New Book - Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford (Pages 1 - 56)

 This is a memoir written by Jessica Mitford about her life with her family. Jessica Lucy "Decca"  Freeman-Mitford (11 September 1917 – 23 July 1996) was an English author, one of the six aristocratic Mitford sisters noted for their sharply conflicting politics.

In the book she makes reference to her parents and her siblings. The Mitford family is an aristocratic English family whose principal line had its seats at Mitford, Northumberland. The family became particularly known in the 1930s and later for the six Mitford sisters, great-great-great-granddaughters of William Mitford, and the daughters of David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, and his wife Sydney Bowles.They were celebrated and at times scandalous figures.

The book starts with a reference to Swinbrook House, where the family moved in 1926. Swinbrook is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Swinbrook and Widford, in the West Oxfordshire district, in the county of Oxfordshire. In 1926, David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale had Swinbrook House built 2.4 km north of the village.

There is a refernce to the general strike of 1926. The 1926 General Strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 to 12 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress  in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government to act to prevent wage reductions and worsening conditions for 1.2 million locked-out coal miners. 

Nancy's first novel was Highland High, which showed the members of her family. It was in 1930 when she embarked on a full-length novel, Highland Fling, in which various characters—mostly identifiable among her friends, acquaintances and family—attend a Scottish house-party which develops chaotically. The book made little impact when it was published in March 1931.

Diana became engaged to Bryan Guinness despite her parents' opposition. At the age of 18, shortly after her presentation at Court, she became secretly engaged to Bryan Walter Guinness. Diana's parents were opposed to the engagement but in time were persuaded; Sydney was particularly uneasy at the thought of two such young people having possession of such a large fortune, but she was eventually convinced Bryan was a suitable husband.