The Mitford Girls 8 - The End (Chapters 13 - end)

 

RATING: VERY GOOD

Nancy wrote her book "Pigeon Pie" based on her experiences in a first-aid post. 

As Sydney keeps supporting Hitler despite the terrible war, David recrimiantes her opinion, and that means the end of their marriage even though they keep seeing each other over the years. 

Decca gas a baby girl, Constancia, known as Donk or Dinky, after her husband went away to fight. 

Decca lived with Virginia Durr after Esmond left. Virginia Foster Durr (August 6, 1903 – February 24, 1999) was an American civil rights activist and lobbyist. 

Esmond Romilly joined the war and was killed. On 30 November 1941, while participating in a raid on Hamburg, Romilly's aircraft failed to return and was lost over the North Sea with all on board. Air-sea rescue operations  could find no trace of the craft or any survivors, and on 3 December, the search was abandoned.

Diana has her fourth child, Max.  Born in 1940, Max was an infant when both of his parents were imprisoned by the British government under Regulation 18B due to their strong political ties and sympathies toward Nazi Germany. In 1943 Diana and Mosley were allowed to be in prison together. 

Nancy had an affair with André Roy, who was a Free French liaison officer. Then she met Gaston Palewski and she fell for him even though he did not have the same passion for her. Gaston Palewski (20 March 1901 – 3 September 1984), a French politician, was a close associate of Charles de Gaulle during and after World War II. He appears in a fictionalised form in two of her novels, The Pursuit of Love (1945) and Love in a Cold Climate (1949). 

Decca remained in the USA after Esmond's death, and she started to work for OPA, where she met Robert Treuhaft,  an American civil rights lawyer, who she eventually married. They had two children Nicholas and Benjamin.

Debo had a baby girl, Emma, and a son, Peregrine Andrew Morny. In 1958 she had another daughter, Sophia. 

Kick Kennedy, who was a good friend of the Mitfords, eventually married Billy Harting, Debo's brother-in-law. Her brother Joe died shortly afterward, and then Bill was also killed. Kathleen Agnes Cavendish (née Kennedy; February 20, 1920 – May 13, 1948), also known as "Kick" Kennedy, was an American socialite. She was the second daughter of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald, a sister of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy. Four months after their marriage, and less than a month after Joe Jr. was killed, Hartington was killed by a sniper during a battle with the Germans in Belgium.

In 1948 Kick was also killed in an air crash. She was with her new love, Peter Fitzwilliam. 

Tom Mitford was killed on 24 March 1945 in Burma. 

Nancy moved to live in France in 1946.  Mitford initially settled in a Left Bank flat in the 7th Arrondissement, before later moving to a home in Versailles in 1967.

Sydney finally flew to America to visit Decca and her family. 

Unity Mitford died after she developed meningitis, caused by an infection and swelling around the bullet lodged in her brain from a failed suicide attempt in September 1939.

The Mosleys moved to Clonfert Palace in Ireland. 

Pamela nd Derek lived in Tullamaine Castle. Derek went to Dublin to work in the labs of university, and he fell in love with Janetta Ree, so he and Pam got divorced.

 Debo lived in Edensor House. Edensor House is a historic, Grade II listed building located in the heart of Edensor, a picturesque model village within the Chatsworth Estate in the Peak District, Derbyshire.

Andrew's father died at the age of 55, so he becae the Duke and owner of Chatsworth. Chatsworth House is a stately home in the Derbyshire Dales, 6.4 km north-east of Bakewell and 14 km west of Chesterfield, England. The seat of the Duke of Devonshire, it has belonged to the Cavendish family since 1549.

In America Decca was involved in the defense of a black man, Willie McGee. He was sentenced to death in 1945 and executed on Tuesday, May 8, 1951, after being controversially convicted for the rape of a white woman on November 2, 1945. Mitford and other women went door-to-door to raise local support for McGee's innocence.

In  1951 Decca was subpoenaed on un-American activities. Both she and her husband refused to name radical groups and friends or testify about their participation in Communist organisations, and were dismissed as 'unresponsive'.

Decca's son Nicholas was killed when he was delivering newspapers on his bike at the age of ten. 

Nancy wrote her first biography, Madame Pompadour. Then he wrote one about Voltaire. 

She also wrote 'Noblesse Oblige' about the upper classes. The book included essays from contributors like Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh, and John Betjeman, who humorously dissected upper-class habits and language.

David died  on March 17, 1958, at the age of 80. 

Decca wrote 'Hons and Rebels' and when she had it published, her family were offended by the contents of the book. It describes her aristocratic childhood and the conflicts between her and her sisters Unity and Diana, who were ardent supporters of Nazism.

Nancy wrote "The Water Beetle". It is an essay collection which  concerns a wide variety of subjects-including portrayals of historical figures, arctic explorers, and pieces inspired by Mitford’s own travels.

Sydney died at the age of 83 on 26 March 1963. 

Decca and Bob wrote 'The American Way of Death' together. Then she wrote 'The American Way of Birth', 'Kind and Usual Punishment' and Poison Penmanship. 

The American Way of Death is an exposé of abuses in the funeral home industry in the United States, written by Jessica Mitford and published in 1963.

 In 'The American Way of Birth' Jessica Mitford explores conventional and alternative methods, and the costs of having a child. 

Dinky Romillly joined the civil rights movement. She parted from James Forman, a Black Power leader, by whome she had two sons. Then she became a nurse and married Terry Webber. 

James Forman (October 4, 1928 – January 10, 2005) was a prominent African-American leader in the civil rights movement. During the 1960s and 1970s, Forman lived with Constancia "Dinky" Romilly.

Decca sold the island which had belonged to her family. When their mother died in 1963, Nancy gave her share to Jessica, who bought the shares of Diana, Deborah and Pamela. The island was sold by Jessica in the late 1960s to Andrew Barlow, son of Sir Alan Barlow, 2nd Baronet. It remains with their family.

Around this time Decca met Maya Angelou, and the two women became close friends. Maya Angelou was an American memoirist, essayist, poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years.

After Palewski leaves Nancy to get married, she gets very upset. Shortly afterwards she becomes very sick and is diagnosed with cancer. That year Nancy is given a CBE, that is Commander of the British Empire for her services to literature.

Nancy died on 30 June 1973. 

Something that upset the family was the publication of Unity's biography, Unity Mitford: An Enquiry into Her Life and the Unmaking of the Dead by David Pryce-Jones in 1976. The sisters blamed Decca for talking to th eauthor. 

Diana Mosley published her autobiography, A Life of Contrasts. In the autobiography, Mosley recounts her colourful past, including her marriage to Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists, her association with Nazi figures and her subsequent three-year internment under Defence Regulation 18B.

The Mosleys had a good relationship with Edward and Wallis Simpson. Following World War II and Mosley's imprisonment, both couples relocated to France, living in the western suburbs of Paris. The Mosleys resided at the Temple de la Gloire in Orsay, while the Windsors lived nearby in Gif-sur-Yvette.

Diana then wrote a biography of Wallis Simpson, titled The Duchess of Windsor: A Memoir, which was first published in 1980. 

Mosley was diagnosed Parkison's disease and he died in November 1980.

Diana then suffered a mild stroke, caused by a brain tumour. She had surgery and survived. Then she wrote a book about Mosley, Loved Ones. The book, also known as Loved Ones: Pen Portraits, features a collection of biographical essays and intimate sketches of people she knew well throughout her life, including a prominent section on her husband, the British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley.

Decca also suffered a stroke in 1984. She wrote 'Faces of Philip', a memoir of Philip Toynbee, Esmond's oldest friend. 

Decca also wrote a biography of Grace Darling, her mother's heroine, called "Grace Had an English Heart". Grace Horsley Darling (also known as "Amazing Grace"; 24 November 1815 – 20 October 1842) was an English lighthouse keeper's daughter. Her participation in the rescue of survivors from the shipwrecked Forfarshire in 1838 brought her national fame.

In 1994 Pamela died  at the age of 86. from a blood clot after surgery. Decca died of lung cancer in 1996, aged 78.