*Sources, Footnotes, & Further Reading/Watching* There’s so much I left out of this story; 2 husbands, 15 children, several affairs, a couple of major scandals, and hundreds of anecdotes that were funny/interesting but not vital to the overall plot. If you know the story of the Mitford’s already then you know I haven’t really done it justice - they deserve a 10-part Netflix series. Here’s a few of my favourite stories that didn’t make it in (mostly about Decca): When out one day as children, David (father) saw a horse he liked and decided to buy it there and then. Unfortunately horses were not (and still not) allowed on passenger trains, but David insisted and the entire family (with horse) took the train back to Oxford anyway. Over the next few weeks this story circulated with shock and horror through the English upper-class - it was unthinkable that a family like the Mitford’s had been made to travel in 3rd class! While Decca was in Spain, Esmond got a job with Reuters translating radio messages from both the Nationalist and Republican sides, these would then be sent to newspapers around the world for publication. The slight problem was that neither Esmond or Decca knew Spanish. He found a local to translate the Republican side but they refused to translate the Nationalist broadcasts. Decca and Esmond really needed the money, so they just made them up. When Churchill visited the USA he initially sent two secret service men to collect Decca and bring her to a church where they would sing hymns with Roosevelt. The two men turned up at the house of her friend Virginia Durr, Virginia’s response was, “It’ll take more than the secret service, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the President of the United States to get our Decca into a church.” Decca visited Churchill in the White House the following morning (20:55), afterwards he gave her $500 to help raise the baby (about $8000 today), but Decca regarded it as blood money and gave it to the Communist Party. Martin Luther King was the only person actually able to get Decca into a church, she once went to hear him speak in Alabama. However they were surrounded by the KKK and trapped in a church overnight while a 1500 strong mob through tear gas in through the windows and torched her car. Here’s the article she wrote for Esquire about the experience bit.ly/2QLHX2D When Tom died Decca inherited a sixth of his assets, to ‘repay the damage done by her family’ she donated this to the communist party. In response David cut her out of his will, for fear she’d do the same again (which she admitted she probably would have done.) Decca later got a job in the communist party, though she had lie on the application about her father’s occupation, “Lord and Peer of the Realm hardly seemed appropriate.” For another job that needed a degree she said she was a graduate of The Sorbonne - Paris was under Nazi occupation at the time and she figured nobody would bother checking. For those who wish to fall further down the Mitford rabbit hole or just hear the sisters talk themselves, here’s a playlist of interviews they did bit.ly/2DgvZGk *Footnotes* The Mitfords loved nicknames and hardly ever called each other by their real names. To make the video easier to follow I deliberately didn’t use them and edited the quotes accordingly. (Decca and Debo are the exceptions as they were widely used by everyone.) This how I kept track while writing bit.ly/2saQfqp Most of the quotes in the video are taken verbatim from either “The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family” by Mary S. Lovell or “The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters” by Charlotte Mosley, however a few were changed to help the story along, be less confusing, or shorter. A few examples: In David’s opening speech (00:03), he did say “I’m normal my wife is normal, but my daughters are each more foolish than the other” but he didn’t give a summary of what each of them were doing at the time. When Unity meets Hitler (09:20) her speech then has been significantly shortened, it’s taken from a mix of several long letters to various family members. At (13:42) it was actually a nanny that supposedly said “Good gracious, she didn’t take any clothes to fight in”, but I changed it to Sydney to avoid having to introduce another character. (00:40) They grew up in several houses, moving around quite a lot. The house in the video is Asthall Manor. Decca and Debo described the family’s financial decline with the chant “From Batsford Mansion, to Asthall Manor, to Swinbrook House, to Old Mill Cottage”. (01:09) All the sisters were quite obsessed with Emilia Earhart. Following in her footsteps, Pam was one of the first people to fly trans-Atlantic. (01:25) Their accent was legendary. Painfully posh to the point where even other aristocrats thought it sounded ridiculous. For example they would put the letter ‘r’ in words like ‘lost’ and ‘gone’, “I’ve lorst my chauffeur, where has he gorne?” We didn’t even attempt to replicate it for the video as it would have sounded absurd. (02:04) Her relationship with Paul Helleu was deeply questionable. According to Diana’s diary nothing ever happened, but it was widely accepted that Helleu was obsessed with her and Diana enjoyed the attention in turn. There was an age gap of 51 years. (02:16) Unity’s snake ‘Enid’ crops up in a lot of family stories. Decca claims she once scared the Nanny by wrapping it around the lavatory chain, the Nanny fainted when she went to flush and had to be rescued from the toilet with a crowbar. (The other sisters refute this story.) (02:42) A quote by Decca cut from the video here, “Oliver Twist was so lucky to live in such a fascinating orphanage.” (04:05) Evelyn Waugh wrote the novel Vile Bodies (amzn.to/37Cni72) about the Bright Young Things, turned into a film by Stephen Fry (imdb.to/2qHlfOo). Waugh was very close friends with Nancy and in love with Diana, he eventually married someone also called Evelyn. (06:30) Divorce was then impossible without giving a public cause. To save Diana from becoming a social outcast Bryan lied saying it was him who had had an affair. (08:43) Unity’s middle name was Valkyrie and she went by Unity Valkyrie while in Munich. She was also conceived in the Canadian town of Swastika, Ontario. She would tell everyone she could this fact. (10:08) Unity was pretty loose-lipped with Hitler and at one point was a major security concern for the British intelligence agencies. As much as the Germans thought she was a spy, so did the British. She once told Hitler how many anti-aircraft guns London had. (11:50) It was actually Nancy’s husband Peter Rodd who declined on behalf of them. I didn’t mention Peter in the video as I felt there was already too much focus on ‘The Husbands’. Nancy and Peter’s marriage was not a happy one and they had little to do with each other anyway. (14:50) Decca and Esmond got married in the British consulate, described in the papers as “The wedding not even the destroyer could stop.’ Sydney although opposed to marriage did come over to attend. (15:18) Before going to America, Decca and Esmond lived in Rotherhithe, a very poor part of London. They had a baby here (Julia). When a measles outbreak hit, Decca went to the clinic for Julia’s inoculation but was told she would already be immune via Decca’s breast milk. The nurse had assumed Decca had grown up in Rotherhithe, any mother living by the docks of London will have at some point had measles herself. Decca had grown up in the countryside though, mother and child both caught the disease. It nearly killed Decca, and Julia died aged 4 months. (16:01) Hitler never did help her furnish the apartment, but then again, 1939 was a busy year for him. (18:37) Nancy also spent some of the war volunteering on the French/Spanish border, helping women and children refugees. (19:30) The prison had many wives of BUF members and Diana became sort of a leader figure. A fellow inmate, a German Jew who had escaped a concentration camp claimed Holloway was dirtier than Dachau. (20:24) Esmond was in the airforce and never actually fought in the trenches. (22:19) Tom was in Burma (Myanmar) when he died. He’d been promoted to an office job but insisted on being allowed to fight. (22:45) Unity and Sydney were actually on the family’s Scottish island Inch Kenneth when she became ill. It took a long time to make the crossing back to the mainline where she could be taken to hospital. The only communication with the mainline was via morse code with a lamp. (23:54) Palewski wouldn’t marry Nancy because she was a divorcee. Palewski eventually married someone else, also a divorcee. This destroyed Nancy and she never really recovered from it. (25:47) The picture on the right here is of Decca and Esmond running a bar in Florida. They meant to go to New Orleans but took a wrong turning and stayed there for a couple of years. The irony of two communists running a bar in Florida was not lost on them. (26:42) I wish I could have included Decca’s second husband Bob Treuhaft in the video, he was a huge part of her life and a remarkable individual in his own right. He was a lawyer who worked on many of the cases and issues Decca fought for. A lot of her books were co-written with him and together they made a formidable lawyer-activist power couple. I've hit the character limit for a TH-cam comment, *Sources and Further Reading* are in the reply.
*Sources & Further Reading* I’ve been slightly obsessed with the Mitfords for a long time, I first started taking notes and trying to write a biography script about them 3 years ago. This was before Human Interests existed and before I kept detailed sources alongside each note. But here are a list of books I used/referred to/recommend and where 95% of the information came from: *Biographies of the family:* - “The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family” by Mary S. Lovell amzn.to/34ipWgd - I first read it several years ago but went back to it for this video and it’s the best biography (about all of them) I’ve read. This was probably the most used source, and the book I would recommend reading if you want to know more about the family. - “Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters” by Laura Thompson amzn.to/2DgBzbQ - If you prefer to listen to books then this is the audiobook I’d recommend - I stole the idea to use voices for the quotes from listening to this. *Individually:* _A word of warning. Diana, Decca, Debo (and sort of Nancy) all wrote autobiographical works, however some are exaggerated and some outright contradict each other (Decca is particularly bad for it). Their rivalry and one-upmanship in life extended to their writing._ - _Nancy_ “Nancy Mitford” by Selina Hastings amzn.to/34qQXyl - A biography about Nancy, she never actually published the official autobiography she was writing before her death. - _Diana_ “A Life of Contrasts” by Diana Mosley amzn.to/33iV1z4 - Naturally a controversial book when it was written and still is today. - _Unity_ “Unity Mitford - A Quest” by David Pryce-Jones amzn.to/2OileK2 - Pryce-Jones did a lot of research for this book and interviewed a lot of family members and friends (a scandal and drama in itself). It’s pretty outdated now and there are probably better books about Unity, however all subsequent biographies took the research and information from this. - _Decca_ “Hons and Rebels” by Jessica Mitford amzn.to/2KQcnwM - A very successful and funny autobiography from Decca about her childhood and sisters. Many stories are outright refuted by the other sisters though. - _Debo_ “Wait for Me!: Memoirs” by Deborah Mitford amzn.to/34gDwAB - Deborah wrote a lot of books about Chatsworth and her life but this is the most complete one. *Misc:* - “The Pursuit of Love” by Nancy Mitford amzn.to/37uOQLz - The first in her trilogy about the Radletts, her fictionalised version of the Mitfords. - “The House of Mitford” by Jonathan Guinness amzn.to/2KUvNkm - This is actually a biography of the whole family but written by Diana’s son. - “The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters” by Charlotte Mosley amzn.to/2pS4zUa - A collection of the letters sent between all the sisters. This a very enjoyable book once you’ve fallen down the Mitford Rabbit hole. If you’ve read this far, here’s a present for you th-cam.com/video/2fNw35d4R5g/w-d-xo.html
@@HumanInterests mate, that was fascinating! I've never heard of these crazy ladies before, but they sure are quite a peculiar bunch. Thank you for making this video. The amount of research you've put into this topic is outstanding. Cheers!
The roaring twenties was not the response to the great depression. The Depression started in 1929 which is the end of the twenties. The Roaring Twenties was the response to WWI
@@goyonman9655 What are you talking about? Yes of course America and England are different but not in this context. “The Roaring Twenties” were a period of hedonistic self indulgence due to economic growth and prosperity following the First World War. Where a lot of young men and women began to shirk responsibility and subvert expectations. Before the decade was over there was a huge economic collapse/slump characterised by massive loss of jobs, major food shortages and heavy inflation that lasted a decade and didn’t abate until massive ramp ups in manufacturing due to the Second World War.(among other factors.) This period in time is referred to as “The Great Depression” (There’s a hint in the name ‘great’ as in everywhere, global, all at once. As well as meaning “significant and big” it primarily meant “occurred everywhere” Obviously places were hit harder than others but it was inescapable.) Both of these “events” were very much global phenomena that were largely caused by the same significant events in both cases. The Great Depression came after the roaring twenties regardless of which side of the Atlantic you’re on.
This is why i love youtube. I would have never known or shown any interest towards this kind of knowledge unless i would have been pushed towards it. Now after half an hour, i can say that i am wiser, know more and shook by the fact that you can never be taught enough and school doesnt teach you even 10% of the world you should know.
This video is really good. It's kinda sad that it only got 5000 views. It must have taken atleast a month of work i guess. And you even got 3 subtitles? One of the most underrated videos on youtube.
There is this show Bridgerton and they are concentrating on one sibling per season, maybe that could be done here. Each season focusing on one Mitford at a time
I love the mitford family. There should definately be an epic film or series about their lives. I have a bookcase full of books on them and I've put flowers on their graves. Obsessed? Just a bit.
Oh yes! I’m imagining who’d play each sister, Tom, and their parents. It would have to be a Series - a film wouldn’t be long enough to capture their personalities.
Jessica wrote "The American Way of Death"exposing the American funeral industry.I wonder if Waugh"s "The Loved One"owed anything to that book or vice versa?
Some slight errors of fact in here. But the most important thing it’s important to remember is that there were 16 years between Nancy & Debo. They didn’t all grow up together.
The more I learn about the Mitford sisters, the more I suspect that there were ( quite possibly ) elements of mood disorders or mental health issues. That said, I love the style of of the video. Merging photographs, superb illustration and actual quotes makes the piece mesmerizing . Great work , thank you.
One of the sisters had a granddaughter who’d a BAFTA winning actress named Camilla Rutherford. She played in Gosford Park and a movie my daughter produced. The resemblance is clear.
Just a point of note, but in England the term 'home-schooled' is a term that has become popular during coronavirus, but is not the traditional term. Children from upper class and rich families were taught at home by a governess, (and not nannies).
Very well done. I've read a lot about the Mitfords and you have some information in here that I've never heard before or read anywhere. If I understood you to say that JFK was at Chatsworth during the Cuban Missile Crisis, that is not true. He was at the White House. Andrew and Debo were in D.C. to attend a Museum opening because they loaned drawings to it from the Chatsworth art collection. The opening coincided with Crisis Week, but JFK found time to visit with them. The Duchess writes about this in her memoir, "Wait For Me!" JFK went once to Chatsworth in 1963, to visit his sister's grave.
Great video, as always. I'm actually surprised this only has 5000-ish views. More people should know this video exists! One thing to point out, I couldn't keep good track of which sister's story was being told. Maybe some more subtitles in the pictures or narration more focused on one character at a time would help.
This is a fantastic video. The esthetic is compelling; the pace of the story is head spinning; and to top it all off- It’s factually accurate! RESPECT! 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
WOW what an extraordinary story, I enjoyed watching it a lot and I hope you cover more fascinating historical topics. You seem to be very proficient at it.
Small correction: For many years, Pamela lived in Switzerland with Giuditta Tommasi, saying that she wouldn't return to England until the last of her Dachshunds died. This happened in 1972, and she took up residence in Caudle Green, Gloucestershire, but Giuditta did not come with her; she stayed in Switzerland until her death in 1994, apparently without any rancorous disagreement. The video says that they stayed together for life, and this is often repeated on other internet sources, but is not correct. (Source - 'The Other Mitford - Pamela's Story' by Diana Alexander, page 127)
I love this video. I love the simple artwork, the subject and the narration. I read a book when I was little about the Mitford sisters, and it was a treat to revisit them through this video!
I live near Chatsworth and rarely past the Dutchess of Devonshire (Deborah), who people called her Grace. Two things, one, dispute being very old she was incredibly beautiful and elegant, two, she was very, literally, graceful, she smiled and said hello to my mum with no airs and graces.
My mother went to Chatsworth, she said that Deborah just came out of nowhere and started chatting to her . She didn’t realise who she was until later on 🤣
@@rami6585 the whole family is immensely fascinating. I dont idolise her,I think she's interesting. I also think serial killers are interesting and Marylin Monroe aswell as henry VIII. Its history. It's not really about pride. And I'm not condemning Jews or chopping my wives heads off.
Great Video, I had the chance of visiting Nancy Paris appartement in rue de Monsieur ! But I wish to visit Diana "Temple de la Gloire ". Her interviews availables on TH-cam are fascinating, she was still on Hitler side, until the end of her life. Vogue editors in Paris used to observe, from their bureau windows, when Diana walked the streets of her neighbourhood (rue de l'université). Thanks to cousin Winston Oswald and Diana escape to Paris, where they guested a neo-fascist "salon" with far right intelligentia and the duke and duchess of Windsor. By the way, Debo was lovely but when journalists asked about Princess of Wales, Diana, the duchess of Devonshire gave a cold look and said : " She dressed very well ", dear Prince Charles confident, she never forgave Princess Diana, never.
she said in the interview she was on britain's side exempt that she understood that war against Germany meant the end of the british empire (she was right )
How odd. Diana did nothing near as publicly scuzzy and squalid as the things her family’s Diana did. And all out of sheer willful boredom with a husband who had certainly not treated her as shabbily as “Dear Prince Charles” treated Princess Diana. Ah well, each to his or her own poison, but I do like Diana Spencer.
A relative of the Mitford came to Churchill to appeal to him to release Diana and her husband but Churchill said no bc they were dangerous people at the time of war
I am deep diving into Nancy Mitford "Pursuit of Love" and "Love in a Cold Climate" as I enjoy the language, the humour and direct reference to the history. But, I had no idea that there is something so much more grandiose as life experience behind it. Thank you so much for the story and visual delight.
Miss your very informative and insightful videos. Hope all is going well, take your time to make new ones, after all, it is always better to take longer for better then to rush and shell out content.
The Mitfords have fascinated me since the 60s but info on Unity was sparse and a rug thrown over the Nazi family conections, Mosely and their political involvements for decades.
Pam and Deb were the most inert and did the best things they could. Nancy too worked very hard. But unity and Diana were nightmares. Decca redeemed herself after her rebelliousness.
Great piece of information. Human interest is among rapidly growing channels. Every department is well disciplined and organized. we hope human interest and creativedot will catch their dream goals. "Congratulations on your incredible success! we always knew you could do it, and we are incredibly proud of you."
Recently I discovered this channel and it's great! Got scared since the last upload was over a year ago but I'm happy that I read the comments and found out a new video will be coming soon c:
Nice Video! Really weld animated and narrated. I've got one point of criticism though, which is that communism wasn't really achieved by the USSR or any other country, which is why communism is not the ideology that can be made responsible for millions of deaths but rather authoritarianism in general. Actually, communism is still viewed as a valid political ideology. It was just never actually achieved by anyone. The ideology in the USSR under Stalin was a Leader cult that didn't have much to do with Marx's definition of communism. I jokingly call Stalinism "daddy issues with socialist characteristics". With that put aside, great video!
There is an odd detail which is historically wrong. The video showed the modern German flag of the tricolor of black, red and gold (yellow). This was either the flag of the Weimar Republic - that means before Hitler - or the flag of the Federal Republic after war and therefore after Hitler.
I blame the parents, they screwed up their kids. Just because they had posh voices and lots of money doesn't make them any better. They were just messed up, all of them.
The commentary says Chatsworth opened to the public in the 80's. I visited in 1972 on my honeymoon, and I know it was open in the early 60's when I was at a scout camp on the Chatsworth estate
A fascinating bunch of rather odd people. Some were villainous living in intellectualism never quite aware of their actual lives. I think that is why everyone is held spellbound in amazement. Women had very little power then everything was from their male counterparts. Their early isolation had rather disastrous results on their adult lives. Many found writing anecdotes on many subjects to an almost fiction and or social observations. I don’t think they really understood how strange they were. Unity and Diana fell on the very wrong side of evil and dark history. Very dark. Their parenting was really rather a mess really. I think I feel sorry for Debo the youngest and Tom who died in the War the most. Nancy I think wrote the most entertaining novels. Decca probably did the most for humanity. A very weird bunch.
The flag next to Hitler in Unitys bedroom is wrong. It's the flag of the German Empire which a national assembly wanted to create in 1849 with the king of Prussia as emperor. Back than the king didn't accept the crown which he called a crown of dirt since it wasn't offered to him by the other kings and dukes but from a democratically elected national assembly. Later it was adopted by the first German republic, the Weimar republic and in 1949 by the Federal republic. The nazis hated this flag since it stands for democracy. So clearly this flag wasn't in her bedroom. She had the swastika, I suppose
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*Sources, Footnotes, & Further Reading/Watching*
There’s so much I left out of this story; 2 husbands, 15 children, several affairs, a couple of major scandals, and hundreds of anecdotes that were funny/interesting but not vital to the overall plot. If you know the story of the Mitford’s already then you know I haven’t really done it justice - they deserve a 10-part Netflix series. Here’s a few of my favourite stories that didn’t make it in (mostly about Decca):
When out one day as children, David (father) saw a horse he liked and decided to buy it there and then. Unfortunately horses were not (and still not) allowed on passenger trains, but David insisted and the entire family (with horse) took the train back to Oxford anyway. Over the next few weeks this story circulated with shock and horror through the English upper-class - it was unthinkable that a family like the Mitford’s had been made to travel in 3rd class!
While Decca was in Spain, Esmond got a job with Reuters translating radio messages from both the Nationalist and Republican sides, these would then be sent to newspapers around the world for publication. The slight problem was that neither Esmond or Decca knew Spanish. He found a local to translate the Republican side but they refused to translate the Nationalist broadcasts. Decca and Esmond really needed the money, so they just made them up.
When Churchill visited the USA he initially sent two secret service men to collect Decca and bring her to a church where they would sing hymns with Roosevelt. The two men turned up at the house of her friend Virginia Durr, Virginia’s response was, “It’ll take more than the secret service, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the President of the United States to get our Decca into a church.” Decca visited Churchill in the White House the following morning (20:55), afterwards he gave her $500 to help raise the baby (about $8000 today), but Decca regarded it as blood money and gave it to the Communist Party.
Martin Luther King was the only person actually able to get Decca into a church, she once went to hear him speak in Alabama. However they were surrounded by the KKK and trapped in a church overnight while a 1500 strong mob through tear gas in through the windows and torched her car. Here’s the article she wrote for Esquire about the experience bit.ly/2QLHX2D
When Tom died Decca inherited a sixth of his assets, to ‘repay the damage done by her family’ she donated this to the communist party. In response David cut her out of his will, for fear she’d do the same again (which she admitted she probably would have done.) Decca later got a job in the communist party, though she had lie on the application about her father’s occupation, “Lord and Peer of the Realm hardly seemed appropriate.” For another job that needed a degree she said she was a graduate of The Sorbonne - Paris was under Nazi occupation at the time and she figured nobody would bother checking.
For those who wish to fall further down the Mitford rabbit hole or just hear the sisters talk themselves, here’s a playlist of interviews they did bit.ly/2DgvZGk
*Footnotes*
The Mitfords loved nicknames and hardly ever called each other by their real names. To make the video easier to follow I deliberately didn’t use them and edited the quotes accordingly. (Decca and Debo are the exceptions as they were widely used by everyone.) This how I kept track while writing bit.ly/2saQfqp
Most of the quotes in the video are taken verbatim from either “The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family” by Mary S. Lovell or “The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters” by Charlotte Mosley, however a few were changed to help the story along, be less confusing, or shorter. A few examples: In David’s opening speech (00:03), he did say “I’m normal my wife is normal, but my daughters are each more foolish than the other” but he didn’t give a summary of what each of them were doing at the time. When Unity meets Hitler (09:20) her speech then has been significantly shortened, it’s taken from a mix of several long letters to various family members. At (13:42) it was actually a nanny that supposedly said “Good gracious, she didn’t take any clothes to fight in”, but I changed it to Sydney to avoid having to introduce another character.
(00:40) They grew up in several houses, moving around quite a lot. The house in the video is Asthall Manor. Decca and Debo described the family’s financial decline with the chant “From Batsford Mansion, to Asthall Manor, to Swinbrook House, to Old Mill Cottage”.
(01:09) All the sisters were quite obsessed with Emilia Earhart. Following in her footsteps, Pam was one of the first people to fly trans-Atlantic.
(01:25) Their accent was legendary. Painfully posh to the point where even other aristocrats thought it sounded ridiculous. For example they would put the letter ‘r’ in words like ‘lost’ and ‘gone’, “I’ve lorst my chauffeur, where has he gorne?” We didn’t even attempt to replicate it for the video as it would have sounded absurd.
(02:04) Her relationship with Paul Helleu was deeply questionable. According to Diana’s diary nothing ever happened, but it was widely accepted that Helleu was obsessed with her and Diana enjoyed the attention in turn. There was an age gap of 51 years.
(02:16) Unity’s snake ‘Enid’ crops up in a lot of family stories. Decca claims she once scared the Nanny by wrapping it around the lavatory chain, the Nanny fainted when she went to flush and had to be rescued from the toilet with a crowbar. (The other sisters refute this story.)
(02:42) A quote by Decca cut from the video here, “Oliver Twist was so lucky to live in such a fascinating orphanage.”
(04:05) Evelyn Waugh wrote the novel Vile Bodies (amzn.to/37Cni72) about the Bright Young Things, turned into a film by Stephen Fry (imdb.to/2qHlfOo). Waugh was very close friends with Nancy and in love with Diana, he eventually married someone also called Evelyn.
(06:30) Divorce was then impossible without giving a public cause. To save Diana from becoming a social outcast Bryan lied saying it was him who had had an affair.
(08:43) Unity’s middle name was Valkyrie and she went by Unity Valkyrie while in Munich. She was also conceived in the Canadian town of Swastika, Ontario. She would tell everyone she could this fact.
(10:08) Unity was pretty loose-lipped with Hitler and at one point was a major security concern for the British intelligence agencies. As much as the Germans thought she was a spy, so did the British. She once told Hitler how many anti-aircraft guns London had.
(11:50) It was actually Nancy’s husband Peter Rodd who declined on behalf of them. I didn’t mention Peter in the video as I felt there was already too much focus on ‘The Husbands’. Nancy and Peter’s marriage was not a happy one and they had little to do with each other anyway.
(14:50) Decca and Esmond got married in the British consulate, described in the papers as “The wedding not even the destroyer could stop.’ Sydney although opposed to marriage did come over to attend.
(15:18) Before going to America, Decca and Esmond lived in Rotherhithe, a very poor part of London. They had a baby here (Julia). When a measles outbreak hit, Decca went to the clinic for Julia’s inoculation but was told she would already be immune via Decca’s breast milk. The nurse had assumed Decca had grown up in Rotherhithe, any mother living by the docks of London will have at some point had measles herself. Decca had grown up in the countryside though, mother and child both caught the disease. It nearly killed Decca, and Julia died aged 4 months.
(16:01) Hitler never did help her furnish the apartment, but then again, 1939 was a busy year for him.
(18:37) Nancy also spent some of the war volunteering on the French/Spanish border, helping women and children refugees.
(19:30) The prison had many wives of BUF members and Diana became sort of a leader figure. A fellow inmate, a German Jew who had escaped a concentration camp claimed Holloway was dirtier than Dachau.
(20:24) Esmond was in the airforce and never actually fought in the trenches.
(22:19) Tom was in Burma (Myanmar) when he died. He’d been promoted to an office job but insisted on being allowed to fight.
(22:45) Unity and Sydney were actually on the family’s Scottish island Inch Kenneth when she became ill. It took a long time to make the crossing back to the mainline where she could be taken to hospital. The only communication with the mainline was via morse code with a lamp.
(23:54) Palewski wouldn’t marry Nancy because she was a divorcee. Palewski eventually married someone else, also a divorcee. This destroyed Nancy and she never really recovered from it.
(25:47) The picture on the right here is of Decca and Esmond running a bar in Florida. They meant to go to New Orleans but took a wrong turning and stayed there for a couple of years. The irony of two communists running a bar in Florida was not lost on them.
(26:42) I wish I could have included Decca’s second husband Bob Treuhaft in the video, he was a huge part of her life and a remarkable individual in his own right. He was a lawyer who worked on many of the cases and issues Decca fought for. A lot of her books were co-written with him and together they made a formidable lawyer-activist power couple.
I've hit the character limit for a TH-cam comment, *Sources and Further Reading* are in the reply.
*Sources & Further Reading*
I’ve been slightly obsessed with the Mitfords for a long time, I first started taking notes and trying to write a biography script about them 3 years ago. This was before Human Interests existed and before I kept detailed sources alongside each note. But here are a list of books I used/referred to/recommend and where 95% of the information came from:
*Biographies of the family:*
- “The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family” by Mary S. Lovell amzn.to/34ipWgd - I first read it several years ago but went back to it for this video and it’s the best biography (about all of them) I’ve read. This was probably the most used source, and the book I would recommend reading if you want to know more about the family.
- “Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters” by Laura Thompson amzn.to/2DgBzbQ - If you prefer to listen to books then this is the audiobook I’d recommend - I stole the idea to use voices for the quotes from listening to this.
*Individually:*
_A word of warning. Diana, Decca, Debo (and sort of Nancy) all wrote autobiographical works, however some are exaggerated and some outright contradict each other (Decca is particularly bad for it). Their rivalry and one-upmanship in life extended to their writing._
- _Nancy_ “Nancy Mitford” by Selina Hastings amzn.to/34qQXyl - A biography about Nancy, she never actually published the official autobiography she was writing before her death.
- _Diana_ “A Life of Contrasts” by Diana Mosley amzn.to/33iV1z4 - Naturally a controversial book when it was written and still is today.
- _Unity_ “Unity Mitford - A Quest” by David Pryce-Jones amzn.to/2OileK2 - Pryce-Jones did a lot of research for this book and interviewed a lot of family members and friends (a scandal and drama in itself). It’s pretty outdated now and there are probably better books about Unity, however all subsequent biographies took the research and information from this.
- _Decca_ “Hons and Rebels” by Jessica Mitford amzn.to/2KQcnwM - A very successful and funny autobiography from Decca about her childhood and sisters. Many stories are outright refuted by the other sisters though.
- _Debo_ “Wait for Me!: Memoirs” by Deborah Mitford amzn.to/34gDwAB - Deborah wrote a lot of books about Chatsworth and her life but this is the most complete one.
*Misc:*
- “The Pursuit of Love” by Nancy Mitford amzn.to/37uOQLz - The first in her trilogy about the Radletts, her fictionalised version of the Mitfords.
- “The House of Mitford” by Jonathan Guinness amzn.to/2KUvNkm - This is actually a biography of the whole family but written by Diana’s son.
- “The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters” by Charlotte Mosley amzn.to/2pS4zUa - A collection of the letters sent between all the sisters. This a very enjoyable book once you’ve fallen down the Mitford Rabbit hole.
If you’ve read this far, here’s a present for you th-cam.com/video/2fNw35d4R5g/w-d-xo.html
@@HumanInterests mate, that was fascinating! I've never heard of these crazy ladies before, but they sure are quite a peculiar bunch. Thank you for making this video. The amount of research you've put into this topic is outstanding. Cheers!
Thank you for this amazing video! Learned so much, I'm really impressed
This would make a great mini series.
The roaring twenties was not the response to the great depression. The Depression started in 1929 which is the end of the twenties. The Roaring Twenties was the response to WWI
America was different from England then
Came here to mention that, especially true in England at the time.
@@goyonman9655
What are you talking about?
Yes of course America and England are different but not in this context.
“The Roaring Twenties” were a period of hedonistic self indulgence due to economic growth and prosperity following the First World War. Where a lot of young men and women began to shirk responsibility and subvert expectations.
Before the decade was over there was a huge economic collapse/slump characterised by massive loss of jobs, major food shortages and heavy inflation that lasted a decade and didn’t abate until massive ramp ups in manufacturing due to the Second World War.(among other factors.)
This period in time is referred to as “The Great Depression”
(There’s a hint in the name ‘great’ as in everywhere, global, all at once. As well as meaning “significant and big” it primarily meant “occurred everywhere”
Obviously places were hit harder than others but it was inescapable.)
Both of these “events” were very much global phenomena that were largely caused by the same significant events in both cases.
The Great Depression came after the roaring twenties regardless of which side of the Atlantic you’re on.
@@goyonman9655no, it was the same dates. The Wall Street crash happened in 1929
This is why i love youtube. I would have never known or shown any interest towards this kind of knowledge unless i would have been pushed towards it. Now after half an hour, i can say that i am wiser, know more and shook by the fact that you can never be taught enough and school doesnt teach you even 10% of the world you should know.
This video is really good. It's kinda sad that it only got 5000 views. It must have taken atleast a month of work i guess. And you even got 3 subtitles?
One of the most underrated videos on youtube.
This was awesome
Well, that was indeed a weird family.
🤷🏾♀️
I think they’re fascinating! Nowadays everyone wants to be the same. I’m all for eccentricity!
Yes indeed!
this would make a great movie, hella confusing though
There is this show Bridgerton and they are concentrating on one sibling per season, maybe that could be done here. Each season focusing on one Mitford at a time
I love the mitford family. There should definately be an epic film or series about their lives. I have a bookcase full of books on them and I've put flowers on their graves. Obsessed? Just a bit.
Oh yes! I’m imagining who’d play each sister, Tom, and their parents. It would have to be a Series - a film wouldn’t be long enough to capture their personalities.
It’s coming now!
I too have many books about them. I would love to take a tour to see their graves and houses.
I think a series would be fascinating. Given there’s so many of them and so much happened, a limited series would be the best.
Unfortunately the BBC would rewrite history and make the cast 'diverse'
They could've made a TV series about this... It would be amazing... This video was amazing
There was a mini series with Rosamund Pike made in 2001 called ‘Love in a Cold Climate.’ I only know about it because my Nan watched it.
Not sure I’d call a nazi “remarkable” lol! Also, the Great Depression happened at the end of
The roaring 20’s. Other than those things, great video!
What do you think the word “remarkable” means? It doesn’t necessarily mean good.
Jessica wrote "The American Way of Death"exposing the American funeral industry.I wonder if Waugh"s "The Loved One"owed anything to that book or vice versa?
Some slight errors of fact in here. But the most important thing it’s important to remember is that there were 16 years between Nancy & Debo. They didn’t all grow up together.
Their father was a heck of a rabbit.
The more I learn about the Mitford sisters, the more I suspect that there were ( quite possibly ) elements of mood disorders or mental health issues.
That said, I love the style of of the video. Merging photographs, superb illustration and actual quotes makes the piece mesmerizing . Great work , thank you.
I didn’t even know this channel existed and I’m subscribed
I really like this style of video!
One of the sisters had a granddaughter who’d a BAFTA winning actress named Camilla Rutherford. She played in Gosford Park and a movie my daughter produced. The resemblance is clear.
Just a point of note, but in England the term 'home-schooled' is a term that has become popular during coronavirus, but is not the traditional term. Children from upper class and rich families were taught at home by a governess, (and not nannies).
Very well done. I've read a lot about the Mitfords and you have some information in here that I've never heard before or read anywhere. If I understood you to say that JFK was at Chatsworth during the Cuban Missile Crisis, that is not true. He was at the White House. Andrew and Debo were in D.C. to attend a Museum opening because they loaned drawings to it from the Chatsworth art collection. The opening coincided with Crisis Week, but JFK found time to visit with them. The Duchess writes about this in her memoir, "Wait For Me!" JFK went once to Chatsworth in 1963, to visit his sister's grave.
This was really well done! Hope you’re proud. Really enjoyed this and never would have learned about it
Great video, as always. I'm actually surprised this only has 5000-ish views. More people should know this video exists!
One thing to point out, I couldn't keep good track of which sister's story was being told. Maybe some more subtitles in the pictures or narration more focused on one character at a time would help.
Yeah, I kept resorting to the subtitles because my brain can't keep up with this Mitford mess.
3:50
How can the roaring twenties be a response to the Great Depression if it preceded it?
Yes im a tad bit confused too. Maybe roaring twenties came late outside usa or something?
Y E S
He says the roaring 20s was the reason for the Great Depression
@@fernandoevansmoncloa1383 no he didn't. He says, "The roaring twenties were London high society's answer to the Great Depression. "
'Remarkable' is a stretch. 'Posh & fucking horrible' is closer.
This is a fantastic video. The esthetic is compelling; the pace of the story is head spinning; and to top it all off- It’s factually accurate! RESPECT! 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
WOW what an extraordinary story, I enjoyed watching it a lot and I hope you cover more fascinating historical topics. You seem to be very proficient at it.
Small correction: For many years, Pamela lived in Switzerland with Giuditta Tommasi, saying that she wouldn't return to England until the last of her Dachshunds died. This happened in 1972, and she took up residence in Caudle Green, Gloucestershire, but Giuditta did not come with her; she stayed in Switzerland until her death in 1994, apparently without any rancorous disagreement. The video says that they stayed together for life, and this is often repeated on other internet sources, but is not correct. (Source - 'The Other Mitford - Pamela's Story' by Diana Alexander, page 127)
I love this video. I love the simple artwork, the subject and the narration. I read a book when I was little about the Mitford sisters, and it was a treat to revisit them through this video!
The rob kardashian /branwell bronte of the family haha
Excellent from the commentator.
I forgot I was subscribed to you!
Same!
I knew I subscribed for a reason, that was incredible
Oh god when Pam said she gave the ring to Hitler cracked me up
And I thought my family was messed up
I know me too I Laugh before I meant too Lol
It was Unity who gave the ring to Hitler.
The twenties roared because of economic boom and post WW1 mood. They weren't the antidote to the depression which ended the boom of the twenties.
I live near Chatsworth and rarely past the Dutchess of Devonshire (Deborah), who people called her Grace. Two things, one, dispute being very old she was incredibly beautiful and elegant, two, she was very, literally, graceful, she smiled and said hello to my mum with no airs and graces.
My mother went to Chatsworth, she said that Deborah just came out of nowhere and started chatting to her . She didn’t realise who she was until later on 🤣
I've heard she was very modest as is her son Peregrine the current Duke, he helps clean the grounds, very humble
@@littlemy1773 yes she came out of nowhere then
David met Hitler on a number of occasions. I'm not casting dispersions but it's an acknowlaged fact.
I love the Mitford girls. I read everything I can find.
Me too. I became a bit obsessed with them, Unity especially.
@@KhaleesiMotherOfGuineaPigs wouldn’t be proud to say you became obsessed with a Nazi?
@@rami6585 the whole family is immensely fascinating. I dont idolise her,I think she's interesting. I also think serial killers are interesting and Marylin Monroe aswell as henry VIII. Its history. It's not really about pride. And I'm not condemning Jews or chopping my wives heads off.
Very interesting story, I knew some of the names but I never knew they were related.
Poor Tom
Great Video, I had the chance of visiting Nancy Paris appartement in rue de Monsieur ! But I wish to visit Diana "Temple de la Gloire ". Her interviews availables on TH-cam are fascinating, she was still on Hitler side, until the end of her life. Vogue editors in Paris used to observe, from their bureau windows, when Diana walked the streets of her neighbourhood (rue de l'université).
Thanks to cousin Winston Oswald and Diana escape to Paris, where they guested a neo-fascist "salon" with far right intelligentia and the duke and duchess of Windsor. By the way, Debo was lovely but when journalists asked about Princess of Wales, Diana, the duchess of Devonshire gave a cold look and said : " She dressed very well ", dear Prince Charles confident, she never forgave Princess Diana, never.
she said in the interview she was on britain's side exempt that she understood that war against Germany meant the end of the british empire (she was right )
Why would she never forgive Diana? What did Diana do that Charles first didn't do to her?
How odd. Diana did nothing near as publicly scuzzy and squalid as the things her family’s Diana did. And all out of sheer willful boredom with a husband who had certainly not treated her as shabbily as “Dear Prince Charles” treated Princess Diana. Ah well, each to his or her own poison, but I do like Diana Spencer.
Very interesting. Paparazzi would destroy them in these times.
Amazing video. Simply astonishing
A relative of the Mitford came to Churchill to appeal to him to release Diana and her husband but Churchill said no bc they were dangerous people at the time of war
The fact that this video has only 7k of views is really sad.
I am deep diving into Nancy Mitford "Pursuit of Love" and "Love in a Cold Climate" as I enjoy the language, the humour and direct reference to the history. But, I had no idea that there is something so much more grandiose as life experience behind it. Thank you so much for the story and visual delight.
Miss your very informative and insightful videos. Hope all is going well, take your time to make new ones, after all, it is always better to take longer for better then to rush and shell out content.
Thanks, all good! New one coming soon, similar style to this.
@@HumanInterests
Glad to hear it man. Take your time, nobody is in a rush.
This is like a historical fan fiction
why does this video on have 6.5k views, it should have 100k atleast
this was so interesting and in a weird way inspiring. great video!
Thank you, for this! I love everything about the Mitford sisters.👍🎥🎥🎬🎬👑🐑🐀🐔🐀🐑🐇
The quality is so good, I love this video. It is better than Santa shark.
Saw this sister Diana on peaky blinders, the posh accents are comical.
He's back.
Hes gone again
Oh Yes, thank goodness.
I mean thank goodness he's back not he's gone again "Phew"
The Mitfords have fascinated me since the 60s but info on Unity was sparse and a rug thrown over the Nazi family conections, Mosely and their political involvements for decades.
interesting video well worth watching.
What a bunch of nutter's
😂
This I am sure; is one of the best videos on TH-cam
I loved the video! Inspired me to read two biographies of Decca🙂
Pam and Deb were the most inert and did the best things they could. Nancy too worked very hard. But unity and Diana were nightmares. Decca redeemed herself after her rebelliousness.
Great piece of information. Human interest is among rapidly growing channels.
Every department is well disciplined and organized.
we hope human interest and creativedot will catch their dream goals.
"Congratulations on your incredible success! we always knew you could do it, and we are incredibly proud of you."
What a family.
Churchill's wife Clementine she was a cousin to the Mitford sisters
Tom fought and died in Burma.
All that reading and Knowledge, And not one of them read the Bible. It could have Speared them a lot of heartache.
How, exactly?
Missing you these months, hope you’re doing well!
Thanks, I’m all good! Will be back soon, got more videos in the pipeline
@@HumanInterests glad to hear that :)
@@HumanInterests and I thought that my family was messed up
Recently I discovered this channel and it's great! Got scared since the last upload was over a year ago but I'm happy that I read the comments and found out a new video will be coming soon c:
Well I just started crying. You got me.
Absolutely fantastic video, so well done
The Mitfors Murders novels just became a lot more interesting
Excellent job!!!! Did you also draw the illustrations?
Diana was right about the british empire and the downfall of europe after the war , she had a clear political vision
The so called empire was falling long before that, thank god.
It was inevitable that it would fall.
that is really sick. She was an ardent Nazi
Great video. Hope you get more than 5k views soon. You deserve it
Are you Jack from DSNY Newscast, or do you just share nearly identical voices?
Nice Video! Really weld animated and narrated. I've got one point of criticism though, which is that communism wasn't really achieved by the USSR or any other country, which is why communism is not the ideology that can be made responsible for millions of deaths but rather authoritarianism in general. Actually, communism is still viewed as a valid political ideology. It was just never actually achieved by anyone. The ideology in the USSR under Stalin was a Leader cult that didn't have much to do with Marx's definition of communism. I jokingly call Stalinism "daddy issues with socialist characteristics". With that put aside, great video!
There is an odd detail which is historically wrong. The video showed the modern German flag of the tricolor of black, red and gold (yellow). This was either the flag of the Weimar Republic - that means before Hitler - or the flag of the Federal Republic after war and therefore after Hitler.
Delightful illustrations
I love this video so much. Thank you!
This is fantastic! I wish you still made videos
Very well made. Thank you.
This is why you don’t homeschool your kids
Well of course Unity was the was the Strange one who names there child that Lol
The Great Depression happened after the Roaring 20s, so it couldn't have been "the answer"...
517 likes in 3 month for this kind of video is a crime
Why didn't somebody made a series about this?
There’s a documentary about it on Netflix
@AStoryGood If they do it in this climate it will be impossible without them making it a pantomime
peter gabriel games without frontiers
I love it , I love it. Give us more beautiful stories like this. Thank you.!
I blame the parents, they screwed up their kids. Just because they had posh voices and lots of money doesn't make them any better. They were just messed up, all of them.
when will next vid come?
really good stuff. sad to see not many watched it :(
Can't stand the cartoon style - a cop out where documentaries are concerned, imho.
How this happen to got 5k views
Like cmon people
My disappointment is unmeasurable
The commentary says Chatsworth opened to the public in the 80's. I visited in 1972 on my honeymoon, and I know it was open in the early 60's when I was at a scout camp on the Chatsworth estate
I hardly think someone would have the Weimar (current) German flag beside a picture of Hitler.
What a load of rubbish so childish😅😅
Wow.
Superbly researched and fantastically presented. Brilliant.
It would sound a work of fiction if it wasn't true - the end of an English era, the entitled, upper class eccentrics ?
The Mitford Story in a Nutshell - Golly, how they would have laughed!
And the whole thing is an advertisement!
A fascinating bunch of rather odd people. Some were villainous living in intellectualism never quite aware of their actual lives. I think that is why everyone is held spellbound in amazement. Women had very little power then everything was from their male counterparts. Their early isolation had rather disastrous results on their adult lives. Many found writing anecdotes on many subjects to an almost fiction and or social observations. I don’t think they really understood how strange they were. Unity and Diana fell on the very wrong side of evil and dark history. Very dark. Their parenting was really rather a mess really. I think I feel sorry for Debo the youngest and Tom who died in the War the most. Nancy I think wrote the most entertaining novels. Decca probably did the most for humanity. A very weird bunch.
Tom was a right wing sympathiser too, and died in Burma because he did not want to fight Germans
The flag next to Hitler in Unitys bedroom is wrong. It's the flag of the German Empire which a national assembly wanted to create in 1849 with the king of Prussia as emperor. Back than the king didn't accept the crown which he called a crown of dirt since it wasn't offered to him by the other kings and dukes but from a democratically elected national assembly. Later it was adopted by the first German republic, the Weimar republic and in 1949 by the Federal republic. The nazis hated this flag since it stands for democracy. So clearly this flag wasn't in her bedroom. She had the swastika, I suppose
Well, the narrator isn't dumb for sure, but showing a swastika on TH-cam could lead to problems.
Thank you for making this!! Brilliant video and context
I'm glad I have a Nancy, Pam, Diana & a Jessica in my family otherwise, this would be really difficult to follow.
Yah, I'm joining the fan club. Great video . Well done!
Is this channel dead??
No just slow. More coming soon