was in the sanatorium with chicken pox and was caught trying to see in the mirror the spots on her bottom. I was, however, reprieved and was determined to be less sinful in the future.

I don’t recall being particularly unhappy at the convent although I was often afraid. However, one bitter memory returns even these long years after, of a beautiful doll, which was to be given to the girl who best remembered the lengthy catechism we had just been taught. Having a good memory, I answered most questions right. However, the doll was not to be mine because, so I was told, it was intended for a Catholic not a Protestant child.

I did think it very unfair (and still do!) but I did not mind all that much as I wasn’t into dolls – I preferred stuffed animals and my teddy bear.

Eve, unlike me, was hardworking, obedient and although homesick, had settled down philosophically to boarding school life. When we went home for the holidays, she preferred my mother’s company to mine and as Anne was still too young to be a playmate, I wished fervently for a brother. Meanwhile, my cousin, Buzz, a year old than me, was a substitute. When he visited us, I followed him round like a puppy. I envied him the fact that he wore shorts, not tiresome skirts and dresses which I always seemed to get torn or dirty; and most of all I envied him the snake belt which kept his shorts up! To possess either, I realized, one had to be a boy, not a girl.

The possibility of this radical sex change was presented to me during my second term at the Convent. With sufficient faith, anything can be achieved, a kindly nun told me. Did I truly believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost? I wasn’t too keen on the Holy Ghost and secretly hoped never to meet him. However, I did believe in his existence as well as that of God the Father and Son and now in my prayers, begged all three to change me as soon as possible into a boy.

Having no brothers, I was unaware of the difference between males and females but as I woke each morning without short hair, shorts and a snake belt on my bedside chair instead of my uniform dress, I realized that no miracle had occurred in the night. In due course, I reported this tragedy to my sympathetic nun.
“God must have other plans for you, child!” she said. Naturally I wanted to know what plans she thought God had in mind.
“He may wish you to become a nurse,” she volunteered. “Or a missionary, or…” she added with inspiration “…he may wish you to become a nun like me.”
“But how will I know whether he does or doesn’t?” I persisted.
“You will hear His voice calling you to take Holy Orders,” she replied.
This struck me instantly as being a very desirable occupation. The nuns could order any of us to do whatever they wanted and we had to obey. If I was a nun…

I decided to waste no time in trying to achieve my objective, I must now listen at all times whenever possible in case I missed The Call. In class I sat as near to a window as I could so I could hear God’s voice, which, I reckoned, would be pretty faint anyway coming all the way down from Heaven. I stopped talking to people except when I was obliged to speak in lessons; I stopped people talking to me. The only person who benefited from this was my sister, Eve, who was fed up being pestered by me with questions.

I was still listening intently when we went home for the holidays. I opened the windows in any room I was in so I could better hear The Call. It was a very short time before my father, a staunch Protestant, asked if his middle daughter was heading for the lunatic asylum, which happened to be a mile or so down the road. This brought about a speedy end to Eve’s and my life at the convent and we were sent instead as day girls to the P.N.E.U (Parents National Education Union) school in Burgess Hill. Here my desire to be included in the hockey team supplanted any idea I might have had to be a nun although I did still crave a snake belt. (Memory of this featured in one of the short stories in ‘Variations’, a book I had published in l988, and which is still being read in the libraries today).

During the year Eve and I were at the convent, life in the outside world moved on. In l927, a thousand people a week died in the flu epidemic. Poverty was rife as a consequence of the General Strike the preceding year. Women were now permitted to vote at the age of twenty-one instead of thirty and l928 saw the introduction of one pound and ten shilling paper notes – not that Eve or I were aware of such things. We were very vaguely aware of the Wall Street crash in l929 and of the two million unemployed only because at Christmas we were asked to select a number of our toys to go to the children of these poor people. I am ashamed to say I bitterly resented being made to part with my favourite teddy bear – a particularly large one – demanding an explanation as to why I was not old enough to stay up as late as Eve but too old to keep the toy I wanted. ‘It’s not fair!’ was a frequent cry in my childhood.

My mother was now writing her fourteenth book and was beginning to know a number of people important in the literary world. At the age of thirty-two she was a remarkably pretty woman whose frustrated ambition to become an actress now assisted her publishers’ wish to give maximum publicity to her books. She was in demand by magazines for stories by newspapers for articles; and for personal appearances at fêtes, luncheons and charity events. She acquired a flat in London in Whitehall Court where she could socialise without having to commute to our country house. My father who was still suffering the effects of the serious leg wound he had incurred in the war, preferred a quiet, country life, gardening, shooting and training his gun dogs, to my mother’s social whirl. He was a very reserved man who got on better with his dogs than with people.
Being something of a tomboy, I think I was in some ways compensation for the son he never had. It was I, not either of my sisters, who creosoted the garden shed with him; shinned up the apple tree; hammered in nails, or sawed wood. Doubtless he was also trying in his quiet way to make up for the fact that Eve was unquestionably my mother’s favourite. Not only was Eve very pretty, but also because she was always happy to fall in with my mother’s wishes whatever they might be, as well as keeping her pretty dresses clean and presentable, the preference was understandable. Moreover, Eve never argued.

My relationship with my mother was extremely difficult. She was given to fantasizing and, indeed, her novels were pure escapism, so my constant questioning was obviously an irritant. ‘But yesterday you said we could stay up for supper with you and Daddy!’ ‘But you said you’d take us to the seaside tomorrow!’ And so on. I had a prodigious memory for conversations and although I knew arguments would always end in my being sent to my room and having to apologize, I would only apologize for upsetting my mother, not for the point I had been trying to make. ‘It’s not fair!’ was much in evidence.

Despite my jealousy of Eve’s relationship with my mother, I did not in anyway blame my sister. She was invariably patient with me and often succumbed to my pleas to go out and build a house or play games despite having no wish to do so! My younger sister, Anne, now became my constant companion. Three years younger than myself, she was a pale, skinny little girl, blonde, blue-eyed like Eve and pretty, but was even less in favour with our mother than was I! Not only had she been the third disappointing girl but she was a natural mimic and had many of my father’s mannerisms. I often felt that she was being reproached or punished unjustifiably and in my haste to defend her, would bring my mother’s disapproval once more upon myself. I spent many a long hour confined to my bedroom for not minding my own business!

My determination to see Fair Play at all costs meant quite high costs for me but nevertheless did earn me my little sister’s adoration. At the age of five, she was old enough to comply with my eight year-old plans for our mutual amusement. We both loved animals and spent time with our pets. When we were required to stay indoors to be introduced to a visitor – this meant sitting quietly on the sofa and speaking only when spoken to – I would make up stories about a tiny family who lived behind the cushion – (pre-empting ‘The Borrowers’?) using a squeaky voice to pretend they were real. The fact that she believed in these little people unreservedly, added to my own enjoyment. Neither of us was much interested in my mother’s erudite friends.

One most frequent visitor was the playwright, Roland Pertwee, who my parents had met five years earlier when we lived in Hove. He wrote a play using much of the plot of my mother’s novel ‘Heat Wave’ which had run in the West End with excellent reviews. My mother adored him but he was not in the least interested in us children or we in him! Nevertheless we liked his two sons, Michael (later to become a playwright himself) and Jon who became an actor, best remembered as one of the Dr. Who’s and Worzel Gummidge.

Jon, as much the black sheep of his family as I was of mine, was given to showing off and once, trying to be clever, pushed me off a punt in the boathouse intending to perform a daring rescue by pulling me out of the water and saving me from drowning. As I fell between two boats which closed together after I had fallen in, I nearly did drown. However, I bore him no grudge as I felt sorry for him. He so desperately wanted to be noticed, but his father Roland had no intention of moving from centre stage, so like me, Jon was always in trouble. We also liked Coby, Roland’s stepson who was as quiet as Jon was vociferous, a studious, gentle, smiling little boy who ultimately became a professor of Tropical Medicine in Edinburgh.

Herbert Marshall, Edna Best, Ronnie Shiver, Val Geilgud, George Sanders, Jack Hobbs the cricketer, Jack Strachey (who wrote ‘These Foolish Things’ and always played and sang the song on my mother’s Blüthner piano when he visited), were all famous in those days and among the weekend visitors to the house my parents had bought by the lake at Slaugham, in Sussex. At one end of the long drawing room, Roland and my mother put on many amateur dramatic shows in which we children had little interest. Their fame meant nothing to us but the fact that they were ‘important’ visitors meant a tiresome change into pretty dresses, clean socks, clean fingernails, best behaviour and an hour or so of boredom whilst they talked about themselves.

I have to admit that I did welcome Jack Strachey’s visits. He had a lovely singing voice and I decided it would be nice to marry him when I grew up so he could play the piano and sing to me every day. However, being aware one could not have two husbands, let alone three, Jack came third in line, my cousin Buzz being second and the man who came to service or repair our gramophone-cum-wireless set coming first. He had a test record of ‘I want to be Happy’ and deeply in love with him as I was, I could listen to it with him however many times he had to play it before the gramophone worked to his satisfaction. I think that record drove my mother mad!

I think my father must have been as bored as we children were during these weekend parties, although he was always an excellent host. He owned his own shoot beneath the South Downs which he enjoyed and shared with his friends.

We now had a new governess, a young girl called Joan Ashworth who remained with us until after the start of World War ll. I think it would be true to say she was more of a mother to Anne who adored her. I liked her as she was sympathetic when I was in one of my tearful bouts following yet another violent blow up with my mother. Retrospectively, I have realized several things. First, that parents in those days did not psychoanalyze their children as they do today! Children were well behaved or naughty and I came into the latter category, not so much to gain my mother’s attention but because all too often I had one of my ‘Good Ideas’ which invariably ended in trouble for me.

An example of a perfectly well-intended idea which went wrong was as follows: It happened one day when Joan had taken Eve to the dentist in Brighton and my parents were out as well, that Anne and I were left to our own devices,with only the servants to supervise us. So Anne and I had the run of the house since those who were not on duty were in the kitchen. We had recently been given a toy telephone that worked off a 6-volt torch battery. Having set this up in the nursery and with each of us standing in adjoining rooms, it quickly became apparent that we could hear each other just as easily without the telephone receivers. What we needed, I said, was more electricity so that we could be in rooms much further apart: but how to get more electricity? I had a Good Idea. We had a generator (mains supply was not yet available locally) which for some obscure reason I knew provided 220 volts. All we had to do to get about forty times more volume, I told my sister, was pull the wires out of the 6-volt torch battery and stick them in the wall socket.

Anne wasn’t keen on the idea sensing trouble, but I chose not to heed her warning. Bang! The lights went out, the room filled with acrid, evil smelling smoke, there were shouts from the kitchen where the cook and parlourmaid had been enjoying a quiet cup of tea and I was in Trouble, with a capital T – even more so when my parents returned and subsequently received a hefty bill for major repairs to the generator.

Another such good idea involved a catapulted flight. One of the big beech trees in the nearby spinney had long branches sweeping down to the ground. It was a good tree to climb but once climbed, it lost its allure. Studying it on one occasion, I realized that if I grasped the pliable end of a branch, held on to it as I climbed part way up the tree, the branch doubled backwards would be under great tension. If I then jumped off the tree, the branch would swing upwards and outwards and my weight would bring it and me safely down to earth. I jumped and it did – but not safely. I was catapulted skywards so violently I lost my hold on the branch and fell heavily to the ground. I came to with metal clamps in my head behind my ear and a severe telling off for leading not only myself but also my sisters into such danger.

I think it was about then that my mother decided it would be better if my Good Ideas were used as story plots rather than as games for my sisters and me to enjoy. She gave me an old portable typewriter and suggested that I might follow her example and become an author. Realizing this would raise me in her estimation as well as being something Eve could not do, as she wasn’t given to Good Ideas, I immediately set to work.
I think that was probably the start of my writing career.

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