TO WILLIAM H. WEBBER

Editorial Unit: | 43 Grosvenor Street, | London, W.1. |
22nd July, 1944

To: Mr. Webber.

From: Mr. Graham Greene.

It will perhaps interest you to hear the reactions of a Londoner to your fantastically inefficient and childish ideas of organising a fireguard, though it will probably seem odd to you that anyone should take fire-guard duties seriously. But you should remember that in London we have had some experience of fires.

Understanding that one had to report not later than half an hour before black-out, I arrived at 25 Gilbert Street last night about 10.15. I was told to go to 47 Mount Street. I went to 47 Mount Street and found the house locked. Half an hour later I tried again and found a guard there. He had an office chair to sit on – nothing else, not even a blanket. I returned to Gilbert Street to raise Cain and found I had been sent to Mount Street by mistake: I went back to Mount Street for the final time and collected my things. By this time I was getting a little irritable. I was then told that my room as fire-guard was No. 2552. The passages were in darkness; there was no black-out in the rooms and no-one knew where 2552 was. After a long search with the help of a watchman, I found it at the top of the building, at the head of a twisting iron emergency ladder. No fire-guard had apparently ever in fact slept in this absurd death-trap and I set up my bed on the floor below in room 2541. To this room on the third or is it the fourth floor? – one had to carry one’s own bed, blankets, mattress, pillow – a dubious example of courtesy and consideration to fire-guards.

There were no instructions as to where one found the tools of one’s trade – stirrup pump, etc., no directions where water was available, no issue of torches in case the electric-light failed. Incidentally there seemed to be no other fire-guard on duty.

However, I must admit that the Gilbert Street fireguard is a little better off than the wretched guard in Mount Street whose treatment is really scandalous.

If at any time you care to ring me up at 49 Grosvenor Street, I will be delighted to tell you what you can do with your fire-guard duties.

Despite this outburst, Greene continued to work as a fire guard.²¹

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 625