The Mitford Girls 4 (Chapters 4-5)

 

Tom Mitford learnt German and loved the country. He went to stay with the family of Janus van Almassy, a Hungarian count. 

In 1927 Diana Mitford had her first ball at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. The Radcliffe Infirmary was a hospital in central north Oxford, located at the southern end of Woodstock Road on the western side, backing onto Walton Street.

Clementine and Diana Churchill also went to the ball. 

Clementine Ogilvy Spencer-Churchill, Baroness Spencer-Churchill, (1 April 1885 – 12 December 1977) was the wife of Winston Churchill. While she was legally the daughter of Sir Henry Hozier, her mother Lady Blanche's known infidelity and his suspected infertility makes her paternity uncertain.

Diana Spencer Churchill (11 July 1909 – 20 October 1963) was the eldest daughter of British statesman Winston Churchill and Clementine Churchill.

In 1928 Diana fell in love with Bryan Guinness. Bryan Walter Guinness, 2nd Baron Moyne (27 October 1905 – 6 July 1992), was a British aristocrat, writer, poet and heir to part of the Guinness family brewing fortune. 

Pam became engaged to Oliver Watney, Togo, but he broke off the engagement after an extended cruise for his health as he had tuberculosis.

Nancy became engaged to Hamish St Clair Erskine. Maj. Hon. James Alexander Wedderburn "Hamish" St. Clair-Erskine MC (23 August 1909 – 17 December 1973) was a British soldier and Scottish aristocrat aesthete. Though he was homosexual, he was engaged to Nancy Mitford and inspired the male lead in her novel Highland Fling.

Diana and Bryan Guinness married in 1928, and they had the reception at the Guinnesses' house at Grovenor Place.  The marriage took place on 30 January 1929, her sisters Jessica and Deborah being too ill to attend. 

Diana's new home was at 10, Buckingham Place. 

Nancy attended the Slade School and Professor Henry Tonks told her she had no talent. The Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London and is based in London. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution.

Henry Tonks (9 April 1862 – 8 January 1937) was a British surgeon and later draughtsman and painter of figure subjects, chiefly interiors, and a caricaturist. He became an influential art teacher. Brown became Slade Professor of Fine Art at University College, London, in 1892, and Tonks started to teach at the Slade School of Fine Art. 

When Nancy was in London, she often stayed with two friends, Middly O'Neil and Evelyn Gardner. 

Evelyn Florence Margaret Winifred Gardner (27 September 1903 – 11 March 1994) was the first wife of Evelyn Waugh.