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time. They visited the sea and countryside, and were welcomed to Whitestone for homecooked meals, to pick garden flowers, play the gramophone or sit by the fire, before Ede drove them back each night to their hotel in Tangier. The Edes were struck by 'how much the soldier abroad longed for human consideration and domesticity, and how very little he ever got it'. 34 When these visits ceased in June 1940, the Edes decided to travel again to the United States: any money raised through lectures would be sent to the Tangier War Emergency Fund. The trip lasted over two years. Into their second-hand Buick, the Edes stowed makeshift kitchen equipment and a larder, as well as a clutch of small Gaudier- Brzeska drawings and Wallises (or 'Wallii', as Ben Nicholson and Ede called them). Helen missed the children. Ede deplored the ugliness of it: 'I live in hideous houses, I eat with hideous spoons, I go to unenlightened universities'. 35 He did, however, befriend and encourage the young sculptor Richard Pousette-Dart, who shared Ede's love of shells and pebbles. Pousette-Dart gave Ede drawings and a series of weighty, carved brass rings. Ede gave Pousette-Dart his greatcoat. Helen cooked for them both. The remainder of the war, from 1943 to 1945, was spent in Britain. Ede wrote, gave lectures and supported friends. Hepworth, married since 1938 to Ben Nicholson, and living with their triplets in St Ives, described a wartime visit from Ede: Jim was charming – so nice to the children & so refreshing to be with. … He bought 3 little paintings of Ben's & though he may not realise it completely saved our life – we were at bottom & could not pay either school bills or grocer! 36 Concerned about David Jones's health and finances, Ede wrote to friends asking for donations. He told Jones, 'you have never anything to thank me for – its I who am always in your debt.' 37 When the Edes finally returned to Tangier, in 1945, they added a five-bedroomed floor to Whitestone so that groups of servicemen could stay for long weekends. Again, there was music and good food, with Ede encouraging appreciation of his pictures. Nicholson's 1933 (musical instruments), with its tilting guitar and violin, could be understood, he explained, as a painting of two drunken sailors. 38 By Christmas 1947, the Edes' funds were exhausted. They downsized into Whitestone II, a house they built in the garden with grey floor tiles, walls whitewashed with a hint of blue and a 'beautiful fireplace which has a cathedral look about it'. Above the mantlepiece was Wood's seascape, Le Phare, with below, as a visual rhyme, two oddly shaped shells resembling 'ships in sail'. 39 Ede's final lecture tour to the United States, in 1950, was undertaken alone. He reconnected with Pousette- Dart and made a new friend in William Congdon, whose dark, rich paintings of temples, churches and piazzas he would soon collect. 34 Ede, 'Between Two Memories, quoted in Freeman, p.176. 35 Ede, letter to Richard Pousette-Dart, 21 February 1941, KY/EDE/1/13, quoted in Freeman, p.186. 36 Barbara Hepworth, letter to Margaret Gardiner, 17 May 1944, Tate Archive, TGA 202016, Barbara Hepworth © Bowness 37 Ede, letter to David Jones, 30 September 1944, Kettles Yard Archive, KY/EDE/1/8/1, quoted in Freeman, p.199. 38 Ede, 'Between Two Memories', p.51, quoted in Freeman, p.201. 39 Ede, letter to Perry Rathbone, 22 December 1948, quoted in Freeman, p.204. 13