The mad, bad and probably most intriguing family of the 20th Century

Here at Johns Hall, we've been undergoing some v exciting painting, decorating and general shifting-around, resulting in members of my family (very reluctantly, in my sister's case) housing a lot of my things in their rooms while I've been away at uni.

We're just about back to normal now and, since I've been sorting through all my worldly possessions, i/e mostly books, while putting them back in my room, I thought I'd write a bit about what I'm reading at the moment.

You see, I've just rediscovered my copy of 'The Mitford Girls', by Mary S. Lovell, which I ordered before the end of my A level exams last summer and read cover-to-cover within a few days of finishing them. In fact, I'm so deeply sad and geeky that I had to ban myself from starting the book before the end of my exams, because I knew I wouldn't study if I didn't. The first thing I did after sitting A level German was run home to read about the Mitfords.

The Mitford Girls: The Biography of an Extraordinary Family, by Mary S. Lovell

Anyway, for those who don't spend their time running around with books about the inconceivably crazy antics of minor aristocrats (who doesn't?!), the Mitfords were a family whose lives were full of outrageous coincidences. So much so that their story would be thought of as, at the very least, highly unrealistic; the Mitfords' parents, by some act of fate, missed their journey on the maiden voyage of the Titanic and their fifth child, the infamous Nazi-lover Unity, was conceived in a Canadian town called Swastika - and given the middle name Valkyrie. Add their family connections to Winston Churchill and even the current Royal Family into the mix and they seem to be almost a work of fiction by the over-zealous writer of an historical novel.

Clockwise: Unity Mitford on a magazine cover in 1937; with elder sister Diana posing for Ward Price, author of I Knew These Dictators; one of many existing photos of Unity and Hitler.

There were seven Mitford children in all, including a brother, Tom, who was sadly consigned to obscurity, despite his scandalous schooldays at Eton. It would be Tom's six sisters - Nancy, Pam, Diana, Unity, Decca and Debo - who would go down in history, or perhaps in infamy. Aside from Unity's obsession with Adolf Hitler (at one point, it was rumoured that she would marry him), and adding to the family's notoriety, Diana divorced her first husband to marry the leader of the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosley. Meanwhile, Decca was a committed Communist who ran away from home with her cousin to fight in the Spanish Civil War. By comparison, Nancy (a best-selling author in her own right) and Debo (later the Duchess of Devonshire and the last surviving Mitford) seemed quite tame and poor Pam, who gave up the glitz and ignominy of life in the public eye to become a farmer, appeared positively dull.

The Times journalist Ben Macintyre dubbed the sisters, 'Diana the Fascist, Jessica the Communist, Unity the Hitler-lover, Nancy the Novelist, Deborah the Duchess and Pamela the unobtrusive poultry connoisseur'.

In spite of their reputation, I think Lovell does her best to defend the sisters; instead of focusing as intently on glamour and scandal as other biographers have, she delivers her account of their lives with sensitivity and tact. Several of the sisters suffered hard times, including adultery, miscarriages, mental health problems and even death (Decca lost her young daughter and her first husband three years apart, in 1938 and 1941 respectively). 

Personally, the reason that I get so absorbed in this book, even after having read it time after time, is that the Mitfords are such vibrant, interesting people. Yes, they're hugely flawed, of course, but Lovell portrays each of their lives in such a way that you just can't help being swept along with them, through the débutante dances, the summer tours of Europe, the wild parties of inter-war London. Maybe it is because their lives are so incomprehensible and far-moved from our own that generation after generation is drawn to their stories.

(: xx

PS. I also highly recommend 'Bess of Hardwick: First Lady of Chatsworth' and 'A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby', both also by Mary S. Lovell.