Nancy Mitford: A Portrait by Her Sisters (Juliann Jebb 1980)

I started writing when I was about 23 because I wanted to make a hundred pounds and I wrote a novel and I made about a hundred pounds and those days worth but thousand pounds now I suppose and then I got into the habit of it what prompted you to become a professional writer it wasn't a cesta you didn't need money for Italian eyelid I've got any money except what I am tall didn't early stage you had to end you know well I didn't have to am i living if I wanted anything extra to go to the South of France or back tears or anything out of an interesting was it easy for you to get published yes I never had no trouble like annex I think if I had would put me off completely didn't get it ever going on Nancy Mitford was the oldest of Lord Reed's tales seven children ironically she's probably best remembered for you and nan you an article about class distinction in speech which was originally published in noblesse oblige her other works are far more interesting the pre-war novels are farcical spoofs of upper-caste goings-on in scotland london and the west country and she ended her career as a distinguished historical biographer but immediately after the war she published her masterpieces the pursuit of love and love in a cold climate they described the affairs of a large eccentric aristocratic family and they are highly autobiographical it was an exact portrait of my family with the characters muddled up a little bit into each other characters of the children and the character of my father and mother absolutely exact and my father was uncle meth who my mother was aunt said and there were as exact or more exact than if I'd been writing about them and memoirs or a true account I don't think really that I invented anything about either of them the children between Louise's 11 and maths two years sit around the table in party dresses or freely bibs according to how they are all of them gazing of the camera with large eyes opened wide to the flesh and all looking as if butter would not melt in their round pursed up mouths now this it held like flies in the amber theft moment click of the camera and on girls life the minutes the days the years the decades taking them further and further from that happiness and promise of youth from the hope aunt Sadie must have head for the mall and from the dream they dreamed for themselves I often think there is nothing quite so poignantly sad as old family groups do you remember that photograph itself being taken oh yes very well a photographer used to come out from Oxford and it borders intensely we had to dress up in our best clothes and sit there for hours while he organized it all then the photograph would emerge and it was done about every four years as we grew up said that there was a continuous line of them on the far left is my mother and then on the top steps is Nancy and then Tom and then I'm next and then my father and then if you'll go down again this unit is sitting on the lowest step and Diana a little bit above her then was Jessica and Deborah again on the lowest step and there were two dogs Ruby and under her brother Tom was killed in action in Burma during the war a sister unity attempted suicide when war was declared and died finally in 1948 [Music] pamela jackson is the eldest of the four sisters who remember nancy in this film she's a country woman who still lives in Gloucestershire the setting of the pursuit of love and the home of the Mitford family not the kicked [Music] she rears a rare breed of Swiss chicken Appenzeller Spitz Hagen before her death Nancy had something to say about all her sisters first thing I remember is the birth of my sister Pam which threw me into a permanent rage for about 20 years sure just not being the only one now I feel sorry for people with family planning who don't have brothers and sisters I think it must be awful for them that's my sister Diana who was born beautiful always beautiful is still beautiful one of those now there are certain people always built is from the moment they're enter the cradle diana was first married to Brian Guinness by whom she had two sons one of whom Jonathon will also appear in this film she later married sir oswald mosley with whom she lives in a miniature chateau outside paris Jessica true heft is married to an American Lawyer radical in her politics since childhood she was at one time a member of the Communist Party in America where she now lives she's published two volumes of autobiography and several books of investigative journalism including the American Way of death 15 years of living in America and then I think she saw it a little bit through the eyes of my novels also Chatsworth is one of the largest and most beautiful houses in India is the seat of the Duke of Devonshire his wife Deborah is mistress and manager of the place and she's Nancy's youngest sister the youngest of Deborah and she is 16 years younger than me and she's my goddaughter and when she was born our Parliament Mabel who we worshipped said I knew it was a girl by the look on his Lordships face because they had already got five poor things they didn't want a sixth daughter I know much she turned out wrong satisfactory yes say him father I see the Mitford family spent their childhood and youth in three large West Country houses first Batsford then a straw and finally in 1926 they moved to swing Brook which Lord Reed's Dale had rebuilt to accommodate his ever-growing family here there were grounds and outhouses and stables where the children could indulge their passion for animals of every sort for example I had Miranda this adorable lamb when I was about nine brought her up from the bottle she adored chocolates amazing have all the animals have chalks and then I also had a death and various things of that sort you see and then unity had rats and snakes and we all have whatever we liked in other words sort of great rivalry my lamb versus unities goat so goat like an sheepish were the expressions sheepish ment marvelous goat like meant absolutely horrid in my book you see and vice versa in her so that's how it went how was Nancy as should we say as a handler the handler of dogs well then she told that smelly old border Peter we each had a mouth Nancy had a black-and-white mouse and I had a brown and white mouse and I got the state carpenter to make a palace for my mouse lovely Palace for her and a bedroom and then run Nancy was very envious of this and wanted her Mouse to join in the palace so I said today is she could put the mouse in if we shared the work so she agreed to that and I had the first week of feeding and cleaning out the end of the week her suddenly remembered the mice and I went to look and they were very they'd been very hungry my mouse would eat Nance is my house Lord Reed's tail or Favre is immortalized in the novels as uncle Matthew just his example which gave the children their obsession with animals he was going to work one morning and under Blackfriars Bridge he saw a man leading a Little Pony with a child on it and he asked if the pony was for sale and the man said yes so he went that evening after work to the stables and he took such a fancy disappearing it was a little three-year-old I think that he bought it and he took it home in a handsome care and there was no effort to live real in the house because it was a house in Graham Street in London but there was a dark room on the first floor so brownie the peony was put in the dark room to live until we went home for the summer to the camp trip and then we set forth from the station a Waterloo I think it was and we went God refused to have brownie in the guards fan so my father said very well we'll all go in a third-class compartment in those days it wasn't usual to travel so fast and we got in and there was brownie and two bloodhounds and a ducks hunt and I was a baby put up in the rack and there was Nancy a nanny in the nursery maid and my mother and father so nobody else got into the compartment of course and we went down like that brownie in a tree well child says to another child hunt tomorrow a fella yes Josh told me he was in the car been to see the vet my uncle Matthew had four magnificent blood hounds with which he used to hunt his children two of us would go off with a good start to lay the trail and uncle Matthew and the rest would follow the hands on horseback it was great fun once he came to my home and hunted Linda and me over Schenley common this caused most tremendous stir locally the Kentish weakened us on our way to church were appalled by the sight of four great hands in full try after two little girls well you see that I'm afraid is poetic license because in fact my father had won blood ah but it's quite true used to hunt us with it we used to love seeing cleverness of the Bloodhound following exactly one of them in the pursuit of love there's a frightful funny thing I think is based on fact I wrote out today she is to write down people's names he particularly disliked and used to put them these names big pieces of paper into various drawers oh yeah I stuck with pins that's true yes Sunday isn't like something used to call them a meaningless piece of meat I thought had a theory that he was the missing link between Homo sapiens and the Apes and he was called the Old South human you see and he was let me measure his cranium to find out the cell shape and size of his skull to send him to science you know well he was very frightening there's no doubt about it I remember him turning a friend of Nancy's out of the house because the friend bent down to pick something out for my father and a comb fell out of his pocket my father thought that was disgusting so he was out in the middle of the night was it fair to say that your father would suddenly capriciously take an immense liking to the most unlikely person yes he was amazing in that way for instance Paul marker Ogilvy grant who figures very largely you know in the letters in Harald Acton's but well he was suddenly taken a liking to and this rather worse for Paul mark you see being liked then loathed in one way because he was expected being like to be down at breakfast at 8:00 sharp you see and then my father was all say good morning mark brains for breakfast table which poor mark would go to a total tailspin you see him said he was always those brains after that in the family think about my father was he haven't got enough to do he was a strong healthy young man and he hadn't got anything to do and yeah naturally it made him red bad-tempered oh man I can understand it in and the other day I found they had to send for a birth certificate and buying a house and it for David Mitford occupation honorable this is the river Windrush one of the most famous trout streams in England and I very well remember an incident happening when I was a child about through my father loved the fishing and in Nancy's book love and a cold climate there's this piece about what had actually happened the famous trout stream that ran through the valley below all Canelli was one of uncle Matthews most cherished possessions but he had trouble with the coarse fish especially the child which not only gobbled up the baby trout but also their food and they were great worried to him then one day he came upon an advertisement in exchange and Mart send for the Chubb fodhla the red lights always said that their father had never learned to read but in fact he could read quite well if really fascinated by his subject and the proof is that he found the Chubb father like this all by himself he sat down then and there and sent it took him some time breathing heavily over the writing paper and making as he always did several copies of the letter before finally sealing and stamping it the fellow says here to enclose a stamped and addressed envelope but I don't think I'll pander to him he can take it or leave it he took it he came he walked along the riverbank and sued upon its waters some magic seed which soon bore magic fruit for up to the surface flapping swooning fainting and choking thoroughly and undoubtedly fuddled came hundreds upon hundreds of Hubb the entire male population of the village warned beforehand and armed with rakes and landing Nets fell upon that fish several wheelbarrows were filled and the contents taken off to be used as manure for cottage gardens or chub pie according to taste and my father was very clever person he's wearing quite uneducated himself like a person more like a village clever person he wasn't in any way an intellectual tall well then he'd heard from somebody I don't know who that if girls went to school they develop thick carves from playing hockey but he was very much against his Vicky's car and our education was completely neglected well in our teens she when she when she was about well the first of all you will see there was this great complaint that she wanted to go to school and for my father wouldn't rely I think the trouble was you see units they went to school and then she was always expelled each time she went to three schools and it ended in failure at all and then we used to say she's been expelled again and my mother used to say no darling no no just asked to leave there was supposed to be great distinction between two she doesn't do anything better terrible but she didn't ever want to keep her uncle Matthew said you don't have to go to some awful middle-class establishment in order to know who George the third was anyway who was he Fanny alas I always failed to shine on these occasions my wit scattered to the four winds by my terror of uncle Matthew I said Scarlett in the face he was king he went mad original full of information said uncle Matthew sarcastically well worth losing every ounce of feminine charm to find that out I must say legs like gateposts from playing hockey and the worst seat on a horse of any woman I ever knew give a horse a sore back as soon as look at it Linda you're uneducated thank God what have you got to say about George the third well said Linda her mouthful he was the son of poor Fred and the father of Beau Brummel's fat friend and he was one of those vessel eaters you know I'm his Highness his dog at Kew pray tell me sir whose dog are you she added in consequently oh how sweet this is a letter from Nancy to my mother when Nancy was 14 and it describes a visitor to the Opera when they went to see Faust and of course that must have been a terrific occasion because we never went anywhere or did anything like that service very special darling mouth Nana says as I'm writing she won't and that we are all quite well fast was lovely except that they missed out at the scene in the Cathedral I can't think why as far says that was one of the best the only one that acted well was mefi margarita and the others were all more hideous and it's possible to imagine but Miffy was lovely and not at all effective and simply made me shiver he was dressed in black and red and was all pointed like this and frightfully fat fast had hair like this and was very ugly and affected and when he tried to tremble he shook himself like a dog Valentine wasn't bad and sang a lot of stuff after being stabbed it's just more than I could or would do first came in at the last just like a respectful old lady in a black flowers covered with jet and an ordinary black skirt which I discovered afterwards to be a black cloak and leggings he was an ass and at first when he appeared in a dressing-gown he showed everything through it as he kept it was in English but it might have been in Hindustani for all we understood we knew it was English howevers twice during the performance we heard the words I love you and once she is mad and once I am dead it was very creepy and I rarely began to think it was happening really until they came back and powered it was great fun and I loved it love from Coca PTA we all do our music we're all as well as could be expected under the circumstances Debora was Nancy's goddaughter and 16 years her junior it was Nancy who devised the bewildering network of nicknames for the family Pamela on the left is known as woman and Diana on the right is honks or sometimes called unity here wearing a rat on her shoulder was Bobo Deborah became debo and Jessica Decker except that when Jessica and Nancy corresponding they both called each other darling sue where did the intricate tees come from Ravi sprang full-blown from Nancy who see them at fifties I think she was the originator of it the great cosmic tees in which the whole world became salties put on for our benefit more or less you see she was terribly amusing I don't mean to say that she was all the time being cruel but there's a great deal cruelty to in the amusing bits as well you see we had very little to do as person so she was able to sort of sit about and think up these terrific teases and once she said to my sister unity and Jessica and myself do you realize you three what awful middle syllables you've got to your name's knit sick and bore let that kept her going for a few days made us all cry she decided it wonderful to be the captain of Girl Guides a term and she persuaded my parents so think it was an excellent scheme and Pam and I but for two of the guides well I sit straight away I don't want to be a guard lost you know so I was told I must yeah I forced it and then I was told if you really hate it at the end of a year you can stop at the end of the year they didn't let me stop just one of the great and justices of my childhood and the whole thing was rarely invented by Nance in order to tease me at least I think so Nancy always said that and did until she died that I was the mental age of nine she's got a point I'm Fred and she always said I couldn't read and if I had to be it was a terrific effort and I had to do it pointing with my deformed thumb what do you say she's got a point you mean I hardly can read you don't like it hate hate books well Nancy hated getting up in the morning so she never wanted to get up and pull the curtains and she persuaded me to get up and pull the curtains every morning if she paid me a penny a month and before the end of the month was up my parents just covered this and they were furious because it was much too little for the work that I was doing pulling the curtains and they said it was to stop so then Nancy refused to pay me the penny because the months was involved every Christmas there was a fancy dress party at which all the Midford dressed up Nancy's talent for disguise amounted to genius in 1926 there was a general strike in England so naturally my sisters all became strikebreakers helpers of the strike breakers and so Nancy and Pam had a canteen up about a mile away from a stall and so they're gonna sort of give cups of coffee and sandwiches and so on you see so Nancy it was so never got up early Pamela's long it was the early shift at the canteen and as he always used to say right don't know how to make the sandwiches and so Sir Pam did all the actual work and I stopped drift up so one day at early dawn Pam was there perhaps five in the morning and a dreadful came lurching in with a really horrible look to his face you see it's cars and beastly chicks all said can I have a cup of tea miss so pen was quite terrified as she made it I started to pour the cup of tea upon which the said gather over Christmas and he started darting round the counter to kiss Pam Oh tell not to be Nancy disguised as the no she went to indistinct to amuse us for example Estill was being sold and they was bought by a family called the Hardcastle's so one day appeared at the door mrs. Hardcastle sister who's a dreadful looking person you see you can imagine what she looked like with a huge bosoms extremely fat and large moustache and there she was at the door she rang the doorbell and the parlor maid Mabel answered the door and she said I'm the sister of the people who are going to buy the house and they said I could perhaps look over it so Mabel City of course madam come in and Mabel showed them all around shoot her or run the ground floor then handed over to the old house maid any who shoot of a top floor and the bedrooms then when they came to the nurse everything went fairly well you say until she suddenly said lighting upon me well a dear little girl and she bent to kiss me that moustache came close to me face us so here can I look of total horror there's enough financing she saw drop the disguise then and all the cushion was tumbled out that she put in you know this is how to cross her sister's bosom and and everything came clear that was amazing I would take that trouble look at that leg just to amuse us I thought in 1926 the family moved into swing Brooke the house was virtually rebuilt says to accommodate the large family each child had its own room but they looked at swing broke in different ways what do suppose in some ways it depends on the viewpoint and personality of whose seeing it you know I mean to me it was a bit of a prison it was a fortress from which I long to escape now deppoh on the country I said he adored it I remember an American couple called the Phelps's who lived in swim brook and mrs. Phelps was an absolute Smasher I saying debo is perfectly happy picking fleas off Jacob versus her dogged you she could spend her life doing that and so in my case I was also trying to get away I first left her my suppose at the edge of band 21 or two but I went to the said school but I went to the states called from our house in London and professor Tonks put an end to that by saying that I but I enjoyed it very much I loved sitting making silly little drawings all day and then you returned home and well John fro you'll see I mean it was my base or was until I married I tried living in a bed sitting room but that didn't do cried trying to leave home I think that realist be rather exaggerated because she was very popular and she did leave home the whole time either she was invited everywhere but then time went on she didn't find the person right pastor Mary and I think then she would have very much like to leave her and probably most people would when they reached age 22 or 3 from the moment when my brother went to eat him my brother was a very clever man indeed was killed in the war in the moment he went to Eton he brought him his friends who were people like Nigel bertrand of churchill Hinchinbrook dried John Barrowman people like that and who all came the whole town to the house so you see it wasn't completely sort of stronghold of idiocy they were called the swim brook sewers because my father used to say here comes another damn sewer and that would be a gentleman caller financed it in other words she had lots of friends that came to stay there was usually rather battles I remember with my father about the caliber and quality of said friends you know sewers like evening war or John Betjeman etc were not welcomed by him and so it was always a sort of tug of war going on there which of course we were on talking on Nancy's side you know to me and mother I like having them so actually the tug-of-war is usually won a lot of people wanted to marry her but she always turned them down and then she met Hamish Erskine she was very much in love with him I don't know anyone else with whom she was really much in love she always expected each party she went to some sort of fairy prince would turn up he was younger than she was so it was really no future but it did go on her good many years well it's just very fond of her and he of her in what sort of way was her attached but what was her attached but have big babies unsuitable no no what was her attachment why did she fall in love with Wow why do people fall in love it's a big mystery here suppose she was attractive in a way he was very lively rather good-looking she thought he was found amusing and he thought she was it seems to me to be love rather than infatuation yes I think so and I think she felt probably also possibly a bit maternal towards him and responsible for him wanted him to make something of his life she certainly was very devoted to then the next person on the scene was the pessimist to become her husband who was who was prod as we as Colin Peter rod I thought prod a rather glamorous figure he claimed to have been instrumental in fomenting many rebellions and revolutions in various South American countries and that sort of thing he was very left-wing which suited my feelings and so on and they're really very attractive I was sure that he had his boring side but I'm sure everybody else has told about you know we used to call the old tailgater because he once undertook to explain to us the tale gates of England and so tailgater became his nickname but no I I mean I suppose the fact that Nancy loved him was in love with him was an enormous sort of impetus for me to love him I don't remember really much about him he was he worked in a bank I think or was a stockbroker I'm not quite sure which a bank I'm Shana I suppose she met him under the Hamish thing it was fizzling out and he fell in love with her undoubtedly and they were married well soon afterwards I think it was a total rebound probably and and nobody really knows how the affair with him which ever did come to the end because it isn't explained in any of the letters and she was you know a tremendously private person she wasn't telling she doesn't tell sisters things like that Nancy and Peter set up house at strand on the green Chyzyk London she had a great talent for making wherever she lived very very pretty and that little house was really lovely and there wasn't it wasn't an ugly thing in it that was one of her great talents that and her clothes and she always had been a good food though she couldn't boil an egg herself and there they lived through quite a while they were always very hard up and I remember Nancy I was there one day Nancy had to entertain for tea the what are they called the bay leaves the bay leaves yes the bailiffs came in and so she kept them calm by entertaining them and giving them tea well she earned very little from journalism just enough really to keep the live peter rod never had much of a jaw her husband you're her husband and i think that up to the war and at the beginning of the war she was fella fair heart up indeed what she was extremely careful about mother and would never get into debt except a spot for a character i was staying the night yeah we were dressing for dinner and nancy looked out of the window just before we were going out to dinner and she said oh there's another body in the river i was Russian let mr. Smith snip this and he was the person who used to go out in his boot and fish the bodies at and if the body was on the other side of the river he got a little more money for it than he did this set so she often waited until it's looted a bit over the current took it more to the other side do you remember from that time did you ever actually watch her writing mmm very much do describe well I mean she'd be never sold in front of the fireplace you see um writing away in these exercise books which you must have seen and should be writing writing writing and then she'd read out bits oh so fascinating and there was my father but the point was that she was thought to me of course he might a combination of Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen or anyone you can think of who was bold enough to actually write a book it was thrilling to me to see her doing there did she write with great speed and ease mm-hmm she have a corrected as you can rather tell by reading what she published in those days I love them but you know they're obviously full of amazing solace isms and sort of faults of grammar etcetera which is rather charming really what do you think about the three pre-war novels for a long time rather considered not very much especially by her yes I hated them what do you think of them yourself but I think they're fun you know they're romps they're fun you don't want to take them too serious faults are glaring but if you don't read them because of the faults who miss a lot of fun really she was ashamed of them because she was a bit of a perfectionist but do you think that radically different from the for much more famous mature novels that is the pursuit of love love eco climate the blessing and don't tell Alfred no I don't think they're radically different I think they're a crude version of the same sort of idea in some ways they're fresher then she worked for Hayward Hill at the bookshop and I remember very well how wages there were three pounds a week and that was when she often used to walk from Bloomfield Road to save the bus fare but I do remember once when she was in that it was going in the bus and she was in the queue and the black she was hugged by a huge black American soldier and she shouted I'd leave me alone I'm 40 well I enjoyed the war very much shame to say it's awful thing to say but you'll see it was pretty lively in London in the war it wasn't a very good temper that's nice jolly well then she was a fart watcher and she learnt exactly what to do and she gave ups two nights a week too far watching and Curzon Street and then somebody said would she lectured her knew far watches and so she said yes she would so she gave up another night to lecture and when she'd done it about three times the lady who ran it all asked to see her said would you mind giving up the lectures and she said no not the least but could you tell me why well as she said it's your voice your accent irritates people so much they'd like to put you on the farm it's true have you yourself suffered from having the Mitford voice no I wish I've never been a public speaker and I don't know it in public life no doubt if I had I should have suffer it's just been my private sorry I have the medical advice yeah well could you as a feel about it yourself we're we're saddled with a doctor it's awful living in the north of England it's even sillier than it is anywhere else would you do personally minded much - you bet I do yes but I can't change it I'm too old what do you think it sounds like to other people it ridiculous and you can see them thinking it as all families you were very much separate during the war yes we were because because transport was so difficult no she was in London my mother and unity were yeah it's swin broken Swan in soy milk cottage and I was in my house near deading t'n Deborah was up in Derbyshire when she married she married in 1940 I think it was 41 Diana was in prison why was I in prison well refers the war and there was a regulation called regulation 18b under which people could be arrested without charge or trial and kept as long as the plan have secretary thought it was good idea and we've over years yeah I was in prison and danced at that time I was working in bookshop tailored health and shoes to come see me she also called some masses of books so she was a great help when you your husband was head of British unionists which in fact was very closely allied to German fascism how did your family behave towards you you see I don't really think politics make such an enormous difference within the family obviously the things now that I would do wouldn't agree with Nancy about certain things she wouldn't agree with me but there was the hell of our childhood together so I don't think it really made a very big breach but at that time at that period well perhaps more than later yes this letter was written in November 1968 when sir Oswald Moses autobiography just come out and she said have you noted all the carry on about Sorrows he says he was never anti-semitic good gracious exclamation mark I quite love the old soul but really - another exclamation also I'm going to cross with him for saying Tom our brother was a fascist which is untrue though of course tad tom was a fearful old twister and probably was a fascist from his Donna when with me used to mock to any extent and he hated surahs' no doubt about that if Randolph had been alive he would have sprung to his defense on miss Randolph as Randolph Churchill in this particular letter there are two errors of fact which I would like to comment on first of all she says that my husband was anti-semitic well an anti-semite is someone who dislikes Jews on account of their religion or their race which is something my husband never did and the other thing is connected with my brother Tom he was what I think communists call a card-carrying member of the British Union and at the end of the war when here we were living in Berkshire and a house arrest he always spent his leaves with us which is something you don't do if you're not rather fond of the person you're going to stay with how long a time was your brother Tom a member of the British Union is quite a short time I think he probably joined in 1938 and I think he probably also joined the Territorial Army I think what he thought was probably the war and if the reward like to be a soldier but if there were no war he thought that a radical political change was needed in England when you say that you or and your husband sir Oswald were in no way anti-semitic would use what was your attitude towards the Jews there was no specific attitude towards the Jews as Jules there was a great disagreement with certain Jews over the question of whether there should be war or not we were very anti-war and they were very Pro or it was as simple as that well I thought I'd read from wigs on the green perhaps one of her least known books which was published in the late thirties and almost triggered a frightful family row even by our family standards quite huge because actually the book is a terrific send up of sir Oswald Mosley as British Union of fascists and a vie sister unity whose thinly disguised in that as Eugenia so here's a bit of it you see here's Eugenia Britain's awake arise Oh British lion cried Eugenia mal mains in thrilling tones she stood on an overturned washed tub on Shelford village green and hanged about a dozen aged you calls her straight hair cut in a fringe large pale blue eyes well proportioned limbs and classical features combined with a certain fanaticism of gesture to give her the aspect of a modern Joan of Arc she was dressed in an ill-fitting gray woolen skirt no stockings a pair of threadbare plimsolls and a jumper made apparently out of a Union Jack round her waist was a leather belt to which there was attached large bright dagger at this point a very old lady came up to the crowd her way through it and began twitching at Eugenius skirt Eugenia my child she said brokenly do get off that table pray please get down at once go away Nana said Eugenia who in the rising tide of oratory seemed scarcely aware that she'd been interrupted your sister unity having been a friend of Hitler's was this an embarrassment to you because you were politically very different yes it was dreadful but why do you think she was so impressive no she was in Munich learning German but I must say all the English girls that were in Munich learning German marched and sang and they would all denied now but it is the truth wasn't spat upon at the beginning obsessed his nose became natural ever since Princeton's Ribbentrop in london had the most elegant embassy in london everybody went to forget that wasn't early on it did she change her views on the war stances well when they when she discovered that England and Germany well going to war she tried to kill herself she couldn't do more really terrible thing we've ever socialist would you vote hmm yes immediately after the war Nancy went to stay in Paris and she never returned to live in England again Debbie why do you think Nancy went to live in France after the war well I don't think she had a very happy time in England and she had no real reason to stay in any special place as I said she had no children you see but she was completely free she was by that time not really married anymore and she just loved France and it was a sort of dream world but she and what she loved to let till she died and we always used to be saying yes because she used to say going across the channel thick fog in London halfway across the channel Sun came out everything was perfect the first flat she had relative as hers that she rented for honor on a lease it was seven rivers show the ground floor the very charming flare between courtyard and God when you saw her in Paris can you describe a little bit about what did we like when you went there to whom Monsieur how she beat you what was the atmosphere well it was a marvelous combination of really sophisticated Paris flat with lovely furniture and everything and the basic country woman funnily enough that Nancy was because in the heyday of we most seriously had not only a pet cat but a pet chicken which used to run about the drawing-room and about the garden but the Metropolitan side of Nancy blossomed in Paris with the financial success of the pursuit of love she could at last in Dodge have passion for smart and expensive clothes I thought she was the super height of elegance you only had books photos of her and those wonderful things you meant and she was always on to me about how shabby I was which is true I realize she took me to do you see absolute force me in there I just made some money on a book there's it come on and she sort of knew the father's you know and there she was sort of bossing me around and subliminally whispering to me and of orders this is my sister she is so leash she kept saying you say it's beastly offer and she got me into a $700 outfit you see was include removal I never spent for anything in my life I could only say that I'm still wearing it this this was grace in this it says grace was often our hobby horse now have you ever noticed is just those very things to English pride themselves on most which are better here trains more punctual tweeds more pretty football the French always win doctors can't be compared nobody ever dies here till they're a hundred horses we've got massive bull sack the post the roads the police France is far better administered in the pursuit of love Linda the headstrong but goofs like Radlett girl runs away she arrives in Paris penniless and frightened of white slave traffic 'as she became aware that somebody was standing beside her a short stocky very dark Frenchman in a black Homburg hat he was laughing Linda took no notice but went on crying the more she cried the more he laughed her tears were tears of rage now no longer of self-pity at last she said in a voice which was meant to be angrily impressive but which squeaked and shook through her handkerchief I labels on for answer he took her hand and pulled her to her feet he said voulez-vous luzon ali said linda rather more doubtfully here at least was a human being who showed signs of taking some interest in her then she thought of South America he Furtick speak a cousin a sweet pass she said in s club lartius wa la fille da prez our port our Lord on Glee the Frenchman gave a great bellow of laughter one does not he said in the nearly perfect English of somebody who has spoken it from a child have to be Sherlock Holmes to guess that well I read the pursuit of love which I did with incredible pleasure and amusement when I did write to her saying as I know that you never write from imagination I can see that you and I are having an affair with the Frenchman in Paris and she's all wrote back and said yes you know yes I must first of all I must talk about the conquest of Nancy by fonts and I must say I've never seen anyone who understood better the spirit of farms and was most fascinated by the spirit purpose because she had a certain idea of life not how do you say hedonistic no no but a sort of life of free thought Ginger's with spiritualism but spiritual freedom of thought and that she found in France well we are allowed to say that the Frenchman's name is the kernel did you get to meet the kernel is that did you these i some knew about the kernel no I found out that love knew which is less extraordinary I mean he mentioned my name of somebody having an affair not married I mean she must have changed huge it was she did in fact that's but and so loving the name of the kernel to be mentioned in letters so I wrote him of saying that the kernels has to me like it's not mixture between kernel Bailey one of our sort of country hard-riding Squire uncles and maurice chevalier and my mother wrote that is it that's a very good description I think she was devoted to buttress yeah I think it was the third big thing in her life I think she was deeply in love with him she was always deeply in love that was her nature and she was very faithful lover you know I mean she never looked to right or left I mean she was absolutely for the one I think she was like that with prod all those years and with him before and so forth I mean I think she doesn't amazingly well you said romantic which is probably right but I'm really so loving one person then do you remember the first sighting of her in 1955 could you describe that to well what sort of sighting is a hearing what happened is that Bob true haft my present husband dinky Esmond child then aged about 14 and I we'd all come to your for the very first time having been forbidden passports for being subversives in America see so we got there and I've had the most passionate letters from Nancy saying it would be like a dream to see you again and whatever happens you've got to let me know your exact movements so that I can fit mine in because I've got things to do and I will absolutely turn handsprings and so forth you see so we can meet so um having this in mind we were in Paris and couldn't find a telephone number so we drove over to her flat and we finally admitted by Mary her maid who said to our despair that she was in in England staying with ledouche yes to Devonshire so I ran out long distance to see how much it would cost to make a telephone call to England it wasn't all that expensive it was about the equivalent of well at an American dollar or ten Bob English units so I started doing it and it took hours getting through with all that crik crik crik you know how the French are and the key to power so anyway finally all of a sudden I hear her voice for the first time in 16 years as if she sort of amazed so I said Susan is that you she said yes Susan where are you I say I'm telephoning from your flat in Paris she said you Beast it's frightfully expensive and she took the heart like that and then it's a little while later she did ring back as Bob said on Debbie's nickel from Chatsworth and we had a lovely chat I mean she was like that she was so odd about money in the 1960s she went on to become a highly successful historical biographer her subject included the Sun King madame de pompadour and frederick the great when she changed gear as it were and became a distinguished biographer rather than a comic novelist did this in fact come as something as a surprise to her friends and relations yes I think perhaps it did because you see she was never educated whatever education may mean I always think once you've learnt to read you do the rest yourself but I know that's not the fashionable view but she wasn't she never had a formal education therefore I suppose people thought she could just dash off there's novels but that didn't think they ever thought you'd have the application to sit down and do the research for the serious books which indeed she did and very successfully they took quite a lot out of her well I like Madame de Pompadour there's a wonderful review I can't remember hook this by brothers we'll put it in its place saying that Nancy Mitford simply taken the Midford sisters and put them down and the setting of their sigh and for all of their jokes into the mouths of pompadour cetera it was good point actually buy that reviewer well that was AJP Taylor was it I do really think that was accurate but I do rather I mean I roared I saw the reviewer but I recognized the truthfulness the fact is that the King liked family life and could hard to have enough of it this the courtiers who saw him so regal and terrifyingly aloof could never quite understand as for the bourgeois idiom of his mistress he thought it quite delightful if funny they assumed he was heard calling his daughters well the most outrageous nicknames Locke from Adam Adelaide cosh from Adam Victoire sheaf for Madame Louise but of the pompadour I had nicknames for everybody all alive her friends are pet animals even our houses were continually called by new names and she spoke or wrote of them she was indeed a change from the women of the court with certain notable exceptions was self-conscious artificial preoccupied with their rank and privileges and very dull the French aristocrats since they were also courtiers had nearly all adopted the muted tones and careful behavior of that profession breezy eccentric nobleman so common in England where they led an independent life on their own estates we're almost unknown in France certain members of the royal family were an exception the Comte de Chevalier was a rip-snorting oddity he dressed like a gamekeeper and ordered his coachman to run over any monks he might see on the road but he could afford such figures as he was a cousin of the Kings by the late 1960s Nantz had fallen seriously ill with cancer from which she never recovered yes she had four years of the most terrible illness you could ever imagine sometimes the pain was so excruciating that she just sat in bed crying sometimes there was a little let up and then she thought she was getting better and then back it came I think she saw 22 doctors and each time they said oh you must give my cure a little well to work three weeks you'll see everything's going to be different then the three weeks used to pass and back it came again was on all during those three weeks and she just lived in hopes and nothing worked and nobody ever really discovered what it was or at least they never really seemed to it was some form of cancer there yes yes when she was dying and didn't know it obviously at the time this is the sort of thing she wrote which you can't imagine what it meant from her of all people to write in this vein darling sue I'm in such extremities of pain I don't write it's really too depressing for you I know debo doesn't care for such letters yesterday nothing was any good I've got a horrid old nurse I hate she gave me an injection but zero today better isn't it odd the funny thing is when his moments of happiness especially now that spring is here but the pain is fearful the book has arrived already this incident is reference to Christopher Isherwood's book about his parents where she loved it was one of the last things she read I've heard of it and I'm sure to enjoy it thank you at present I'm deep in given which is not a great English classic for nothing so so wonderful they the classics rarely let you down I find and then there are so nice and long dear doc think of me love Sue and you and your sisters kept it all as a virtual digitally how did you know well Donna was on the spot and she was to go very very often indeed because she lived in France my sister Decker came from America many times on purpose Tasya and so did Pam and supposed to die we all yes we all did one morning had a strange feeling that I must go and see her and I came my father of very ill and she just I think recognized me and had a sort of shadow of a smile and she died two hours afterwards that was our last meeting she'd always wanted to be buried in swim brook so we did that for her and this tombstone was put back up with the mole on it because she didn't like a cross because she said it was a symbol of cruelty which of course it is and that's why I just thought of something out of our own crest would be nicer and she loved mills and had mows everywhere on her writing paper on the books that she wrote her books in on the exercise books and even on some of her luggage and writing cases sometimes people think it's a duck-billed platypus it does look rather like fun but if you look you can see that it smell after Nancy's funeral I got an incredibly nice letter from my sister Diana but I should like to read darling Dekker I'm staying with woman really not as above me her address we had NASA's funeral yesterday swin Brooke was looking wonderful green and summery and blue sky there were many friends and none of those ghastly people who cried into memorial services debo is sending the obituary from The Times which was the only good one Raymond Mortimer her grave is extra Bard's well darling that's it you were more than wonderful to have Carmen I'm so thankful we settled for June which is when I did go since July would have been too late and closed what the colonel and I put in Figaro and a letter to make you laugh throw of course all love chord I mean that was so nice to get any particular faith yourself well I believe in God in a besotted kind of where I firmly believe in a future life which I believe will be absolutely heavenly every respect was naturally of course I think I should go straight to heaven and I envisage it there's a beautiful park full of love little divinely the Prudential house is inhabited by one's friends I look forward at the Lost chord absolutely non-stop yes you know my taste don't you 100 best Tunes booming out from morning to night was an occasional nightingale [Music]

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Id: LP9sjKl3HMQ

Length: 64min 19sec (3859 seconds)

Published: Sun May 10 2020