5. London Portrait magazine, April 1984, Christopher Long: interview with his mother, née Helen Vlasto, a debutante in 1939.
6. H. Perkin, The Origins of Modern English Society (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969).
7. Nancy Mitford, Noblesse Oblige (Hamish Hamilton, 19??), p. 45.
Chapter Two: I’ve Been to London to Look at the Queen
1. Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Robert Latham and William Matthews (Bell & Hyman, 1970), vol. 3,1662, pp. 300–1.
2. Ibid., vol. 4, 4 May 1663, pp. 122–3.
3. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Beaufort, p. 55, quoted in ibid., vol. 7, p. 372.
4. Jonathan Swift, Journal to Stella (Basil Blackwell, 1974).
5. Selected Letters of Mary Wortley Montagu, ed. Robert Halsband (Penguin edn, 1986), p. 66.
6. Lord Hervey, Memoirs (Penguin edn, 1984), pp. 4 and 7.
7. Ibid., p. 21.
8. Correspondence of Horace Walpole (48 vols), (Yale Univ. Press; Oxford Univ. Press).
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Priscilla Napier, The Sword Dance (Michael Joseph, 1926), p. 26.
12. Ibid., p. 39.
13. Correspondence of Horace Walpole.
14. Pembroke Papers 1780–94, ed. Lord Herbert.
15. Queen Victoria’s Journal, June 1937 (quoted in Elizabeth Longford, Victoria R.I. (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964), p. 74.
16. Ibid. p. 77.
17. Ibid., 27 May 1839, p. 105.
18. Ibid., 29 May 1839, p. 116.
19. Ibid., p. 126.
20. Ibid., p. 125.
21. The Greville Memoirs 1814–1860, ed. Lytton Strachey and Roger Fulford.
22. Mrs Panton: Leaves from a Life (Eveleigh Nash, 1908).
23. The Diary of Lady Frederick Cavendish (John Murray, 1927), vol. i, p. 84.
24. Ibid., pp. 84–7.
25. Ibid., pp. 89–90.
26. Ibid., p. 96.
27. Ibid.
28. Lady Clodagh Anson, Victorian Days (The Richards Press, 1957), p. 136.
29. Ibid., p. 131.
Chapter Three: The Childhood of the Debs
1. Frances Donaldson, Child of the Twenties (Rupert Hart-Davis, 1959), p. 71.
2. Christopher Hollis (ed.), Death of a Gentleman (Burns Oates, 1943), p. 188.
3. Helen Long, Change into Uniform (Terence Dalton, 1978), pp. 1,10.
4. Michael Astor, Tribal Feeling (John Murray, 1963), p. 73.
5. Ruth Sebag-Montefiore, A Family Patchwork (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987), p. 18.
6. John Stevenson, British Society 1914–45 (Pelican, 1984), pp. 138,139–40.
7. Seebohm Rowntree, ‘Poverty and Progress’ (details of a study of poverty in York, 1935–6).
8. Herbert Tout, ‘The Standard of Living in Bristol’ (details of a study of poverty in Bristol, 1937).
9. Flora Fraser, The English Gentlewoman (Barrie & Jenkins, 1987), p. 212.
10. Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, The Public School Phenomenon (Hodder & Stoughton, 1977), p. 266.
11. Donaldson, Child of the Twenties, pp. 50–1.
12. Long, Change into Uniform, pp. 17–18.
13. Margaret Pringle, Dance Little Ladies: The Days of the Debutante (Orbis, 1977), p. 49.
Chapter Four: Change Your Partner, Dance While You Can
1. Lady Mary Pakenham, Brought Up and Brought Out (Cobden-Sanderson, 1938), p. 188.
2. Ibid.
3. Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon, ed. Robert Rhodes James (Penguin edn, 1970), pp. 119–20.
4. Penelope Mortimer, Queen Elizabeth: A Life of the Queen Mother (Penguin, 1987), p. 167.
5. Documents Concerning German-Polish Relations, Cmnd 6106 (hmso, 1939), pp. 44–5, 47.
6. The Times, 23 June 1939.
7. Country Life, 24 June 1939, p. 665.
Part Two: That Unspeakable Summer
Prologue
1. Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters 1930–1964 (Penguin edn, 1984), p. 147.
2. Quoted in Robert Kee, The World We Left Behind: A Chronicle of the Year 1939 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984), p. 168.
3. Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon, p. 239.
4. Documents Concerning German-Polish Relations, document 21, pp. 50–1.
5. Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters 1930–1964, pp. 149–50.
Chapter Five: The Last Four Months of Peace: May
1. Kenneth Clark, ‘The Future of Painting’, Listener, 2 October 1935.
2. Country Life, 13 May 1939, p. 495.
3. Daily Mail, 3 May 1939.
4. Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon, p. 254.
5. Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, Grace and Favour (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1961), p. 189.
6. Christian Miller, A Childhood in Scotland (John Murray, 1981).
7. Daily Mail, 19 May 1939, Charles Graves column; accompanied by a picture of the nannies.
8. Long Change into Uniform, p. 19.
Chapter Six: The Last Three Months of Peace: June
1. David Benedictus, The Fourth of June (Sphere edn, 1977).
2. Alan Brien, ‘A Peace of Paper’, Listener, 12 May 1988, p. 6.
3. Shiela Grant Duff, The Parting of the Ways (Peter Owen, 1982).
4. Jessica Mitford, Hons and Rebels, p. 71.
5. Ibid., p. 78.
6. Ibid., p. 80.
7. Ibid., p. 143.
8. Sebag-Montefiore, A Family Patchwork, p. 108.
9. The Times, 9 June 1939.
10. Quoted in Kee, The World We Left Behind, p. 208.
11. Nicolson, Diaries and Letters 1930–1964, pp. 51–2.
12. Lord Boothby, I Fight to Live (Gollancz, 1947).
13. The Duchess of Devonshire, The House: A Portrait of Chatsworth (Macmillan, 1982), p. 60.
14. Rosina Harrison, Rose: My Life in Service (Cassell, 1975), p. 86.
15. Documents Concerning German-Polish Relations, document 25.
16. Quoted in Kee, The World We Left Behind, p. 238.
17. Nicolson, Diaries and Letters 1930–1964, p. 152.
18. Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Kennedys (Pan Books, 1985), pp. 86–7.
19. Quoted in Jessica Mitford, Hons and Rebels, p. 188.
20. Churchill’s Carlton Club speech of 28 June, quoted in Kee, The World We Left Behind, p. 260.
21. Ibid.
22. Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon, p. 251.
Chapter Seven: The Last Two Months of Peace: July
1. The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, ed. Michael Davie (Penguin edn, 1979), pp. 431–2.
2. Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, The Glitter and the Gold (Heinemann, 1955), p. 236.
3. Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon, p. 253.
4. Ibid.
5. Nicholas Mosley, Beyond the Pale, p. 153.
6. Diana Mosley, A Life of Contrasts (Hamish Hamilton, 1977), p. 97.
7. Jessica Mitford, Hons and Rebels, p. 145.
8. Ibid., p. 146.
9. Statement by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, 10 July 1939, Documents Concerning German-Polish Relations, document 35, p. 76.
10. Documents Concerning German-Polish Relations, document 36, p. 77.
11. Ibid., p. 82.
Chapter Eight: The Last Month of Peace: August
1. Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon, pp. 255–6.
2. Spectator, August, 1939.
3. The Duchess of Devonshire, The House.
4. Observer, 22 May 1988.
5. Martin Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 2.
6. Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon, p. 258.
Part Three: The War: Real, Phoney and Aftermath
Chapter Nine: This Country is at War with Germany
1. Nicolson, Diaries and Letters 1930–1964, p. 159.
2. Long, Change into Uniform, pp. 15–17.
3. Diana Mosley, A Life of Contrasts, p. 155.
Chapter Ten: An Excellent Introduction for Life ?
1. A. J.P.Taylor, En
glish History 1914–1945 (Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 437.
2. Ibid.
to my parents
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* The expression derives from the sangre azul claimed by certain families of Castile, as being uncontaminated by Moorish, Jewish or other admixture ; probably founded on the blueness of the veins of people of fair complexion (Shorter Oxford Dictionary). Thus racism and anti-Semitism are also inherent in the idea of blue-bloodedness.
* U-speaker means a member of the upper class using both words and pronunciation which – often for no apparent reason – are accepted as correct by the upper classes, and are often used by them to detect aspirants.
* Of York.
* The context of its first appearance in print is revealing. Blackwell’s Magazine, issue XLII, observed in 1837: ‘Gentlemen are apt to dismiss all serious thoughts in addressing a very young debutante.’
* Pear’s soap advertising slogan of 1930s.
* From ‘The Dead Echo’ by W.H. Auden.
* The sample consists of the first forty-five debutantes whose present names and addresses I was able to verify. This means that it is not, in any strict sense, a ‘random’ sample. Those people whose addresses were easiest to obtain were either those whose names were passed on to me by a contemporary – therefore they are more likely to fall within a handful of groups of friends – or those whose present whereabouts was easily traceable through a current Debrett, which means that the sample inclines towards the members of the aristocracy listed in its pages. A truly random sample could not have been selected without full knowledge of the present location and childhood origins of all debs in 1939, and this proved impossible to compile in the limited time available. Those debutantes who were not themselves of noble birth and those who married ‘commoners’ disappear from view as far as the reference books are concerned. They could only be located through a contemporary who had remained in touch for nearly fifty years. It is a tribute to the success of the Season in forging lifelong friendships that so many have in fact done so.
* Curiously enough, although there were no presentations at Court in 1940, a number of girls – including Churchill’s daughter, Mary – did have a Season. (See Chapter 10.)
* Trousers. † Braces. ‡ Underpants.
1939 Page 31
