Laurie
Lee
was
born in Slad, Gloucestershire, in 1914. Educated locally he worked
for several years as an office clerk before moving to London
where he found employment as a builder's labourer.
Lee travelled in Europe
(1935-39) and in December 1937 joined the International
Brigades to fight in the the Spanish Civil
War. After having a medical he was declared to be "physically
weak" and it was decided to send him home.
In the Second
World War he made documentary films for the General Post Office
(1939-40), Crown Film Unit (1941-43) and the Ministry of Information
(1944-46). It was during this period that he published his first volume
of poems, The Sun My Monument
(1944). This was followed by The Bloom of
Candles (1947) and My Many Coated
Man (1955). His book, A Rose For
Winter (1955) describes his travels in Spain.
Lee also wrote several
volumes of autobiography including Cider
With Rosie (1959), As I Walked
Out One Midsummer Morning (1969), I
Can't Stay Long (1979), A Moment
of War (1991). Laurie
Lee died in
1997.
(1)
Laurie
Lee, A
Moment of War (1991)
An official, bowed at his tiny desk, looked
at me with a kind
of puff-eyed indifference. Then he sniffed,
asked me my name and my next of kin, and wrote
down my answers in a child's exercise book. As
he wrote he followed the motions of the pen with
his tongue, breathing hard and sniffing rhythmically
as he did so. Finally, he asked for my passport
and threw it into a drawer, in which I saw a number
of others of different colours.
'We'll take care of that
for you,' he said. 'Would you
like some prophylactics?'
Not knowing what these
were, I nevertheless said yes,
and he handed me a bagful which I stowed away
in my pocket. Next he gave me a new hundred
peseta note, a forage-cap with a tassel, and said,
'You are now in the Republican Army.' He considered
me dimly for a moment, then suddenly shot
to his feet, raised his fist and saluted.
(2)
Laurie Lee's International
Brigades file written
on 23rd December 1937.
He did not come through the usual channels.
He had tried to do so in January of this year when things were much
stricter and he was turned down. He gives recommendations which seem
to show that he is perfectly reliable. One of the men he knows is
the present Commander of the British Battalion (Fred Copeman, strike
organizer on the Putney building site, now attached to the staff of
the 15th Brigade). We have not yet been able to check this, however.
His reason for avoiding normal channels is that he did not want to
be turned down and did not want anybody to go to the expense of sending
him out, because he could not be sure of his physical fitness for
the fighting out here. He paid his own fare out, and has enough cash
to pay his own fare back if necessary.
He was in Spain from July
1935 to August 1936. He was then at Almuneca near Motril. He says
that they were then shelled occasionally and this brought on the epileptic
fits from which he suffers. Because of this he was evacuated by a
British destroyer in August of 1936. His sympathies however were all
with the Republic and he resolved to come out as soon as he had recovered.
As stated above he tried to come in January, but was turned down.
After a year without any
fits, he thought he was perfectly OK and decided to come definitely
and here he is.
He had two epileptic fits
in Figueras, which he attributes to the increased excitement of being
in Spain and of his journey over the mountains.
He seems to be a fairly
good violinist and artist. At present he is assisting in the cultural
work at Tarazona.
It seems clear that being,
generally speaking, physically weak, he will not be of any use at
the front. He agrees that the added excitement would be too much for
him. On the other hand he seems a perfectly sincere comrade, who is
very sympathetic to the Spanish government.
(3)
In
his autobiography, A
Moment of War (1991),
Laurie Lee described
how in Madrid soldiers searched for Nationalist supporters during
bombing attacks.
It had happened before, when night-shelling
was heavy and precise - someone, some 'Franco agent', would have been
flashing a torch from a rooftop or an upper window, and then, when
the bombardment was heaviest, would toss a few grenades down into
the street to confuse the fire-trucks and rescue parties.
After two winters of siege,
the inside war was still active, and not everyone, even in this poor
bare tavern, as he talked and moved his eyes about, could be absolutely
sure of the man who sat beside him.
'We caught one of them,
anyway,' the younger soldier said fiercely. 'Running across the tiles
with a cart lamp.'
'Could have been trying
to save his skin,' said someone.
'Did you arrest him?'
'Hell, no. We just threw
him off the roof. He'd done enough. His body's outside in a barrow.'
Someone drew back the
shutters on the cold grey street. A boy sat on the shafts of a hand-barrow,
smoking. Stretched out on sacks between the high wooden wheels lay
the crumpled body of a thin, old
man. It was smartly dressed, and the head which hung down from the
tailboard still wore a white-haired look of distinction.
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