The Other Mitford

by Alexander, Diana

  He trained first as a gunner but then, after another approach by Pam to Bill Elliot, as a radar operator and navigator in night fighters, training at Middle Wallop in Hampshire. Here he gained a reputation for being imperturbable under pressure and an outstanding interpreter of radar signals and was much in demand by pilots. In June 1941 he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for devotion to duty while successfully operating a secret device (radar) which contributed to the destruction of several enemy aircraft. His accuracy in taking a radar fix was impeccable, as illustrated by the occasion when his suitcase fell out of the aircraft in which he was flying because the hatch was not properly secured. ‘Lesser men might have watched its fall; Jackson at once went to his equipment, took a radar fix on his position, and after suitable estimation of the probable trajectory of a suitcase, was able to tell the Wiltshire police exactly where they would find it,’ reported the pilot. The suitcase was recovered unopened near Devizes and Derek was greatly relieved because it contained his favourite red silk dressing gown, as well as his change of clothes.

  The following year his main work was in ‘Window’, a system which involved bombers dropping strips of metal foil in order to confuse German radar. He later worked on ways of jamming radio transmissions directing German air defences, much of this done by testing a captured German aircraft. For this work he was promoted to wing commander and there is no doubt that he played a significant part in winning the science war and saving many aircraft from being shot down by enemy fire. In 1944 he was awarded the Air Force Cross and made an OBE at the end of the war. He was also given the Legion of Merit by the government of the USA.

  Strange to relate, because of their very different characters and views, Derek formed a lasting friendship with his brother-in-law, Sir Oswald Mosley, who had married Pam’s sister Diana in 1936. Derek had little sympathy with some of Mosley’s ideas, and he did not attend any of his rallies, but he did agree with Mosley’s anti-war position – until he himself became so actively involved in the war against Germany. Even so, he was as anxious as Pam that the two young Mosley sons, Alexander and Max, should be given a home at Rignell while their parents were in prison for their championship of fascism, and was equally insistent that Mosley and Diana should join them there after their release. In the event, they were not allowed to stay there long because of Derek’s very secret war work, but they did not leave without a fight on his part. He took it as a personal insult that the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, was suggesting he might be a security risk and that his guests might betray secrets to the enemy; he told Morrison so in no uncertain terms, but to no avail. The Mosleys left Rignell to live in a deserted pub at nearby Shipton-under-Wychwood. Derek was the only person who would greet Mosley with an embrace, kissing him on both cheeks – not easy as Mosley was over 6ft tall while Derek was of only medium height – to show his genuine affection.

  After the war Derek was outraged at the high level of income tax – 97.5 per cent – which the new Labour government imposed on fortunes as large as his; he was also still resentful about Morrison’s attitude to the Mosleys staying at Rignell. When he was offered the post of Professor of Spectroscopy at Oxford in 1948 he decided not to accept. He and Pam immigrated to Ireland and bought Tullamaine Castle, near Fethard in County Tipperary.

  The move proved to be a mistake, in spite of the money which Derek saved in taxes. He thoroughly enjoyed the horse-racing side of his life, but he desperately missed his science. He became bored, was unfaithful to Pam on a good many occasions and finally left her for Janetta Kee who had just divorced Robert Kee, the future television presenter. With her he had a daughter called Rose, the only child of all his marriages, with whom he had an uneasy relationship until the final years of his life. This was hardly surprising since he had left Janetta, shortly after Rose was born, to have an affair with Janetta’s half-sister, Angela. She had led a colourful life even by the standards of her arty, intellectual, upper-crust circle, and is believed to have been Nancy Mitford’s inspiration for Fanny’s mother, the Bolter, in The Pursuit of Love.

  Derek’s marriage to Janetta ended in 1956 and his three-year affair with Angela, which had run concurrently for part of that time, ended not long after when he dumped her for another woman. Janetta and Angela, unsurprisingly, did not speak for twenty-seven years. They were reunited in 1980 at Tramores, the house in southern Spain which Derek had paid for Angela to build.

  Derek’s fourth wife was Consuelo Regina Maria Eyre, who called herself Princess Ratibor, having previously been married to a central European prince. She apparently felt she could tame this eccentric and volatile man and convert him to the Roman Catholic faith. When Pam heard, through Diana, that he was taking instruction from a priest, she said: ‘I feel so sorry for the priest.’ Derek and Consuelo were married in 1957 but the marriage lasted less than two years, after which Derek paid her off with ‘a lot of diamonds’.

  Derek’s fifth marriage to Barbara Skelton was even more bizarre. She had been married to journalist Cyril Connolly and then to publisher George Weidenfeld. Connolly divorced her for adultery, citing Weidenfeld; then Weidenfeld divorced her, citing Connolly, with whom she then resumed a relationship. Not surprisingly, this gave her the nickname Helter Skelter. She also had affairs with other men, including King Farouk of Egypt and journalist Kenneth Tynan. She was a volatile, rude and aggressive woman and her marriage to Derek in 1966 soon degenerated into angry and violent behaviour. As ever, he gave her a generous divorce settlement but there must have been times when he regretted parting from gentle Pam, with whom he was now on very good terms again.

  He was soon to sail into calmer waters when in 1967, shortly after his divorce from Barbara, he married Marie-Christine Reille, a good-looking French widow in her thirties. This marriage lasted for fourteen years – the same as his marriage to Pam – and ended only with his death. Derek and Marie-Christine had a shared interest in racehorse breeding and also in art. They went to live in Switzerland but Derek continued his research in spectroscopy in Paris, publishing several important papers. They also kept long-haired dachshunds as Pam and Derek had done. Could this have been another reason why the marriage lasted so long? In addition, Derek at last got to know his daughter Rose and her baby son Rollo; Rose took a flat nearby in Lausanne so that she could visit him in the final months of his life. He died of a heart attack caused by clotting of the arteries, having had a leg amputated, in 1982.

  Derek Jackson was a man of extreme contradictions. Meticulous in his work, the same was not true of his personal relationships. Though vehemently opposed to the war with Germany, he became one of his country’s war heroes. He had immense charm which could turn to anger in a split second and when angry he could be extremely rude. He never wanted children and only had one child from all his six marriages, yet he was devoted to his nephews, nieces and stepchildren, as well as, very late in life, to Rose and his only grandson Rollo. At the time of the break-up of their marriage he was very unkind to Pam, but they soon became friends and remained so until his death. He also remained close to Pam’s family, especially the Mosleys, and after he died Diana spoke of him as being ‘such good company, a truly brilliant and wonderful man – though not entirely human’.

  An appreciation of Derek Jackson is incomplete without a transcript of a conversation between him and a young English delegate to a conference on nuclear physics, which took place near Rome in the 1970s. He and Derek were discussing their colleagues at the congress during an afternoon break:

  Delegate: I’m told there is one extraordinary fellow here. English, too, though he lived abroad for years.

  Derek: Really. Who’s that?

  Delegate: Well, he’s not only a brilliant physicist – he also had an outstanding war in the RAF, winning lots of decorations, and before and after the war he rode three times in the Grand National. He’s got pots of money – through a family shareholding in the News of the World, of all things – and has been married at least half a dozen times,
including to one of those Mitford girls.

  Derek: I think I ought to tell you, before you go any further, that I’m the man in question.

  Delegate: Oh, really? I’m sorry, but we haven’t been introduced.

  Derek: I’m Derek Jackson.

  Delegate (after a pause): No, that wasn’t the name.

  The shrieks of laughter which this story must have caused when related to the Mitford sisters by Derek can only be imagined.

  Seven

  The Turbulent Thirties

  At the beginning of the 1930s, although the turmoil in the financial markets was continuing to grow, David and Sydney could be reasonably content with the activities of their large and lively family. But the storm clouds were gathering for them, as they were for the world at large.

  For Nancy, at least, life had temporarily taken a more settled turn – though it was not to last. Hamish finally broke off their ‘engagement’ by telling her that he was engaged to someone else (this was not true but Nancy, who never admitted that he was homosexual, believed him). She was devastated, but only weeks later she accepted a proposal of marriage from Peter Rodd, who had been a friend of Hamish’s at Oxford. It was not a wise choice. Peter was not in love with Nancy any more than she was with him. He had been sent down from Oxford and had failed in every job he had attempted. He was extravagant, a heavy drinker and, worst of all, pedantic and boring – about the worst sin in the Mitford family. Nevertheless, he was blonde, good-looking and his socialist politics fitted in with what Nancy believed at the time. The wedding took place in London in 1933 and the couple went to live in Chiswick where Nancy enjoyed, for a time, being a married woman. Highland Fling, her first novel, had been published in 1931 and went into a second edition; she had followed it with Christmas Pudding the following year.

  Meanwhile, Pam was making a good fist of running the farm at Biddesden in very difficult times, but all was not well with Bryan and Diana. Diana had begun to feel that her wealthy and glamorous lifestyle and even her two little boys, Jonathan and Desmond, were not enough to occupy her lively mind. She felt that there must be more to life but was unsure what that might be. Then in 1932 she met Sir Oswald Mosley at a party and fell in love with him. From then on her life took an entirely different turn.

  Mosley was an enigmatic figure who had been both a Conservative and Labour MP but, dissatisfied with both main political parties, had then formed his own, the New Party, which failed to get support in the general election of 1931. When he and Diana met he was about to launch the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Diana fell in love both with the man and his ideas and was prepared to sacrifice her lifestyle and her reputation for him; this was in spite of the fact that he was already married to Cynthia, known as Cimmie, daughter of Lord Curzon, and was known to be a serial womaniser.

  The Redesdales were horrified but Diana was not to be dissuaded. She and Bryan were divorced the following year and she lived in a house in Eaton Square, London, known as the Eatonry by the family. Her younger sisters were forbidden to go there, her beloved Tom refused to visit, Pam stayed on to help on the Biddesden farm and only Nancy was a regular visitor. Diana did not expect Mosley to divorce Cimmie, with whom he had three children, but she needed to be available whenever he could visit her. Just before Diana’s divorce came through, Cimmie died of peritonitis – some said that because of her husband’s womanising she had lost the will to live, though if penicillin had been available she would have been saved. Diana and Mosley were shocked and the grief-stricken Mosley threw himself into building up the increasingly violent and disreputable BUF and – almost unbelievably – embarked on an affair with Cimmie’s younger sister, Alexandra ‘Baba’ Metcalfe, whom he took on holiday to France.

  Unsurprisingly, Diana was not happy with this arrangement but the die was already cast; in any case, she had come so far that there was no going back. Having received an invitation to visit Germany from Putzi Hanfstaengl, Hitler’s foreign press secretary whom she had met at a party in London, she left England for Germany in August 1933, taking Unity with her. Unity, having joined the BUF when she had met Mosley through Diana, had now espoused a cause which would take over and ultimately take her life. Filled with fascist zeal, the sisters embarked on their first visit to Hitler’s Germany. David and Sydney were unaware that Unity had also become a member of the party so the visit to Germany seemed a good opportunity for their wayward daughter to learn the language.

  Although Putzi was unable to organise a meeting with Hitler for the girls, he did get them tickets to the Parteitag in Nuremberg, a four-day celebration of the Nazis coming to power. They saw Hitler from a distance and were struck by the intense feeling of excitement in the crowd when he appeared. They were both immensely impressed by the massive parades which showed how Nazism had restored the faith of a country which had been utterly crushed in 1918. Diana particularly must have compared Germany with England and its ineffective governments, and these orderly marches with the BUF rally which Mosley had organised at Olympia. These had ended in violence when infiltrated by communists, losing Mosley most of the favourable press coverage he had hitherto received.

  For Unity it was like lighting a blue touchpaper. To meet Hitler, whom she now regarded as ‘the greatest man of all time’, and to embrace Nazism became the sole aims in her life. Always obsessive, she now had a cause for that obsession. She persuaded her parents to let her go back to Germany with the excuse of learning the language properly, omitting to tell them that the real reason for this was so she could communicate with Hitler. She lived mostly in Munich until the outbreak of war, lodging first with an elderly woman who ran a finishing school for young ladies wanting to learn German and later in a succession of flats, the final one being obtained for her by Hitler, the young Jewish couple who had lived there having ‘gone abroad’. Like so many fanatics, Unity refused to see the horrors of Hitler’s regime.

  Unity had engineered her first meeting with Hitler by sitting hour on hour in the Osteria Bavaria, a restaurant which he and his henchmen frequented. Eventually her patience was rewarded. Hitler had noticed the tall, blonde, blue-eyed English girl, the model of the Aryan woman, and invited her to his table. Trembling with excitement, she had the first of over 100 meetings with the Führer, with whom she became close friends. She was undoubtedly in love with him but he was not much interested in women as sexual objects and it is virtually certain that they never became lovers. It is more likely that he particularly enjoyed the friendship of this exuberant, amusing and attractive English girl who was not afraid to contradict and tease him, unlike the yes-men with whom he had surrounded himself.

  The British press had a field day when the news of Unity’s friendship with Hitler became common knowledge, especially after she wrote a letter to the German newspaper Der Stürmer in which she confessed to being a Jew-hater. It was certainly no secret since she was proud of her German connection but it must have been torture for David and Sydney, even though they and also Tom had met Hitler and been impressed by what he had done for Germany.

  Diana and Tom were photographed at Hitler’s rallies, but what was kept a secret was Diana’s marriage to Mosley. This took place in 1936 in the Berlin house of Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda, with whom both girls had become friends, and with Hitler as a guest. The secrecy was for several reasons: to protect Mosley’s image, to keep the news from Baba Metcalfe with whom he was still having an affair, but mainly to keep from the press Diana’s visits to Germany for the purpose of setting up a commercial radio station; the aim of this was to broadcast from Germany to southern England (in those days there were no such British stations) in order to raise money for the BUF whose funds were running low. After much negotiation Diana did finally get Hitler’s permission to set up such a station, but the outbreak of war meant that it never happened. The marriage was finally disclosed when the Mosleys’ eldest son Alexander was born in 1938.

  Nancy had not been idle while her sisters embraced fascism. She and Peter, who beca
me known in the family as ‘Prod’, had attended several BUF rallies and bought black shirts – the symbol of Mosley’s followers – but Nancy was too much of a tease to become a fanatic. Such people, she felt, had to be made fun of. She did this in her third book, Wigs on the Green, which was published in 1935 and in which the heroine, Eugenia Malmains, is very obviously modelled on Unity. This caused Diana and Nancy to be ‘non-speakers’ for four years and Unity swore she would never speak to Nancy again but failed to carry out her threat. Diana and Unity could both be teasing and mocking in other respects, but woe betide anyone who made fun of Mosley or Hitler.

  The activities of their elder daughters may have caused the Redesdales to take their eyes off the ball as far as Jessica was concerned. Aged 16, Jessica and her first cousin Ann Farrer, known as Idden in Boudledidge, travelled to Paris to study at the Sorbonne and also, unknown to their parents, to enjoy the delights of the city, including visiting the Folies Bergère. When she returned to England she, like all the others, went through her debutante season and confessed, much against her will, to be rather enjoying herself. But like Diana and Unity, Jessica was forming opinions which would soon lead to an obsession as great as theirs and further tear the family apart.

  In the early 1930s Jessica had become interested in politics, although her views were in a totally opposite direction to those Diana and Unity eventually espoused. When she read Beverley Nichols’ book Cry Havoc, which described the worst horrors of the First World War and the growing social and financial problems in Europe, together with the communist manifesto, the unformed ideas which had been in her mind suddenly clicked into place and she began to champion the extreme left-wing politics which obsessed her for the rest of her life.