London Letter
S
PRING IS HERE,
a late spring after a mild winter, and there is universal
expectation that "It" (I don't have to tell you what "It" is) will
begin some time next month. The streets swarm with American troops.
In the expensive quarters of the town British soldiers, who are not al–
lowed to spend their leave in London unless they have their homes there,
are hardly to be seen. The air raids began to hot up about the beginning
of February and there have been one or two biggish ones-nothing
;
like 1940 but still very trying because of the deafening noise of the ack–
ack. On the other hand, the scenic effects are terrific. The orange-colored
flares dropped by the German planes drift slowly down, making every–
thing almost as light as day, and carmine-colored tracer shells sail up
to meet them: and as the flares get lower the shadows on the window
pane move slowly upwards. The food situation is as always. I am
ashamed to say that only very recently I had my first meal in a British
restaurant and was amazed to find that food quite good and very cheap.
(These places are run by the public authorities on a non-profit basis.)
Various kinds of manufactured goods are now almost unprocurable. It is
almost impossible to buy a watch or clock, new or secondhand. A type–
writer which before the war would have cost twelve pounds now costs
at least thirty pounds secondhand, supposing that you can get hold of
one at all. Cars are scarcer than ever on the roads. On the other hand
the bourgeoisie are coming more and more out of their holes, as one
can see by the advertisements for servants quite in the old style, e.g., this
one from the
Times:
"Countess of Shrewsbury requires experienced
Head Housemaid of three." There were several years during which one
did not see advertisements of that kind. Evening dress (for men) is said
to be reappearing though I haven't seen anyone wearing it yet.
There isn't a great deal of political news. Churchill, if one can
judge by his voice, is aging a good deal but grows more and more intol–
erant of opposition. It is assumed on all sides that if anything should
happen to Churchill, Eden will automatically become PM. Those who
know Eden say he is such a weakling that the right-wing Tories would
find it more convenient to keep him in office as a figurehead than to put
in a strong man after their own hearts. The Labor Party has sunk a few
feet deeper in everyone's estimation after the vote of confidence business
-the government were out-voted on a minor issue; Churchill told the
Members to take their votes back, and nearly everyone did so. Common
Wealth is still making some headway but constantly rumbles with inter-
