Francis
Marshall, the daughter of an architect, was born in Bedford Square,
Bloomsbury in 1900. Educated at Newnham
College, Cambridge, she married
Ralph Partridge in 1933.
Francis
Partridge became a full-time writer. As well as translating many books
from French and Spanish she co-edited The
Greville Memoirs with her husband. Other books by Partridge
include Memories, Julia:
A Portrait of Julia Strachey and Friends
in Focus.
Partridge
is best known for six volumes of diaries: A
Pacifist War 1939-1945, Everything
to Lose 1945-1960, Hanging On
1960-1963, Other People 1963-1966,
Good Company 1967-1970 and Life
Regained 1970-1972.
(1)
Francis
Partridge, diary
entry (25th January, 1940)
Spent most of the morning reading Vera Brittain on Winifred Holtby
- frightfully bad, but it aroused various reflections. It is a glorification
of the second-rate and sentimental and reeks of femininity. Why should
woman on woman so painfully lack irony, humour or bite? And it's too
winsome and noble, somehow. But much of that belongs to the First
War, and not to women only. (There it is in Rupert Brooke.) A musty
aroma of danger glamourized and not understood by girls at home floats
out of this book. Vera Brittain writes of the number of women now
happily married and with children who still hark back to a khaki ghost
which stands for the most acute and upsetting feelings they have ever
had in their lives. Which is true I think, and the worst of it is
that the ghost is often almost entirely a creature of their imagination.
(2)
Francis
Partridge,
diary entry (6th July, 1940)
Gerald is now in trouble with the police. It seems he was out with
the Home Guard a
few nights ago, and used his electric torch to inspect the sandbag
defences. A short time later several policemen rode up on motor bikes
and shouted, "You were signalling to the enemy!" Gerald
blew up and they became more reasonable, but he was later told, "We
think it only fair to tell you we have reported you to Headquarters
as signalling to the enemy". The head of the Aldboume Home Guard
was sympathetic but thought nothing could be done. He quite agreed
with Gerald that these were Gestapo methods - "Mind you, I think
Fascism in one form or another has got to come." It seems to
have come already. Gerald is thinking of resigning from the Home Guard
and is very cynical about the hopeless confusion of our home defences.
(3)
Francis
Partridge,
diary entry (6th July, 1940)
Mrs. Hill on the telephone again! "I've just heard that twenty
refugees are arriving
in half an hour. Could you have some more?" Raymond, Burgo and
I drove down to the village and waited. Then the bus came lumbering
in, and children ran to gape and stare. One very small child thudded
alone screeching out "Vacuees! Vacuees!" As soon as they
got out it was clear they were neither children nor docksiders, but
respectable looking middle-aged women and a few children, who stood
like sheep beside the bus looking infinitely pathetic. "Who'll
take these?" "How many are you?" "Oh well, I can
have these two but no more," and the piteous cry, "But we're
together" It was terrible. I felt we were like sharp-nosed housewives
haggling over fillets of fish. In the end we swept off two women about
my age and a girl of ten, and then fetched the other
two members of their party and installed them with Coombs the cowman.
Their faces at once began to relax. Far from being terrified Londoners,
they had been evacuated against their will from Bexhill, for fear
of invasion, leaving snug little houses and "hubbies".
(4)
Francis
Partridge,
diary entry (5th November, 1940)
Raymond and I went to see the Brenans. Gerald, back after his two
weeks wardenship
in London, looking young and lean. All the time he didn't see one
person killed. Each night had its "incidents", houses demolished,
people buried or cut by glass, or with all their clothes blown off
shot up into trees, or starred all over with cuts from glass so as
to be bright red with blood all over. The amount of blood was the
one thing that struck him. Arthur Waley is a stretcher-bearer, and
was called in when the Y.M.C.A. off Tottenham Court Road was hit.
He said the whole place was swimming in blood and it was dripping
down the stairs, yet hardly a person was killed. All were superficial
cuts from glass. He believes that most people cannot resist the temptation
to exaggerate. The really terrified people leave London or else go
down to the tube others make themselves as safe as possible somewhere
where they can sleep. And he says most people do manage to sleep now,
and that many people are enjoying finding themselves braver than they
knew.
(5)
Francis
Partridge, diary entry concerning
the death of Virginia Woolf (8th
April, 1941)
Sat out on the verandah, trying to write to Clive (Bell) in answer
to his letter about
Virginia's death. He says: "For some days, of course, we hoped
against hope that she had wandered crazily away and might be discovered
a barn or a village shop. But by now all hope is abandoned. It became
evident some weeks ago that she was in for another of those long agonizing
breakdowns of which she has had several already. The prospect - two
years insanity, then to wake up to the sort of world which two years
of war will have made, was such that I can't feel sure that she was
unwise. Leonard, as you may suppose, is very calm and sensible. Vanessa
is, apparently at least, less affected than Duncan (Grant), Ouentin
and I had looked for and feared. I dreaded some such physical collapse
as before her after Julian was killed. For the rest of us the loss
is appalling, but
like all unhappiness that comes of missing , I suspect we shall realize
it only bit by bit."
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