Hons and Rebels: The Mitford Family Memoir (W&N Essentials)

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So instead of centering their drawing room conversations on historical irrelevancies, as they might have assumed would be their duty as minor society figures of no particular wealth or status, they were centering those conversations on the figures who would shape European and American politics throughout the wars and beyond. They were in the middle of a deadly serious conflict that would kill millions, including their own loved ones, and, ultimately, tear the family into pieces. Yet even in the midst of the reality of the war, the sisters’ letters and Jessica’s memoirs and Nancy’s novels continue to sparkle, to shine, to charm. But the Cotswolds get even further around as the book progresses – as Decca moves to America. Here’s an example both of her early sheltered life, and the wit with which she writes. It is often a very amusing book.

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I am so glad that I finally read this book that's as old as I am, being published in 1960. (My copy isn't that old, it dates from 1962.) It's very instructive to be reminded that youth isn't necessarily wasted on the young. It was well over a year since I had begun my research when Decca came to London and agreed to see me. I was slightly apprehensive at the prospect of meeting her, aware of her somewhat confrontational reputation and her long career as a defiantly radical author and journalist. We met at the Chelsea house where she was staying, Decca grey-haired, rather stout, with a very old-fashioned upper-class voice, ‘grossly affected’ as one of her old friends described it. Although, unlike her sisters, I found her slightly intimidating, she answered all my questions and recalled a great deal that was invaluable about her childhood and in particular her relations with Nancy.

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So it should be very exciting to read the story of her growing up. Jessica had a very large family, and her sisters were all just as notorious and exciting as she was in different ways. But not all of them were as smart about the world. Diana fell in love with Oswald Moseley, the English fascist, and was ostracized from polite society as a traitor for most of her life. Unity's fate was even more horrific, she fell in love with Adolph Hitler, became a fanatical "Jew-hater" (in her own words) and then tried to kill herself when England declared war on Nazi Germany. In a ghastly accident, the bullet lodged in her head and she became permanently brain-damaged, only to die several years later. Of these six Mitford sisters, three became Nazis, one became a socialist journalist, one a liberal satirical novelist who informed on her Nazi sisters, and one a duchess. Considering the Mitfords now feels like one of those “tag yourself” memes: As global chaos rises and politics become polarized, which one are you?

Rereading: Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford review — a

Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.20 Ocr_module_version 0.0.17 Openlibrary OL19641626M Openlibrary_edition Oh, the joys of being in a master's hands. Mitford dashes off, apparently effortlessly, sketches of her bizarre family, never straying into hatefulness even where antipathy exists. Her completely unconventional upbringing wuth a mother who refused to vaccinate her (a decision with a horrible, tragic cost later: Mitford contracted measles and gave them to her newborn daughter, who died as a result), contending that "the Good Body" knew its stuff, and a father whose major occupations appear to have been shouting and stomping and campaigning for Conservative politicians. Her wildly disparate sisters, novelist Nancy as the eldest and the most remote from Jessica; Diana, the great beauty and future Fascist; and Unity, the tragic figure of the family, a giant Valkyrie (ironically enough, this is also her middle name!) with an outsized personality to match, whose horrible fate was to try unsuccessfully to kill herself when her beloved Nazi Germany made war on her homeland. (The other sisters, Pam and Deborah, pretty much don't figure into Jessica's life, and her brother Tom was so much older he was more of a visiting uncle.) Lo admito, me ha sorprendido muy gratamente esta lectura en todos los sentidos. Me esperaba algo mil veces peor escrito y muy insípido, y me he encontrado con todo lo contrario. Es un libro que está muy bien escrito, de una forma muy ágil y que se lee muy bien. De hecho, realmente me lo he leído en dos días en que le he dedicado un poco de tiempo. More than an extremely amusing autobiography...she has evoked a whole generation. Her book is full of the music of time. Many people know about the Mitfords, but if you don’t, here’s the brief run-down: Nancy the novelist wrote The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate (both highly recommended), along with other novels; Diana married the leader of the British Union of Fascists; Unity was fascinated by Hitler and shot herself at the start of WW2; Jessica (‘Decca’) was the communist who lived in America most of her life; Deborah (‘Debo’) became the Duchess of Devonshire. The remaining siblings Pam and Tom didn’t acquire quite so much press.But it was because of Nancy, Jessica would eventually conclude, that the English public became fascinated with the Mitfords, reaching its peak in the 1970s but arguably continuing today. ( The last big Mitford biography came out in 2016.) “It was, of course, Nancy who started it all,” Jessica writes in her 1981 foreword to The Pursuit of Love. “Without her, there would be no Mitford industry. If only she could have lived to see the unlikely fruits of her early endeavors. ‘ How I shrieked,’ she would have said.” This section of the book I loved, even without the full line-up of Mitfords. We see, for instance, them being dragged around by the Conservative Party –‘Our car was decorated with Tory blue ribbons, and if we should pass a car flaunting the red badge of Socialism, we were allowed to lean out of the window and shout at the occupants: “Down with the horrible Counter-Honnish Labour Party!”.’ We get a child’s-eye-view of the various scandals Nancy causes. Mostly, we get a taste of Decca’s thirst for independence, particularly in her longing to go to school and her storing-up of a Running Away Fund. Sus retratos sobre la época en que vivió, la sociedad que conoció, las cuestiones y problemas políticos y sociales del periodo de entreguerras, y los primeros momentos de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, son incisiva y detalladamente nítidos. Nada ni nadie se escapa a su escrutinio, y en caso de ser necesario, de su burla. Ni su propia familia, con sus complejas personalidades y sus no menos espinosas relaciones; ni la incompetencia de los políticos del momento; ni la rancia y polvorienta aristocracia inglesa, en contraste con la colorida, vibrante e, incluso, chabacana sociedad americana; ni las luces y las sombras de la personalidad de Esmond; ni la falta de solidaridad y perspectiva de los gobiernos europeos. Todo es consignado en este libro, lo pequeño y lo grande. Y por ello el lector acaba totalmente envuelto por la atmósfera de ese momento histórico. Mitford] has a most unusual talent for recapturing the past….There is a feeling of immediacy, as if it were all being written on the spot, at the time, by the teen-ager it was happening to. It is a fascinating book.”