Description
Object description
Carbon copy (47pp ts) of a journal/memoir for May – October 1940, recording with much grim humour his experiences as a British national living in France at the time of the German invasion and occupation of the country, his eventful train journey from Cannes to St Jean de Luz where he secured a room at the Golf Hotel in the company of many other refugees from various parts of Europe, his dealings with French and British (consular) officialdom to secure extensions to his French residence permit and attempts to gain an exit permit, the arrival of German military personnel in the town and his observations on their behaviour and activities (particularly the officers), general conditions under occupation, his sense of isolation and fear of being removed to a concentration camp, financial worries, the requisitioning of the hotel by the Germans (apparently for the accommodation of evacuated families from Berlin), his relocation to the nearby Miramar and then to the Edward VII after further requisitioning, finally securing his passage to Spain (crossing at Hendaye) and onward journey to Portugal, where he found accommodation in Estoril; also a series of 66 letters and postcards dated between August 1939 – April 1941, written mainly to his daughter from the various hotels he was living in in Switzerland, France and Portugal, and containing family and war-related news; photograph of the author with one of his grandsons [Greenwood had retired from a senior position in the Colonial Service in 1926 and subsequently lived mainly in Switzerland and France; his wife died in January 1940 while they were in Cannes, Greenwood himself died in Estoril in June 1941].
Content description
Carbon copy (47pp ts) of a journal/memoir for May – October 1940, recording with much grim humour his experiences as a British national living in France at the time of the German invasion and occupation of the country, his eventful train journey from Cannes to St Jean de Luz where he secured a room at the Golf Hotel in the company of many other refugees from various parts of Europe, his dealings with French and British (consular) officialdom to secure extensions to his French residence permit and attempts to gain an exit permit, the arrival of German military personnel in the town and his observations on their behaviour and activities (particularly the officers), general conditions under occupation, his sense of isolation and fear of being removed to a concentration camp, financial worries, the requisitioning of the hotel by the Germans (apparently for the accommodation of evacuated families from Berlin), his relocation to the nearby Miramar and then to the Edward VII after further requisitioning, finally securing his passage to Spain (crossing at Hendaye) and onward journey to Portugal, where he found accommodation in Estoril; also a series of 66 letters and postcards dated between August 1939 – April 1941, written mainly to his daughter from the various hotels he was living in in Switzerland, France and Portugal, and containing family and war-related news; photograph of the author with one of his grandsons [Greenwood had retired from a senior position in the Colonial Service in 1926 and subsequently lived mainly in Switzerland and France; his wife died in January 1940 while they were in Cannes, Greenwood himself died in Estoril in June 1941].
History note
Cataloguer SWW