CHAPTER TWELVE
The Coming of Peace
Years: 1917—1919

The war was going badly. There were air-raids over London. Robin was caught in one in early June 1917 while waiting for a train at Liverpool Street Station. Several people were killed. This was a very different kind of warfare from the professional campaigns he had experienced in India and Africa, though perhaps Mafeking compared, with its involvement of civilians in the danger. The horrendous side of flying, however, did nothing to spoil my own passionate interest in aircraft.

I wrote only a week after the June raid : ‘I wonder when we shall all be flying as a matter of course like we motor now.'

I could have done with the use of a private plane in those early years of Guiding for I was constantly travelling. ‘There is always too much to do', I wrote despairingly in my diary in December of that year. It was true then and it has been true for over fifty years since!

Robin, too, was driving himself hard, but whereas in 1917 I was only twenty-eight, he was now sixty and should have been taking things more quietly. He was always over-tired and suffered dreadfully with constant pains in his head. He used to call his headaches ‘fivers', which was a relic from his Army days when Col. Baker-Russell used to say, ‘I have a head I wouldn't sell for a fiver.' Try as I would, I could not persuade him to do less. All I could do was endeavour to see that the house ran smoothly—and even the staff seem to have had their ups and downs that year:

22nd October, 1917—Mabel (new cook — Annie's sister) came and I hope she will do. The ‘nursery' department doesn't always fit in smoothly with the ‘kitchen' and/or ‘house' staff!

9th November, 1917—Rather an upset in the ‘menage'. This nurse will have to go !

Furthermore, I was worrying about money. Everything was costing more. We were constantly travelling and entertaining, both of which ate into our modest income. But with all this, I could still write with feeling on our wedding anniversary: ‘Tuesday, October 30th, 1917—Our wedding day—and each year makes us love each other more — though it seems to reach the top all the time, and cannot become "more" !'

Early in 1918, I went to France again. This time, however—and it shows how much respect Guiding had already earned—I, recently appointed Chief Guide, went as ‘a woman of standing' to investi­gate the conduct and conditions of the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps.

The Corps had been organised by Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan. They did magnificent work in France and, needless to say, were a succes fou with our men out there. Equally needless to say, human nature being what it is, one or two girls had babies and had to be sent home. This led to wild rumours of ‘immorality among the W.A.A.C.s'. There were letters and questions in the papers, much misunderstanding and exaggeration. The Government decided to send out a small party of ‘women of standing' who would look impartially into the allega­tions and report on their findings.

Violet Markham was one of our party. She was some fifteen or so years older than I was, a small, bright-eyed woman who had already made her mark. She was a prominent Liberal, a granddaughter of Joseph Paxton, the designer of the Crystal Palace. Her father was a wealthy mine-owner in Chesterfield and she had in her youth espoused the miners' cause, working tirelessly to improve the working and living conditions of the miners and their families. When she moved to London, she championed with equal vigour the cause of women in domestic service and sought to improve their lot and to raise their status. It was as Chairman of the Central Committee on Women's Training and Employment that she was included in our party.

I remember one amusing incident connected with her. She was always known as ‘Miss Markham'. Only her most intimate circle of friends knew that she had been married for nearly three years to Lieut.-Col. James Carruthers. He was serving in France at the time of our tour and was able to join his wife for a short leave. Naturally, they shared a bedroom, and the following morning the W.A.A.C. who went in to call Violet reported in shocked tones that ‘Miss Markham was in bed with a man!'

Strangely enough, Violet was called in during the last war to investigate similar highly-coloured rumours of immorality in the Women's Services. That was when she coined the phrase ‘Virtue has no gossip value' — a comment I have often had in mind when con­sidering the attitude of public and press to Scouting and Guiding.

I cannot really see how any ‘Commission of Enquiry' was going to detect signs of immorality, short of extracting confessions from the culprits! However, we toured various W.A.A.C. camps in Boulogne, Etaples, Abbeville, Dieppe, Le Havre, Rouen and Calais. We inspected quarters, talked to the girls and were able on our return to give a reassuring account of the splendid work they were doing and to declare our satisfaction with their hostel accommodation. We also spent a lot of time being lunched and dined by colonels and generals who were anxious to reassure us of the respectful attitude of their men to the W.A.A.C.s! It was an interesting experience—but I think I preferred my service as a barmaid at the Mercers' Arms.

My relationship with my mother was deteriorating so rapidly during these months and she was writing such odd and unkind letters that I determined to ‘have it out' with her. We met on ‘neutral ground' at an hotel in Bournemouth and spent a whole morning in bed arguing! At last I managed to make her understand the importance of the work I was doing with the Guides and we became reconciled. It was a relief to me once again to enjoy a happy, loving relationship with her.

By the summer of 1918, hope of an ending to the war was in the air. The lease on Little Mynthurst would soon be up and we did not wish to renew it. We dearly wanted a house of our own, with a view and some land—a permanent place where we could settle down with our three babies and put down roots. Father made us an unexpected gift of £1,000 which helped us to make up our minds to begin looking for another house. If the war was coming to an end, we could perhaps begin to plan ahead a little.

In the middle of October, Robin was sent abroad to France and then to Spain for an indeterminate period on some confidential work for the Foreign Office. I hated his being away but could not accompany him. I filled in the weeks attending various Scout and Guide rallies along the south coast and finished up at Grey Rigg for a few days with my parents, where the children joined me.

November 10th, 1918—Letters and play with babies and wild rumours about that peace declared. Went to bed and asleep and suddenly woken by dear Robin kissing my eyes—got back at last. Brought news that the Kaiser has bolted.

Two days later, we gathered up from estate agents a handful of ‘Permits to View' in the Bentley area, put our bicycles on the train for Farnham and set out in search of a house. We looked at several during the morning—all unsuitable—and were tempted to call it a day. However, we had sandwiches with us so we propped our bicycles against a gate and sat down by the roadside to have our lunch. That was when we noticed the ‘FOR SALE' sign on the gate. ‘Blackacre Farm', the house was called—a forbidding name. We had no letter of intro­duction as this particular house was not on our list, but we thought we might as well have a look at it. After eating our sandwiches, we pushed our bikes up the half-mile drive with mounting excitement. This surely was the place we were seeking — high up on a hill, facing south with a wide view over the Surrey/Hampshire hills. The owner was away and the maid was reluctant to allow us in. Eventually, we prevailed upon her to let us look over the house and we knew immediately that this must be our home. The price, when we learned it, was high—higher than we could afford. The owner would not let and we were in despair. Surely we were not to have a vision of Paradise only to be denied entry! Once again, father generously came to the rescue with the balance of the purchase money and Blackacre became ours. But it had to have a better name, something that would symbolise the place it held in our affections. We christened it ‘Pax Hill' —the hill of peace — for we had discovered it during that first week of peace after the Armistice; and a ‘hill of peace' it was to prove over the next twenty years, the haven to which we returned so gratefully after our tours, the house that was always full of people and laughter, the home where we saw our children grow to maturity.

Gradually life in England resumed a peaceful, if different course. The men returned from France often so different from the boys who went out there. Social barriers were breaking down. Ernest Court, our chauffeur, came back to us commissioned after a distinguished career in the Royal Flying Corps. Eric Walker was another who came back from prisoner-of-war camp in Germany, but for many there was no coming back. Numbers of Robin's pre-war Scouts would not return to lead the Movement they had joined so enthusiastically. Roland Phillips, Lady St. David's son and the finest of Scouts, was just one of the many splendid young men who gave their lives. His memory is perpetuated in Roland House, the building at Stepney Green which he gave to the Scouts of East London as their Headquarters.

In December we watched from the windows of the Cavalry Club in Piccadilly the Victory procession led by Haig and Plumer and Birdwood.

That first Christmas of the peace was so happy. The babies were old enough to share the enchantment of it all. We were excited at the prospect of moving to Pax Hill at the end of January. Nothing pre-pared me for the urgent telephone call from Bournemouth on Boxing Day telling me that my father had been drowned. I left everything and rushed down to be with mother at this agonising time. Barely four months after this tragedy, my sister Auriol also died, as a result of the epidemic of Spanish 'flu that swept through the country.

Robin and I had accepted an invitation to tour Canada and the United States early in the spring of 1919. My leaving her at this time of double bereavement revived Mother's hostility to Guiding. I was distraught. I felt a deep duty towards my mother but on the other hand, all arrangements had been made for the tour and to have can-celled it at the last moment would have caused disappointment to the thousands of youngsters who were expecting us. I decided to go ahead with the tour but my decision hurt mother exceedingly.

It was not a good start to the Peace.

CONTENTS

		Window on My Heart: The Autobiography of Lady Baden-Powell, G.B.E. as told to Mary Drewery, 1973.  Introduction and Contents. Reproduced by permission of Hodder and Stoughton Limited.
		Baden-Powell Family History. A series of links starting with the research of Robin Baden Clay, a grandson of Baden-Powell. These links are focused on the genealogy of the Powell family. The author is extremely grateful to Mr. Clay for sharing the results of his labors with the Scouting community. Links are provided to pages for three of B-P's brothers: Baden, Warington and Sir George Baden-Powell, to members of his extended family, and to the genealogy of the Smyth and Warington families.
		Robert Baden-Powell, Founder of the World Scout Movement, Chief Scout of the World. A Home Page for the Founder. Links Relating to Baden-Powell on the Pine Tree Web and elsewhere.

The Pine Tree Web Home Page: A Collection of the Author's Links

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Last Modified: 11:20 AM on April 25, 2004