To listen to more of John Julius Norwich’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFztA6vm1Za0okc3Xsq-JPlR
John Julius Norwich (1929-2018) was an English popular
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historian, travel writer and television personality. He is the author of histories of Norman Sicily, the Republic of Venice, the Byzantine Empire and 'The Popes: A History'. [Listener: Christopher Sykes]
TRANSCRIPT: In April 1942, I was summoned by the senior house master, Mr Chit Carson, who said, 'Pack up, you're going home.' And I said, 'What do you mean? The war's still on.' And he said, 'I don't know what I mean. As you say, the war's on, everything is secret. Nobody tells anybody anything. All I've been told is I've got to put you on the train to New York tonight. So go and get packing.' So I went and he put me on the train to New York and my guardian was... had been Max Reinhardt's secretary, Kaetchen Kommer, who was one of my mother's Central European dearest friends and was my official guardian all the time I was there, met me at the station and handed me a ticket to Norfolk, Virginia. And so I went to Norfolk, Virginia and there I was met, I seem to remember, by a young naval officer who took me on board the cruiser 'HMS Phoebe' on which I was to return to England. And what had happened, of course I now see. The only way things did happen in the war when... I mean, everything had to be scrounged and fiddled because there was no other way of doing anything. But my father, because he'd been the First Lord of the Admiralty knew a lot of sailors and the First Lord of the Admiralty had a great perk of a yacht in those days in which he was meant to travel around the world inspecting all the fleets. I mean, we had a home fleet and an American fleet and a Far Eastern fleet and a South African fleet and all these things. It was a huge navy in those days. And he'd had this Admiralty yacht on which he'd actually never gone beyond the Mediterranean and the Baltic. But the captain was a man called Peter Friend who was also a great friend of his. And I think he just met him in London one day and Peter Friend had said, 'How is your little boy?' And my father said, 'Well, we're longing to bring him home, he's in Canada.' And Peter Friend said, 'I've got to bring a cruiser back to England from American in three weeks' time, I'll give him a lift.' So this is what happened.
