Rosemary Verey. Barbara Paul Robinson
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Gaitskell whether she should complete her university education (she had only another year left) or, instead, leave to get married; Gaitskell encouraged her to marry.
It seems more likely that she had made up her own mind because she was already engaged to David when she talked to Gaitskell. The students at “University College were being sent out of London [because of the War]. I didn’t want to go off.” Her friends were going into the Red Cross or joining the Wrens (Women’s Royal Naval Service), the ATS (Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service), or the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force). It was “a change in the way of life. I wanted to be part of life. He [Gaitskell] came to lunch. He thought it better to get married. I am deeply grateful to him forever.”19
Today it is difficult to understand why Rosemary felt there had to be a choice between marriage and completing her degree. However, even in the absence of war, a young lady was not expected to pursue a college or university degree, or ever have a job. The First World War and the ensuing Depression meant there had not been enough jobs to go around for the men. In 1936, there was a march down Whitehall by ex-servicemen to protest the employment of married women. In most cases, if a woman married, she either quit or was fired. “That’s why Teacher is always ‘Miss.’ ”20 Upper-class women never worked; it would have taken bread away from those who needed jobs to support a family. A woman’s destiny during that era was to get married.
Thus Rosemary’s formal education came to an end earlier than expected and without a degree. In David Farquharson’s view, “I don’t think this was any kind of a passionate affair. It happened with quite a lot of young couples. The War came on. They realized that if they were going to get married, now was the time because there would probably be no second chance. And there might be no men left. A lot of people married that first year in the War because they thought they would never get another chance.”
Memories of the slaughter of the First World War were still fresh. A generation of young men had been killed leaving more than two million surplus women without husbands. Both men and women felt the need to marry and have children before it was too late. Under the circumstances, David offered a suitable match and although not particularly dashing or handsome, he was intellectual and good company as well as a close friend of Rosemary’s favorite brother who was also about to marry. Rosemary acknowledged the pressure to have children, recalling, “He was an only son and was extremely fond of his father and mother, who were longing for him to get married and have a family. I fitted the bill … my job was to have children for David and his parents.”21
David had to clear his marriage with his officers who advised him to proceed as soon as possible. He also had the “most intimate and perfect talk with Mum on a walk.… She has quite come round to the necessity of haste in our marriage. She was most understanding.”22 He does not mention his father. In very short order the plans proceeded, guests were invited, and wedding gifts received.
Rosemary and David were married on October 21, 1939, at St. James’s, Piccadilly. The Sunday Times reported the next day that “Lieutenant David C.W. Verey, only son of Reverend Cecil H. and Mrs. Verey of Barnsley Close had married Miss Rosemary Sandilands, younger daughter of Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Prescott Sandilands of Coleherne Court.” David’s father officiated, accompanied by Archdeacon Lambert and Reverend Brian Green. “The bride … wore a gown of gold brocade, a Honiton lace veil and wreath of orange blossom and carried a sheath of lilies. She had three bridesmaids.” David observed that “the church was beautifully decorated and everyone enjoyed the music and the service more than somewhat. The church was full. Dad married us and Brian Green gave the address. Reception lunch afterwards. I felt quite calm and enjoyed every minute.”23
In what seems an odd choice of venue, the newlyweds spent their honeymoon at Barnsley where David’s parents lived, although his parents had the good sense to move out for that time. There followed a round of parties as Rosemary and David moved into a flat in Hounslow, a western borough of London, located by Rosemary’s mother who also supplied them with a maid. Linda Verey wrote Rosemary a lovely letter saying how nice it was to have another child, which she signed, “Your devoted Mother.” There were later visits to Barnsley, and David admitted it was the first time he had been on a horse for over a year and a half. Two months later, they celebrated Rosemary’s twenty-first birthday.
Rosemary herself said, “I gave up college to become a full time wife. You had to make a decision because of the War. It was a really dramatic moment. You thought the end of the world might come. Half of one’s friends went off and you would pick up the newspaper and see they were dead. It was ghastly.… All these other people were rushing off thinking about what fun it would be to get married and I decided to marry David. I wasn’t in love with him with this huge passion, like you would say you couldn’t live without him. But I think that was a good thing. We always loved each other as friends and had a happy life.”24
CHAPTER TWO
Family Life and a Shattering Accident 1939–1953
I belong to a generation, taught by my mother, that you married someone and that was your life. You took care of him. He came first.
THE NEWLYWEDS’ LIFE in London soon came to an end when David was sent off to join his regiment. Rosemary went to live with his parents at Barnsley “when I was not following him around with his regiment, the Royal Fusiliers.” Since having children was an important reason for their marriage, children began to arrive very soon, first Charles in 1940, followed by Christopher in 1942. David was eventually recognized for the highly intelligent man he was and “left his regiment and joined the top-secret Special Operations Executive [known as S.O.E.], which meant that I could no longer follow him around. I rented a cottage in Fairford.”1 David was sent off on assignments to Italy and North Africa.
For three long years after these early days, Rosemary was left on her own as head of her young family. She was apart from David again until he returned at the end of the war on Guy Fawkes Day, 1945. With her young sons, Rosemary left Barnsley House and hired “a real old-fashioned nanny to help manage the children.”2 According to custom she was referred to by her employer’s last name as Nanny Verey, joining the young family and staying for the following sixteen years. Rosemary moved them all into a cottage she rented in Fairford, not far away from Barnsley and the larger town of Cirencester, in the lovely Cotswolds countryside about two hours drive west of London. It was “a tiny house, always an agony of cold.”3
With most of the men gone, many of Rosemary’s school friends joined the Wrens and other war-related organizations. Some even took on the jobs that became available with so many men off fighting. Had she chosen not to marry, or possibly married but gone on to complete her University degree, Rosemary’s life might well have taken a very different tack. Instead, she embarked upon family life in the country. One of her American friends, Arthur Reynolds, observed that Rosemary really “withdrew and became a mom during the War.”
With fuel in short supply, Rosemary enterprisingly began to drive a goat cart around the village of Fairford. Everyone had to do their part for the war. There was a major push to encourage people to grow vegetables. Almost everyone turned their flower gardens and lawns over to food production. Rosemary grew food for her own small family and probably shared some of her produce with her neighbors. A Mr. Wall from the next village came every Saturday to help her. She described him as “a countryman and a natural teacher … he had me growing cabbages and leeks and taking cuttings of the chrysanthemum plants he had given me.”4
At the end of the war in 1945, Winston Churchill was defeated by Clement Attlee and the Labour Party. To conservative Rosemary, “it seemed as if the bottom had dropped out of my world and that before long we might be a communist state. But there was always hope – and my seeds came up in spite of Attlee’s theories.”
When David returned from the war to resume his place in their lives, Rosemary found the adjustment difficult. Her own conventional upbringing required her to give up being in charge and defer to her husband, even though during his absence, she “had carved the roast. I had changed.… He had changed. And you