31 Mosley, Diana, A Life of Contrasts (Hamish Hamilton, 1977), p. 30.
32 Hons and Rebels, p. 25.
33 OSU/1928, JM to DD, June 1996.
34 Mitford, Nancy, Love in a Cold Climate (Hamish Hamilton, 1949), p. 114.
35 Ibid.
36 Lord Longford, interview with the author, House of Lords, May 2000.
37 OSU/1637, DD to JM, undated fax.
38 Ibid., NM to JM, October 1971.
39 Ibid., JM to NM, 13 October 1971.
40 Ibid.
41 PRO: Last Will and Testament, Thomas Gibson Bowles, probated 21 March 1922.
Chapter 4: Roaring Twenties, 1922-9 1Mosley, Charlotte, Love from Nancy (Hodder & Stoughton, 1993), pp. 16-17.
2 Acton, Harold, Nancy Mitford (Hamish Hamilton, 1975), pp. 14-15.
3 Love from Nancy, pp. 16-17, NM to SR.
4 Mitford, Jessica, Hons and Rebels (Victor Gollancz, 1960), p. 36.
5 Leslie, Anita, Cousin Randolph (Hutchinson, 1985), p. 8.
6 Mitford, Nancy, The Pursuit of Love (Hamish Hamilton, 1945), p. 46.
7 YUL, DM to JLM, uncat., 2 July 1981.
8 Hastings, Selina, Nancy Mitford (Hamish Hamilton, 1985), p. 46.
9 CHP, Lady Redesdale’s housekeeping book, 1934.
10 Lady Kathleen Stanley (née Thynne), married to Oliver Stanley, cousin to the Mitford sisters. Lord Henry Thynne (Viscount Weymouth, heir to Lord Bath, as his elder brother had been killed in the war) had just gone to Oxford. He was responsible for introducing Nancy and the Mitfords to Brian Howard ‘and all the others who became our great friends’. DM to author, January 2001.
11 The Countess of Seafield. She stammered badly and was consequently very shy. Brought up in New Zealand, she inherited several large estates in Scotland, including Cullen and Castle Grant.
12 Acton, Nancy Mitford, p. 22.
13 Hons and Rebels, p. 10.
14 The rich homosexual son of an industrialist. Later he founded the magazine Horizon and employed Cyril Connolly as editor.
15 Duchess of Devonshire, My Early Childhood (privately published, 1995), p. 5
16 Hons and Rebels, p. 38.
17 OSU/1700, SR to JM, 3 May 1960.
18 Ibid.
19 My Early Childhood, p. 5.
20 Obituary of Sydney, Lady Redesdale, James Lees-Milne, The Times, 28 May 1963.
21 James Lees-Milne, Another Self (Hamish Hamilton, 1970), p. 61.
22 Love from Nancy, p. 566: NM to Cecil Beaton, 14 May 1969. The unfortunate young man was Mervyn, Viscount Clive, who was killed in the Second World War.
23 Love from Nancy, p. 51, NM to TM.
24 OSU/1697, PM to SR, 24 June 1925.
25 Ibid.
26 DM, letter to the author, 14 August 2000.
27 CHP, JM to SR, undated, c. 1925.
28 OSU/1738, JM to Emma Tennant (niece), 16 October 1993.
29 Hons and Rebels, pp. 11-12.
30 Lees-Milne, James, Ancestral Voices (John Murray, 1975), p. 444.
31 YUL, DM to JLM, uncat., 2 June 1987.
32 Hastings, Nancy Mitford, p. 50.
33 Mosley, Diana, A Life of Contrasts (Hamish Hamilton, 1977), p. 47.
34 YUL, DM to JLM, uncat., 19 March 1927.
35 Ibid., 25 March 1927.
36 A Life of Contrasts, p. 53.
37 These rules included: ‘Must be able to turn two somersaults running forward; Frog jumps across the tennis court; Pass a set of general knowledge questions etc’. OSU/1698, Book of Hon Rules, sent to JM by SR.
38 DM, interview with the author, Paris, May 2000.
39 Hons and Rebels, p. 17.
40 Note from DM to the author, June 2000.
41 My Early Childhood, p. 10.
42 Ibid., also DD, interview with the author, at Chatsworth, 4 May 2000.
43 Frederick Lindemann, later Lord Cherwell, 1886-1957. A close friend of Winston S. Churchill, during the Second World War he played a significant role in developing new weapons, and scientific research generally. Later he would become one of the first experts in nuclear physics.
44 Guinness, Jonathan and Catherine, The House of Mitford (Hutchinson, 1984), p. 282.
45 Ibid., p. 282.
46 Lees-Milne, James, A Mingled Measure (John Murray, 1994), p. 46 and other entries.
47 Lycett Green, Candida (ed.), John Betjeman Letters (Methuen, 1990), vol. 1, p. 19.
48 OSU/1633, Bryan Guinness to JM, 13 January 1995.
49 Hons and Rebels, p. 39.
50 Pursuit of Love, p. 56.
51 House of Mitford, p. 279.
52 DM to the author, 16 January 2001.
53 Lees-Milne, James, Ancient as the Hills (John Murray, 1997), p. 113.
54 A Life of Contrasts, p. 62.
55 Butler, Lucy (ed.), Letters Home (John Murray, 1991), p. 107.
56 Guinness, Bryan, Dairy Not Kept (Compton Press, 1981), p. 87.
57 Hons and Rebels, p. 43.
58 Ibid., p. 44.
59 OSU/1637, JM to DD, 31 March 1982.
60 OSU/1710, DD, ‘The Mitford Glow’. It is an exaggeration, of course: there are several letters in which she thanks her mother for new clothes, such as ‘the lovely red jumper’.
61 Hons and Rebels, p. 16.
62 Like her parents, Diana was married at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster. Among the guests were Winston and Randolph Churchill.
63 A Life of Contrasts, p. 68.
Chapter 5: Bright Young Things, 1929-30 1Mosley, Diana, A Life of Contrasts (Hamish Hamilton, 1977), p. 70.
2 DM, letter to the author.
3 Butler, Lucy (ed.), Letters Home (John Murray, 1991), p. 115.
4 Guinness, Bryan, Dairy Not Kept (Compton Press, 1981), p. 89.
5 Mitford, Jessica, Hons and Rebels (Victor Gollancz, 1960), p. 48.
6 OSU/1566, JM to DD, 25 August 1990. Stockholm’s City Hall was designed by Ragnar Östberg and completed in 1923. It is Sweden’s foremost building in the National Romantic style.
7 Described in Hons and Rebels, p. 13.
8 OSU, Bryan Guinness file: ‘Dichtung und Wahreit among the Mitfords’.
9 Guinness, Jonathan and Catherine, The House of Mitford (Hutchinson, 1984), p. 577.
10 Julia Budworth, telephone interview with the author.
11 OSU, Drummonds to JM, 3 July 1929. During research for this book several people have asked, ‘Which sister was the one with the “running away account”?’ This seems to have struck a chord with many young readers.
12 OSU/1709, JM to NM, 13 October 1971.
13 DM, interview with the author, Paris, January 2000.
14 A Life of Contrasts, p. 73.
15 Lees-Milne, James, Ancestral Voices (John Murray, 1975), p. 355.
16 Réalités,1 June 1961, pp. 71-3.
17 Hons and Rebels, p. 35.
18 NM to TM, c. October 1928, quoted in Selina Hastings, Nancy Mitford (Hamish Hamilton, 1985). Evelyn Waugh had just published Decline and Fall.
19 DM to author, December 2000.
20 Evelyn Waugh to Henry Yorke, 20 July 1929, in Amory, Mark (ed.), The Letters of Evelyn Waugh (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1981), p. 36.
21 Ibid. Evelyn Waugh to Harold Acton, July 1929, p. 37.
22 Hons and Rebels, p. 14.
23 DM to NM, quoted in Hastings, Selina, Evelyn Waugh (Sinclair Stevenson, 1994), p. 219.
24 Vile Bodies was published in January 1930. In August that year Waugh published Labels, a travel book (the dust jacket was covered in travel labels). Although published after Vile Bodies it had been written some years earlier and it, too, was dedicated to Diana and Bryan Guinness.
Chapter 6: The Stage Is Set, 1930-32 1Lady Redesdale suggested the title ‘Our Vile Age’ for Nancy’s book, which not only reflected her own opinions of present mores, but cleverly made reference to the title of Our Village, by a famous eighteenth-century author with the name Mitford. This is a nice example of Sydney’s droll humour.
2 Mosley, Charlott
e, Love from Nancy (Hodder & Stoughton, 1993), p. 62.
3 Lady, 10 April 1930.
4 Sir Charles Blake Cochran was a hugely successful theatre impresario, who produced many of Noël Coward’s most famous musicals, This Year of Grace, Bitter Sweet, Cavalcade, etc., in London. The dancers in his chorus line were known as ‘Mr Cochran’s Young Ladies’, which conferred a distinct cachet. The girls were chaperoned; a high standard of personal behaviour was expected of them and they were subject to dismissal if they married or were suspected of a sexual liaison.
5 Graham, Sheilah, Beloved Infidel (Book Club, 1959), p. 115.
6 This is quite true. The Air Ministry imposed conditions for agreeing to Lawrence’s wish to remain in the RAF under his assumed name of Shaw. These conditions were that he was not allowed to fly, and he must not speak to any important personages, i.e. ‘Churchill, Birkenhead, Sassoon, Lady Astor’.
7 CHP, TM to SR, 17 August 1930.
8 Murphy, Sophia, Mitford Family Album (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985).
9 OSU/155, unpublished MS by JM.
10 Mitford, Jessica, Hons and Rebels (Victor Gollancz, 1960), p. 50.
11 OSU/1642, JM to Idden (Ann Farrer Horne) 14 August 1980.
12 OSU/155, Decca on Unity, unpublished MS.
13 Hons and Rebels, p. 61.
14 OSU/155, unpublished MS.
15 Pryce-Jones, David, Unity Mitford - A Quest (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1976), p. 43.
16 OSU/1642, JM to Idden (Ann Farrer Horne), 14 August 1980.
17 Ibid., 22 February 1980. Few people born after 1960 realize the huge impact films had on the previous two generations in terms of manners, dress and accents.
18 OSU/1642, JM to Idden (Ann Farrer Horne), 14 August 1980.
19 Now Lady Soames.
20 Ingram, Kevin, Rebel (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1985), p. 17.
21 On the other hand Unity was a very unusual girl: her reading was not prescribed and she had been used to the run of an important library since childhood. Perhaps it is not such an odd choice, after all.
22 Unity Mitford, pp. 1-2.
23 Mitford, Jessica, A Fine Old Conflict (Michael Joseph, 1977), p. 24.
24 OSU/1701.
25 Ibid., various correspondence from JM to DR, 1932.
26 In The House of Mitford, Jonathan and Catherine Guinness listed many of the nicknames of the immediate family as a separate section. It covers one and a half pages. See pp. 7-8.
27 Elizabeth Powell (later Lady Glenconner) to David Pryce-Jones, quoted in Unity Mitford. Unidentified newspaper article in JM’s papers at OSU.
28 Mary Ormsby-Gore, in Unity Mitford, p. 53.
29 Garnet, David (ed.), Carrington, Letters and Extracts from her Diaries (Jonathan Cape, 1970), p. 473.
30 Mosley, Diana, A Life of Contrasts (Hamish Hamilton, 1977), p. 83.
31 May Amende, former maid at Biddesden, in Unity Mitford, p. 47.
32 Daily Telegraph, 13 April 1994.
33 Lycett Green, Candida (ed.), John Betjeman Letters (Methuen, 1990), vol. 1 p. 88.
34 Ibid., p. 101.
35 Hillier, Bevis, Young Betjeman (Cardinal, 1988), p. 300.
36 Ibid., p. 102.
37 Ibid., p. 104.
38 Ibid., p. 107.
39 Ibid., p. 95.
40 Maskelyns, a famous stage magician of the twenties.
41 Young Betjeman, p. 302.
42 A Life of Contrasts, p. 89.
43 Mosley, Sir Oswald, My Life (Thomas Nelson, 1968), p. 44.
44 Mosley, Diana, Loved Ones: Sir Oswald Mosley (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1983), p. 156.
45 May Amende, in Unity Mitford, p. 47.
46 DM to the author 16 January 2001.
47 A Life of Contrasts, p. 94.
48 Skidelsky, Robert, Mosley (Macmillan, 1981), pp. 338-9
49 A Life of Contrasts, p. 94.
50 R.H.S. Crossman, 1961, quoted in A Life of Contrasts, p. 96.
51 Webb, Beatrice, Diary 1924-1943 (London School of Economics, 1985), p. 239.
52 Lord Longford, interview with the author, House of Lords, June 2000.
53 Mosley, p. 236.
54 Lees-Milne, James, Another Self (Hamish Hamilton, 1970), p. 97.
55 Webb, Diary, p. 335.
56 Cimmie’s mother was the former Mary Leiter, daughter of Levi Leiter of Chicago. On her marriage Leiter settled £5 million on Mary, the capital placed in trust for her children.
57 Mosley, Nicholas, Rules of the Game (Secker & Warburg, 1982), p. 239.
58 DM to the author, January 2001.
59 Rules of the Game, p. 217.
60 Lady Pansy Pakenham, in Unity Mitford, p. 48.
61 Rules of the Game, p. 237.
62 DD, interview with the author, June 2000.
63 Richard Cohen, a present-day fencing expert, maintains that Mosley was able to overcome the handicap of his injured foot because ‘he was very fit and strong’. Letter to the author, 1 October 2000.
64 DM to the author January 2001.
65 Rules of the Game, p. 246.
66 Love from Nancy, p. 81.
67 Ibid., p. 82.
68 DM, interview with the author, Paris, 2000.
69 Loved Ones, p. 156.
Chapter 7: Slings and Arrows, 1932-4 1NM to Mark Ogilvie-Grant, 28 March 1931, in Mosley, Charlotte Love from Nancy (Hodder & Stoughton, 1993), p. 74.
2 Hastings, Selina, Nancy Mitford (Hamish Hamilton, 1985), p. 71.
3 Mitford, Jessica, Hons and Rebels (Victor Gollancz, 1960) p. 30.
4 Love from Nancy, pp. 71-2.
5 OSU/1709, JM to NM, 13 October 1971.
6 Ibid., NM to JM, 18 October 1971.
7 NM to Mark Ogilvie-Grant (undated), in Hastings, Nancy Mitford, p. 74.
8 Lees-Milne, James, Ancient as the Hills (John Murray, 1997), p. 158.
9 Ibid., p. 113.
10 The Times, 16 June 1933: ‘. . . In an undefended suit Mrs Diana Guinness . . . prayed for the dissolution of her marriage with Bryan Guinness on the grounds of his adultery with . . .’
11 NM to Hamish Erskine, 14 June 1933, in Love from Nancy, p. 85.
12 Love from Nancy, p. 87.
13 Sykes, Christopher, Evelyn Waugh (Collins, 1975), p. 41.
14 OSU/1637, JM to DD, 26 April 1985.
15 Violet, sister of Lady Rennell and wife of Edward Stuart Wortley.
16 Love from Nancy, p. 90.
17 Hastings, Nancy Mitford, p. 86.
18 Mosley, Nicholas, The Rules of the Game (Secker & Warburg), p. 248.
19 Ibid., p. 250.
20 Mary Leiter Curzon died in 1906 aged thirty-six, two years after giving birth to her third daughter, Alexandra, from an infection following a miscarriage. Cimmie was aged eight at the time of her mother’s death.
21 Rules of the Game, p. 252
22 Mosley, Diana, Loved Ones: Sir Oswald Mosley (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1983), p. 166.
23 Rules of the Game, p. 297.
24 Ibid., p. 258.
25 DM to the author, January 2001.
26 Rules of the Game, p. 298.
27 Ibid., p. 259.
28 DM, in conversation with the author, Paris, 2000, and letter, November 2000.
29 Buchan, William, The Rags of Time (Ashford, Buchan & Enright, c. 1985), p. 142.
30 Mosley, Diana, A Life of Contrasts (Hamish Hamilton, 1977), p. 106.
31 Ibid., p. 107.
32 Ibid., pp. 108-9.
33 BBC2, 2000: The Age of Nazism - Tourists of the Revolution.
34 JM to Marge Frantz, 25 May 1986: ‘we were forbidden to shave legs (we did it anyway) . . . and wear lipstick . . . why? I suppose that my parents . . . disliked the idea of trying to attract men by these artificial means.’
35 DR to DM, quoted in Dalley, Jan, Diana Mosley (Faber and Faber, 2000), p. 152, and Jonathan and Catherine Guinness, The House of Mitford (Hutchinson, 1984), p. 361.
36 Ibid., p. 112.
37 Pryce-Jones, David, Unity Mitford (Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, 1976), p. 73.
38 NM to DM, in Love from Nancy, p. 92.
39 OSU/1701, JM to SR, May 1934: ‘I’m so glad you enjoyed your voyage (to Gib) in spite of your thinking it wouldn’t be much fun . . .’
40 Mitford, Jessica, A Fine Old Conflict (Michael Joseph, 1977), p. 25.
41 OSU/1701, JM to SR, various dates.
42 OSU/1642, JM to Idden (Ann Farrer Horne), 14 August 1980.
Chapter 8: Unity and the Führer, 1934-5 1Mosley, Charlotte, The Letters of Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford (Sceptre, 1996), p. 366.
2 David Redesdale wrote in his copy of this book, against this disclaimer, ‘A beastly lie!’
3 Mitford, Nancy, Wigs on the Green (Thornton and Butterworth, 1935), p. 16.
4 Ibid., p. 193.
5 Daily Sketch, 9 February 1935, but most daily newspapers carried this story.
6 OSU/1567, JM to DD, 14 May 1993.
7 DM to the author, January 2001.
8 Edmund Heines, a senior SA ‘Brownshirts’ officer.
9 UM to DM, 1 July 1934.
10 Pryce-Jones, David, Unity Mitford (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976), p. 86.
11 The two children spent periods at their father’s house, Biddesden. Bryan and Diana remained on exceptionally good terms after their divorce. ‘He was always in and out of Eaton Square,’ Diana wrote to the author (16 January 2001), ‘and I often went to Biddesden to see the little boys when they were not with me. I’ve got hundreds of letters from Bryan, we became great friends.’
12 Mitford, Diana, A Life of Contrasts (Hamish Hamilton, 1977), p. 118.
13 Ibid.
14 SR essay quoted in Guinness, Jonathan and Catherine, The House of Mitford (Hutchinson, 1985), p. 365.
15 Mitford, Jessica, Hons and Rebels (Victor Gollancz, 1960), p. 81.
16 Katz, Otto, The Brown Book of Hitler Terror and the Burning of the Reichstag (John Lane, 1933).
17 Hons and Rebels, p. 73.
The Mitford Girls Page 55
