Is This Sinead Acheson (1891–1973)?

For someone who was evidently renowned as a socialite and an extroverted supporter of left-wing causes, Sinead Acheson – usually known as Ach to her friends – has left a very thin trace of her existence. She was writer Lionel Britton's companion for several decades, and worked to keep his name in the public eye when he began to fall out of favour. What she did for a living, though, is something of a mystery. There is some evidence that she was involved in the legal profession, although she also advertised her services as a Swedish remedial face masseuse: she was trained by Constance Walton and worked at Bertha Hammond, 16 Old Bond Street, London W. 1.

Around the late 1920s, when she met Lionel Britton, she lived at 20 Ducane Close, London W. 12, when she was involved in administrative work on a voluntary basis for Left Theatre. She later lived at an appartment at 4 Essex Court, Middle Temple, E. C. 4. More bizarrely, she is said to have been the keeper of the keys to Churchill's most secret files during World War II , and to have been given the appartment in recognition of her services. This, however, contradicts statements in Dr Josephine Butler's autobiographical Churchill's Secret Agent (Ashbury: Blaketon–Hall, 1983; repr. as Cyanide in My Shoe (Cheltenham: This England, 1991)), which claims that Butler was the only female member of Churchill's 'Secret Circle'. But, as Robert Hughes notes in a post here, her death certificate reveals that for some reason she went under another name: Violet Victoria Jeanette Acheson.

Lionel Britton and Surrealism

Below is a photo from Roger Horrocks's Len Lye: A Biography (Auckland: University of Auckland, 2001). The occasion was the private showing of Eisenstein's banned film Battleship Potemkin at the Film Guild of London (where Britton was Chair). Eisenstein himself was present, wearing a policeman's helmet in the photo, which Lionel Britton rests a hand on, his other holding a phone. Also of interest is the presence of the former Dadaist Hans Richter, and Mark Segal pretending to play warming pan. But the importance of the shot to this blog is the younger woman in the photo, because it is more than probable that it is rare sighting of Ach:

(Many thanks to Roger Horrocks for permisssion to use the photo, and to Rone Waugh for providing me with some of the information here.)