Aileen Palmer
Aileen Palmer was born in London on 6th April 1915. She was the eldest daughter of writers, Vance Palmer and Nettie Palmer. The Palmers arrived back in Australia in October that year. Aileen and her sister Helen were home-schooled by their mother in Dandenongs, near Melbourne, and then at Caloundra, Queensland.
Palmer attended Presbyterian Ladies’ College and graduated with first-class honours in French language and literature from the University of Melbourne. She also studied German, Spanish and Russian. In 1934 she joined the Communist Party of Australia.
Her biographer, Sylvia Martin, has pointed out: "Politically conscious from an early age, as an undergraduate Palmer was involved with the Melbourne University Labor Club and the left-wing Victorian Writers’ League, through which she helped to organise the campaign for Egon Kisch in 1934. She joined the Communist Party of Australia in April that year. Travelling to England with her family early in 1935, she took part in anti-fascist rallies in London and spent three months in Vienna translating the work of the German writer Helene Scheu-Riesz."
Palmer was staying with her parents in a small village near Barcelona when the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936. Palmer moved to London and became a member of the Spanish Medical Aid Committee, an organization that had been set-up by the Socialist Medical Association and other progressive groups. Other members included Kenneth Sinclair-Loutit, Hugh O'Donnell, Lord Faringdon, Arthur Greenwood, Tom Mann, Ben Tillett, Harry Pollitt, Mary Redfern Davies and Isobel Brown.
Soon afterwards Kenneth Sinclair-Loutit was appointed Administrator of the Field Unit that was to be sent to Spain. According to Tom Buchanan, the author of Britain and the Spanish Civil War (1997), "he disregarded a threat of disinheritance from his father to volunteer." Palmer went with the unit as an interpreter. Her biographer, Sylvia Martin, pointed out: "Aileen became one of the International Brigaders who worked on the frontlines of the conflict. She quickly added Spanish and Italian to her fluency in English, French and German and so was able to assist the doctors and ambulance drivers in several languages as the field hospital to which she was attached moved to the various battle sites attending to the wounded, sometimes hundreds in a day. Living under appalling conditions and in constant danger, she maintained a cheerful outlook in letters to her family."
Aileen Palmer in Barcelona in December 1936.
Her biographer, Sylvia Martin, pointed out: "Aileen became one of the International Brigaders who worked on the frontlines of the conflict. She quickly added Spanish and Italian to her fluency in English, French and German and so was able to assist the doctors and ambulance drivers in several languages as the field hospital to which she was attached moved to the various battle sites attending to the wounded, sometimes hundreds in a day. Living under appalling conditions and in constant danger, she maintained a cheerful outlook in letters to her family."
Kenneth Sinclair-Loutit later recalled that she developed a close relationship with Thora Silverthorne: "She (Aileen Palmer) had an acute sense of duty and put her whole being into her work. She had no special skills, but she would turn her hand to anything, using any spare moment to act as secretary and record keeper. In action, she kept the register of admissions and of discharges - whether these latter were by evacuation to the rear or by exitus lethalis, by death.... Had Aileen been born a few hundred years earlier, she would been a Franciscan or a Carmelite. Coming to Spain in 1936 had enabled her vocation to flourish and her devotion to be expressed in the apostolate of works, as her predecessors would have called it. She was so convinced that she was ugly that she punished her femininity by neglecting her appearance; Thora would tease and chivvy her into taking minimum care of herself and of her looks. Aileen, whose only indulgence was in continuous cigarette smoking, showed a very sweet protectiveness towards Thora and myself. She loved seeing Thora happy and this made her tolerant about us."
On 8th December 1936 Aileen Palmer wrote to her parents about her work as a nurse: "Our hospital is not on a very dangerous front - as you probably know, the Aragon front has changed less than any since the beginning of the war. So far, however, there has been no move towards sending us to Madrid, though our administrator offered that we should go if desired, as we are the best hospital close to the front line, have established a certain reputation in the sector, and are the first good station to which cases requiring urgent operation can be brought. Outwork is, of course, very spasmodic - for instance, two nights running, after clays of idleness occupied, rather fruitlessly, with our own internal affairs, you have cases requiring laporotomies - operations on the guts - brought in after midnight, and the chief surgeon, theatre nurse, anaesthetist (who is also the administrator) and maybe one or two others such as myself who hang around to make tea and help clear up working till well after three or four. Then another day when no wounded arrive, and people quarrel for lack of occupation, and because they dislike the shape of each other's ears."
Palmer went back to Barcelona for a rest: "You don't realise how the place has got you down till you get away to a place like Barcelona. I go round the streets in a daze, feeling like a prisoner emerging to blink at the light. Barcelona all looks very clean and newly painted - not hectic, as before we left, or dully resigned, as when we were here before, but just steady winter sunshine and bright colours. Taxis are back on the streets - neat, efficient-looking, black and red ones, run by the CNT - and the driver scrupulously insists that you wait for the ha'penny change when you pay your fare."
Palmer worked closely with Kenneth Sinclair Loutit until until the International Brigades were withdrawn at the end of 1938. Palmer returned to London and during the early stages of the Second World War she worked as an ambulance driver. Later she was employed by Australia House.
In 1945 Palmer moved back to Australia. She developed a reputation for heavy drinking and at the age of thirty-three she suffered a mental breakdown and spent the next ten years in mental institutions, rehabilitation clinics and the family home in Melbourne. She remained a committed political activist and travelled on peace missions to Vietnam and China.
Palmer remained a member of the Communist Party of Australia and provided translations of the work of Ho Chi Minh and To Huu. She also published articles and poems in journals and a volume of her own poetry, World Without Strangers? appeared in 1964.
Sylvia Martin has argued: "Palmer’s friendships with older writers from her parents’ circle, notably Katharine Susannah Prichard and Flora Eldershaw, were important influences on her writing and politics. Sturdy, with short dark hair and a strong Palmer profile, she never married; the lesbian historian, Sally Newman, analysed an autobiographical novel written while Palmer was an adolescent and her later diaries, and concluded that her sexual orientation was probably lesbian."
Aileen Palmer died in a psychiatric institution in died in Ballarat, Victoria, on 21st December 1988.
Primary Sources
(1) Kenneth Sinclair-Loutit, Very Little Luggage (2009)
There were also the communists, numerically not a major element, some of whom were inspirational and here I think of Aileen Palmer. Aileen was the child of Nettie (Janet Higgens) and Vance Palmer of the Melbourne Independant Theatre which put them both into the Australian literary pantheon. She had an acute sense of duty and put her whole being into her work. She had no special skills, but she would turn her hand to anything, using any spare moment to act as secretary and record keeper. In action, she kept the register of admissions and of discharges - whether these latter were by evacuation to the rear or by exitus lethalis, by death.
Aileen therefore became the custodian of the effectuos de los muertes those pathetic little bundles of treasured objects that were all that remained of the material and emotional existence of a once living lively man. When there was any trace of his origins, Aileen wrote a letter to his family but mostly there was a name without an address, a cigarette lighter and some photos all wrapped in a handkerchief or in a pouch together with a knife. The thought of these poor treasures, piled on the shelf behind Aileen's desk, still tugs at my heart as does the knife lying on my desk that she gave me from that sad and modest store. From this same source we also re-equipped those discharged casualties who would otherwise have left our hospital with nothing they could call their own. Aileen was indeed of the stuff of the Saints - but there was nothing transcendental in her make-up; she was a marxist but not a party fanatic. Preaching did not interest her, action did. Had Aileen been born a few hundred years earlier, she would been a Franciscan or a Carmelite. Coming to Spain in 1936 had enabled her vocation to flourish and her devotion to be expressed in the "apostolate of works", as her predecessors would have called it. She was so convinced that she was ugly that she punished her femininity by neglecting her appearance; Thora would tease and chivvy her into taking minimum care of herself and of her looks. Aileen, whose only indulgence was in continuous cigarette smoking, showed a very sweet protectiveness towards Thora and myself. She loved seeing Thora happy and this made her tolerant about us.
(2) Archie Cochrane, One Man's Medicine (1989)
Everyone liked and admired Aileen Palmer, an Australian, for her friendliness, devotion, and hard work. Everyone trusted her, although she was a self-confessed party member. Another self-confessed party member was Thora Silverthorne, a highly skilled surgical theatre sister. Despite a hard streak, she was friendly and amusing. I also liked Ruth Prothero, a charming, migrant doctor from Vienna. I talked fluent German and she introduced me to some of her Swiss and German friends. Margot Miller, another Australian, was a journalist and party member. She was a robust, efficient hard worker and later became a well known writer of detective stories. I enjoyed her company. A fifth female member of the original party I never did get to know. She was a complete loner and soon separated from us.
(3) Aileen Palmer, quoted in Women's Voices in the Spanish Civil War (1991)
In the beginning was Barcelona ... before the war burst, when the furtive rich sat in the shady cafes, looking out. Then I was also a tourist, an outsider, sitting in cafes, and watching the river that never stopped flowing and passed me by: the Ramblas, whirling thoroughfare grown from an ancient river, like all the sunken roads that wind from the Catalan hills to the sea ...
Then the storm. First it was just a cloud that thickened on the far horizon of Madrid. Monday: "Calvo Sotclo is dead," Frieda announced, as she joined the usual group at the fonda in the early afternoon.
"Viva," the student said. "There's a fascist out of the way." Frieda turned on him.
"No, you fool, don't you see what this means - It's what the fascists have been driving for all along. Their whole policy of provocation has been directed to this end. Now they have a slogan, a rallying-cry: "The Reds have killed Sotelo."
The days passed, heavy with foreboding. Arthur used to spend long vigils on the streets after midnight, with groups of workers waiting for arms to be handed out if the fascists should rise. Every day, travelling in by train to Barcelona, you saw reinforcements of Civil Guards pouring into the city: for which side?
(4) Aileen Palmer, letter to family (8th December, 1936)
At last I am down on Barcelona leave after over three months up at the hospital, and it's beginning to come back to me that there was a world before Granen.
Our hospital is not on a very dangerous front - as you probably know, the Aragon front has changed less than any since the beginning of the war. So far, however, there has been no move towards sending us to Madrid, though our administrator offered that we should go if desired, as we are the best hospital close to the front line, have established a certain reputation in the sector, and are the first good station to which cases requiring urgent operation can be brought. Outwork is, of course, very spasmodic - for instance, two nights running, after clays of idleness occupied, rather fruitlessly, with our own internal affairs, you have cases requiring laporotomies - operations on the guts - brought in after midnight, and the chief surgeon, theatre nurse, anaesthetist (who is also the administrator) and maybe one or two others such as myself who hang around to make tea and help clear up working till well after three or four. Then another day when no wounded arrive, and people quarrel for lack of occupation, and because they dislike the shape of each other's ears.
You don't realise how the place has got you down till you get away to a place like Barcelona. I go round the streets in a daze, feeling like a prisoner emerging to blink at the light. Barcelona all looks very clean and newly painted - not hectic, as before we left, or dully resigned, as when we were here before, but just steady winter sunshine and bright colours. Taxis are back on the streets - neat, efficient-looking, black and red ones, run by the CNT - and the driver scrupulously insists that you wait for the ha'penny change when you pay your fare.
(5) May Macfarlane, letter to her mother (27th December, 1937)
No, our Colmenar was not bombed - it was Colmenar Viago - there are many towns in Spain with the same name. For instance, I know of 3 or 4 Villanuevas. Yes, many small villages were bombed early this month, but they were not "front line" villages or places where we had soldiers or anything else of military importance. In Tarancon the fascists after bombing the town, swooped down and machine-gunned the streets. Many women and children were killed. Just the usual fascist tactics of destruction to terrorize the civil population...
Bombs never worry me - I shall have to be very unlucky to get hit, but I quite understand how anxious you feel when you don't know what is happening.
The only anxious time I had was on the Brunete front where the fascists bombed and machined the road from the front almost continuously from planes. Dr Langer and some of my other friends had to visit the front every day. The ambulance drivers had a very gruelling time...
I live in hopes of getting your parcel of cake and pudding etc. If you posted it on the 4th it was not likely to arrived here before the first week in January. I will be 29 next month, I shall write to Valencia and make enquiries about it.
I am now working in a clinic with a Canadian doctor.
The weather now is quite cold - fog occasionally, very often frost and the thin ice lasts all day. We had a fall of snow last week, it is the only time I have seen it and everybody laughed at my excitement.
(6) Una Wilson, diary (1937)
23 February: We had some frightful cases today, just the remains of once healthy men. My God! how brave they are. Every day we are bombed but I am too tired to care what happens. I am in charge of the theatre and sometimes there are as many as ten doctors in it. It is too much really. They are very good to us, of course, and are everlastingly telling me what an excellent theatre Sister I am, etc. They are dears, really, but I am too tired for compliments. Our two chiefs, Doctors L. and D. are very worried about the amount of work we have, but it seems impossible to get another sister who knows the theatre. Thank God I've got Mac. (May MacFarlane).
25 February: Never in my life have I felt so utterly tired, miserable and unhappy. I would be grateful to be caught by one of the machine-guns which play about in the air. We seem to wade about in a river of blood without a break. Everyone about me receives mail, and still none for me. I have given up hope of letters.
27 February: I have just had three whole hours sleep, but when I wakened I could not speak, my voice had gone completely. I looked in my little mirror and was shocked. My face is ashen and wrinkled. Hell! I'm ugly.
29 February: Today two men came in whom I knew. The boy whom I had met at a small town near the front. A tall, handsome lad of about 21 years, the kind a mother would be proud of. One of his legs was blown right off, and the other so injured that Dr D. had to remove it. I usually manage to hide my feelings completely where my work is concerned, but on this occasion I could have wept for hours. We gave him a transfusion, of course, and did all we could to save him, but when I called up to the ward a minute ago to see how he was, he was already dead and taken away. Died of shock. Dr D. did a wonderful operation, too. Then, later this afternoon, another Englishman I knew, a Commandant, a tall, fine-looking man of about 35, called to me across the theatre (I was attending another table) and I recognised him immediately. What a change. The last time I saw him he strode up to me with a smile, a happy healthy man, and this afternoon he lay there stripped of his clothes, ready for operation, covered with mud, his face lined with suffering, a huge wound in his side with his intestines falling from it. He died under the anaesthetic ... and so it goes on, day after day, this awful slaughter. We heal their wounds and back they go to the front to be shot to bits. Isn't it fearful? How I hate war, hate it like hell. I feel tonight that I could never smile again.
(7) Helen Grant, diary (1937)
Saturday 27 March 1937: Travelled third class to Barcelona. Train crowded with people, mostly peasants. Travelling was much easier than in England as everybody insisted on helping us with our luggage. The usual Spanish habit of asking you to share their food. Great delight of the carriage when we upset the wine all over ourselves trying to drink from the bota [skin drinking bottle)... Arrived at Barcelona in just over two hours. Took a taxi, which surprised me as I hadn't realised they were running. The taxis are all painted red and black with the initials CNT (the anarchist trade union). No tips - everyone very polite and efficient.
Notices on the outside doors in our block said, "This business is under the workers' control" followed by the initials CNT and UGT (anarchist and socialist unions)... The only sign of abnormality - dark streets at night. Cafes full of people - trams running normally - buses and taxis - cinemas open.
Saturday 3 April: O'Donnell also told me that the situation in Barcelona was ticklish. This confirmed my own impression. Since Thursday I had noticed a change of temperature. (Rica had told me that while at the police station the police were rushing in all night taking arms out of lockers.) O'Donnell said that he had been up until five o'clock in the morning, armed, waiting in case of a raid. The Anarchist papers, moreover, had begun to attack the government violently, demanding the dissolution of the Shock Police (Cuerpos Uriifornaados). They had also begun urging that the revolution should not be lost sight of in the civil war and posters had appeared all over the town saying; "The Anarchists have sacrificed part of their ideology by taking office. What are the Marxists doing? It is time they carried out their side of the pact by socialising." Another point made by Anarchist papers was that mobilisation should not be carried out too rapidly. I was told that one of the main causes for the crises was that Anarchist leaders in the government signed decrees with the other members of the Cabinet but that the rank and file refused to carry out the decrees. This, of course, is understandable since the basis of Anarchist theory is contrary to government from above and delegation of authority. The Socialists, however, were anxious to win the war and realised that the small farmer peasant and trader must be encouraged and not frightened.
(8) Isabel Brown, quoted in Women's Voices in the Spanish Civil War (1991)
The British government took the same attitude as the French government, that it was a civil war that was taking place in Spain, and they would adopt a policy of non-intervention. The Labour Party and the TUC took the same attitude of non-Intervention. So we understood there was a political battle to be fought. The suggestion came up that we should get a responsible delegation to go to Spain in August (1936), within weeks of the war starting, to investigate for themselves whether there was any evidence of Hitler or Mussolini intervening with arms in any form. It was my job to get that delegation. So I got Lord Hastings to agree to go, because titled names always count, and two Labour MPs, one was William Dobbie who was MP for York, a railwayman, the other was Seymour Cox, with a Midland constituency. And the fourth was me. And I was very quiet about it...
We finally got to Port Bou, the frontier station, and we had to go through the tunnel, through the Pyrenees. I knew that while there was an independent Presidencia in Catalonia, at the frontier post the Anarchists were a very big influence, and a negative influence, in a way... Well these Anarchists let us through ... And they offered us two cars and armed guards to take us to Barcelona because that was their territory, as it were.
(9) Ellen Wilkinson, speech in the House of Commons (6th July, 1938)
Franco got the army, or most of it, but one advantage which the Spanish government had, although it was bereft of the means of obtaining order, was that as the legal government of Spain it had control of the finances of the country. It was expected that Franco was going to get control of Spain in 48 hours. In that he failed. Then Germany and Italy promised to supply him with everything he wanted until December. Almost the next day France and Britain came forward with the declaration of non-intervention. By that declaration they cut through and made nugatory the one advantage that the government of Spain possessed, namely, that they had control of the national finances, and therefore had the power and in international law the right to buy arms. The Non-Intervention Committee neutralised that one advantage. That is why I say that this country came to the aid of General Franco.