Even in this eccentric family Unity was felt to be unusual. She also inherited her father’s good looks – and his height. ‘Poor Unity, she is rather huge,’ said Lady Redesdale when Unity was fitted for her bridesmaid’s dress for Diana’s wedding. But it was her physical appearance which first brought her to Hitler’s notice, leading to an extraordinary friendship between the daughter of an English country gentleman and the German Führer. Unity’s strong opinions led her to attempt suicide in 1939, which left her brain-damaged.
In the family, in spite of the fact that she could be moody and sulky, Unity was loved for her originality, the laughter she generated and the tricks she got up to. Relationships among the sisters fluctuated depending on what stage they had reached or what cause they were supporting at the time, but the close ties between Unity and Jessica never wavered until the outbreak of war and Unity’s suicide attempt, which separated them forever. In spite of their totally opposing views, for Jessica espoused the communist cause, they remained firm friends and missed each other badly when those beliefs finally drove them apart. Unity died after an attack of meningitis in 1948.
Even more than Unity, Jessica was a discontented teenager who longed to get away from home and go to boarding school. She ran away to Spain with her cousin Esmond Romilly, who supported the communists in the Spanish Civil War, and later married him. After moving to America, Esmond joined the Royal Canadian Air Force on the outbreak of war but was lost on a mission over the North Sea. Jessica later married Bob Treuhaft and became a member of the Communist Party and a campaigner for civil rights. After the success of her autobiographical book Hons and Rebels, she was able to make a career out of writing. Always the rebel, she remained almost permanently at odds with the rest of her family, yet she kept in touch with all her sisters, except Diana. She died of cancer in 1996.
Deborah (or Debo) never gave her family cause for anxiety. She was a happy child who openly loved her parents but her birth was not greeted with great joy since her parents were still hoping for another boy. She eventually wrote several books, mainly about Chatsworth House, which became her home, culminating in her acclaimed biography Wait for Me.
Debo married Lord Andrew Cavendish, who succeeded as Duke of Devonshire when his elder brother was killed in the war, and they inherited Chatsworth – and a lot of death duties. That these were paid off and that Chatsworth is now probably the leading privately owned stately home open to the public is in huge measure down to Debo’s enormous energy and imagination.
In spite of her optimistic and equable nature, she, too, endured tragedy since she had three stillborn babies and another that died shortly after birth; she did, however, produce Peregrine, the present Duke of Devonshire, Emma and Sophia. In later life she became the family peacemaker, which was not an easy task.
The sisters’ high-profile lifestyles were further enhanced by their equally high-profile family and friends. They were cousins of the Churchills, related to former prime minister Harold Macmillan and numbered most of the literary figures of their generation among their friends. Diana was probably the only person in the world to be friendly with both Churchill and Hitler, and she and Unity knew most of the German High Command. Debo’s friends included Ali Khan, the Kennedy family, Prince Charles and the late Queen Mother.
Since there were sixteen years between Nancy and Debo, the sisters spanned an unusual and changing swathe of history: the eldest three were born as the long, easy-going Edwardian afternoon was drawing to a close and when Britain still ruled over a vast empire on which it seemed the sun would never set; Unity when the lights were going out all over Europe; Jessica when the ‘war to end all wars’ was in its final stages; and Debo at the beginning of the roaring twenties. They witnessed changes of the sort that had never been seen before – women’s suffrage, Irish Home Rule, the General Strike, the Slump and yet another war; and they all lived to see a world which had changed beyond recognition from the one into which they were born. But they have never lost their popularity, in spite of the generations who have never heard of the Mitford sisters, and Nancy’s novels still fly off the shelves of leading booksellers. Even Andrew Marr saw fit to devote a section of his excellent history The Making of Modern Britain to this extraordinary family.
It is tempting to ask ‘why?’ Many devotees will have their different reasons and many theories have been advanced by those more qualified to speculate on the phenomenon of the Mitford family. My task is to tell the story of Pam who, because she never sought the limelight, has somehow fallen below the radar. I hope to show that in her quiet and understated way, she was just as interesting as her more flamboyant siblings.
Nicknames
Most families have nicknames for at least some of their members, but all the Mitford family had a series of names which they called one another at different times. I have by no means used all of them, but most of them are worth listing if only to show their diversity.
Nancy was called Koko in early childhood by both her parents and her father sometimes called her Blob-Nose. Her older siblings, Pam, Tom and Diana, called her Naunce or Naunceling; Jessica called her Susan; and after she went to live in France, Debo would refer to her as the French Lady Writer, the Old French Lady or simply Lady.
Practical Pam was always known as Woman to the others, who also called her Wooms or Woomling.
Tom was Tud or Tuddemy, which stood for Tom in Boudledidge, the secret language made up by Unity and Jessica.
Diana was Dina to her father while her mother called her Dana. She had a rather large head as a child so Nancy called her Bodley, short for The Bodley Head; she was Nard or Nardy to Pam, Tom and Unity; Jessica called her Cord or Corduroy; while to Debo she was always Honks. History does not relate where these last three nicknames originated.
Unity was most often called Bobo, a derivative of Baby, which her parents called her when she was small. She and Jessica called each other Boud (pronounced Bowd), presumably because they were the only two speakers of Boudledidge. Diana and Jessica took to calling her Birdie, a derivative of Boud. Not many people actually called her Unity – except Hitler.
Jessica quickly became Decca, though her mother called her Little D; Nancy called her Susan, and Jessica and Debo called each other Hen or Henderson, partly on account of their devotion to poultry. Occasionally, and mysteriously, she was called Squalor; equally mysterious was Pam’s nickname for her of Steake, pronounced Ste-ake.
Debo was called Stubby during her early years by her mother, on account of her (compared to the others’) stubby little legs. Pam changed this to Stublow, which she used at intervals for the rest of her life when writing to her youngest sister. Nancy often called her Miss or Nine, telling her that this referred to her mental age. On one occasion Debo, having written an unusually long letter to Nancy, ended by saying that if she didn’t finish soon Nancy would be forced to change her name to Ten.
The children called their father Farve and their mother Muv, but also referred to them as TPOM (The Poor Old Male) and TPOF (The Poor Old Female). Sydney was also known as Fem or the Fem. The children thought these names were very much their preserve, but one day Sydney was telephoned by Violet Hammersley (one of the family’s oldest friends, and christened The Wid by the children since she always wore mourning clothes after her husband’s death), and she instantly recognised the gloomy voice. Forgetting herself entirely, Sydney said, ‘Hello Wid’; ‘Hello Fem’ was the instant reply. David and Sydney were also known jointly as The Revereds.
Those who married into the family were given nicknames, too. Nancy’s husband Peter Rodd became Prod and her lover, Gaston Palewski, was known as The Colonel or Col; Derek Jackson who married Pam was Horse; Oswald Mosley was Sir O, Sir Oz, Sir Ogre, the Leader or Kit, which was Diana’s pet name for him; Debo’s husband Andrew, Duke of Devonshire, was sometimes known as Claud on account of his receiving letters mistakenly addressed to Claud Hartington Esq., when his title, before he inherited his father’s, was Lord Hartington.
/> It is fortunate that the absolutely excellent The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters – correspondence between the Mitford Girls over a period of almost eighty years – was edited by Charlotte Mosley, a member of the family by marriage. At least she could refer to Debo, the last surviving sister, when sorting out this plethora of nicknames.
One
Not an Easy Childhood
‘Another beautiful little girl, sir!’ said the midwife to the handsome man with the fair hair and piercing blue eyes, who stood by his wife’s bedside as she was safely delivered of their second child. The year was 1907 and the most unusual aspect of this birth was that the father was actually present, as he was at the births of all his seven children. Although he may have hoped for a boy to carry on the family name, he was not unduly perturbed. His wife was a healthy young woman; there would be more opportunities for a son.
Had he been able to look into the future, the Hon. David Freeman Mitford would have had much to worry about for he would have seen that he and his wife Sydney would produce four more girls and only one boy, Tom; and this son would be killed at the end of the second great conflict to engulf the century which had only just begun. Most of his girls would become famous or infamous during their lifetime: two would be well-known writers, two would become high-profile friends of Hitler and one would marry a duke. One of the writers would run away with her cousin to fight for the communists in Spain and one of the Nazi sympathisers would try to kill herself. Even if he had had a crystal ball and seen what was ahead for his large family, would he have believed it? In his case the truth was to be far stranger than fiction.
For the moment he need not have worried, for the child which he was shortly to hold in his arms was the one who would never cause trouble. If a fairy godmother was present at her birth, she endowed this baby, Pamela, not only with beauty – she had her father’s fair hair and bright blue eyes – but also with a nature so agreeable and courageous that she was able to weather the many storms of life which were to befall her and her exceptional family. Although she did not have his volatile temper, Pam, more so than her siblings, took after her father, in the sense that she never craved the bright lights of city life and was most at home in the heart of the English countryside. Often in conflict with his other daughters, except Deborah the youngest, he and Pam seldom disagreed and she avoided the brunt of his towering rages. The fairy godmother had done her work well – but she had reckoned without Pam’s elder sister, the dark-haired, green-eyed, sharp-witted Nancy.
Nancy famously remarked that the first three years of her life were perfect. ‘Then a terrible thing happened, my sister Pamela was born.’ She claimed that it put her into a permanent rage for about twenty years. What initially upset her most was that the nanny of the time immediately transferred her affections to the new baby and Nancy was heard by her mother to say: ‘Oh Ninny, how I wish you could still love me!’ When nanny was sent away as a result she became even more sad, since she realised, even at such a young age, that she was in some way responsible for the dismissal.
Ironically, Pam was the least likely of any of Nancy’s sisters to cause her pain or provide any sibling rivalry. The fact that she was not so quick-witted has often been blamed on a severe bout of polio which struck her down at the age of 3, but she was possibly also dyslexic – a condition not then recognised. Her kindness, which Nancy only acknowledged much later in life, was an inbuilt part of her nature.
In 1911 polio or infantile paralysis was a dreaded illness which, if it did not kill, could leave the sufferer severely paralysed for life. This posed a big problem for Pam’s mother Sydney, later Lady Redesdale, who had inherited from her father, Thomas Gibson Bowles, theories on the medical profession which were highly unconventional, especially a century ago.
She believed implicitly in the power of the Good Body to heal itself. She banned, as far as possible, all medicines and would call in a doctor only in the most dire emergency. Any medicine which he did provide was left untouched in a cupboard. None of the children were vaccinated, although vaccination was well on the way to becoming compulsory. Pam, however, was so ill that her mother was forced to call in six doctors, one after the other, all of whom told the same story – nothing could be done for the desperately sick little girl. She then contacted the only medical practitioner that she had ever trusted.
Dr Kellgren came from Sweden and specialised in osteopathy, a branch of medicine not to be recognised as mainstream for many decades. Massage and exercise, an early form of intense physiotherapy, were his prescriptions for a cure. And they worked. Pam’s recovery was so nearly complete (she was left with a slight weakness in her right leg for the rest of her life) that she was able to ride, swim, skate and even ski. Dr Kellgren’s methods were not unique but they were rare for the time and all her life Pam attributed this near miracle entirely to him.
Sydney then applied Dr Kellgren’s maxims to all injuries and Jessica, the second youngest of the sisters, in her book Hons and Rebels, tells of the time she broke her arm: after the doctor had set it and bound it up, her mother removed all the bandages and made Jessica do exercises to prevent the arm becoming stiff. This was the treatment Sydney herself had received for a broken ankle many years before and it had worked. It succeeded for Jessica too, although it left her somewhat double-jointed. Although some of Jessica’s accounts of her childhood must be taken with the proverbial pinch of salt, this one has a ring of truth about it.
In the short term, the illness left Pam in considerable pain and she was often tearful. With a gap of only three years, Nancy and Pam could have become good friends and playmates, but Pam couldn’t keep up with Nancy, either mentally or physically, and the problem was compounded by Nancy constantly being told: ‘You’ve got to be nice to Pam, she’s ill.’
This state of affairs had two results: Pam became the main butt of Nancy’s cruel teasing and she spent a lot of her childhood on her own or playing with the next two younger children, Tom and Diana. She and Diana had secret houses and played endless games together but there were times when Pam was alone and seemed rather left out. She was never self-pitying but would often go for walks by herself – possibly to get away from Nancy’s teasing. ‘When I was walking on my own today I found a penny. Wasn’t I lucky?’ she once said. That would appeal to the little girl who was to become something of a family joke for most of her life for her ‘careful’ attitude towards money. Due to her illness, as well as the three-year age gap, she was well behind Nancy when it came to learning so she was taught with Tom and Diana.
Pam went to dancing class with Tom, where their teacher was Miss Vacani who taught upper-class children their first dancing steps for more than thirty years. Tom, who danced in green shoes with silver buckles, was a great favourite of Miss Vacani, but poor Pam after having polio could not hop on her right leg. She was not able to dance the polka and was kept in the back row and largely disregarded. As ever, she seems to have taken no offence at this lack of attention. Maybe she was just getting used to it and developing a veneer of ‘not minding’ which was to serve her well in later life.
Like the other children Pam had a great love of animals, and for her – and later her youngest sister Debo – this lasted for her entire life. Jessica describes how Pam spent considerable time pretending to be a horse, pawing the ground, tossing her head and neighing in a most realistic manner – presumably having closely observed the ponies which all the children rode.
In Hons and Rebels Jessica remarks that Pam eventually gave up wanting to be a horse and did the next best thing by marrying a jockey. Pam’s husband, Derek Jackson, happened to be a very competent amateur jockey and rode several times in the Grand National. He was also a renowned physicist and a war hero who was decorated for his service as a bomber navigator in the RAF.
Pam’s love of animals and the countryside was undoubtedly a buffer against the teasing from her siblings, especially Nancy. Alone among the children, except for Debo, who was thirteen years her junior (
the two became the closest of the sisters in later life), she was perfectly content with country life and never hankered for the endless socialising which obsessed Nancy, Diana and Jessica. Although as children all the sisters were mad about animals, the incident involving Brownie, the pony which their father bought at Harrods and transported to their London home in a hansom cab, gave Pam particular pleasure. Even more exciting was the journey back to High Wycombe where the family had rented a house. When the pony was not allowed to travel in the guard’s van, David refused to be thwarted and transferred the whole family from first to third class (in those days, as today, third-class carriages did not have a corridor) and parents, children, servants and pony travelled home together. The children were particularly thrilled to be able to travel third class – a novelty for upper-class children in those days.
Due to the weakness in her leg from her attack of polio, Pam could not go hunting because she could not get a good enough grip on the saddle to enable her to jump. But she loved riding and adored Charles Hooper the groom, who was in charge of the children’s riding activities. He was ‘sweet Hoops’ to Pam and ‘Choops’ to the others – and again it shows Pam’s kindly and optimistic disposition because sweet was something which Mr Hooper certainly was not. Somewhat grumpy in the first place, his nature had not been improved by the time he spent in the trenches in the Great War, where he suffered from shellshock, and his temper became such that he often exploded without warning. He judged everyone on their riding ability and on nothing else, but he must have realised how hard Pam had to work to ride properly because his temper was seldom vented on her. Nancy, who rode well and was also a favourite, based the character of Josh, the groom in The Pursuit of Love, on Hooper.
The Other Mitford Page 2