Attlee, then, was a smooth-running human machine at the heart of the Whitehall miracle that Churchill put together in the frenzy of May 1940. Neither could function without the other. But there was one exception to this regularity: Violet Attlee. Long before official cars and drivers were the norm (as late as 1930 MacDonald, as PM, hailed cabs from the entrance of Downing Street), she was essential to getting Attlee around. But at a price. Over six years she had five serious accidents, and another was always impending. When Attlee retired, his regular driver, Penning, passed to Douglas Jay. Penning told me that regular greetings between the two were usually confined to “Good morning, Penning, “Good morning, Mr Attlee, sir.” And, “Good night, Penning,” “Good night, Mr Attlee, sir.” One night, returning to Chequers, even Attlee’s equanimity was shaken when they narrowly escaped being ditched. Attlee yelled: “Who’s that bloody fool?” Penning: “That’s Mrs Attlee, sir.” Profound pause. “Best say no more about it.”
Attlee’s long life, and especially his years as Prime Minister, from 1940 to 1951, were a testament to modesty. I never heard him speak in a way which could be called remotely vainglorious. After he retired, he gave a course of lectures at Harvard, which he called “From Empire to Commonwealth”. A typically slim, not to say skeletal, volume was published afterwards and I was asked to review it for BBC Television. I had only three minutes but knowing Lord Attlee (as he had now become) I had prepared no fewer than 30 questions. The difficulty was not his monosyllabic answers but his flat refusal to give a reply at all. A favourite riposte of his was: “Hmm. What’s your next question?” One way or another, he got through, or rather past, a score of questions in our three minutes. Afterwards I said: “Lord Attlee, would you be kind enough to inscribe my copy of your book?” “Oh, no, no. I’m a person of no importance now. You don’t want me writing in your book.” “Yes I do, Lord Attlee, very much. I’ll consider it a definite slight if you decline!” “Oh, very well.” He then picked up the book, took it into the remotest corner of the room, and wrote in it, for what seemed a very long time. He then snapped it shut, and with all the comings and goings of a BBC hospitality room, I was unable to read what he had written until I was in the privacy of the BBC limo taking me back to London. He had written, in small but perfectly legible writing, one word: “Attlee.”
However, Attlee’s record shows that he was a master of irony, and he was not above self-mocking banter on what he saw as an appropriate occasion, especially in verse. It must have been about the same time that he wrote in a letter to his brother Tom (and published after his death):
Attlee’s long life, and especially his years as Prime Minister, from 1940 to 1951, were a testament to modesty. I never heard him speak in a way which could be called remotely vainglorious. After he retired, he gave a course of lectures at Harvard, which he called “From Empire to Commonwealth”. A typically slim, not to say skeletal, volume was published afterwards and I was asked to review it for BBC Television. I had only three minutes but knowing Lord Attlee (as he had now become) I had prepared no fewer than 30 questions. The difficulty was not his monosyllabic answers but his flat refusal to give a reply at all. A favourite riposte of his was: “Hmm. What’s your next question?” One way or another, he got through, or rather past, a score of questions in our three minutes. Afterwards I said: “Lord Attlee, would you be kind enough to inscribe my copy of your book?” “Oh, no, no. I’m a person of no importance now. You don’t want me writing in your book.” “Yes I do, Lord Attlee, very much. I’ll consider it a definite slight if you decline!” “Oh, very well.” He then picked up the book, took it into the remotest corner of the room, and wrote in it, for what seemed a very long time. He then snapped it shut, and with all the comings and goings of a BBC hospitality room, I was unable to read what he had written until I was in the privacy of the BBC limo taking me back to London. He had written, in small but perfectly legible writing, one word: “Attlee.”
However, Attlee’s record shows that he was a master of irony, and he was not above self-mocking banter on what he saw as an appropriate occasion, especially in verse. It must have been about the same time that he wrote in a letter to his brother Tom (and published after his death):
Few thought he was even a starter
There were plenty who thought themselves smarter.
But he ended PM,
CH and OM,
An Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
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