And despite the portrait of Sydney promoted by Nancy’s books and Decca’s account of her unhappy adolescence, it is clear that much of their attitude to life was engendered by their mother, who allowed them freedom to develop while always being there to support in moments of crisis. In reply to his letter of condolence after David’s death, Sydney wrote to James Lees-Milne that she thought often of ‘the happy days when you were all young and David and I had the children all around us. I was lucky to have those perfectly happy years before the war. Isn’t it odd how, when one looks back at that time, it seems to have been all summers?’28
Source Notes
Abbreviations used in citations
CHP Chatsworth Papers
DD Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire
DM Diana Mitford (later Mosley)
DR Lord Redesdale (David Freeman Mitford)
ER Esmond Romilly
JLM James Lees-Milne
JM Jessica Mitford
NM Nancy Mitford
OSU Ohio State University
PJ Pamela Mitford Jackson
RT Robert Treuhaft
SR Lady Redesdale (Sydney Bowles Freeman Mitford)
TM Tom Mitford
UM Unity Mitford
VH Violet Hammersley
YUL Yale University Library (Beinecke)
Introduction
1 Interview with Lord Longford at the House of Lords, May 2000.
2 Nancy Mitford; Diana Mosley and Unity Mitford. See Bibliography.
3See Chapter 19.
4 DM to the author January 2001.
5 He was full brother to Caroline Bradley’s Cornishman.
6 Rene Wayne Golden, who represented Decca’s interests on a number of occasions in respect of screen rights.
7 As a result the film rights to the book (Straight on till Morning) were sold but the proposed film was never made. Plans are now in hand by Warner Bros to make a film based partially on the book, with Beryl Markham’s memoir West with the Night, and other biographical material.
8 Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
9 By US writer/journalist Peter Sussman.
Chapter 1: Victorian Roots, 1894–1904
1 James Lees-Milne, obituary of Sydney, Lady Redesdale; The Times, 28 May 1963.
2 ‘Barty’ was probably a contemporary pronunciation of Bertie, although in some contemporary diaries and letters he is referred to as ‘Barty’.
3 Redesdale, Sydney, ‘The Dolphin’ an unpublished memoir, p. 1. Jessica Mitford Papers. OSU/1699.
4 Bowles, Thomas Gibson, The Log of the Nereid (Simpkin, Marshall & Co, 1889).
5 Guinness, Jonathan and Catherine, The House of Mitford (Hutchinson, 1984), p. 221.
6 Rita Shell, known as ‘Tello’. Tello would have several children by Thomas Gibson Bowles. These children were given his name and looked after financially, although he never married their mother. After Sydney and Weenie grew up, and no longer needed a governess, Tello worked in a senior position at the Lady for many years. Sydney was always fond of Tello and knew about her half-brothers.
7 Telephone interview with Julia Budworth, 31 August 2000.
8 The House of Mitford, p. 186
9 Sydney and her brother George were both painted as children by Millais; it is thought that George was probably the sitter for Millais’ Cherry Ripe, one of the most popular images in Victorian England and used on the top of many chocolate boxes in the early part of this century.
10 The House of Mitford, p. 221.
11 Ibid.
12 Budworth, Julia, Never Forget – A Biography of George F. Bowles (privately published, 2001), p. 182.
13 JM in interview: Chicago Tribune, 23 October 1977.
14 Julia Budworth, conversation with the author, 31 August 2000.
Chapter 2: Edwardian Afternoon, 1904–15
1 Interview with Diana Mosley, Paris, 2000.
2 Diana Mosley, letter to the author, 1 August 2000.
3 Guinness, Jonathan and Catherine, The House of Mitford (Hutchinson, 1984), p. 230.
4 Ibid. p. 154.
5 In her father’s book The Log of the Nereid (Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1889), Sydney hardly warrants a mention, but every baby utterance of Weenie is pounced upon and included to illustrate the cleverness and humour of his youngest child. The dedication reads: ‘To Captain Weenie (aged 3) whose splendid impatience of discipline and entire want of consideration for others, absolute contempt of elders, complete devotion to her own interests, endeared her to the crew of the Negroid, this book is dedicated by her doting father.’ Sydney’s grandson, Jonathan Guinness, who has written an excellent biography of his great-grandparents in The House of Mitford, told me, ‘The key to Sydney is her father.’
6 Mitford, Nancy, The Water Beetle (Hamish Hamilton, 1962), p. 8.
7 The House of Mitford, p. 166.
8 James Lees-Milne, ‘Obituary of Sydney, Lady Redesdale’, The Times, 28 May 1963.
9 OSU: NM to JM, 13 October 1971. Diana and Debo say they never heard this story, and think it ‘unlikely’.
10 The House of Mitford, p. 166.
11 Ibid.
12 Governor of the Bank of England from 1920–44, he wielded immense influence in international monetary affairs throughout those troubled decades.
13 See The House of Mitford, p. 249; also, Mary Soames, Speaking for Themselves (Doubleday, 1998), p. 4.
14 Ibid.
15 For the full story of the romance between Elizabeth of Austria and Bay Middleton, see John Welcome, The Sporting Empress (Michael Joseph, 1975). Captain Middleton broke his neck steeple-chasing in 1892.
16 Blanche confided this secret to Lady Londonderry at Aix where she had gone to be confined. See Lees-Milne, James, Caves of Ice (John Murray, 1983), p. 129.
17 Interview with Constancia ‘Dinky’ Romilly, October 1999. Decca believed that Esmond was Churchill’s son. When Giles had a mental breakdown and committed suicide in 1967, Decca said to Nancy that she hoped it didn’t run in the family on account of Dinky’s children. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Nancy told her. ‘Everyone knows Esmond is Winston’s son and the mad streak came from Col. Romilly.’ See OSU/1568, JM to DD, 26 October 1995.
18 ‘Puma’: Frances Mitford Kearsey, David’s eldest sister, 1875–1951.
19 The House of Mitford, p. 234
20 The Water Beetle, p. 13.
21 The cottage belonged to Lord Lincolnshire. Sydney Redesdale bought it from him shortly after the end of the First World War.
22 Interview with DD, May 2000.
23 David never had an entrenching tool. Diana recalls that they heard as children that Sir Ian Colquhoun had one over his fire which gave Nancy the idea.
24 Duchess of Devonshire, My Early Childhood (privately published, 1995), p. 3.
25 Rosemary Bailey and Julia Budworth.
26 Julia Budworth, telephone conversation with the author, August 2000.
27 DD, in conversation with the author, Chatsworth, 2 April 2000.
28 DD, The Mitford Glow’, OSU 1710.
29 The late Pamela Jackson, in informal conversation with the author, c. 1986.
30 Mitford, Nancy, The Pursuit of Love (Hamish Hamilton, 1945), p. 11.
31 My Early Childhood, p. 7.
32 Mosley, Diana, A Life of Contrasts (Hamish Hamilton, 1977), p. 9.
33 Budworth, Julia, Never Forget – A Biography of George F. Bowles (privately published, 2000), p. 155.
34 The House of Mitford, pp. 155–6.
35 That is, Mosaic Law.
36 The child was Unity. Interview with DD, Chatsworth, May 2000.
37 His grandson, the famous Dr Cyriax of Harley Street, used many of the same techniques.
38 Murphy, Sophia, The Mitford Family Album (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985).
39 Leasor, James, Who killed Sir Harry Oakes?? (Sphere, 1985), pp. 12–13.
40 OSU/1697, SR to JM, 8 August 1937.
41 The Water Beetle, p. 5.
42 Bournhill Cottage on t
he Eaglehurst Estate (at Lepe, Hampshire), which then belonged to the Marconi family.
43 ‘They looked identical but talked quite differently’, OSU/1565, JM, sundry note.
44 OSU/1697, JM to her parents, September 1926.
45 Duchess of Devonshire, ‘Hastings’: article in an unidentified magazine.
46 Obituary, Lord Redesdale, The Times 26 March 1958, and a subsequent letter to the Editor from Brigadier H.H. Sandilands.
47 Soames, Mary (ed.) Speaking for Themselves (Doubleday, 1998), p. 122: Clementine Churchill to Winston S Churchill, ‘Helen Mitford dined here 2 nights ago – her baby is 5 weeks old. She is heartbroken that it is not a boy. She is 23 & her hair is grey, which looks so odd with her young face.’
Chapter 3: Nursery Days, 1915–22
1 Last Will and Testament: the Rt Hon. Algernon Bertram, Baron Redesdale, GCVO, KCB.
2 Guinness, Jonathan and Catherine, The House of Mitford (Hutchinson, 1984), p. 251.
3 Obituary, Pamela Jackson, The Times, 19 April 1994.
4 Butler, Lucy (ed.), Letters Home (John Murray, 1991), p. 107.
5 DM, interview with the author, Paris, January 2000.
6 OSU/1701, JM to DR, 9 February 1932.
7 Duchess of Devonshire, My Early Childhood (privately published, 1995), p. 7.
8 Ibid., p. 1.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 OSU, MS of ‘Mitford Country Revisited’, July 1982, p. 3.
12 OSU/1637, JM to DD, 5 March 1990.
13 OSU/1697, PM to SR, 24 June 1925.
14 OSU, Lady Beit (formerly Clementine Mitford) to JM, 13 July 1973.
15 Interview with Rosemary Bailey, Westwell, April 2000.
16 In other words, the appointment of the clergyman.
17 OSU/1637, JM to DD, 28 February 1987.
18 The legend tells of a medieval wedding party where the guests played a game of hide-and-seek. The young bride went off to hide and could not be found though the poor frantic bridegroom tore the house apart. A century later her skeleton was found, clad in the remains of her bridal finery. She had hidden away, curled up in a heavy old wooden chest decorated with the wood of a mistletoe bough; the lid had slammed shut and locked itself.
19 OSU/1565, JM, sundry note, 1 June 1995.
20 See also Murphy, Sophia, Mitford Family Album (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985), pp. 37–8.
21 OSU/1698, SR to JM, 16 May 1968.
22 Mitford, Jessica, Hons and Rebels (Victor Gollancz, 1960), p. 13.
23 Mitford Family Album, plate.
24 In Hons and Rebels, p. 13, Decca says Tom was given the name Tuddemy ‘partly because it was the Boudledidge translation of Tim, partly because we thought it rhymed with “adultery”’.
25 Ibid., pp. 13–14.
26 OSU/812, unpublished MS.
27 Hons and Rebels, p. 23.
28 DD, interview with the author, Chatsworth, June 2000.
29 Hons and Rebels, p. 14
30 Founded by Charlotte Mason in 1887, PNEU has been particularly valuable for military families and those travelling abroad. No matter where the child was taught they could always ‘drop back’ into the system at whatever level they had reached. Mason founded PNEU because of the widely held belief that ‘it was unnecessary to educate girls’ and her credo was that ‘the child is more complex than the sum of its parts’. Christian ethics is at the base of the curriculum, which concentrates on English and includes maths, science and biology, history and geography, music, dance, art appreciation and play.
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
1 Mosley, 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.
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