The vast bulk of my information about Diana Mosley’s life came directly from her, in hundreds of taped interviews, taken when I saw her or stayed with her in France.
More came from her sisters – Pamela Jackson, the Duchess of Devonshire and Jessica Mitford – and Diana’s sons, stepdaughter and stepsons.
There is valuable background information in Jonathan Guinness’s The House of Mitford, as in other books written by and about the Mitfords, such as Diana’s own autobiography A Life of Contrasts. (See Select Bibliography.) Several people whom I interviewed were illuminating about the Mitford and Mosley families.
Diana Mosley generously gave me access to her private papers, letters and diaries.
Chapter One
Interviews with Diana Mosley, Jessica Mitford, the Duchess of Devonshire and Pamela Jackson; Derek Hill; Viola Erskine. Water Beetle by Nancy Mitford. Life of Contrasts. Interviews with James Lees-Milne.
Chapter Two
Diana told me about her time in Paris. She documented many of her adventures there in letters to James Lees-Milne, held at Yale University. Pam described Swinbrook very fully, including the bread handed out after matins at Swinbrook church. Details about the Redesdale pews can be found in the church. Diana described her feelings for Randolph Churchill in a letter to Robert Skidelsky. Information about Diana’s dance is in correspondence from Sydney. A letter from Diana Churchill talks about ‘the Prof’.
Bryan’s feelings for Diana are made very plain in his letters to her and his own memoir, Dairy not kept, is a useful source. Jonathan Guinness gave me a vivid description of his father. Lord Longford, who was Captain of Bryan Guinness’s house at Eton, then a contemporary at Oxford and later in the House of Lords, also provided me with much material. Frances Partridge talked to me about Bryan, and Lady Longford paid tribute to his skill as a waltzer. Bryan included much family information in his long letters to Diana.
Interviews with Diana, Pam, Jessica; Diana’s great friend Lady Celia McKenna (Cela Keppel); Lady Longford and Lord Longford. Bryan Guinness includes the story of the girl he would not kiss in Dairy not Kept. Bryan Guinness’s sonnet Sunrise in Belgrave Square is included in his book Potpourri from the Thirties. The sonnet was written in 1932 and appeared in its earlier form in Under the Eyelid (Heinemann), then recast before appearing in the Collected Poems, 1927–55 (Heinemann). Bryan described events and his feelings after kissing Diana and after her acceptance of his proposal in letters written immediately afterwards.
Chapter Four
Life with the Malcolms of Portalloch is amply described in The Prince and the Lily. Much of the story of the courtship of Bryan and Diana is told in the passionate and adoring letters he wrote to her at the time. He wrote her a long description of his interview with her father. The passage from Bryan Guinness’s diary appears in his book Dairy Not Kept. I also drew on interviews with Diana herself.
Chapter Five
The story of the Pocket Adonis is from Dairy Not Kept. The Tropical Party is described in the 24 July 1929 issue of the Bystander. Lady Celia McKenna, who spent much of her time with Diana and Bryan after the death of her mother, gave me a very full description of the life at Buckingham Street, as did Diana in conversations with me. Diana described early married life and how Bryan’s father settled on the Bar for him. There is more about Diana and Bryan’s life together in Potpourri from the Thirties. Letters written to Diana by her friends fill in many details of this picture.
Chapter Six
The parties are described, thinly disguised, in Vile Bodies. The Bruno Hat exhibition is mentioned in many volumes of the time; there is a good description of it in M-J. Lancaster’s biography of Brian Howard. Diana also told me about it. The Duchess of Devonshire described Biddesden; there is another description of it in Potpourri from the Thirties. Elizabeth Lady Moyne told me much about its history. Diana told me how she had furnished it; she and her sister Pam Jackson told me about its haunting. My father-in-law, General Sir Clement Armitage, knew the then Major Clark, who told him of his experiences. Derek Hill described the rich cerulean blue invented by Diana for the buildings at Biddesden. Frances Partridge gave me her impressions of Lytton Strachey, the Strachey voice (‘at one time the whole of Cambridge caught it’), Diana’s effect on Lytton and Carrington, and how they would visit Biddesden for walks, picnics or riding. She also fully described Diana’s visit to Ham Spray, at which she was present. The Daily Express of 2 April 1930 describes the April Fool played by Evelyn Waugh on Diana, and the godparents at the christening of her son Jonathan. Lytton’s letter about staying at Knockmaroon is quoted in Michael Holroyd’s biography of him. James Lees-Milne told me what it was like staying at Biddesden. Diana described the arrival of Desmond in a letter to Lytton Strachey (in the British Library). The verses from the poem Love’s Isolation are taken from Potpourri from the Thirties. The poem is also in On a Ledge (Lilliput Press). Earlier versions appeared in the Collected Poems and in Twenty-Three Poems (Duckworth).
Chapter Seven
Frances Partridge’s memories, related to me, contributed to the story of Carrington’s death, well charted in various biographies. Carrington’s letters are in the British Library; her feelings after Lytton’s death are recorded in her Commonplace Book. Diana told me in detail about Bryan’s loaning of his gun, and his feelings when he learned of Carrington’s death.
Chapter Eight
Many people, including his son Micky, told me about the physical and emotional impression made by Mosley – one of the most vivid these descriptions was by the painter Derek Hill, another was from James Lees-Milne, whose uncle had married Mosley’s youngest aunt, and who canvassed for him during the 1931 general election. The Past Masters gives a good description of Mosley’s resignation over the Mosley Memorandum. Tom Jones’s Whitehall Diary contains details of the Mosley Memorandum.
Harold Nicolson’s diaries, both published and unpublished, talk of the New Party in great detail and charts the swing to fascism, as well as Nicolson’s initial enthusiasm for Mosley and the New Party and his gradual disillusionment with both. Irene Ravensdale’s diaries describe Cliveden weekends. Lord Longford told me about Mosley at Cliveden and the effect of his certainty at a time when no one knew what to do about the state the country was in. Issues of Action show how the New Party gradually swung towards fascism. Georgia Sitwell’s diary talks about Mosley and his beliefs. Robert Boothby’s autobiography, I Fight to Live, is illuminating about his great friend Tom Mosley, as is Colin Cross’s The Fascists in Britain; so were interviews with Nicholas Mosley, and the book he wrote about his father. The resignation statements of John Strachey and Bill Allen were widely quoted in contemporary newspapers in July 1931. Mosley’s account of his first sight of Diana is in his book, My Life.
Chapter Ten
Frank Cakebread kindly lent me his privately printed History and Description of Savehay Farm. Georgia Sitwell’s diary talks of her dinners with Mosley and her emotions; the Tatler, in the issue of 18 July 1932, talks of Mosley as having John Barrymore’s good looks. Nicholas Mosley described his father’s many affairs; both Nicholas and Diana described the bachelor flat in Ebury Street. Lady Abdy talked of Mosley and Diana, and Mosley’s attitude to women. Irene Ravensdale wrote an essay on her childhood (in Little Innocents). Details of the Curzon balls and feuds over money are all in the Curzon papers in the Oriental section of the British Library.
Lord Longford was illuminating on the contrast between Mosley and Bryan. Lady Celia McKenna described Diana falling in love with Mosley and how this separated her from her family and many of her friends. Lady Butler described how Diana dressed her boys in girls’ clothes and gave them Aubusson carpets to crawl on. Lady Celia, who was living at Cheyne Walk, gave a vivid description of the housewarming ball (also described in Diana’s own memoir, A Life of Contrasts).
Chapter Eleven
Diana told me about events in Venice and at the Lido in September 1932. Nicholas Mosley confirmed the story of Mosley telling Boothby that he would need his room; a letter from Diana to Lytton Strachey adds more detail. Diana described the fight at the Lido.
Pam Jackson, who spent most evenings at Biddesden, was a spectator of the disintegration of the marriage of Bryan and Diana. Lady Celia, who was virtually living with the Guinnesses, confirmed that Diana’s love affair with Mosley was unmistakable by the time of the Biddesden ball, which she described fully. Lady Pansy Pakenham recalled that Diana told everyone how wonderful Mosley was. Diana told me that Mosley encouraged her to leave Bryan. Lady Celia, who was not only Diana’s confidante but also a great friend of Bryan, confirmed that Diana’s leaving Bryan ‘nearly killed him’. Bryan’s son Jonathan spoke movingly of the effect of the divorce on his father.
The extract from Nancy Mitford’s letter is printed in her Letters, edited by Charlotte Mosley. Pam Jackson confirmed the Redesdales’ horror and fury when Diana left Bryan for Mosley; the Duchess of Devonshire confirmed that her parents viewed it as unbearably dishonest. Diana gives a description of her feelings to her stepson Nicholas Mosley in a letter dated 24 April 1981. In another letter, written while Nicholas Mosley was writing his book, she tells of her conviction, so strong that she called it ‘knowledge’, that she and Mosley were made for each other.
Chapter Twelve
Lady Celia described Diana’s stay with her family in Murren, as did Diana. Lady Boothby confirmed the story, originally told in Nicholas Mosley’s life of his father, that Lord Boothby had asked Mosley if he had told Cimmie the names of all the women he had been to bed with since his marriage.
There are accounts of Cimmie’s death in Nicholas Mosley’s book, Irene Ravensdale’s diaries and Dr Kirkwood’s account in the Daily Telegraph. Elsie Corrigan, who was working as a housemaid at Savehay, described the situation there immediately after Cimmie’s death. Diana confirmed that she went to Swinbrook rarely, and only as a duty. Nicholas Mosley described his father tapping on the window of the Eatonry with his stick. Hamish St Clair Erskine confided in Diana that he was going to pretend to be engaged to someone else, as he thought it was the only way to get out of his relationship with Nancy. Diana confirmed that Bryan kept hoping she would go back to him until Elizabeth came on the scene; and that she was immediately crossed off the list of those who gave house parties and balls, except for a few ‘faithfuls’ including Lady Cunard, Lord Berners and Mrs Ronnie Greville. Jonathan Guinness told me how the world saw Diana’s leaving his father.
The lyrics of the Blackshirt songs were written by E.D. Randell. Diana’s behaviour at the Boycott German Goods rally in Hyde Park in 1934 is fully described in HO 144/21995/17. Diana gave her views on anti-semitism in a letter to Robert Skidelsky. Harold Nicolson’s unpublished diary confirms that anti-Jewish atrocities were even worse than the newspaper stories. His published diary talks of Cimmie’s memorial service and Mosley’s reaction to her death.
The Brown Book of the Hitler Terror gives authenticated information about the growth of anti-semitism, Hitler’s ordering of it to be worked up to a frenzy, and the persecution of the Jews from Hitler’s earliest moments of power.
Chapter Fourteen
Lady Butler was among those who knew Peter Rodd and described him. Diana herself told me of her pregnancy and abortion.
Details of Mosley’s November 1933 meeting at Oxford, with its descriptions of rough BUF behaviour, can be found in HO144/20141/159 at the Public Records Office. The setting up of fascist groups in public schools and universities is fully documented in HO144/20140/286 and 144/20142/118. The Daily Mail of 15 January 1934 prints his belief that the Blackshirts were the party of youth, bursting with patriotic pride. Home Office concern about the increase of support for left-wing activity after Mosley’s 7 June 1934 meeting at Olympia can be found in HO144/20142/155, including a police operational order detailing the number and rank of officers on duty for the meeting. Philip Toynbee gives his account in Friends Apart. Allegations of violent treatment to members of the public are in HO 144/20140/29–34, 58 and 144/20141/366–7. A full rebuttal by Lord Rothermere of Mosley’s fascist and anti-semitic ideas was printed in the Daily Mail of 19 July 1934. Papers HO144/20146/136–8 tell of Mosley’s stressing of the revolutionary aspect of the BUF to the Left and its authoritarian stance to the Right.
Chapter Fifteen
Diana gave me her impressions of Eva Braun. Neri Gun’s biography of Eva Braun, taken from interviews with her family, remains the best. Derek Hill told me how Unity first saw Hitler, after he telephoned her. There are descriptions of the Parteirtag in Ward Price’s dispatches, in other newspapers and in Irene Ravensdale’s diary.
Copious love letters to Hitler were found in 1946 in an archive in Hitler’s former Chancellery in what was then the Russian sector of Berlin. A selection was printed in Granta. It is unlikely that Hitler ever saw the most passionate and personal of these.
Papers HO 144/20143/71–80 and 144/20145/14–17 contain reports of the Albert Hall meeting of October 1934, police deployment for it and Mosley’s swing to anti-semitism. The full text of Mosley’s speech at the October 1934 meeting shows his adoption of anti-semitism as a platform.
Chapter Sixteen
There is much about Hitler’s mesmeric effect on those around him in Knight’s Cross, the biography of Rommel by David Fraser and in many of the biographies of leading Nazis and other figures of the era.
Chapter Seventeen
Mosley’s response to Hitler’s telegram was published in Die Sturmer on 10 May 1935.HO 144/21060/555 holds an MI5 agent’s report on Hitler’s view that the BUF is a fine organisation and Mosley a fine leader. I have included Winston Churchill’s reference to Hitler because, although Great Contemporaries was published in 1937, Churchill actually wrote it in 1935.
Nicholas Mosley remembers Diana’s early arrival at Posilippo and the furore it caused. There are several references to it in Irene Ravensdale’s diary.
Chapter Eighteen
Mosley described his view of Mussolini in My Life.MI5’s belief that Mosley was receiving funds from Mussolini is recorded in HO/45/25385/38–49. Details of Mosley’s funding by Mussolini were discovered by David Irving in the Italian archives.
There is a long description in the Daily Mail 23 March 1936,of a demo against a BUF meeting at the Albert Hall. Lady Longford gave me a vivid account of the Mosley meeting at Oxford in 1936, as did Lord Longford; and there is an account of it by Maurice Bowra. Nellie Driver’s unpublished MS, From the Shadows of Exile, describes Mosley’s marches and meetings, the type of people the BU attracted and the place of women in the BU. Lord Monckton of Brenchley described to me its effect on him as a young man.
Full details of the Battle of Cable Street are contained in HO 144/21060/316 and 144/21061/92–101 as well as in many newspaper reports, and Metropolitan Police Report DAC3, signed by the Chief Constable. Speech by E.C. Clarke at Chester Street, so inflammatory that it resulted in 85 arrests and numerous injuries. Police summary of the fascist anniversary rally, i.e. battle of Cable Street, is in a memorandum by Sir Philip Game, Commissioner of Police, on his dealings with Mosley over Battle of Cable Street. 24 June interview in the Frankische Tageszeitung on Mosley’s ‘recognition of Jewish danger’.
Chapter Nineteen
The prices of the Wootton furniture are in a Swindon auction catalogue of Monday 25 May, shown to me by Diana. Ward Price gives a description of a Hitler dinner party. Nicholas Mosley told me about the growth of his extremely affectionate relationship with Diana; his sister Vivien Forbes-Adam also described the life at Wootton. Diana gave me the details of Hitler’s flat in Munich. Putzi Hanfstaengl describes the Nazi leaders in Hitler, the Missing Years. Irene describes the Parteirtag of 1936 in her diary. There is a long description of the 1936 Olympic Games in Goebbels’ diary; entries in it from September and October talk of Diana’s wedding. Mosley’s reasoning behind the secrecy of his marriage to Diana is inHO283/13/116. Ribbentrop demanded the return to Germany of her colonies at the annual banquet of the Anglo-German Fellowship on 15 December 1936.
Chapter Twenty
Goebbels’ diary entries for 5 December, 1936 confirm that money was given to the BU. A report from MI5,in HO45/25776 describes Dorothy Eckersley’s career, giving a statement by her, and tells of her imprisonment after sentencing at the Central Criminal Court on 10 December 1945. There are entries throughout 1937 in Goebbels’ diary on the question of money for the BU and the radio concession.
Sir Frederick Lawton, who drafted the contracts for the radio concessions, gave me a long and very detailed account of his involvement in the negotiations.
Mosley’s dismissal of many of the BU’s paid staff, the position of commercial radio advertising in Britain and the recruitment of Peter Eckersley are recorded in History Today,Vol 40, March 1990. Lord Trenchard had wished to outlaw fascism (HO 14420158/107); the Commissioner of Police wanted to suppress fascist anti-semitism, though not fascism (HO 144/20159/18); the eventual result was the Public Order Act. The Spectator of 24 February 1939 contained an informative article on the state of German broadcasting; there is more on broadcasting in The Golden Age of Wireless and The Power Behind the Microphone. There are details of Mosley’s prospective radio concessions in HO 283/13/110 and of the foreign funding referred to by Goebbels in HO 283/16/49 and 283/10/49.
Chapter Twenty-One
There is much about Esmond Romilly in the memoir about him by his friend Philip Toynbee. A number of very long letters from Lady Redesdale to Diana described Jessica’s marriage.
Sir Frederick Lawton gave me a very full account of the long-drawn-out negotiations for the radio concessions and the contracts involved. The news of Diana’s marriage broke in the Daily Telegraph and News Chronicle of 28 November 1938.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Both Nicholas Mosley and his sister Vivien confirmed that they learned of their father’s marriage only through newspaper reports. Michael Mosley confirmed that his aunt Baba, of whom he saw a lot, never forgave Mosley for marrying Diana. Irene Ravensdale’s diaries describe bringing her niece Vivien out. A brief article about Vivien Mosley as a debutante was printed in the Sunday Express of 4 June 1939; in the issue of 6 August 1939 she is canvassed as one of the four contenders for Deb of the Year.
Mosley wrote in 1938 that it was Hitler’s habit to convey to him his view of events through Diana. Nancy Mitford’s letters cover much of what happened to the Mitfords at the beginning of the war. Irene Ravensdale’s diaries describe taking the children up to Wootton at the beginning of the war. The Duchess of Devonshire in an interview with me confirmed that her mother was extremely fond of Mosley and agreed with him politically.
Mosley’s message to British Union members, due to be published in Action on 9 September but censored, is in the Public Record Office. Details of the Peace Rally at Earls Court in July 1939 are in HO 144/21429/18, including notes on the question of loyalty to fascism as opposed to loyalty to Britain. HO 45 2374/860502 holds a memo to Sir Alexander Maxwell, 1 November 1939, describing the situation over the financial side of the radio concession project and the row between Mosley and Allen (a report from Special Branch, made on 8 December 1939, gives many details of the financial set-up and the personalities involved in Mosley’s radio projects).
Unity shooting herself, her spell in the nursing home and her arrival home are described in Unity Mitford, A Quest, in long letters from Sydney, and by Diana and the Duchess of Devonshire. Diana told me of her father’s visit to Oliver Stanley and its outcome; and also described the Dolphin Square flats.
Chapter Twenty-Three
A long memo by the Chief Constable discusses the pros and cons of detaining Mosley, the importance of freedom and the danger of allowing Mosley to pose as a martyr in the course of a subversive campaign. Irene Ravensdale’s diary records her conversation with Sir John Anderson. Hugh Dalton’s diaries tell how Churchill believed that Mosley would be put in power by Hitler. Professor Simpson also points out that Mosley and the BU were the nearest thing in Britain to a führer and the Nazi party.
On 24 May The Times reported 167 expulsion orders against IRA sympathisers. Diana gave me a long description of Mosley’s arrest and later of her own; they are also detailed in The House of Mitford. Richard Stokes’s relaying of Nazi peace feelers through Lord Tavistock is mentioned by Liddell Hart, in the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London. Nellie Driver describes Home Office interest once the BU had been proscribed. John Beckett’s unpublished memoir describes his arrest and the induction procedure at Brixton. HO 283/16/28 holds BU policy notes on how it would silence all opposition if it ever came to power, and decide whether Jews were patriotic Englishmen or not; those who failed would have been expelled.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Diana’s order of detention is in Home Office files (Box no 500), signed by one of the principal Secretaries of State, J. S. Hale, and dated 26 June 1940. Many details of the number of people imprisoned under 18b can be found in Professor Simpson’s book In the Highest Degree Odious. Lord Gladwyn confirmed to me by letter Nancy Mitford’s attempt to get Diana imprisoned. Lord Moyne forwarded Desmond’s governess’s long report on Diana’s activities, dates of her visits to Germany and reactions to news bulletins to the Home Office, who in turn sent it to Sir Alexander Maxwell. It also is dated 26 June 1940.
Chapter Twenty-Five
77 CAB. 66/20 WP 279 (41) p 1 details the conditions applied to those detained under 18b. Minutes of the Home Defence (Security Executive, 31 October, 6 November 1940) show how the Home Office – i.e. the Advisory Committee – defeated MI5, who wanted many more interned and much more stringent measures. Louise Irvine, who was in prison with Diana, contributed many memories, as well as lending me a long typewritten memoir. Erica Betts also remembered her time there. Nellie Driver’s unpublished MS was full of detail. Jonathan Guinness gave reports of visiting his mother in prison.
John Beckett’s unpublished MS contains details of life at Brixton and the attitude of warders and prisoners to Mosley. Nicholas Mosley and his sister Vivien both spoke about their father’s handing-over of their guardianship to their aunt Lady Ravensdale.
Sydney’s letters give a picture of the situation between herself and David.
Mosley’s replies to his questioning by the Advisory Committee are in the Public Record Office, as are Diana’s.
Chapter Twenty-Six
HO45/25767 gives details of the proposal to send internees overseas; it also contains a record of the meeting held on 22 July 1940 to decide whether BU detainees should be sent overseas and the Home Secretary’s memorandum of 20 July 1940 setting out the reasons why they should not be. HO282/22 is a memorandum from Norman Birkett showing how Sir John Anderson and Herbert Morrison accepted 400 of the 455 recommendations by the Advisory Committee for release by February 1941. Michael Mosley described the incident at St Ronan’s. Many prison memories were contributed by Louise Irvine, Erica Betts and Nellie Driver.
Churchill’s comments showing his scepticism about detention are in Hansard records of 5 November 1940. Richard Stokes’s remark on detention is in Hansard records of December 1940. Family letters give a picture of what is happening to the rest of Diana’s family. The Duchess of Devonshire described visiting Diana in Holloway. Francis Beckett contributed recollections of his father’s account of life in Brixton, some of which was in his MS. Letters from Norman Birkett are in Home Office files concerning the Advisory Committee.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
HO 45/25733 holds a letter from Mosley to the Prison Governor of Holloway about his and Diana’s health. There is an account of Mosley’s and Diana’s libel action against the Daily Mirror in The Times of 8 November 1940. There are a great many factual details of the Blitz in Philip Ziegler’s book London at War. Mosley’s letters to Diana are printed in his son Nicholas Mosley’s book, Beyond the Pale. Baba Metcalfe’s diary gives her account of dining with the PM. Dr Rougvie’s report on Diana is in PCON 9/880. There is a moving letter from Mosley in Loved Ones. Nellie Driver gives a vivid description of the Blitz and its effect on the inhabitants of Holloway. Correspondence over Diana’s complaints is in the Public Record Office. Many details of the internees’ life in prison, including timetables, letters, requests, etc, are in HO45/25753. HO 144/22495 contains details of the plan and dates of the Mosleys moving in together. CAB 66/20 WF 279 41 p3 explains that Mosley was not to be sent to the Isle of Man because it was thought that he would have an undesirable effect on the other detainees there, i.e., hardening their attitudes.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
HO 144/224/965 details the use of prison labour, and Mosley’s fury at the allegation in the Daily Express of early November 1943 that the Mosleys had a personal maid. Loved Ones tells the story of the Catholic priest coming to visit them. There are more descriptions of the prison in Beyond the Pale. Diana’s memories of the success of the Post House garden are reinforced by a letter from a fellow prisoner, C.M. Shetland, thanking her for a basket of ‘delicious vegetables’ grown in their patch. Micky Mosley recalled stories of his father sunbathing in front of the female prisoners’ windows; Nellie Driver also recalls this. Numerous letters from the children, from Nannie, from Nannie Blor, from Sydney, from Debo, from Pam, give a picture of life outside.
The discussion about whether wives of detainees who were not subject to detention themselves should be allowed to visit their husbands is in HO 144/224/495, as well as the Home Secretary’s letter confirming the decision that all interned couples should have the same right to association with each other. HO 45/25753 gives details of the heating in the prison and the decision that unlike the rest of the internees or prisoners the Mosleys should not have any until mid-January. The file HO 144/22495 contains details of Diana’s requests that her Guinness sons should spend a weekend with her, her longing to bath her baby, reports from Miss Barker of the Prison Commission, the Governor of Holloway’s support for Diana’s chicken-keeping project and the Commission’s refusal, and the story of the ‘fashion show’. Lady Celia McKenna remembers meeting Unity in a queue in Oxford.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Baba Metcalfe’s diary describes her conversation with Lord Halifax, whose subsequent letter to the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, written from the Privy Council Office, is in Home Office files. HO 45/28492/129 holds the recommendation for Mosley’s release on health grounds, the statement that internment had reduced his weight from 14st 7lb to 11st 4 lb; and many extremely long and detailed reports and letters from the various doctors concerned. HO 45/28492/252 and 257 contain letters from the TUC and TGWU objecting to Mosley’s release. Copies of the orders for the Mosleys’ release, and the reactions of the trades unions, are in Home Office files, as is Herbert Morrison’s letter and Baba’s letter to Winston Churchill, forwarded to the Home Office with a note from Churchill attached. Long reports on Mosley’s health are also there, as is a long letter and report on Mosley’s health from Lord Dawson of Penn and Dr Geoffrey Evans, and the prison doctor’s report. The reaction to Mosley’s release is in HO 262/6. Pam gave me a full description of the Mosleys’ arrival at Rignall. Harold Nicolson’s reaction to their release is in his unpublished diary.
Chapter Thirty
Letters from Sydney and descriptions from Diana give a full picture of life at the Shaven Crown. In one of Diana’s files are letters from would-be servants. James Lees-Milne, training near his friend Tom Mitford at the beginning of the war, heard much of Tom’s belief in Nazism and love of Germany, largely influenced by Diana, and confirmed this was the reason he volunteered for Burma. Diana explained to me that the reason Mosley would not see Randolph Churchill at the end of the war was because he regarded the Churchills as enemies. Baba Metcalfe confirmed to me that she refused to see Mosley again after the war because it meant seeing Diana. Family letters make plain what was happening within the family. Frances Partridge described the Mosleys’ partial social ostracism.
Sydney’s letters are full of detail about her life on Inch Kenneth, which is also described in The House of Mitford. Several old friends of Diana told me how Diana wanted them to ask her and Mosley to dinner but how they felt they could not (often because of a spouse’s reaction). Among the descriptions of life at Crowood by family members is a vivid letter from a schoolboy visitor there. Letters from Jonathan and Bryan discuss the reasons for and against his staying on at Eton. Nancy’s letters describe the furore when The Pursuit of Love was published. Nicholas Mosley described the summers at Crowood and Crux Easton.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Diana talked to me for many hours about her houses and their furnishings, and my numerous visits to the Temple provided much first-hand observation.
Both Diana and her sisters talked of the overwhelming effect on her life of the migraines she suffered. The atmosphere of the Temple, the Mosleys’ way of life there, and the reaction of Parisian society were described by those who stayed or lunched there, such as Lady Abdy, Quentin Crewe, Walter Lees and others. Diana gave a list of Mosley’s great men friends to Robert Skidelsky in a letter. Many of Mosley’s ideas appear in the European, which Diana edited between 1953–9. Joy Law told me of Mosley’s remark to Jerry.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sydney’s copious letters describe life on Inch Kenneth and her feelings about it. Quentin Crewe, who knew Jeannie Campbell, told me much about her love affair with Mosley – she had found Crewe, then between places to live, a flat, which she used to borrow to meet Mosley in. Diana confirmed that Mosley had told her that he had had affairs within weeks of his first marriage and that he had told Cimmie all about them when Cimmie was so worried about Diana. She also described, in taped interviews with me, her own wretchedness when Mosley had several affairs when they were living in France.
A letter from Diana and the Duchess of Devonshire in the Times Literary Supplement of 8 April 1960 refutes many of the claims in Jessica’s Hons and Rebels. Diana told me about her differences with Mosley over money. Quentin Crewe described Nancy’s mockery of others. The correspondence between Diana and Nicholas describes Diana’s difficulties over money and the financial details of sending Alexander to Columbia, financed by Nicholas and Micky. A letter from Desmond Stewart shows a sympathetic and intuitive understanding of the problem. Letters from Diana describe canvassing for the March 1966 election. Diana’s letters to Nicholas Mosley describe her unhappiness, then, over Alexander and her misery at Mosley’s behaviour to him
Chapter Thirty-Four
Lady Abdy talked to me about the Mosleys’ relationship and Diana’s total devotion. Simon Blow gave me a very good description of Mosley in old age. Diana’s engagement diaries contain timetables of her movements and details of the progress of Nancy’s illness; her personal diaries disclose her feelings at the time. Shirley Conran gave me some telling vignettes of life at the Temple. Both Pamela Jackson and the Duchess of Devonshire described the strain Diana suffered visiting Nancy when Mosley did not want her to go. In an interview Jessica Mitford spoke to me about the meeting over Nancy’s deathbed, confirming both her feelings about Diana and that she had promised there would be no animosity between them.
Diana’s letters to Louise Irvine show her continuing devotion to all Mosley’s ideas. Many letters to Nicholas Mosley set out Diana’s financial position and show her gratitude for his help to his half-brother. Diana described the reconciliation lunch with Baba.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Frank Cakebread described the vandalising of Cimmie’s tomb. June Ducas confirmed that social ostracism of the Mosleys still continued. Michael Bloch gave me a good picture of Mosley’s last years, and his attitudes. Many people, including her sisters and children, and close friends including Walter Lees, talked of Diana’s state of mind after Mosley’s death; her own diary describes her anguish. Michael Bloch was one of those who gave a superb description of Mosley’s funeral, as did her Mosley sons and daughter-in-law. Diana’s letters paint a full picture of her illness, slow recovery and feelings. Her letters to Nicholas Mosley give a picture of Mosley’s attitude to his children over money. The full file of her letters to Nicholas Mosley show her changing opinions, first on the first volume of his biography of his father, then on the second, and his sister Vivien Forbes-Adam elaborated on Diana’s attitudes.
Jonathan Guinness described how his mother edited all Mosley’s books – one reason Mosley didn’t want Diana to write. The transcript of Desert Island Discs is in the BBC Archive Library. There are interesting interviews by Ian Waller in the Spectator of 8 January 1983, Charles Nevin in the Daily Telegraph of 6 November 1983, and Peregrine Worsthorne in the Listener of 8 December 1983. There are more reproachful letters to Nicholas Mosley when the television series about his father came out. Lord Longford’s address, on 15 October 1992, was reported in the newspapers.