大象传媒

Part 4 Life in Athens, the Greek Civil War, and VIP visits
October 1944 鈥� January 1945

At 1pm on 25th October 1944 we touched down at Athens airport and were then taken by truck up Syngrou Avenue to the town. All the way along the broad straight road, known as the Mad Mile, the whitewashed houses and stone walls were painted with crude Union Jacks in red white and blue and messages such as 鈥淲elcome Our Brave Allies鈥�. The last Germans had left Greece only two weeks before.

We stopped briefly at the Embassy, a large house in a residential area to the northeast of the town centre, and were then taken on to the British School of Archaeology a few minutes drive further on. This was where we were going to live. There were two buildings at the School, set in pleasant gardens with trees and a tennis court, quite close to the little hill called Lycabettus. One was the Director鈥檚 House and the other the students鈥� hostel where there were already about a dozen Embassy staff.

Dorothy and I were put in a room for three. There was a nice lounge called the Finlay after a one-time Director of the School, where we could socialize and where tea was served in the afternoon. There was also a piano and an open fire that was sometimes lighted at weekends.

After tea Dorothy and I walked down to the Embassy and made our acquaintance with the cypher room. This was below pavement level at the front but looked out through heavily barred windows onto the garden at the back. The walls had dark wood built-in shelves all round, which made it rather gloomy. Mary Foreman and Barbara Skelton, both Temporary Secretary cypher officers with whom we had worked in Cairo, had arrived with an earlier party and were living in the flat on the top floor of the Embassy. [Among the others who had arrived earlier were Mr Warner, Head of Chancery, and one of the Secretarial staff, Winifred Lowe, whom I had recognised at Moncrieff House in Cairo as a fellow ex Bromley County School pupil]. After spending an hour at the Embassy we walked back to the School for dinner and bed.

We had all our meals at the School and were being fed by the Army, so it was Army rations supplemented with some fresh food. I remember seeing freshly made pasta hung over the back of a chair in the garden to dry!

Part of our rations was a tin of 50 Players Navy Cut cigarettes per week. These came in useful for barter as it was over two weeks before we received any pay and then it was in pounds, shillings and pence in BMA (British Military Administration) notes. The local currency, the drachma, was being devalued at an alarming rate and was virtually worthless.

There was no hot water at the School and the cold water was turned off at 10am. Nearly every morning I had a cold bath! The boiler was repaired eventually and on the twelfth day I noted in my diary I had a HOT bath and soaked!

It felt quite cold in Athens after Cairo. Fortunately I had some warm clothes as I had been expecting to go to Yugoslavia when I left home, and the winters there would have been cold. During our first few weeks we also had some periods of very heavy rain. When the sun did shine it was hot during the day and there was a large balcony at the side of the School where we could sit and enjoy it.

We worked two shifts each day, all four of us from 9 鈥� 1 pm and alternate days 3 鈥� 6 pm and 5 鈥� 8 pm. We also worked alternate Sunday mornings and were on call at other times, but Mary and Barbara did night calls as they were on the spot.

In our free time we explored the neighbourhood of the School and Embassy and went into town. There were lovely walks in the woods on the slopes of Lycabettus and we visited the Acropolis and the Stadium.

Among the Embassy staff were people who knew all about Greece and its history, and a week after our arrival, on the night after full moon, Robin Burns took a party of about a dozen of us up to the Acropolis. I wrote to my sister Nancy: 鈥淭he Acropolis is a very high rock with sheer sides completely surrounded by part of Athens, and we approached it through very narrow steep streets, which would probably be very dirty in the daytime but which seemed very picturesque by moonlight . . . The Parthenon is the main temple but it is in ruins. Some of the columns, in fact most of them, still stand and they really looked wonderful . . . . Looking from the rock you get magnificent views. It was very clear and all round you could see the mountains . . . In the plains and in the valleys between the mountains you see Athens as if it had been poured in between the hills and was lapping round their feet鈥�. It was a magical experience.

There was some nightlife in the town and we visited a club with cabaret called the Argentina and had our first taste of retsina and ouzo in a taverna. Retsina is a wine which has been stored in barrels that have been treated with resin - a rather fiery drink and not to everyone鈥檚 taste. On Sundays the Embassy organised excursions by jeep or car. We climbed to the top of Mount Parnes where there was ice on the trees: we visited the lovely little church at Daphni and went on to Megara, where we saw some British gliders which had been used in the liberation; and after lunch at a taverna on the road to Marathon we danced on the taverna roof!

Everything changed on Sunday 3rd December, five and a half weeks after our arrival, when the Civil War between the Royalists and Communists began. All excursions were cancelled and we were told not to go out unless necessary. There were planes flying round very low and reports of shooting in the town. Workers were on strike and for the first time the water at the School was not turned off at 10am. On the other hand, however, there was no electricity at all. In the afternoon we received a message to say there was a 7pm curfew for everyone. By that time those working had returned from the Embassy and we all forgathered in the lounge when it got dark, and candles and lamps were produced. After an early dinner a despatch rider came at 8.20 pm to say that the Ambassador wanted Dorothy and me to sleep at the Embassy. We collected our bedding and things for the night and were driven to the Embassy in a jeep. There were a few people on the streets in spite of the curfew but generally it was quiet. Outside the Embassy British Army engineers were working on the installation of a captured German generator, but we worked from 9pm 鈥� 12.45am by the light of a paraffin lamp. I slept in Barbara鈥檚 room and we went to bed by candlelight.

The following day the generator was working but it was only powerful enough to supply lighting. Even that was because at some time in the past light bulbs of the wrong voltage had been ordered, which were wrong for the Athens supply but were O.K. for the generator! It was very noisy and it was quite a relief when it went off at night after we had finished work. One night when we finished late and were creeping along a corridor full of recumbent troops, with about six inches to walk along, the lights went out! There were suppressed giggles and whispered yells of 鈥淩etreat鈥� from the front, but fortunately the generator gave three warnings before going off for good, so the lights came on again after a few seconds.

On this second day of the troubles several tanks rumbled past the Embassy and there were still a lot of aeroplanes about. We worked our usual shifts as well as late at night, going to the School for lunch and dinner, by jeep for the latter because of the curfew. There was no water or electricity at the School.

The next day, after finishing the afternoon shift at 6 pm we were told not to go back to the School for dinner, and later went down to the Embassy dining room to have our meal with the Ambassador, Mr Leeper, and his wife and daughter Elizabeth. The first two nights were rather an ordeal but the rest of the girls living at the School then moved down to sleep at the Embassy and after that there were about seventeen of us at the table altogether. For a while we also had breakfast, lunch and sometimes tea in the dining room. It was really rather amusing as we were now down to Army rations and for dinner it was alternately bully beef and tinned M&V (meat and vegetables) handed round ceremoniously by the butler! Some evenings including one when a number of VIPs had arrived, there were two sittings. One day, at lunchtime I think, I was the last to arrive in the dining room and the only place left was next to General Alexander. I don鈥檛 recall, and my diary doesn鈥檛 say, whether we had any conversation but I think probably not! On 10th December I just recorded 鈥渄inner in exalted company鈥�.

One of the Embassy servants had some hens and whenever one or other of them produced an egg it was balloted for among the Embassy staff, sixteen people in all. You were not in the ballot again until everyone else had had an egg. When I won it I wrote to Nancy 鈥渢o-day I shall have a sleepless night wondering whether to have it boiled, fried, poached, scrambled or made into an omelette鈥�.

Periodically there was a lot of shooting going on. The shops were shut for a week. Bombs and leaflets were dropped. Though the Embassy was probably not a target it was caught in cross fire and in a letter to Nancy on 11th December I noted that there had been 94 bullet marks on the masonry. One bullet went through the bathroom window of the Embassy flat, and another into the room where Mr Warner was working. Fortunately he was not very tall, otherwise he might have been hit. At one time when all the girls were sleeping in the Embassy, we slept on landings and corridors away from the windows.

Water was very short and we were rationed to two jugfuls per day, which had to do for washing ourselves and our clothes. On 12th December an old well was excavated in the garden. It must have been a substantial affair as I noted I went down it the next day, and also tried my hand at the pump that transferred the water to a tank and found it 鈥渧ery hot work鈥�. When things were quiet we were allowed to go in the garden, and did exercises and skipped. Sometimes we were allowed to walk up to the School for exercise.

On 17th December two cypher officers, Harry Paterson (Pat) and Ron Featonby arrived from the UK. I thought of them as young lads 鈥� they were three years younger than me 鈥� and had both been in the Foreign Office before going into the Navy and Air Force respectively. They had now been released to return to the Foreign Office. Three days later Barbara Skelton returned to the UK. Barbara was a colourful character and very attractive in a feline way. Among other things she had been a model before going to the Foreign Office as a Temporary Secretary and being posted to Cairo. There she had an affair with King Farouk so on security grounds it was probably thought desirable to post her away from Cairo and she came to Athens via Italy, with an earlier party than ours. She later married Cyril Connolly and wrote a number of books. She used to write letters to a P.C. Boot, which we thought was strange, but according to her obituary notices her liaisons included one with a Metropolitan policeman.

Also arriving during the troubles was a typist, Hazel, who was surprised to be driven up to the Embassy from the airport in an armoured car. Hazel wore tailored trouser suits at which the local staff looked askance. She had all her trousers changed into skirts. Diplomatic bags were also sometimes collected from the airport in an armoured car. We used the diplomatic bag for our personal correspondence, using postage stamps from home, and the letters were posted in London. The bag service was suspended for a short time in December, and it was announced in the press at home that Mr Leeper had reported that all the staff were safe and well.

Our spiritual needs were not neglected. The Sunday before Christmas in the afternoon there was a service in the Embassy lounge and on Christmas Eve, midnight Communion was celebrated in the dining room for staff and soldiers doing duty at the Embassy. There was also a service at 3pm on Christmas Day.

On Christmas day we had egg and bacon for breakfast and bread instead of army biscuits. We also had a proper Christmas dinner in the evening for which we all changed into our glad rags and retired to the drawing room afterwards.

On Boxing Day Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, was at lunch and shook hands with all of us beforehand. Winston Churchill arrived about 4 pm and we stopped work and went upstairs to see him. The VIPs went into the garden and we were able to take photographs. The group included Mr Churchill in R.A.F. uniform, Field Marshall Alexander, Anthony Eden, Mr Leeper and the Regent, Archbishop Damaskinos. We then had tea in the dining room and Mr Churchill made a speech of appreciation to all the staff.

The Civil War rumbled on, and on 29th December a terrific battle started at 7am and we were forbidden to go out. In January Mr Churchill made a speech in Parliament about Greece and said that 鈥渁t one time there was danger that the Embassy would be overrun by ELAS鈥�. Field Marshall Alexander and Harold Macmillan were at the Embassy on January 6th.

The last reference to action in Athens in my diary is on 3rd January when there was a lot of gunfire in the early morning. On 6th January when we walked on Lycabettus there were Greek soldiers about and by the time I left for my week鈥檚 leave in Cairo on the 9th the Civil War had moved away from Athens. The following month when I went down to the coast with an Army friend, we saw a lot of ELAS prisoners in a camp on the shore awaiting deportation.

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