I promised to share more from the superb Love in the Blitz by Eileen Alexander, a collection of letters written by Alexander during the war to her future husband, following the first one. So here we go – a delightful account of Alexander’s first and far from hum-drum encounter with working life.
Through family connections, she found herself filling in during the 1939 Christmas holidays in the office of Leslie Hore-Belisha, the Secretary of State for War. She derides his staff as ‘Public Adorers’, devoted to him, but it’s not hard to see where that devotion could come from – Alexander is clearly fond of him after just the one meeting, though less fond of the Public Adorer who comes to interrupt it so Hore-Belisha can shift his focus once more to the war:
I’ve had a most fantastic day, darling, which is a Good Thing, because there’s been no time for my imagination to sit on brood (a lovely expression, I’ve always felt – and from one of my best-known plays too).
Miss Sloane introduced me to her underling – a Miss Fox, whose underling I am to be (and damn me if she isn’t a fully fledged Public Adorer as well! This thing is becoming a cult – but I’m pledged to it now and there is no escape).
Then Miss Sloane said, ‘I think Mr Hore-Belisha wants to see you,’ and she flung open the double doors – and there I was in his room. That was at three – at three-five he’d already found out why I love Malory – at 3.10 he was asking me what position the Jews held in Mediaeval Society (if any) and at 3.15 – I was giving him a lecture on Chivalric Love Poetry, and religious mania as exemplified in the ‘Book of Margery Kempe’. He just sat and nodded all the while – and then he sighed and said, ‘My dear, you must come in and read me some of these things. I feel like the child in Robert Louis Stevenson’s fable – everyone laughed at him for playing with toys – and so he put them away in a cupboard, saying that he’d play with them again when he was grown-up and no-one would dare laugh at him, then – and then he forgot all about them. You have opened the cupboard for me, and I have caught a glimpse of the things I had forgotten. Please come and read to me sometimes.’
It was very beautiful, darling – and then the crash came. PA No. 1, who had been standing by chafing all things while, now bustled busily forward. ‘Certainly, certainly,’ she said briskly, more in anger than in sorrow, ‘Eileen will be glad to read to you when we’ve got rid of the war – but you’ve got to see the Prime Minister in five minutes – and you put off Lady Dawson of Penn,’ (Leslie here interjected irritably, ‘Damn the woman’ and PA No. 1 looked as shocked as a PA can permit herself to look) ‘so as we could go through the points of your interview together’ – (glowering at me) ‘and we haven’t.’ Whereat she seized me by the shoulder and pushed me out – shutting the door with a determined click. Not So Beautiful. (14 December 1939)
The Captive Reader 
Really, Claire, you’re adding to my library holds by leaps and bounds. And this one has no waiting list, so it should pop up in a few days.
Like you, I’m happy there is a pause button on the holds, till I’m ready. But sometimes I forget to press pause after ordering the book, and up it pops. For example, I have two Denise Minas on the way. But really, I don’t think I can take that much of her dark and gritty world at once. And sometimes, some inactive book holds seem to put themselves into the active list, and surprise me by saying, “I’m ready for pickup. Come and get me.”
I’m delighted you’ll be checking this out! I’m a bit offended on its behalf that there is no queue for it – it’s too good not to be in demand!