Live ChatOn 12 May 1982 War Artist Linda Kitson embarked on the Queen Elizabeth 2 to the Falkland Islands. The first female Official War Artist to be sent with frontline troops, SSAFA had the great privilege of speaking to Linda about some of her experiences:
The reason I got the commission…
“The reason I got the commission is because that at both St Martin’s College of Art and the Royal College of Art where I’d been a student, it just so happened that there were tutors on the staff who had been War Artists in WW2 who were also on the Selection Committee at the Imperial War Museum. (I always say that).
"When you’re a student you are already ‘in the bus queue’ being observed by various key people amongst your tutors and your peer group. I was myself teaching at the Royal College of Art at the time & so readily recognised as someone who could draw very fast - and was also free.”
Scots Guards combat trousers came over my head and I looked out of the flies …
“Travelling to the other side of the globe to sub-zero temperatures, via the Equator, I had no idea what to wear at all. Not helpful was a kindly relative saying "you will need to be very smart because you’ll be eating in the Officers’ Mess". The 'what to wear' had its funny side. By the time I got to the Quartermaster’s store on board QE2 the Gurkhas had taken everything in my size and I was left with combat trousers that fitted the tallest Scots Guards - which came way over my head so that I was looking out of the flies. Less funny was it to be so painfully cold that it hurt, and we needed at least five layers. I wore a mixture of civilian shooting and fishing clothes. (It was rumoured that the Marines wore ladies’ tights as the first - I never dared ask!).”
Art supplies (whatever to take?)
“Given that we were going to an island the other side of the globe for who knows how long, where there’d be no hope of supplies - I had no idea of what of what to take. Being an obsessive ‘equipment nerd’ I took too much, in too many sizes, which made carrying it everywhere, keeping it dry and safe, a trial in itself. In truth the worst threat of all was the risk that my hands would get so cold and painful that I couldn’t draw at all. I wish that I had spoken more about our truly daunting climatic conditions.”
From the Kings Road to the other side of the world was a considerable leap…
“By Luxury Liner to troopship, troopship to hospital ship and finally in a rubber dingy. It got increasingly alarming when our Super Cruise Ship became more self-evidently a troopship. On passing Ascension Island it came over the tannoys that we were in the arena of warfare and and I can tell you that the atmosphere really changed. The QE2 is so huge that there was no question of it going in too near because it would be a target for everything.”
…it was important to show that the prisoners were treated with equal humanity.
“Hence we crossed decked to SS Canberra, from where 5 Brigade disembarked - leaving me behind! I was horrified until I saw our wounded men and the prisoners come aboard. The 15 year old Argentinian conscripts, with their father’s call up cards, had been told by their fearsome military junta that they would be tortured if caught. They were shaking with fear. I had no orders to draw propaganda of any sort but was proud to draw the [British and Argentinian] soldiers lying in alternate beds, and I knew that it was important to show that the prisoners were treated with equal humanity.”
…somewhat startled at the sight of my red, white and blue leg warmers
“In the dead of night this rubber dinghy came to collect me from SS Canberra. My huge tin trunk filled the floor of the dinghy and was so heavy that we were weighed right down to the water level. Just me and an islander in a woolly jumper. I never saw him again to thank him most wholeheartedly. We landed on a beach, where I climbed down into a large underground dug-out, where there were four or five men with long hair and a bottle of whiskey (I thought ‘this may not be not so bad’) but it was the wrong beach so in the pitch dark we got back into the dinghy to find ‘Blue Beach 2.’ I climbed backwards down another ladder straight into HQ 40 Cdo (Commando) the Royal Marines, where CO Malcolm Hunt and his staff were somewhat startled at the sight of my red, white and blue leg warmers.
“It was interesting to see that troops know what a War Artist is, perhaps because it’s a historical tradition. There can even be a sense of not wanting to be left out. After the ceasefire I was escorted or flown to more than 20 units, sometimes three a day. On mountain tops, minefields, beaches, airfields, dugouts - everywhere. I suspect that during that period of uncertain ‘stand down’ I became something of a welcome distraction, or something of a curiosity and always a ‘listening post’. With the cold and the movement I usually had only 2-20 minutes per drawing. I did 300 plus drawings in all, and was shattered by the end of it!”
The rain and sleet came in sideways…
“Being there midwinter it minus zero temperatures and dark by mid-afternoon. Everywhere soggy flat and muddy, or jagged rock. The rain and sleet came in sideways. Always wet, always cold. Feet, hands, ears and nose - gone. Hard going for all of us. Enough complaining… I was so lucky in that I never slept out. Warm in a borrowed sleeping bag, in many corridors, trying not to kick the head of the next person. Just once waking up in an actual bed, and finding Sgt Jack Lawler, our Brigadier’s orderly in the next bed. “Ma’am“ he said “It was empty, I couldn’t resist”. I was rather prim.”
… a deep crater blasted into the ground just where they had been.
“This may sound rather bloodless, but such is the concentration on the work, that it can actually overcome the horror of what you are drawing. That is until you stop.
“It’s the first bad experiences that are the worst. Especially if you have known the people, even if only for a short time. A haunting image can last forever of course.
“For our landing I was put under command to a young officer, Major Mike Forge of the Royal Signals. He was a lovely man and I saw quite a lot of him for two or three days. The first morning that he flew ashore to establish communications he was shot down and killed almost immediately. The ‘krump’ from a helicopter crash is unmistakeable, there is nothing quite like it.
“Another ‘first’ was on Goose Green airfield, where in the morning I’d spoken cheerily to men in their trench, and later on passed by to see a deep crater blasted into the ground just where they had been.”
...regrets and sorrows can change and evolve and become more acceptable.
“Our journey home had been so delayed by the need for all shipping to take Argentinian prisoners back to Buenos Aires that on landing I remember perpetually grinning at being alive and back again at last. I never spoke about the most extraordinary experiences that we had just been through. I should have, and regret that so much.
“That is where anniversaries come in. Adjusting to life, home being with civilians again. That can be a real facer, a shock to the system - perhaps for all of us.
“Life is so busy nowadays, it’s as if we are ‘given permission’ to pause. Those haunting images that I’ve mentioned, regrets and sorrows can change and evolve and become more acceptable. Then of course there are the good times, the funny things that happen - they are possibly even more important to remember.
”The vast scope of what SSAFA does for every eventually in military life, and have done for so long is so inspiring.”