The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family (69 page)

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OSU/812, unpublished MS.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.

44
Guinness, Jonathan and Catherine,
The House of Mitford
(Hutchinson, 1984), p. 282.

45
Ibid
., p. 282.

46
Lees-Milne, James,
A Mingled Measure
(John Murray, 1994), p. 46 and other entries.

47
Lycett Green, Candida (ed.),
John Betjeman Letters
(Methuen, 1990), vol. 1, p. 19.

48
OSU/1633, Bryan Guinness to JM, 13 January 1995.

49
Hons and Rebels
, p. 39.

50
Persuit of Love
, p. 56.

51
The House of Mitford
, p. 279.

52
DM to the author, 16 January 2001.

53
Lees-Milne, James,
Ancient as the Hills
(John Murray, 1997), p. 113.

54
A Life of Contrasts
, p. 62.

55
Butler, Lucy (ed.),
Letters Home
(John Murray, 1991), p. 107.

56
Guinness, Bryan,
Dairy Not Kept
(Compton Press, 1981), p. 87.

57
Hons and Rebels
, p. 43.

58
Ibid
., p. 44.

59
OSU/1637, JM to DD, 31 March 1982.

60
OSU/1710, DD, ‘The Mitford Glow’. It is an exaggeration, of course: there are several letters in which she thanks her mother for new clothes, such as ‘the lovely red jumper’.

61
Hons and Rebels
, p. 16.

62
Like her parents, Diana was married at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster. Among the guests were Winston and Randolph Churchill.

63
A Life of Contrasts
, p. 68.

Chapter 5: Bright Young Things, 1929–30

1
Mosley, Diana,
A Life of Contrasts
(Hamish Hamilton, 1977), p. 70.

2
DM, letter to the author.

3
Butler, Lucy (ed.),
Letters Home
(John Murray, 1991), p. 115.

4
Guinness, Bryan,
Dairy Not Kept
(Compton Press, 1981), p. 89.