Walking in England over the years I have been struck by the number of pillboxes built to defend us from a German invasion in World War II. About 28,000 were built all over the country, of which some 6,500 survive. It would have been a dark hour if the ones I have seen along the Thames in Berkshire had been called into service.
Robert Harris in Fatherland wrote an acclaimed thriller, that I have not read, set in the aftermath of World War II imagining that Germany had won. These sort of books offer entertainment but cannot give any historical insight. Instead I have ordered Invasion 1940 by Peter (Ian’s brother) Fleming. It describes Hitler’s preparations to invade England in 1940 after Dunkirk and our preparations to defend ourselves. This is history, not conjecture, and recent history as he wrote it in 1957.
Peter was an accomplished travel writer in the 1930s and, in May 1940, had the job of making defensive plans using Local Defence Volunteers – later known as the Home Guard. What better author for a book about Operation Sea Lion and the British response?
While I’m waiting for it to be delivered I have been to Nettlebed in Oxfordshire where Peter lived with his wife, the actress Celia Johnson. (Curiously Rupert Hart-Davis, whose letters I am reading, was married, not for long, to Peggy Ashcroft: a brief encounter, unlike the Fleming marriage of thirty-six years.) He is buried beside his wife in St Bartholomew’s graveyard. His headstone is illegible on a wet day so here is the epitaph that he wrote for himself.
He travelled widely in far places:
Wrote, and was widely read.
Soldiered, saw some of danger’s faces,
Came home to Nettlebed.
The squire lies here, his journeys ended –
Dust, and a name on a stone –
Content, amid the lands he tended,
To keep this rendezvous alone.
In the church there are two windows designed by John Piper in 1970 and interpreted in glass by Patrick Reyntiens. One is dedicated to the memory of Peter Fleming and the other to Dr Robin Williamson.
Your synchronicity and serendipity machines are in fine order. Like you, I have looked forward to reading Peter Fleming’s “Invasion 1940”, and also the Hart-Davis biography (both picked up recently s/h). You are ahead of me in getting to Nettlebed, though I often stay nearby. Until very recently I didn’t know that there were any Piper glass windows anywhere, and following your talk of Evie Hone I went to see Eton Chapel last month and found Piper’s there, and now this Nettlebed lead will I hope take me to his further delights.
There are lots of Piper windows – many more than Evie Hone – try St Mary’s at Iffley. By the way, you may want to reply to Ferdinand Edwards about your wine consumption.