Hons and Rebels

Author: Jessica Mitford

Category: I realized, as I was finishing Decca, that I would miss reading things that Jessica Mitford wrote. So I decided to read Hons and Rebels, her 1960 autobiography. Also, I decided to call it Hons and Rebels, instead of Daughters and Rebels, which was the original U.S. publication title. I think Hons and Rebels sounds better.

My thoughts: I loved it! Hons and Rebels covers Decca’s childhood and ends around 1940, when Decca was a young adult and her first husband Esmond Romilly was leaving to fight in World War II. She grew up really isolated in the Cotswolds, and mainly had her family and a nanny for company. The Mitford parents, Lord and Lady Redesdale (aka Muv and Farve), didn’t believe in sending the girls to school, so they were educated by Lady Redesdale, then a succession of governesses. The girls learned a rather skewed lesson in English history—they were taught that the U.S. was kicked out of the British Empire because of misbehavior (needless to say, that is not how I was taught the origin of the United States). Decca and her sister Unity developed a language called Boudledidge (Unity’s nickname was Boud), and Decca and Debo established the Society of Hons (hence the title, Hons and Rebels). As the 1930s dawned, Decca discovered socialism, while Unity became a rabid fascist. At their London home, Unity carved swastikas in the windows, while Decca countered by carving hammer and sickles. Their shared room was divided with Nazi and Communist material, and the two girls once got into a catfight about their views. In her letters, Decca makes it abundantly clear that she cannot stand Diana, her other fascist sister. But Decca can’t bring herself to hate Unity in the same way that she loathed Diana. In Hons and Rebels, she wrote, “Perversely, and although I hated everything [Unity] stood for, she was easily my favorite sister, which was something I could never have admitted in those days, above all to Esmond.”

One thing that I didn’t mention in previous posts was that Esmond Romilly was Decca’s second cousin. Esmond had joined the International Brigade in the fight against Franco’s fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War, which figures heavily in this story. Perhaps for the first time, I realized how that war was a bit of a forerunner to World War II. Decca originally consulted Esmond’s brother Giles about running away to Spain to join the fight against the fascists. She met Esmond at a relative’s house, they ran away together (first to France), fell in love, got married, spent time observing Spanish Civil War goings-on, and decided to move back to London. Here, the fact that these two are children of privilege shines through. They received an incredibly expensive electric bill, because “No one had ever explained to me that you had to pay for electricity; and lights, electric heaters, stoves blazed away night and day” at her house.

The Romillys always had their ears open to politics, and they decided to move to America in 1939, until the political situation in England became clearer. They felt like the climate at the time was in a sort of purgatory, with war imminent, but not yet declared. “There was already question about which side England might find herself on,” she wrote about the atmosphere in early 1939. One of her friends thought “there was a real possibility that the Chamberlain Government might go full circle, that England and Germany might team up against Russia.” I really think Hons and Rebels is a great book for understanding the time between the World Wars, and the lead-up to and early days of World War II (see the quote below).

After reading this, I really came to admire Decca and Esmond. After running away, they really choose to stick things out, even though at times their liv

es were not easy. They definitely had the pluck and stubbornness to attempt to carve out the lives they wanted to lead, and fight for causes they believed in. Hons and Rebels was a quick read, really enjoyable, and really informative from a historical standpoint. I will probably read this one again.

Great passage: Out of the wild confusion of those first few days of the attack, one fact emerged; the German rain of fire against these ill-prepared, disunited countries had illuminated in one vast flash the real nature of the danger confronting Europe, had exposed for all to see and understand the criminal stupidity of the years of shabby deals and accommodation to Hitler’s ambitions. Overnight, the appeasement policy was buried forever. 

Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford; Part 2

For part 2 of my thoughts on Decca, I’ve decided that the easiest way for me to break things down is by decade. So here goes.

During the 1960s, Decca continued with her muckraking efforts. She wrote an exposé of an Elizabeth Arden beauty retreat (and kicked Barry Goldwater’s wife, maybe on purpose, in the process). Also, Giles Romilly, Esmond Romilly’s brother, had a breakdown and committed suicide in 1967.

In the 1970s, Decca was pretty busy. She wrote a book about the trial of Dr. Benjamin Spockand others , became friends with Maya Angelou, and corresponded with George Jackson, Black Panther and author of Soledad Brother. Also during the 1970s was the rise of the “Mitford Industry,” or “Mit Ind” as Decca called it. A biography was written about Nancy Mitford after she died in 1973, but the real drama came over a book about Unity, published in 1976. A few words about Unity that I didn’t mention in the first post. Unity was obsessed with Adolf Hitler. She moved to Germany in the 1930s, and became part of Hitler’s inner circle. When Britain declared war in Germany, Unity shot herself in the head. She survived, was collected by her family, and lived in a brain-damaged state until her death in 1948. So in 1976, the most members of the Mitford family, including Debo, evidently did not want this dark family history brought up again. Decca felt that Unity’s biographer, David Pryce-Jones, was the best person to write about Unity. This culminated in a fight over a missing scrapbook from Chatsworth, Debo’s home, that played itself out over several letters. Debo and Pam accused Decca of stealing the scrapbook, and giving the author of Unity’s biography pictures from it. Decca was upset and hurt at being accused of stealing the thing, which was, in her words, the “size of a table.” The book about Unity also made Decca explore her feelings toward her sister. I think that Decca really mourned the Unity she knew before the latter became obsessed with Hitler and the dark side of history. By the way, Decca did NOT steal the scrapbook.

The 1980s brought some plot twists. During this decade, Kathy Boudin, daughter of Decca’s friends from her Communist days, was arrested in connection with a Brink’s armed robbery. Decca wrote about this in a letter to Maya Angelou, and really criticized Kathy. Decca was all for fighting against the Man, but she drew the line at actions that result in murder. Another letter written in the 1980s was to Michael Straight, who narked on a member of the British spy ring back in the 1960s. He, too, was a friend of Decca’s (and Esmond Romilly) from back in the day. Decca also exchanged letters with her nephew Jonathan Guinness, son of her enemy sister Diana, stating her refusal to cooperate with him on his book about the Mitford family. She made it clear that she had no time for him or his book. Yikes.  

Decca passed away in 1996. But her letters written in the 1990s are pretty awesome, especially viewed with hindsight. She wrote to Katharine Graham, giving her advice on writing what would be her acclaimed memoirs (published the year after Decca died). And she corresponded with Maya Angelou about the latter’s support of Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court. Decca thought her friend’s support of him was misguided, and told her so—leading to a brief falling out (I must say, I’m on Team Decca in this case). The two reconciled, thankfully, and we get a wickedly funny letter from Decca to Maya throwing shade at PrincessMargaret.

I must give a shout-out to editor Peter Sussman.  He did an amazing job as editor. He must have combed through so many letters, and his footnotes are so thorough. Mary Lovell, Mitford biographer, said that the Mitford ladies are so popular because they “seem to have taken the twentieth century by the throat.” In my opinion, Decca had the strongest grip.

Great passage (in which Decca gives writing advice to Maya Angelou before the latter’s poetry reading at Bill Clinton’s inauguration): “Idea: Spend some solid time re-reading every single one of your own poems. Simply read over each poem as though you were someone who was reading them for the first time—not as the author. Perhaps, if you did this, the unique Maya rhythm—or rather I shld say series of rhythms, as you vary everything depending on subject, and many of yr phrases within the poems may seem v. apt. Not, obviously, that you’ll repeat them, but just be inspired by YOUR work not somebody else’s.”

Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford; Part 1

Silly Decca

Author: Jessica Mitford; Editor: Peter Sussman

Category: This is the first time I’ve read this book.

My thoughts: I have decided to do two posts about this book, because it’s over 700 pages—it seems that Jessica Mitford spent a lot of her life writing letters. So far, I’m absolutely loving this book. Jessica, or Decca, as she was called, was funny and sarcastic, and seems like she would have been fun to hang out with.

 I had heard about the Mitford family over the years, and when I was in college, I read Decca’s sister Nancy Mitford’s novels The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. Decca was the second-to-last child of Lord and Lady Redesdale, British aristocrats. Aside from Decca, the family consisted on Nancy (the novelist), Diana and Unity (the Fascists), Debo (the duchess), and relatively quieter siblings, Pam and Tom. Aside from Tom, who went to Eton, the siblings were not formally educated. Decca was a born rebel, and at 18 she eloped with Esmond Romilly, Winston Churchill’s nephew-by-marriage, to Spain during the Civil War there. The two of them later moved to the United States, and became friends with Virginia and Clifford Durr and Katharine Graham. When World War II began, Esmond joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and he and Decca had a baby, Constancia. The letters from Decca to Esmond when he was away during the war are seriously precious. Sadly, Esmond was killed in 1941. One letter in this section, written in 1943, is from Decca to Winston Churchill, in which she expresses disdain that her sister Diana and her husband Oswald Mosley, who was head of British Union of Fascists, had been released from prison (Diana and Oswald had been locked up in 1940, after Britain declared war on Germany). Indeed, Decca made it clear in many of her letters that she loathed Diana because of her politics. I think Decca blamed folks like the Mosleys for Esmond’s death. In one letter to her second husband Bob Treuhaft (from 1955), written when Decca was visiting her family in England, Decca expresses anger at her mother for having lunch with the Mosleys. Decca wrote that she told her mother that she and Constancia (who she calls Dinky, Dink, Donk, and Dinkydonk in various letters) won’t attend because they “do not care to break bread with murderers.” As the kids today would say, Decca knew how to throw shade.

Decca and Bob were also members of the Communist Party during the early 1950s. And in her letters she details the harassment she and her husband endured from “Red Hunters” of the time. She was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and she and Bob had their passports confiscated. It makes one livid, as Decca would say, how folks were treated during this time. Decca was also really passionate about civil rights issues. In California, where she and Bob lived, she fronted for black couples who wanted to buy houses, in order to get around real estate discrimination. She once did this in a neighborhood that the District Attorney, her nemesis, lived in—he put his house up for sale when he found out a black couple was moving into his neighborhood. In the early 1960s, Decca was in Montgomery, Alabama, visiting the Durrs when the Freedom Riders also came to town. She visited a church where MLK was giving a speech and ended up being trapped inside the church with him and many others all night while an angry white mob surrounded them (the Durr’s car, which Decca borrowed to drive to the church, was destroyed in the melee).

Decca also writes about her efforts as an author. She worked on her autobiography, Hons and Rebels, while in England, and mentioned, in her letters, how curious her family was about the contents. In 1963, two things happened: Decca published her bestseller The American Way of Death and JFK was assassinated. The latter event is notable because Decca’s sister Debo, the Duchess of Devonshire, was friends with him—JFK’s sister Kathleen was married to Debo’s brother-in-law, Billy Hartington. Billy was killed in World War II, and Debo kept in touch with the Kennedys. In fact, Debo told Decca that Bobby Kennedy actually read The American Way of Death, and used a bit of advice from the book while choosing a casket for his brother’s funeral.

That’s a lot of information, and it’s only about the first half of the book! Stay tuned for part 2.

Great passage (from a letter to her mother-in-law in 1959): The dinner party was a riot. There were about 8 rather dullish people there, including Peter’s rather dullish wife, and his daughter who popped in and out between dances…We were invited for 7, and between then and 9 there wasn’t a sign of any food, just enormous drinks of whiskey. At 9, Peter set a table for 8, groaning and complaining bitterly as he did so about what a lot of trouble it was; on it he set a small platter of bought cold meats, legs of chicken and the like, and a tiny salad. As I was served first, I took almost everything. And that was all, except for some strawberries and cream (strawberries are currently selling for about 25 each). No coffee, bread, vegs, almost no nothing. Masses of wine, tho, with dinner, and brandy after. This is just what Cedric was telling us about that sort of English person; if they don’t have servants, or if the servants are out, they simply give up, and would rather starve than cook.