Duchess of Devonshire

it's difficult to imagine anyone even more famous than Cheryl Cole or Simon Cowell but in the 1930s that would have been the Mitford sisters they were seen in all the best places with all the best people and in the case of one of them with a Dolf Hitler now the last surviving Mitford sister the Duchess of Devonshire has given her account of quite extraordinary life she's been speaking to Kirstie the six Mitford sisters were legendary society beauties but in the case of Diana and unity notorious both were fascists who were close to Hitler and the war wrenched the family apart Deborah was the youngest and married to the eventual Duke of Devonshire's whose family seat Chatsworth has been her life's work this year her 90th she finally wrote her version of an extraordinary family story did you have an extraordinary amount of freedom as a child oh he has complete freedom my mother let me go hunting alone when I was 12 and that was unusual and a friend of her said it's all right for you later instead because you've got five other daughters doesn't matter what happens endeavour but it was wonderful that you kept so many Diaries but was it when you were preparing this book a painful read sometimes a painful read no it wasn't except okay well it's I didn't keep Diaries at painful time isn't it funny how you forget the painful things and remember the things were true enjoyable all that we took for granted in the funny way like this business of coming out which is different a different reason for being talked about huh completely different than it so Linda the just meant you're 18 years old and went to dances every night when you look back on the life of a debutante it wasn't so much that it was people with huge fortunes that put their daughters out was it about protecting the bloodlines making sure you made good marriages further I've never heard of a good marriage the subtlest said completely foreign idea I remembered the Frenchman saying but bad daughter but she must make a good marriage as wouldn't ask you mean she'll marry who she likes it's that's a sort of figment honestly it is but you must have been the only woman in the world who danced with JFK as a young man and within months took tea with Hitler I mean it's your ordinary too that had happened to you in exchange but that's sort of thing that did happen the thing was that my sister she knew Hitler very well pretty well and he had seemed to be very fond of her and they used to go to the same restaurant a very cheap restaurant he he stuck doing that when he was a head of state as early as 1935 unity said England for the English push out the Jews were you aware of her anti-semitism that it was never in the least bit interested in politics of any sort so just went over my head that just didn't bother with it it was a person I loved but you did know because in your Diaries you say and I think you must be talking either to Diana or unity and you say don't be such a fascist so you did know well lad but they were fascist that's all was unity actually a member of the Nazi Party then no I don't think she was a member of the Nazi Party I don't think they would take foreigners she was very interested in Germany and what they were doing well after the palling experience had had of the great wall and being being defeated and the inflation the unemployment the all the things which make life miserable for people Hitler put right by building huge roads he was the first person ever to make an outer poem and to make a big road for traffic to go fast on and in those things but we gave them a sort of new lease of life for their country I have to ask this because it isn't the public domain channel for made a documentary and in that documentary was a conjecture the unity had been Hitler's lover oh come on and when she came home she was pregnant by Hitler oh come on oh if you believe any of that that's just the horror press it must be very upsetting still to your mother to Germany's point of view and your father well this image I promised you did did not impinge on me at all until they tell my parents separated and then it did very much I read that you believe that divorce comes too easily to people now that people don't make enough of an effort to work at their marriages what makes me think that it's a quote often when things when people get older if they've been through a rocket time they are very pleased to go back to the original person because there's all the things that all the memories because you had a very long marriage but in that marriage you also put up with both alcoholism for a while and adultery and I wondered if you think that that's just part and parcel well I think it's far better than divorce is what I think because I think divorce is so final or should be but sometimes it just it never occurred to me the big force when you went Chatsworth those years if it hadn't been for you Chatsworth would not be what it is today that was a major major undertaking wasn't it it was it was great fun doing it because of people the staff at Chatsworth were just brilliant the second to none and they were like of the University of Nevada they were doing obviously your husband was in the House of Lords and so forth and you know a lot of people that we're in the House of Lords yeah do you believe still in the hereditary principle well I think that they're missing a great deal of talent because of the people who hereditary peers who were brilliant in their own way and their speeches sometimes was so funny as well which is completely lost now there's no fun in the house Lords anymore do you think that there has been a kind of demonization of people from the upper classes at times recently yes I do I think there has but what are the upper classes now because they have no power the powers been taken away from Dodd's was there was demolished palace government and so nothing put in its place except for a lot of people who given a lot of money and so on which is which is or which always happened but they also had a lot of a sense of duty and it seems that a lot of them didn't have any sense of duty at all now what are you going to do in the next decade me I don't know what what what will be thrown at me I don't know I thought I was going to retire but that doesn't seem to be quite like that your grace thank you very much thank you very much for coming

Channel: nsotd4

Views: 419,160

Keywords: Duchess, of, Devonshire, dowagaer, aldof hitler, jfk, bbc, Duchess of Devenshire, Miford sisters

Id: ylv_u9Ly3uA

Length: 7min 47sec (467 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 17 2010