My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleya crime, but they have not been accused of a crime. That should be remembered in allfairness to them.' William Jowitt was an old personal friend, who had been Attorney-General in the Government of 1929, when I was Chancellor of the Duchy ofLancaster and at work on the unemployment problem. He gave me much support inthe struggle within the Government prior to my resignation. During our imprisonmentin the war he saw Oswald Hickson, the able and courageous Liberal lawyer who actedfor us in our early days in prison, and was interested in our position. 'Cannot he benda little?' asked Jowitt. 'He does not know how,' replied Hickson. It is perhaps one ofmy faults that I am rather too rigid in what I regard as matters of principle, but I try tobe more amenable than most people in minor matters and believe myself to beexceptionally flexible in method.Mr. Norman Birkett, K.C., was Chairman of the committee constituted to advise theHome Secretary whether 18B detainees should be released or not; the decision restedwith the Home Secretary. By a curious coincidence, Norman Birkett had been theleading counsel who appeared for the other side in my libel action against the Star,and Herbert Morrison, Home Secretary during most of our detention, was the Labourleader who found it advisable to leave his constituency in East London for a saferhaven in face of our gathering strength in the 1930s. The 18B Advisory Committeeappeared to have been supplied with odd scraps of information mostly derived fromthe tapping of telephones. It is an interesting commentary on the administration of theHome Office or the veracity of politicians that during the period this process was at itsheight the Home Secretary, Sir John Simon, firmly denied that it was ever done.On a later occasion Sir John Simon denounced with fervour over the radio the outrageof the Germans in arresting and detaining without trial Pastor Niemoeller, after he hadbeen acquitted of charges in the German courts. 18B detainees were at that timeallowed a wireless set, and listening to the news was the wife of an admiral; she hadsuffered exactly the same experience of being detained under Regulation 18B afterbeing acquitted of charges in the English courts. As she left the court after heracquittal, she was immediately re-arrested and taken back to Holloway, where she hadbeen on remand.My wife too experienced the results of a bugged telephone or room microphone aftermy arrest and shortly before her own arrest, but it should in fairness be stated that thisoccurred in time of war. She made some joke in the gay and insouciante Mitfordfashion to Lady Downe, which was duly eaves-dropped and thrown at her in theAdvisory committee. The elderly and distinguished Viscountess Downe was notherself arrested, though she was an ardent member of our movement. When shejoined in the thirties, she went to see her lifelong friend Queen Mary at Sandringham,and said to her: 'Ma'am, I feel I should tell you that I have joined the blackshirts'. Shereceived the truly royal reply: 'Is that wise, Dorothy, is that wise?' Our mutual friendHenry Williamson, the author, who had a farm in Norfolk, told me that he was withLady Downe during the war when she was visited by a Royal chaplain who had amessage from the King that she would be glad to hear, after examination of all thefacts, that my complete loyalty had been established. She died some time later after avaluable and courageous life which carried her from the leadership of Conservativewomen in Norfolk to the dangers and vicissitudes of the blackshirt movement.The stories of flat-footed absurdity in the information supplied to the 18B Advisory337 of 424