Joan and Edward Kennedy at Edensor, May 1965.
Deborah between Robert and Ethel Kennedy at Edensor churchyard, 1963.
Oswald Mosley and Nancy at the Temple de la Gloire, 1965. Nancy disliked all her brothers-in-law and they her.
Nancy at rue d’Artois, 1972.
Pamela and Diana. Orsay, 1965.
Diana, 1990s.
Pamela at Woodfield, 1980. (Photograph by Brian Donay)
Five generations: Diana in 2002 with her son Desmond Guinness, grandson Patrick Guinness, great-granddaughter Jasmine Rainey and great-great grandson Elwood Rainey. (Photograph by Christopher Simon Sykes)
Jessica and Duncan Grant in the dining room at Chatsworth, 1960s.
Jessica with her son-in-law, Terry Weber, Robert Treuhaft and Constancia, August 1986.
Robert Treuhaft and Jessica playing Boggle with Maya Angelou, 1980s.
Deborah and Harold Macmillan by the River Blackwater, Co Cork, in 1964, the year after his resignation as Prime Minister.
Andrew and Deborah (right). Chatsworth, 1985.
Andrew and Deborah, 1977.
Pamela and Deborah. Lismore, 1979.
SIX
1960–1966
Letter from Jessica to Nancy.
More letters have survived between the sisters from the 1960s than from all the previous thirty-five years put together. This is partly because their lives had become more settled and also because they had begun to realize the value of their correspondence and took greater care to preserve it. But the principal reason for the increase in letters was the death of Lady Redesdale in 1963. She had always been at the hub of family news, exchanging weekly letters with all her daughters, even keeping Jessica and Diana up to date on each other’s lives. After her death, the sisters drew closer together and the letters they would have written to her they now wrote to one another, in particular to Deborah, the only sister always to remain on speaking terms with all the others, who took over from their mother as the centre of the family.
Lady Redesdale’s death affected Nancy more deeply than her sisters. At fifty-nine, she had still not fully overcome feelings of childhood resentment and her mother continued to occupy a large place in her life. In addition to the inevitable sadness of mourning, she was overcome with melancholy, writing to Palewski, ‘nothing really nice will ever happen again in my life, things will go from bad to worse, leading to old age and death’. Remorse was mixed with sorrow: nine months before Lady Redesdale’s death, Nancy had written an essay about the sisters’ nanny, Blor, in which she had painted a wounding portrait of her mother. When Lady Redesdale wrote to object, Nancy replied disingenuously, ‘Oh goodness I thought it would make you laugh’, but she must have known that her dagger had struck home.
The 1960s continued to be a productive decade for Nancy: she published her last novel, Don’t Tell Alfred, and in 1966 her most successful history, The Sun King, a life of Louis XIV. This sold more than 250,000 copies in two years and, according to Palewski, was recommended by General de Gaulle to all his cabinet. Although the Colonel was still the focus of Nancy’s existence, it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep up a pretence of happiness where he was concerned. On his return from Rome in 1962, Palewski was made Minister for Scientific Research, a post he held for three years before being appointed head of the Constitutional Council. In addition to his work, the Colonel’s romantic attachments were still keeping him busy and causing Nancy agonies of jealousy. She began to consider seriously an idea she had toyed with for many years: a move to Versailles, where there would be no danger of bumping into Palewski’s mistresses and where she would miss him less than in Paris.
In 1960, Pamela left Tullamaine. She had sold the property but stayed on as a tenant while looking for another house. The sale that she held to dispose of her belongings entered the Mitford repertoire of legendary stories. Deborah remembered, ‘Eggs which had been stored in brine were heard by the crowd exploding and Woman said very loudly to the assembled company Nothing Is To Leave This House Until It Is Paid For. She was delighted when glasses from Woolworth in Clonmel fetched 4 times what they had cost – & were still obtainable from down the road.’ With the proceeds of the sale, Pamela bought Woodfield, a pretty Cotswold house near Cirencester. In 1962, she decided to let the house for part of the year and moved to Zurich, taking Giuditta Tommasi with her. She kept in touch with Deborah and Diana with monthly letters but wrote less frequently to Nancy and Jessica. Her letters are often about food, for which she had an extraordinary memory: she could recall in detail dishes she had eaten many years before.
In 1963, the Mosleys left Ileclash, the Irish house they had bought when Clonfert burned down, and made their permanent home at the Temple de la Gloire. Diana was sorry to leave Ireland but after five moves in twenty years, and much restless toing and froing between residences, she was thankful to be more settled. Summers were spent in Venice, winters in South Africa or the Bahamas, and they often went to London where Mosley kept a staffed office until he died. In 1966, he made a final attempt to enter Parliament and, when this failed, gave up the leadership of the Union Movement and withdrew from active politics. In the early 1960s, Diana began to sketch out memoirs but they were not published until 1977. Mosley also started work on an autobiography which Diana helped him to rewrite and edit, toning down the rhetoric and correcting the punctuation.
Diana’s letters to her sisters only occasionally mention her literary and intellectual interests; she was an avid reader and many of her friends in France and England were writers. Deborah and Pamela were not readers and Nancy, the sister who shared Diana’s literary tastes, was in and out of her house or at the end of a telephone. In this respect, Diana’s letters to her sisters are as unrepresentative of her life as are Jessica’s, who rarely wrote to her siblings about the political activities that took up most of her time and energies.
In 1960, Jessica brought out Hons and Rebels, the first of the sisters’ memoirs to be published and the first of many books by or about the Mitfords to provoke furious reactions and divide family opinion. Unlike her privately published booklet Lifeitselfmanship – a swipe at communist jargon, along the lines of Nancy’s U and non-U essay, which she had written under her married name – Jessica published her memoirs under her maiden name, thus revealing publicly for the first time her relationship with the sisters from whom she had spent many years trying to distance herself. Presented by the press as the true story behind Nancy’s novels, it was an immediate bestseller, establishing Jessica as a witty and inventive author, and bringing her new-found respectability and financial security. Her next book, The American Way of Death, a coruscating attack on undertakers and their methods of preying on the bereaved, caused a national revolt against the funeral industry; and was on the American bestseller list for a year. Now in her mid-forties, Jessica began to use writing rather than direct political action to fight her causes, finding it easier to sit at a typewriter than, as she put it, having her head ‘beaten in by the local police’. During the 1960s she made several visits to Europe to see her family and although relations with them were smoother than they had been at any time since the war, the tensions below the surface were ready to flare up at the slightest provocation.
The busy life that Deborah set for herself in the 1960s was a pattern that she kept up unremittingly over the following decades. Andrew was made Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Commonwealth Relations Office in 1960, an appointment that he owed to the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, his uncle by marriage. His four years in the job involved extensive travel abroad and Deborah often went with him. After the untimely death of Andrew’s sister-in-law, Kathleen Kennedy, the Devonshires had kept up with the Kennedy family and attended the President’s Inauguration in 1961. Deborah also went often to Paris where Nancy took her shopping for couture clothes and kept a critical eye on her purchases, anxious not to be outshone by her youngest sister in an area that she considered very much her own. The administration o
f Chatsworth fell mostly on to Deborah’s shoulders; she oversaw its restoration, handled the expansion of the public area of the house, kept an eye on repairs to cottages on the estate, involved herself in local charities and functions, supervised the staff and entertained on a large scale. She shared Andrew’s interest in thoroughbred racing and for some years bred Shetland ponies, or ‘insects’ as Nancy disparagingly called them.
Get on
Have you got summer clothes fixed up? Any hats for sale (or return)? Paddy Whack1 is truly in what he calls Andrew’s Damp Duchy, he has Women (Joan,2, Janetta3 & such like) down for the weekend & goes hunting on Sats. One day the hounds were messing about & it looked as if they were going to be ages & he noted a church which looked jolly, so he asked a girl to come with him to the gate & hold his horse while he went in to have a look, and (like I always remember out hunting) everyone followed them so he was unmasked as a sissy & an inti. He was rewarded though by finding who do you think’s grave? Uncle Tom Cobley. I don’t know about All, I think it was only Uncle T C. Admit.
My bedroom is done, it looks quite nice, pale blue silk & gold mouldings. COME & SEE OH DO.
Much love, 9
New slogan for Feb
A friend in tweed
Is a friend indeed.
P.S. Mrs Ham has written to say she thinks I am very hard and only interested in money so I’ve told her I’m never going to write again (anyhow not till she takes it back). Say I’m right.
Dereling,
Cora 1 has had another face lift with such appalling results she has to say it was a motor accident (Colonel’s news). Violet [Trefusis] has had hers done with no results which is almost more disappointing. Anthony Chaplin’s wife, who was in the London Clinic, says you should hear the nurses’ views on these women – not enough hospital beds for real cases & so on & how fearfully cowardly they are – !
Much love – write, N
Get along
Oh you WERE thoroughly good & kind on Monday, and I appreciated. The bit I appreciated most was the re – toiling out to go to the Invalides once more into the breach, it was noble and it obliged.
Henderson’s book1 becomes so dreadfully sad, the baby dying and Esmond too, oh she has had a tragic life, I would understand anything bitter now, but why then, before all the dreadery set in. I will never understand it.
I think Muv is prepared for all.
Much love, thanks, admiration for staying power down Main St,2 etc etc. 9
Had lunch with who do you think yesterday? Answer upside down.
Wasn’t I lucky – R——t K—3
Darling Soo
Many thanks for sending your book which I have read with great attention. I think it’s awfully good – easy to read & very funny in parts. A slightly cold wind to the heart perhaps – you don’t seem very fond of anybody, but I suppose the purpose is to make the Swinbrook world seem horrible, to explain why you ran away from it.
I loved the idea of shooting Hitler1 – a Hon. did shoot at old Musso2 who thought it exceedingly funny – had there been two, foreigners would indeed steer clear of the denomination!
I’ve no intention of having a go at Khru next week.3 I rather long for the circus – a million Cuddums4 are being brought from all over France (the local cleaner will probably appear in your shirt, yes Susan).
I long for the reviews & shall no doubt receive them as my press cutting people always send references to Mary Russell Mitford as well as to Lord Milford Haven. Heywood Hill, who always knows, says it will sell thousands.
Awful dust wrapper – silly old Gol[lancz] had much better have stuck to that Left Book Club cover (do you remember how ghastly it was the way books were left & piled up month after month?)
No news – I’m shut up, writing one myself.
Esmond was the original Teddy boy wasn’t he, a pioneer of the modern trend & much more terrific than his followers. When does it come out in America?
Much love from Susan
Susan,
For some reason I longed for, but feared, your reaction more than anyone’s, even the reviewers. So I was most awfully glad to get your letter, although you might have sent it non-U mail1 for once. I am enclosing some slightly worn postal coupons which can be exchanged for airmail stamps of any country, so do use them in future.
Sorry about the cold wind to the heart, I didn’t really mean it to come out like that.
At Bob’s suggestion, I have sent a short cable to the Cuddum cleaners saying ABOVE ALL, WHATEVER HAPPENS, KEEP MY SHIRT ON’.
The reviews have been sent on v. promptly, and I have been v. pleased. Did you note the Graph? March 25th, best so far I thought.2
Benjy, as usual, is being a hopeless tease, and when called on to read the reviews insists on reading the cooking hints and Letters to Editor etc on the other side.
No Susan, Esmond was not a pioneer Teddy Boy.
If you should chance to note any other views of me book, such as the Widow or any of the Relations, do not fail to let me know, using the Postal Coupons. Do you realize your letter was posted on 12th March and only just arrived today? But you have to take the Coupons to the P.O., they won’t work if just stuck on.
Lots of love, and do write sometimes, Susan
Are you moving to Versailles? When?
Darling Soo
Reactions
Muv is pleased & amused. Diana not pleased at being presented as a dumb society beauty & is really down on the book, picking too much on details & inaccuracies. We are all sorry you were horrid about Uncle Tommy,1 always kind to us & really such a comic, original & in his way clever person. Debo really I think likes it but she had only read half when I saw her. Kept saying how sad – how sad – one didn’t realize – & so on.
The Widow is to be Arbiter of All on account of knowing us from such early days, but she is gadding in London at present. I’ll pass on the Arbitration.
I suppose on account of you & the Hon. Violet Gibson who shot off Mussolini’s ear, I was ordered by the police here to report twice a day during Khru’s visit. However I made the embassy tell them not to be so silly & all was rescinded. I saw the old fellow four times by chance quite near & waved, from you. All the cleaners were keenly there.
I sent the book to Sigrid (my maid when I first married) & she simply loved it – I sent her letter to Muv who will perhaps pass it on. I’m always pleased when simple people like one’s books, it’s a good sign.
Constantia Fenwick2 says when she used to stay with us she had no idea so many pots were on the boil, everything seemed quite ordinary.
Much love, N
Versailles has fallen through – I am very sorry.
Get on
V. Good, your letter to Uncle Tommy. I was going to lunch with Honks luckily & there was Wooms so we all three signed & posted. It is too bad of Henderson, as though he ever did anything against her.
Ld Birkenhead’s review is the only one which picked on the dishonesty (which is the theme song of the book). The other reviewers seem to applaud all that they did, from putting things down to other people’s accounts, to stealing a car & so many petty thievings that they are mentioned on every page.
As for saying that Esmond was an orchid on a dungheap – well. I think Muv might have the Observer up for libel for saying she wasn’t fit to bring up her children – defamation of the Good Body. I love the idea of regular work for Lord Redesdale.1
Oh dear, luckily it will soon be all over. It teaches one never to say anything in front of anyone, it is got hold of slightly altered, made serious instead of a joke & then held against one. Silly old Hen. I wonder what Mrs Ham’s edict will be. I die for it.
It has been marvellous having Honks up the road, we have taken it in turns to have lunch with each other.
Much love, 9
Eet was wondair to see your rare & valuable handwriting. Aunt Iris, I’m glad to say, hasn’t read & doesn’t intend to read the book, so perhaps Unkel will follow suit. Much better – it wouldn’t a
muse them a bit. I don’t think Decca really meant to be beastly you know – she is very insensitive. I’ve told her we are cross about it.
Heavenly weather here – I haven’t worn a coat for ten days & winter suits are too hot. For once it’s been much better than in London. Let’s hope we shan’t have a nipping frost to kill all.
Much love, Naunceling
They say about the Mountbatten funeral ‘never can do without a splash’.1
Dereling
Apparently in the D. Mail 23rd (though not in the edition we get here) it said that you had been interviewed by the police who had mixed you up with me.1 I wonder what spiteful person gave this piece of news to the paper? Surely the only person who could know this would be Jebb?2 But he can’t have told the D. Mail, as it must have been said (if at all) in confidence? What do you think? It is highly libellous because it sounds as if the French police never stop worrying about me, so untrue. It has upset me dreadfully, & I long to sue Jebb for libel or defamation.
Meanwhile about Decca’s book – Muv doesn’t mind at all. And I really don’t believe she does. In which case I don’t either. Debo thinks it would have been really ghoulish had it been written ten yrs ago when she went on that terrific visit. Too awful to think that in a few more years she, Decca, will be a mellow old lady. So Mrs Ham’s deep thoughts, which haven’t arrived because she is gadding in London, are less urgent.
What Ann Fleming3 calls the Professor’s Wife4 has thrice chucked Debo & me for meals, always the same message ‘Too Busy’. What do you think she’s up to, writing scabrous memoirs no doubt.
The Mitfords Page 33