HONS AND REBELS

‘Hons and Rebels’ is a fascinating and amusing memoir by Jessica Mitford, one of the younger Mitford sisters of the famed aristocratic family. The author shares her story of growing up in an extraordinary family in the lead up to Second World War. If you enjoy the drama of Downton Abbey and have had the opportunity to see ‘Outrageous’ on the BBC earlier this year, about the Mitford sisters (all six, plus their brother Tom), this is a brilliantly written insider’s scoop by Jessica who is happy to reflect on her life, her debutant days as well as her running away plots and her political awakening that didn’t match that of her parent’s conservative preferences (nor some of her siblings for that matter).

Written in the 1960s, some years after Jessica’s escape to America, the author takes the reader back to her childhood experiences growing up in Swinbrook village where she was born into a far from ordinary family which allowed them many privileges. As well as appreciating the antics of a household brimming with lively girls who fought, teased and schemed, the author presents the chaotic setting of contradictions in the household where their freedom of opinions were liberally shared amongst themselves (but not very often with their parents), and their ambitions remained at odds with what was expected of them.

Jessica focusses on the wilder stories of her family, who are famed for their writings be it as letters to a newspaper editor or as authors such as Nancy Mitford, the eldest sister in the family, who faintly disguises her own family in her popular novel ‘The Pursuit of Love’ without, we discover, their permission. The author also gives us a flavour of Nancy's own fame, who she describes as one of the ‘bright young things’ on the London social scene. Through Jessica's memoirs we can appreciate her observations of her older siblings and their notorious marriages, such as Diana, described as the older 'beautiful one' who briefly marries into the Guinness family but is then distracted by the charismatic Sir Oswald Mosley who led the Fascist group, known at the time as the Black Shirts. Closer to Jessica by age is Unity whose obsession with Hitler and support of Nazism is very evident. However Jessica has very different ideas and values and shares her passionate commitment to communism, taking us on her journey to join the International Brigade in Spain in her late teens to fight Franco, falling in love with her companion, Edmond Romilly, who happens to be Churchill’s nephew, and fighting unsuccessfully in the Spanish Civil War.

The latest edition of 'Hons and Rebels' was re-released in the late '80s and comes with a telling introduction by Jessica who explains the lengths she had taken to gain permission from her mother and siblings, with some of their amusing feedback and commentary. This is gossip at its best and would match any modern Kardashian episode or scoop.

The novel is brilliantly brought to life in the audible version thanks to its narrator, the talented Jenny Agutter.
And if you want to return to 'The Pursuit of Love' by Nancy Mitford, see our review in the Den library.