Diary extracts for December 1940 to January 1942
2nd Dec 1940:
Nightmare over Southampton. Rank Flour Mills ablaze and Civic Centre badly knocked about . . . said to be unsafe and will have to be pulled down.
We could hear the roofs crashing in (even here) in Southampton.
Mr Levy went into town to find his shop and home gone . . .
370 killed and wounded in the 2 raids
3rd Dec 1940:
Painted all day at Battle over Portland (finished on 15th Jan 1941) ['Attack on a Convoy Seen from the Air" (1941)]
[unknown date]:
You’re above the cloud and you see things down through the cloud on the convoy off the Isle of Wight going up the Channel and being attacked also from the air. This is entirely a picture from imagination that I was asked to do. And when the RAF officials saw it they were so surprised that I had never been up in the air.
[unknown date]:
'HMS Resolution Returning to Portsmouth' (1941)
I did that large painting of the battleship coming into Portsmouth, which was one of the first things I worked on. The officers down at Portsmouth looked at it with a very critical eye. Some of them said ‘ I’m sure there weren’t quite so many brass hats as that on the bridge.’ Another chap said ‘yes there were, they were coming back from the Mediterranean.’ The only fault they could find with it was, one chap said ‘There’s a hatchway missing.’ So that really was very high praise indeed, I think.
1st Jan 1942:
. . . also a small painting (14x24) of the crew of a torpedoed tanker ship’s boat.
1st Jan 1942:
. . . finishing (30x50) the Rescue of Richard Ayres from the sea at the Lizard which took place on the first of March last year. The painting “has caused endless worry and is not satisfactory to me as a painting”.
[unknown date]:
The story behind The Rescue of a sailor on the Lizard
It was February so pretty cold. The boat ran onto some rocks in a cove on the Lizard. Two other men were too weak to swim or hold on.
‘He just managed to get to clinging to a rock. Fortunately some children who were going to school saw him. The farmer’s boy aged about fourteen or fifteen I think, said “All right sir, cling on, I’ll help you.’ He ran all the way back to he farm and carried a rope which must have been almost as heavy as himself along to the cliffs while the little girls were shouting encouragement. And he actually lassoed this man on the rocks there and helped him ashore. I saw the boy later and he said this chap began taking out a wallet with a photograph of his wife, and he was eventually taken to a hospital nearby. And the strange ending of the story is that he found that his wife and small child, may have been two children, were evacuated from Canterbury, which was his home, down there to the Lizard. He was given the British Empire medal.’
2nd Jan 1942:
. . . the distance gives great trouble as it is apt to interfere with the drama in the foreground.
8th Jan 1942:
To London with a couple of pictures on top of the car for Redfern. Went to the War Artist Show at National Gallery.
My large Dunkirk looked frightful, made me feel quite sick. The Convoy from the Air looked none too bad.
10th Jan 1942:
In the evening played at Guess What Tune This Is with Crispin. I was astonished at the number of tunes he knew.
11th Jan 1942:
Russians pushing back German forces around Moscow.
Rommel looks as if he may get back to Tripoli.
14th Jan 1942:
Letter from the Admiralty asking me to take part in a scheme tutoring seamen in their spare time, to paint.
16th Jan 1942:
American fleet . . . have sunk and damaged Japanese ships
19th Jan 1942:
Letter from the Admiralty to say the trawler and Heinkel picture had been withdrawn from Exhibition as it had a vital secret in it! Would I paint it out? As they would like the painting to go to South Africa.
The painting Trawler Against Heinkel (1941) was eventually passed and sent to Brazil along with several others of his and other war artists as a thank you to Brazil for becoming an ally in the war. However the ship carrying them there was torpedoed and all the works were lost at sea.
23rd Jan 1942:
General Rommel in Libya has started to attack agin. He must be a bit of a lad!
Death of Richard Sickert announced. Certainly a fine painter and a most interesting personality.
24th Jan 1942:
Report in the papers that a cattle ranch is going to be tried out in the Beaulieu district.
27th Jan 1942:
Talked again to Nan Kivell about the possibility of buying a Kit Wood painting. Suggested I should come up again in a month’s time.
27th Jan 1942:
Talk with Nan Kivell
I am so dissatisfied with [my work]. He thinks I am unconsciously trying to emulate certain broad characteristics of other painters and not sticking to the delineation which is my forte. I believe there is a lot in what he says.