MacEwan - xx - 2 index 31/08/2015 09:35 Page i The biographer Winifred Gérin (1901–81), who wrote the lives of all four Brontë siblings, stumbled on her literary vocation on a visit to Haworth, after a difficult decade following the death of her first husband. On the same visit she met her second husband, a Brontë enthusiast twenty years her junior. Together they turned their backs on London to live within sight of the Parsonage, Gérin believing that full understanding of the Brontës required total immersion in their environment. Gérin’s childhood and youth, like the Brontës’, was characterised by a cultured home and an intense imaginative life shared with her sister and two brothers, and by family tragedies (the loss of two siblings in early life). Strong cultural influences formed the children’s imagination: polyglot parents, French history, the Crystal Palace, Old Vic productions. Winifred’s years at Newnham College, Cambridge were enlivened by such eccentric characters as the legendary lecturer Arthur Quiller-Couch (‘Q’), Lytton Strachey’s sister Pernel, and Bloomsbury’s favourite philosopher, G.E. Moore. Her happy life in Paris with her Belgian cellist husband, Eugène Gérin, was brought to an abrupt end by the Second World War, during which the couple had many adventures: fleeing occupied Belgium, saving Jews in Vichy France, and escaping through Spain and Portugal to England, where they did secret war work for the Political Intelligence Department near Bletchley Park. After Eugène’s death in 1945 Winifred coped with bereavement by writing poetry and plays until discovering her true literary metier on her visit to Haworth. She also wrote about Elizabeth Gaskell, Anne Thackeray Ritchie and Fanny Burney. This book is based on her letters and on her unpub- lished memoir. Helen MacEwan studied modern languages at Oxford University. A translator and former teacher, she is the author of The Brontës in Brussels, an exploration of Charlotte and Emily Brontë’s time at the Pensionnat Heger, and Down the Belliard Steps: Discovering the Brontës in Brussels. MacEwan - xx - 2 index 31/08/2015 09:35 Page ii “In an original and revealing biography . . . Helen MacEwan presents not just a fascinating study of Gérin’s long and at times very personal preoccupation with the Brontës, but the story of a highly individual character . . . Using much previously unknown and unpublished mate- rial, MacEwan has painstakingly put together a portrait of one woman and her times that adds significantly to Brontë studies and literary biography, while her deftly-told narrative brings Gérin’s private, feeling, thoughtful character to life with unerring sympathy.” CLAIREHARMAN, biographer and critic, author of the major new biography, Charlotte Brontë: A Life, and of Jane’s Fame. “In this beautifully written and carefully researched biography of a biographer, Helen MacEwan shows us something of the European dimension of Gérin’s experience and understanding, as well as revealing the deeply emotional character of her subject, in her joys, passions and losses . . . Helen MacEwan shines a fascinating light, not only on a remarkable woman of letters, but on a reader and writer of exceptional integrity.” STEVIEDAVIES, critic and novelist, author of Emily Brontë: Hereticand Four Dreamers and Emily “For anyone, like me, who knows Winifred Gérin only as the biogra- pher of the Brontës, this book will come as a revelation. Not only did Gérin have an astonishingly adventurous life, but Helen MacEwan has brought it before us in vivid and enthralling detail . . . MacEwan’s book draws on extensive original research into unpublished papers and records, but she wears her erudition lightly and always gives a sense of the lived moment rather than the dry facts. She achieves, in fact, that balance between sense and sensibility which friends appre- ciated in Gérin’s own work. This is a thrilling book to read, a page-turner, offering through specific vignettes important glimpses into the social history of the twentieth century. It will appeal to an audience well beyond Brontë devotees.” PATSY STONEMAN is Emeritus Reader in English, University of Hull, and Acting President of the Brontë Society. She is the author of Charlotte Brontë in the Writers and their Workseries, Northcote House Publishers MacEwan - xx - 2 index 31/08/2015 09:35 Page iii Winifred Gérin Biographer of the Brontës Helen MacEwan MacEwan - xx - 2 index 31/08/2015 09:35 Page iv Copyright © Helen MacEwan 2016. Published in the Sussex Academic e-Library, 2016. SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS PO Box 139 Eastbourne BN24 9BP, UK and simultaneously in the United States of America and Canada All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Applied for. ISBN 978-1-78284-256-9 (e-pub) ISBN 978-1-78284-257-6 (e-mobi) ISBN 978-1-78284-258-3 (e-pdf) This e-book text has been prepared for electronic viewing. Some features, including tables and figures, might not display as in the print version, due to electronic conversion limitations and/or copyright strictures. MacEwan - xx - 2 index 31/08/2015 06:16 Page v Contents List of Illustrations vi Preface viii Acknowledgements xii 1 Norwood: Childhood and the End of Childhood 1 2 Paris 1913: ‘The most splendid adventure’ 22 3 Sydenham: The Great War Years 28 4 Cambridge: ‘Bill’ and ‘Q’ 37 5 Holidays in France: ‘Plom’ and Cannes 54 6 Paris Idyll: 1932–1939 75 7 Flight from Brussels: The Summer of 1940 91 8 Nice: The Pit of Darkness 98 9 Aspley Guise: Political Intelligence 109 10 West Cromwell Road: The Long Road Back 129 11 Haworth: ‘Brontë Atmosphere’ 159 12 Haworth: Recognition at Last 182 13 Kensington: The Final Fifteen Years 202 Epilogue 237 Bibliography 239 Index 243 MacEwan - xx - 2 index 31/08/2015 06:16 Page vi List of Illustrations The colour and mono plates are after page 96. Unless otherwise stated in plate captions, all pictures are owned by Irene Lock or Paul Gérin and reproduced here with their kind permission. Portrait of Winifred by Nell (1960s). Plombières-les-Bains (railway poster). Plombières-les-Bains (photo). Winifred’s father, Frederick Bourne. The interior of Winifred’s ‘Richard III’ cottage in Stanford in the Vale. Painting by Nell of St Denys Church, Stanford in the Vale. Winifred’s mother, Katharine Hill. Winifred as a teenager. View of South Norwood Hill from Whitehorse Lane. ‘Bill’ and Dorothy Moore with Nicky in 1919. The young Eugène Gérin with his cello. The violoncelliste poète. Eugène in the 1930s. Winifred and Eugène on the Riviera around the time of their marriage (1932). Another photo of Winifred and Eugène from the same period. Winifred with Eugène, her brother-in-law Maurice and sister-in-law Marthe. With ‘Pussy’ in the Paris apartment. Eugène with his family in their house in Brussels (1934). Alfred Rode and his ‘Gypsy Orchestra’ in 1931. Eugène in gypsy costume. Marthe and Paul in 1942. Winifred, Eugène and Eugénie with Paul as a toddler. No. 60 West Cromwell Road, Earls Court, Kensington. Nell and ‘Gilbert’ with Rowley and Minette. Winifred in the house in West Cromwell Rd (1950s). Scene from Juniper Hall. Winifred after receiving her M.A. in 1949. Winifred and John around the time of their marriage (1955). Winifred and John in the house in West Cromwell Road. MacEwan - xx - 2 index 31/08/2015 06:16 Page vii List of Illustrations vii The cast of My Dear Master, performed in Leeds in 1955. Nell at work in her studio. Sketch of Nell painting (1968). Winifred and John on the moors near Haworth. Winifred and John in Haworth. Winifred with Anne-Marie and the three eldest Gérin children in 1970. With her godson Eugène in 1967. Church Green, Stanford in the Vale. Winifred in 1971. With Paul at Blenheim, c.1970. With Jamie. MacEwan - xx - 2 index 31/08/2015 06:16 Page viii Preface Why write a biography of a biographer? It is a question I have been asked more than once since embarking on this project. My last book was about the Brontës, a subject whose appeal is evident. But why write about someone who wrote about the Brontës? It is many years now since I first read Winifred Gérin’s biography of Charlotte Brontë. Together with Mrs Gaskell’s Life, it brought its subject alive for me and, more generally, sparked an interest in authors’ lives and a passion for literary biography. Later I went on to read Winifred’s other biographies. Her books were on my shelves for a long time before I became curious about their author, though I had wondered about the origin of her foreign surname. It was not until I moved to Belgium and first began to research the Brontës myself, after becoming fascinated by their time in Brussels, that I learned something about Winifred and her own association with Belgium. The entries in the Dictionary of National Biography outlined an enthralling story: marriage to a Belgian cellist, years living in Paris in the 1930s, and a series of exciting war adventures. At the time of the German invasion of Belgium, the Gérins were working for the British Embassy in Brussels. Having fled to Vichy France, they found themselves trapped for two years in Nice, finally escaping through Spain and Portugal to England, where they worked for Political Intelligence. Then, ten years after Eugène Gérin’s death in 1945, there was Winifred’s romantic meeting on the Haworth moors with her second husband, John Lock, and their decision to buy a house within sight of the Parsonage and devote themselves to researching the Brontës. Winifred Gérin, who wrote lives of all four siblings, was long known as theBrontë biographer. I wanted to know more, though at this stage all I envisaged was an article about Winifred’s Belgian links. I needed to trace the family of her Belgian first husband. There was a clue in the acknowledgements in her Charlotte Brontë biography, which mentioned the help given in her Brussels research by her nephew Paul Eugène Gérin, a lecturer at the University of Liège. Paul Gérin’s telephone number was in an online directory. I called him and a week later was sitting in his apartment in Liège, drinking MacEwan - xx - 2 index 31/08/2015 06:16 Page ix Preface ix tea and listening to him talk about his godmother Winny, the wife of his uncle Eugène. Marraine Winny was a formative influence and an important part of his life for nearly fifty years. Professor Gérin generously placed at my disposal hundreds of letters in impeccable French written by Winifred to him and other members of his family. Most date from after Eugène’s death and give a wealth of information on her activities in the post-war years – first trying to make her way in London as a playwright, and later gaining recognition as a biographer after her marriage to John Lock and their move to Haworth. From the DNB entries I knew that Winifred had left an unpublished autobiography called The Years that Count. Thanks to contacts in the Brontë Society and Haworth I succeeded in tracking down this memoir. I met John Lock’s second wife, who had owned it since he died in 1998. John was Winifred’s heir and literary executor. After his death, many of her papers were sold to a private collector but Mrs Lock kept the autobiography, written in the last year of Winifred’s life at the suggestion of her editor at Oxford University Press. To John Lock’s disappointment, OUP eventually decided against publication, and he never found another publisher for it. By this time I was eager to write a biography of Winifred, and Mrs Lock agreed that with the autobiography still unpublished 35 years after it was written, this would be the best way of making Winifred’s life story known. She kindly allowed me access to the memoir. Winifred herself described this memoir as a ‘partial’ one, and while it filled in many gaps in my knowledge of her early years – her child- hood, time in Paris with Eugène and wartime adventures – the years after the War are hurried through in a mere twenty pages, which is where Paul Gérin’s letters became so invaluable. The third main source of information was sitting in three large boxes in the attic of a house near Winchester. They belong to Robin Greenwood (related to the Haworth Greenwoods who knew the Brontës), a local history researcher who bought the bulk of Winifred’s papers when they were sold in 2000. On visits to Robin and his wife Gilly’s beautiful house I was given access to a treasure trove. The boxes contained letters written by Winifred to her family when she was a student at Cambridge and a newly-wed in Paris, and these give a fresher and more vivid impression of her than the memoir written in old age. They also contained typescripts of three of her plays, and manuscript poems written after Eugène’s death. A collection of her early poems was published in 1930, but her plays and most of this moving later verse are unpublished. I now had many of the essential jigsaw puzzle pieces of Winifred’s