The Pursuit of Laughter

by Diana Mitford (Mosley)

  When his plans were dismissed by the Labour cabinet he resigned. He did not rate his chances of success with Fascism particularly high; he was said, through impatience, to have thrown away the leadership of the Labour Party which was within his grasp. But to the end of his life he maintained that the Labour Party could never be an instrument for action. ‘It looks powerful, but it would always break in your hand,’ he used to say. It was too deeply split within itself, something now obvious to everybody.

  On New Year’s Eve 1931, after the defeat of the New Party, Mosley published a statement which showed that he realized he had embarked upon an adventure that might well fail, but he considered it dishonourable to take office unless it was possible to act:

  Better the great adventure, better the great attempt for England’s sake, better defeat, disaster, better far the end of that trivial thing called a political career, than stifling in a uniform of blue and gold, strutting and posturing on the stage of little England amid the scenery of decadence, until history in turning over an heroic page of the human story writes of us the contemptuous postscript: These were the men to whom was entrusted the Empire of Great Britain, and whose idleness, ignorance and cowardice left it a Spain.

  He knew very well, and so did his companions, that it was a great adventure they had embarked upon. What he did not know, because it had nothing to do with English politics in 1931, was the fatal role Germany was to play in his destiny. Fascism was launched in England in the autumn of 1932, when Mosley’s book The Greater Britain was published and he started speaking at meetings all over the country.

  Three months later, in January 1933, Hitler came to power. He kept his promises to the German people; six million unemployed were given work, the country prospered, the Versailles Treaty was set aside; as disarmament conferences got nowhere and other European countries refused to disarm, Germany left the League of Nations and rearmed. Hitler never was able to understand or to emulate Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy: he said what he meant and he meant what he said, a novelty in international affairs. He had a fatal intransigence, and above all his obsessive anti-semitism, endemic throughout Central Europe, antagonized the rest of the world and saddled Mosley with a problem unknown to him in his previous life both private and political. There had been many Jews in the New Party—he thought nothing of it either way. I shall not enlarge upon it here, it was a question of ‘cet animal est très méchant, quand on l’attaque il se defend.’ And attack him they did. The more research done into the origins of this irrelevant quarrel the better, because the truth is simple. Mosley was not a man to turn the other cheek, but there is no question who was the aggressor.

  Why was he identified in any way with Hitler, who always said ‘National Socialism is not for export’? It was partly because both were anti-Communist and, owing to the impossibility in some parts of the country of holding meetings unless they were stewarded by men prepared to fight organized violence and ensure free speech, BUF meetings had a similarity with those in Germany before Hitler was elected Chancellor. They were infinitely less violent than in Germany, where in the eight years before Hitler came to power one National Socialist was killed on average every week in political fights. BUF meetings were fairly rough, but nobody died, and in fact the violence of hooligans who came to try and break them up was much less vicious than violence now commonplace at football matches. Despite the astronomical rise in violent crime during the last few years, Englishmen do not murder for political reasons.

  There was also the question of black shirts, or political uniform. Even now journalists sometimes say how crazy it was to imagine that Englishmen would consent to dress up in a black shirt. This is most surprising, because in fact in no other civilized country do men so much enjoy wearing unusual clothes as they do in England and Scotland. From the velvet and plumes of the Garter robes to the little aprons of the Freemasons, they take inordinate pleasure in uniforms, disguises and fancy dress. It is the men who enjoy it so much—English women are on the whole strangely indifferent to clothes. The black shirt proved so popular that in 1936 an Act of Parliament was passed forbidding people to wear it.

  The Jews identified Mosley with Hitler, although he was not and never had been anti-semitic; he had not hitherto looked upon them as a separate group within the nation, which they apparently felt themselves to be. After a year and a half of uncalled-for and one-sided attacks he took up the challenge in a speech in the Royal Albert Hall. He also had harsh words for the City of London; he considered it as short-sighted as it was unpatriotic that so much money was invested abroad and so little in the Empire, which desperately needed investment. After the Second World War there was no more Empire and he became an admirer of the City; with its unique expertise, it was one of our few remaining assets.

  The divergencies between him and Hitler were deep and wide. Far the most important was Kit’s rejection of war as a means of settling differences. Most people agreed that the Versailles Treaty had been a fraud with regard to self-determination, but he firmly believed that reasonable men should be able to negotiate change. While looking upon another war as the greatest disaster that could befall mankind, he insisted that Britain must not remain disarmed in an armed world. It must be ready for any eventuality.

  Ironically, in view of what was to happen later, Kit strongly objected to imprisonment without trial as practised in the Third Reich; he always looked upon it as a monstrosity. Laws could be enacted and must be obeyed, but they should never be retroactive, and arbitrary arrest was inexcusable. But he never considered that Hitler’s excesses were anything to do with him. ‘Mind Britain’s Business’, he said. All over the world deplorable things were being done which were not our business. Some were done in our Empire, which was. Among these had been the atrocities committed in Ireland by the Black and Tans, an irregular force recruited by the British government after the First World War. Mosley discovered the facts and attacked the government in Parliament about what was happening, to the fury of the Conservatives. T.P. O’Connor, MP, wrote to Lady Cynthia Mosley: ‘I regard him as the man who really began the break-up of the Black and Tan savagery; and I can never recall without admiration and wonder, the courage and self-sacrifice which such an attitude demanded on his part.’

  Another atrocity within our Empire which he publicly attacked was the massacre at Amritsar in India, where General Dyer had opened rapid and protracted fire upon an unarmed crowd which had no means of escape. These matters were ‘Britain’s Business’. What happened in other countries was not. Our own problems were quite enough to be going on with; there was no call upon us to solve those of other nations.

  *

  In April 1933 Kit and his wife Cynthia, known as Cimmie, went to Rome and they both came back enthusiastic about what they had been shown in the new Italy. The Pontine Marshes had been drained, villages built and crops grown. This would now be regarded as a crime; wetlands, the fashionable name for marshes, are said to harbour irreplaceable water rats, tiddlers and moorhens, and must on no account be used to grow food for humans. In those days Mussolini was praised for it; most Conservatives admired him, Churchill was positively lyrical.

  Soon after their return Cimmie had to be operated on for appendicitis; it was not regarded as dangerous and at first all went well. Then she developed peritonitis; in the days before the widespread use of penicillin this was often fatal. She died in May 1933. The tragedy of her death was shattering to Kit. He loved her very much, and he blamed himself for having allowed her to work too hard—he thought her physical resistance had been undermined by her political exertions. She had supported him, addressed rough meetings, travelled round the country. Although she looked strong, she was not robust.

  Thereafter he became so concerned about me that he stopped me doing many things I well could have. If ever I was ill he thought I was going to die; he imagined it might be the result of the tension caused by his own life of struggle and strife. For many years I suffered from migraines, and I had the greatest difficulty
in convincing him that they were purely physical and unconnected with anxiety. I pointed to friends whose lives were smooth and trouble-free but who also had migraines. Unforgettable is the concern and tenderness he showed for what must seem a rather tiresome disability.

  Another effect of his wife’s death was his attitude to their three children. He was determined that, apart from their terrible loss, there was to be no change in their lives. The same nanny, aunts and grandmother surrounded them and they lived in an old house, Savehay Farm at Denham, which their mother had arranged to her taste and remained unchanged until it was requisitioned by the army in 1940. The three children were rich from their mother’s American money, and they helped to finance this separate establishment themselves.

  When Kit rented a house on the Mediterranean for his annual holiday, the elder children went with him. He wanted them to have everything they would have enjoyed if their mother had lived. I used to think he was a model father because except for these holidays he worked extremely hard—speaking, writing, and organizing.

  In the North he was frequently fog-bound. I have never known anyone who hated fog as much as he did.

  He seemed to be the only politician who combined every quality necessary to lead the country out of the depths to which it had sunk after victory in the war. The economic policy had proved disastrous, with Churchill a conspicuously unsuccessful Chancellor of the Exchequer in the twenties, and then world recession hit Britain hard. There were millions of half-starved unemployed. The hunger marches were just that; people were hungry. Yet we were supposed to be a rich country, ‘owning’ a quarter of the globe. It was obviously political failure on an unacceptable scale.

  He was joined by thousands of people who agreed with him that change was essential and that the Labour and Conservative leadership lacked the will and intelligence to bring it about. These people came from the whole spectrum of politics, Communism to Conservatism. One of the cleverest and most effective was Raven Thomson, a former Communist, but the majority were ordinary patriotic men and women who thought Britain had lost its way. Mosley said: ‘We cannot muddle through this time.’ However we did muddle through, after a fashion, at the cost of unnecessary, widespread suffering, and ultimately war.

  ***

  As regards my personal position, I loved Kit but never considered marrying him. Marriage as such meant little to me; yet three years after his wife’s death we did marry, because we wanted children, and in those days it was supposed to be better for children to be born in wedlock.

  In three ways 1936 was a watershed year for Kit and me. I left my little house in Eaton Square to go to live in the depths of the country at Wootton Lodge in Staffordshire, described by Mark Girouard as the most beautiful of Elizabethan houses, and by the house agent in 1936 as a white elephant. We rented it for almost nothing and intended to buy it later on. It was a boon to Kit, who slept there after his meetings in the Midlands and North instead of an uncomfortable inn. He spent as many days at Wootton as he could spare; we even gave up going to the Mediterranean in August and the last three summers before the war we stayed in this lovely place. I see from old engagement diaries over and over again how happy we were. ‘Perfect day with Kit’, ‘Wonderful day’ are frequent entries.

  Although I travelled a good deal and often went to Munich with Unity, I was frequently alone at Wootton. This was an important change, because until then there are few blanks in my diaries. I seem to have lunched and dined out a great deal when I lived in London; there were operas and concerts and films, and I constantly saw Kit, who was nearby in Ebury Street, as well as dozens of friends. Yet I was not lonely at Wootton. I suppose our great happiness when we were there together, so often noted in my diary, was partly due to the contrast for him of peaceful days wandering in the wild country and woods full of bluebells in which Wootton is set, compared with the turmoil of his political life. He loved fishing for trout in the pools below the house, or stalking rabbits with a .22 rifle, and listening to music after dinner. The food at Wootton was delicious beyond words; Mr Grimwood, the cook, an artist. We lay on the grass in the sun in summer and trudged through snow in winter. We were alone as a rule. Kit had a talent for ‘switching off’, and living in the moment.

  Unity came sometimes, and so did Tom; he and Kit were now friends and at this time he joined the BUF—also, in case of war, the Territorials. Kit’s love of Wootton had the paradoxical result that he saw more of my Guinness sons than of his own children. Nicholas came to Wootton once or twice; he seemed to me a nice boy with a paralysing stammer. His brilliant, eloquent father took enormous pains never to allow him to feel this was a disability or to be shy about it, and I think he succeeded. Nicholas describes himself as having been ‘crafty’, but if he was it passed unnoticed by me, although he obviously lacked his father’s openness. Kit and Nicky were as unlike one another as it is possible for father and son to be, but Kit was fond of him, in his rather detached way, and was always anxious for him to enjoy his holidays.

  About four months after we went to Wootton we got married. Kit was rather wondering whether in this, to me, completely new part of England I might be in some way harassed as his wife; politics were rough and Wootton was near many great industrial centres. He spent a week in hospital in Liverpool when he was knocked unconscious by a brick hurled at him at an open-air meeting. In the event I received nothing but kindness, and forty-five years later, after his death, when I went to a nearby school, Abbotsholme, to speak about him, several people, now old, came to remind me of our Wootton years; some of them showed me photographs taken all those years ago at village functions.

  At the same time as we embarked upon a new way of life, a third important thing happened: politics are extremely expensive, and although British Union branches had to be self-supporting, the headquarters of the organization cost a lot of money. Rich benefactors who had given large sums in the early days had stopped subscribing since the worst of the crisis was over and we appeared to be muddling through. Kit was not nearly rich enough to pay for the whole thing himself, though he spent £100,000 of his own money, the equivalent of two million of today’s pounds. One of his supporters was an ex-MP, W.E.D. Allen, who was chairman of a family advertising business. He and one or two others managed the financing of the movement, from which as far as possible Kit kept aloof. Bill Allen knew that another Conservative MP, Leonard Plugge, was making fortunes from radio advertising. He had a concession from the French government, and set up a station, Radio Normandy, beamed to England. There was also advertising from Luxemburg. The BBC disliked it intensely; Reith’s puritan soul revolted at the mere idea of anything so vulgar and enjoyable, but the public loved it. Bill Allen had hopes of a concession from the Irish government and, after he told us about it, Kit thought he might get one from Sark, where he had an influential supporter, but of course that would have entailed a pirated wavelength, since Sark possessed no wavelength of its own. If we could get a concession from Belgium, or Germany, similar to Plugge’s from France and Bill Allen’s possible one from Ireland, we and the Allens would make a fortune and Kit’s anxieties about how to finance the British Union would be solved. Germany was notoriously short of foreign currency, and we thought the proposition might be attractive to it.

  I had met Hitler many times with Unity, and I went to Germany and asked him about it. He handed the project over to one of his adjutants, Wiedemann, whom I thereafter ceaselessly badgered in letters. After a while he wrote and said the military had vetoed the plan. As it had no conceivable military significance, this was just an example of the unthinking conservatism of soldiers everywhere. I went on trying. Some times it seemed as if I might succeed. Secrecy was essential; in London we had all signed a secrecy agreement. Kit had already had trouble years before when advertisers threatened to boycott the Daily Mail unless Rothermere stopped supporting him. I sometimes had a team with me in Berlin; Bill Allen for the advertising, a clever young barrister, and a former chief engineer for the BBC who had bee
n sacked by Reith because he was involved in a divorce. None of them spoke German. We thought my frequent presence in Berlin as interpreter might sooner or later start some investigation by a journalist if I was known to be Kit’s wife, and we therefore kept our marriage secret while these negotiations proceeded. For me to go to Munich was natural as Unity was living there, but the ministers were in Berlin. Often alone, I spent boring days in the hotel waiting for the telephone which never rang and went by myself to the opera in the evenings. I saw various ministers and explained the simple beauty of our scheme; my trump card was that France was doing it successfully and profitably already, but the idea was novel and nobody seemed as enthusiastic as I had hoped. Although I have no evidence, I believe it may have been Dr Goebbels who, when things looked hopeful, always put a spoke in the wheel. As Propaganda Minister he wished to keep radio entirely in his own hands.

  Occasionally I saw Hitler; we dined and watched a film or talked by the fire. We did not discuss the radio project, it was the sort of thing that bored him and was left to his ministers. He worked in Berlin but never stayed there longer than was necessary, much preferring Munich and the Obersalzberg.

  Finally it was the Minister of Posts, Ohnesorge, who, though initially unwilling to relinquish a wavelength, saw the point of it for Germany’s foreign currency position and became my valuable ally. We got the concession in May 1938; it had taken me nearly two years. The terms were tough—Germany got more foreign currency out of it than France had got from Plugge. Of course, written into the contract was the purely commercial nature of the station. There was to be nothing controversial, no politics or propaganda, nothing but sport, or sweet music and beauty hints, and similar delights. It was aimed at the housewife, and would have covered eastern England including the whole London area. As was said of commercial television years later, and as Plugge had discovered, it was a licence to print money.