The Other Mitford (24 page)

Margaret kept the brooch for over a decade but when she reached the age of 90 she felt that she should pass it on to someone younger who would also treasure it. Debo suggested that it should go to Rose Jackson, Derek’s only child and the daughter of Janetta Kee, his third wife. Although Rose had been estranged from Derek for most of his life, when he was old and in poor health they were reconciled and he became devoted both to her and to her little boy, Rollo.

Rose was thrilled with this precious gift and wrote to Margaret Budd on 5 October 2009:

Dear Margaret Budd,

I can’t thank you enough for giving me Derek’s squadron’s – I mean Pamela’s – brooch. It’s a magnificent thing and above all it really reminds me of Derek. I can imagine him commissioning the piece and insisting on a very precise ‘interpretation’ of the Squadron’s regimental badge.

It must have meant a lot to you. I expect it brought back memories of that time of your life and you would have known Derek and Pamela well then. Of course you lived through those many terrifying months when your husband and Derek flew.

I have none of those memories, but Derek did talk to me about his life during the war so it’s wonderful to have an object to connect me to all of that.

I have 3 sons and it is a fascinating object to them as well. I shall take great pleasure in wearing it. Thank you so much.

With kind regards and best wishes

Rose, née Jackson, now Campbell

It was a stroke of genius from Debo. It may seem strange to some that such a special and sentimental object was given to the child of the woman for whom Pam’s husband had left her, but that sort of jealousy was not in Pam’s nature; she would have been delighted.

4.5 cups wholewheat flour

1.5 cups bread flour

20fl. oz water

2 tbsp sugar

2 packets dried yeast (14g)

1 tbsp salt

Method:

Grease two baking tins. Place the water in a large bowl and add the other ingredients. Mix and knead the dough until it is thoroughly amalgamated. Leave in bowl to ferment for one hour. Remove dough from bowl, place on baking board and divide into two pieces. Shape the dough into rectangles the size of the tins and put into the tins. Heat the oven to 400°F/205°C. Cover the tins and let the dough rise for 30 minutes. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes. Remove loaves from oven and from tins and allow to cool on racks.

Pam made this bread all her adult life. It is delicious with butter, with jam, in sandwiches or just on its own with home-made soup. Although Pam seldom used an electric mixer, one can be used to mix and knead the dough for about
6
minutes at maximum speed.

2 handfuls sorrel

2 handfuls lettuce

Good bunch of parsley

2oz butter

4oz potato, peeled and diced

1pt chicken stock

Salt and black pepper

4 tbsp single cream

Wash sorrel, lettuce and parsley, then shake out and dry in a towel. Chop up roughly. Heat butter in a heavy saucepan, then add the three green vegetables. Stew gently for 5 or 6 minutes, then add diced potato. Stir well, then add hot stock. Cover and simmer gently for 25–30 minutes. Push through a food mill and re-heat in a clean saucepan. Season with salt and pepper, stir in cream and serve. (Serves 4)

Tip: Eat with Lady Redesdale’s Bread

8 hard-boiled eggs

¼pt water

1 tbsp tomato ketchup

1 tbsp Worcester sauce

3 tbsp double cream

Salt and pepper

1 tbsp aspic powder melted in the
¹
/
₄
pt of water

Method:

Pass yolks of eggs through sieve; add ketchup and Worcester sauce, salt, pepper and half the aspic. Chop whites and add to the mixture. Finally, add cream. Mix well. Turn into soufflé dish and put in fridge. When set pour over the remainder of aspic. Decorate and leave to set.

This recipe was found in the cookery book of Pam’s great friend Margaret Budd, but it bears all the hallmarks of Pam’s imaginative cooking, like the addition of tomato ketchup and Worcester sauce for extra flavour. It is probably the recipe she used – much expanded – soon after she and Derek moved to Ireland and she told Debo that she couldn’t come to see her at Lismore Castle that day because she was making egg mousse for sixty people at the Tullamaine point-to-point. And there is no doubt that the eggs would have come from her own hens.

4lb forequarter flank of beef or silverside, or 2lb of each

A piece of knuckle of veal weighing about 2lb including bone, if available

A beef marrow bone sawn into short lengths

Chicken giblets or 6oz of ox liver in one piece

4 large leeks

4 large carrots

2 large onions

1 very small turnip

Small piece of parsnip

1 stalk of celery with its leaves

Bouquet garni (2 bay leaves, 2–3 sprigs parsley and thyme)

1 tbsp coarse salt

8pt water

Method:

Put the beef, veal and giblets into a large cooking pot and pour over the water. Bring to a simmer extremely slowly and keep skimming off the scum until it turns to a thin white foam which will disperse of its own accord. Add the vegetables, the bouquet and the salt. Put the lid on the pot, but tilt it gently so that steam can escape, and simmer very, very gently for 3½ hours. Add the marrow bone, tied up in greaseproof paper, and the liver and cook for another hour. Serve the beef with potatoes, freshly prepared vegetables and gravy made from the stock and keep the rest of the stock and the vegetables cooked in it for soup (perhaps Head Soup, see Chapter 16: Home Economics). Alternatively, the beef is delicious served cold with salad and baked potatoes or some of Lady Redesdale’s bread.

This recipe owes a lot to one of Elizabeth David’s in her book French Provincial Cooking, but Pam adapted it for her own use and would sometimes use brisket instead of flank for the main meat. She would also use the simmering oven of her Rayburn cooker instead of simmering the meat on the hotplate which gives an even better flavour. When making the soup Elizabeth David suggests that the marrow bone be extracted and spread on French bread baked golden in the oven. I think Lady Redesdale’s bread, toasted, would be even nicer.

Family group in 1912. Left to right: Nancy, David, Tom, Diana, Sydney and Pam – with dogs. (Copyright the Mitford Archive 2011)

The family with animals
c
. 1915. Left to right: Nancy, Tom, Diana, Unity (on pony), Sydney and Pam. (Copyright the Mitford Archive 2011)

The family continues to grow: Nancy, Pam, Tom, Diana, Unity and Jessica
c
. 1918. Pam is standing awkwardly on her right leg which had been affected by polio. (Copyright the Mitford Archive 2011)

Astall in 1922 when the family was complete. Pam is sat between Tom and David. (Copyright the Mitford Archive 2011)

Jessica, Nancy, Diana, Unity and Pam in 1935. (Copyright the Mitford Archive 2011)

1967. Debo, Nancy, Pam, Diana and Debo’s eldest daughter Emma at the wedding party of Debo’s son Peregrine, known as Stoker, now the Duke of Devonshire. (Copyright the Mitford Archive 2011)