The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family (70 page)

5
Mitford, Jessica,
Hons and Rebels
(Victor Gollancz, 1960), p. 48.

6
OSU/1566, JM to DD, 25 August 1990. Stockholm’s City Hall was designed by Ragnar Östberg and completed in 1923. It is Sweden’s foremost building in the National Romantic style.

7
Described in
Hons and Rebels
, p. 13.

8
OSU, Bryan Guinness file: ‘Dichtung und Wahreit among the Mitfords’.

9
Guinness, Jonathan and Catherine,
The House of Mitford
(Hutchinson, 1984), p. 577.

10
Julia Budworth, telephone interview with the author.

11
OSU, Drummonds to JM, 3 July 1929. During research for this book several people have asked, ‘Which sister was the one with the “running away account”?’ This seems to have struck a chord with many young readers.

12
OSU/1709, JM to NM, 13 October 1971.

13
DM, interview with the author, Paris, January 2000.

14
A Life of Contrasts
, p. 73.

15
Lees-Milne, James,
Ancestral Voices
(John Murray, 1975), p. 355.

16
Réalités
,1 June 1961, pp. 71–3.

17
Hons and Rebels
, p. 35.

18
NM to TM, c. October 1928, quoted in Selina Hastings,
Nancy Mitford
(Hamish Hamilton, 1985).
Evelyn Waugh
had just published
Decline and Fall
.

19
DM to author, December 2000.

20
Evelyn Waugh
to Henry Yorke, 20 July 1929, in Amory, Mark (ed.),
The Letters of Evelyn Waugh
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1981), p. 36.

21
Ibid
.
Evelyn Waugh
to Harold Acton, July 1929, p. 37.

22
Hons and Rebels
, p. 14.

23
DM to NM, quoted in Hastings, Selina,
Evelyn Waugh
(Sinclair Stevenson, 1994), p. 219.

24
Vile Bodies
was published in January 1930. In August that year Waugh published
Labels
, a travel book (the dust jacket was covered in travel labels). Although published after
Vile Bodies
it had been written some years earlier and it, too, was dedicated to Diana and Bryan Guinness.

Chapter 6: The Stage Is Set, 1930–32

1
Lady Redesdale suggested the title ‘Our Vile Age’ for Nancy’s book, which not only reflected her own opinions of present mores, but cleverly made reference to the title of
Our Village
, by a famous eighteenth-century author with the name Mitford. This is a nice example of Sydney’s droll humour.

2
Mosley, Charlotte,
Love from Nancy
(Hodder & Stoughton, 1993), p. 62.

3
Lady, 10 April 1930.

4
Sir Charles Blake Cochran was a hugely successful theatre impresario, who produced many of No.l Coward’s most famous musicals,
This Year of Grace, Bitter Sweet, Cavalcade
, etc., in London. The dancers in his chorus line were known as ‘Mr Cochran’s Young Ladies’, which conferred a distinct cachet. The girls were chaperoned; a high standard of personal behaviour was expected of them and they were subject to dismissal if they married or were suspected of a sexual liaison.

5
Graham, Sheilah,
Beloved Infidel
(Book Club, 1959), p. 115.

6
This is quite true. The Air Ministry imposed conditions for agreeing to Lawrence’s wish to remain in the RAF under his assumed name of Shaw. These conditions were that he was not allowed to fly, and he must not speak to any important personages, i.e. ‘Churchill, Birkenhead, Sassoon, Lady Astor’.

7
CHP, TM to SR, 17 August 1930.

8
Murphy, Sophia, Mitford Family Album (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985).

9
OSU/155, unpublished MS by JM.

10
Mitford, Jessica,
Hons and Rebels
(Victor Gollancz, 1960), p. 50.

11
OSU/1642, JM to Idden (Ann Farrer Horne) 14 August 1980.

12
OSU/155, Decca on Unity, unpublished MS.

13
Hons and Rebels
, p. 61.

14
OSU/155, unpublished MS.

15
Pryce-Jones, David,
Unity Mitford – A Quest
(Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1976), p. 43.

16
OSU/1642, JM to Idden (Ann Farrer Horne), 14 August 1980.

17
Ibid
., 22 February 1980. Few people born after 1960 realize the huge impact films had on the previous two generations in terms of manners, dress and accents.

18
OSU/1642, JM to Idden (Ann Farrer Horne), 14 August 1980.

19
Now Lady Soames.

20
Ingram, Kevin,
Rebel
(Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1985), p. 17.

21
On the other hand Unity was a very unusual girl: her reading was not prescribed and she had been used to the run of an important library since childhood. Perhaps it is not such an odd choice, after all.

22
Unity Mitford, pp. 1–2.

23
Mitford, Jessica,
A Fine Old Conflict
(Michael Joseph, 1977), p. 24.

24
OSU/1701.

25
Ibid
., various correspondence from JM to DR, 1932.

26
In
The House of Mitford
, Jonathan and Catherine Guinness listed many of the nicknames of the immediate family as a separate section. It covers one and a half pages. See pp. 7–8.

27
Elizabeth Powell (later Lady Glenconner) to David Pryce-Jones, quoted in Unity Mitford. Unidentified newspaper article in JM’s papers at OSU.

28
Mary Ormsby-Gore, in Unity Mitford, p. 53.

29
Garnet, David (ed.),
Carrington, Letters and Extracts from her Diaries
(Jonathan Cape, 1970), p. 473.

30
Mosley, Diana,
A Life of Contrasts
(Hamish Hamilton, 1977), p. 83.

31
May Amende, former maid at Biddesden, in Unity Mitford, p. 47.

32
Daily Telegraph
, 13 April 1994.

33
Lycett Green, Candida (ed.),
John Betjeman Letters
(Methuen, 1990), vol. 1 p. 88.

34
Ibid
., p. 101.

35
Hillier, Bevis,
Young Betjeman
(Cardinal, 1988), p. 300.

36
Ibid
., p. 102.

37
Ibid
., p. 104.

38
Ibid
., p. 107.

39
Ibid
., p. 95.

40
Maskelyns, a famous stage magician of the twenties.

41
Young Betjeman
, p. 302.

42
A Life of Contrasts
, p. 89.

43
Mosley, Sir Oswald,
My Life
(Thomas Nelson, 1968), p. 44.

44
Mosley, Diana,
Loved Ones: Sir Oswald Mosley
(Sidgwick & Jackson, 1983), p. 156.

45
May Amende, in Unity Mitford, p. 47.

46
DM to the author 16 January 2001.

47
A Life of Contrasts
, p. 94.

48
Skidelsky, Robert,
Mosley
(Macmillan, 1981), pp. 338–9

49
A Life of Contrasts
, p. 94.

50
R.H.S. Crossman, 1961, quoted in
A Life of Contrasts
, p. 96.

51
Webb, Beatrice,
Diary
1924–1943
(London School of Economics, 1985), p. 239.

52
Lord Longford, interview with the author, House of Lords, June 2000.

53
Mosley, p. 236.

54
Lees-Milne, James,
Another Self
(Hamish Hamilton, 1970), p. 97.

55
Webb, Diary, p. 335.

56
Cimmie’s mother was the former Mary Leiter, daughter of Levi Leiter of Chicago. On her marriage Leiter settled £5 million on Mary, the capital placed in trust for her children.

57
Mosley, Nicholas,
Rules of the Game
(Secker & Warburg, 1982), p. 239.

58
DM to the author, January 2001.

59
Rules of the Game
, p. 217.

60
Lady Pansy Pakenham, in Unity Mitford, p. 48.

61
Rules of the Game
, p. 237.

62
DD, interview with the author, June 2000.

63
Richard Cohen, a present-day fencing expert, maintains that
Mosley
was able to overcome the handicap of his injured foot because ‘he was very fit and strong’. Letter to the author, 1 October 2000.

64
DM to the author January 2001.

65
Rules of the Game
, p. 246.

66
Love from Nancy
, p. 81.

67
Ibid
., p. 82.

68
DM, interview with the author, Paris, 2000.

69
Loved Ones
, p. 156.

Chapter 7: Slings and Arrows, 1932–4

1
NM to Mark Ogilvie-Grant, 28 March 1931, in Mosley, Charlotte
Love from Nancy
(Hodder & Stoughton, 1993), p. 74.

2
Hastings, Selina,
Nancy Mitford
(Hamish Hamilton, 1985), p. 71.

3
Mitford, Jessica,
Hons and Rebels
(Victor Gollancz, 1960) p. 30.

4
Love from Nancy
, pp. 71–2.

5
OSU/1709, JM to NM, 13 October 1971.

6
Ibid
., NM to JM, 18 October 1971.