Loved Ones: Pen Portraits
by Diana Mitford Mosley
My rating 4 out of 5 stars
Charming reminiscences by arguably the most eloquent published Mitford sister. Diana was perhaps less frivolously funny, in print, than novelist sister Jessica Mitford, less gritty than activist sister Jessica Mitford and less straightforwardly sentimental than duchess sister Deborah Mitford.
This exquisite collection of pen portraits, of central figures from Diana's life, includes memories of Lytton Strachey and Dora Carrington, her onetime neighbours and friends. Violet Hammersley, an author, close friend of her mother's and prominent Mitford childhood figure. Writer, Evelyn Waugh a very close friend. Diana's former brother-in-law Professor Derek Jackson, a leading physicist. Lord Berners, a dear friend she often stayed with at Faringdon House. Prince and Princess Clary, friends of hers after the Second World War. The final portrait is of her second husband Sir Oswald Mosley.
Some are true gems, e.g. Violet Hammersely:
'She was rather small and very dark, with black hair and huge dark eyes, and she had an expression of deep gloom. She had a rather low, hollow voice, and although she often laughed it was as if unwillingly. Her garden, at least the only garden of hers I ever saw, was a discreet green. When I first knew her she was already a widow, and widow's weeds became her. To the end of her life she was swathed in black scarves and shawls and veils; in later years not exactly in mourning, because many of her clothes were dark brown, but the whole effect had something more Spanish than French about it. Once when she was slightly annoying my sister Nancy, who used the powder and lipstick universal among our generation, by saying: "Painters don't admire make-up at all," Nancy retorted: "Oh well Mrs. Ham you know it's all very well for you, but we can't all look like El Greco's mistress."
The book features historic photographs of the subjects.
Actually, three of these pen portraits were republished in Diana's extensive 2008 collection The Pursuit of Laughter, so any fan who has read that collection will only find three unread ones in this earlier, shorter one.
Having, at her lowest point, been dubbed the 'most hated woman in England' for her romantic link to Brit fascist leader Mosley, then spending much of WWII in Holloway jail uncharged under wartime clause 18B, Diana remained disarmingly charming to all who met her. Never becoming bitter, she wrote in a published letter to her sister Debo: 'Being hated, as you know, means nothing to me.'
A remarkable figure of dignity and elegance, she wrote delectably, complete with Mitford 'shrieks' and 'teases' - if of a more understated, tongue-in-cheek variety than those of her published sisters.
A must read for any Mitford fan.
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