Sexual and Emotional Freedom in the Blitz

The spurious intimacy
of the underground bomb shelter

Last night I had the pleasure of  watching  the tousle haired James Runcie presenting on The Culture Show discussing the invigorating creative effect of the experience of the London Blitz during World War Two, on upper middle class writers who used the profound experience to inspire great novels.

Alongside Grahame Greene (The End of the Affair), writers Elizabeth Bowen (In the Heat of the Day), Henry Green - Real name Yorke - (Caught), Rose Macaulay (Towers of Trebizond) all used the insights offered by surviving in London under severe bombing while 'doing their bit' as fire wardens and fire fighters. During this time they actually lived and worked shoulder to shoulder with a class of people who had been invisible to them in the pre-war security of their upper class literary lives.

With wives and partners safely in the country,  life in the Blitz offered sexual and emotional freedom,  where there seemed no accountability other than writing, packing in as much life as possible in  today, and surviving until tomorrow

The terror, passion and immediacy of the Blitz, (which Rose Macaulay referred to as 'a sample of total war')  was compared by Henry Yorke (in the mind of one of his characters): 'War, she thought, was sex.'


I was interested to note that the programme leaned heavily on an excellent book by Lara Feigal  called The Love Charm of Bombs I really enjoyed reading   this well-researched 500 page book, (I had read it earlier this year; it had  been given to me as a Christmas present). So I was very pleased to see Feigal on the programme and also in the credits as consultant.

 I found the programme quite compelling. But if you want to empathise with the anarchic feelings and the literary and sexual acuity of those times I would recommend making some time to read the book.


On the back of her book Feigal aptly quotes Grahame Greene: The nightly routine of sirens, barrage, the probing raider, the unmistakeable engine ("Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?"), the bomb-bursts move nearer and then moving away, hold one like a love charm.'  

And now I have to declare an interest here, on two counts.
First, I have been told that I was conceived during the massive November blitz of the city of Coventry. Secondly I wrote a novel built around my parents' experience of that Blitz. Of course, being of the invisible class (see above), they were not acquainted in their provincial city with  upper-middle-class writers 'doing their bit' for their country while they enjoyed the anarchic freedom of 'total war'.

When you think  about it though,  my mother and father made love in the Blitz and at the same time made a writer for the next generation.

My own novel emerging from all this is
called Land of Your Possession. You can see it here on my sidebar...

Francine on a Bicycle

New novel: Work in Progress

Francine on a Bicycle

... I wedge the suitcase on my bicycle and walk it down to the harbour. Madame Griche is there outside the laundress’s door, now closed and locked. She has her heavy bicycle with her, which sports baskets back and front, not so uncommon these days.

She smiles slightly when she sees me. Then she makes me empty my case and share the contents between her baskets and mine. ‘No point in letting them into our secret, Francine!’ she says, wrapping the books and paper in an oiled cloth and puts them at the bottom of her back basket. We throw the case itself into the broad river.

Then we make our way out of the town, side by side on our bicycles, keeping to the narrow lanes away from the coast where the soldiers lurk. They are so afraid of the sea and what might emerge from its pulsing waters. After all there have been secret landings here. ‘The sea is our friend,’ says Madame Griche. ‘Now we know the Americans are firm for the endgame alongside the poor old English they may turn up anywhere.’

As we ride along she explains to me that in the beginning everyone thought the Boches would march straight into England, just as they'd marched straight through France, so why should we have any faith in the English? She goes on: ‘Love them or hate them, though the English do hang on. They hang on, Francine! Because of them, and perhaps more importantly, the Americans, France will be returned to the French. To us!’ Even thrusting her big legs down on the heavy pedals of her bicycle Madame Griche remains every inch the teacher. ...