Lady Mosley

Lady Mosley0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Lady Mosley0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty nine.

Lady Mosley0:11

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is an exile. She is a Mitford girl, one of the six fascinating daughters of Lord Reidsdale. This daughter married Sir Oswald Moseley, the man who was the leader of the British Union of Fascists. Like him, she was imprisoned during much of the war, and accompanied him abroad once it was over.

Presenter0:48

Since his death nearly nine years ago she has lived alone just outside Paris. To day, fifty years after the events which changed her life for ever, she remains an example of the passions and tragedies of her family, as well as a reminder of things that were and those that might have been. She is Diana

Presenter1:09

I call you an exile, Lady Moseley, but that's a self imposed state, isn't it? Oh, it is, yes. I don't consider myself an exile at all. I just prefer to live near Paris.

Lady Mosley1:13

But

Presenter1:21

You live in what I read is a is a beautiful Palladian country house. Can you describe it to me? What a tiny little house.

Presenter1:29

But it is very beautiful.

Presenter1:31

And the garden? Tell me about the garden. Well, it's got a garden. It's got a a flower garden. I suppose you might say sort of English garden, but

Presenter1:39

I don't allow any flowers near the house. It's all green and stone.

Presenter1:44

and hedges

Presenter1:46

And lawn.

Presenter1:48

Why do you not like to have flowers near the house? Because I think it's quite unsuitable for Palladian architecture.

Presenter1:55

which is in essence really Italian. So it should be, I think, green.

Presenter2:00

Now is that house, would you say, having spent the best part of the last fifty years there, is that house where your heart is, or is it France where your heart is? It's the house.

Presenter2:12

But it is also France. I love living in France. I love Paris.

Presenter2:16

Paris has kept its beauty in a way that I'm afraid London has not.

Presenter2:22

So have you any desire at all to return here to your roots to Britain?

Lady Mosley2:25

Most of it.

Presenter2:29

Have you any desire to be cast away on a far flung desert island? No, no, not no. But I am, I suppose, in a way cast away, because I'm quite alone most of the time. I'm quite accustomed to that, and I love being alone.

Presenter2:42

So what sort of music would you like to play to while away the time? Well, I I s'pose I should like the music I've loved all my life.

Presenter2:49

What's the first piece that you've chosen? The first is the Jupiter Symphony of Mozart.

Presenter2:57

And I chose that because it was the first rarely beautiful, sublime music I ever heard.

Presenter3:03

And I suppose I must have been about fourteen.

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My brother was extremely musical, my brother Tom.

Presenter3:10

He was a wonderful pianist himself.

Presenter3:13

And um although we only had a wind-up gramophone,

Presenter3:17

We were able to listen to symphonies and so on.

Presenter3:20

And I suppose he rarely introduced me to great music.

Presenter4:04

The opening of Mozart's Symphony No. forty one in C The Jupiter, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beacham. Music which you first heard, Lady Moseley, on your wind up gramophone at home in the Cotswolds. It was from all that's been written about it that life, and mostly written about by your very prolific sisters, it was a very unconventional household.

Presenter4:27

Well, people think so now, but you see, we thought we were very ordinary.

Presenter4:31

Because when I was a child it was quite usual for girls not to go to school, for example, to have a governess at home, as we did.

Presenter4:40

and I had a great horror of the idea of having to leave home and go to school.

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And I never did.

Presenter4:46

But was it, um, as it reads, a chaotic household full of laughter? Full of laughter, yes, because my father was so amusing, and then my sister Nancy also. And uh there was a great deal of laughter.

Presenter5:00

But you were quite frightened of your father, too, weren't you? Well, I suppose we were quite frightened. We were quite frightened of my mother, too. I mean, we were quite in awe of them. But on the whole, Lucy, he used to make so many jokes. He was such an amusing man, Ralph.

Presenter5:15

And I was devoted to her.

Presenter5:17

But for you as a child, Nanny was the centre of your life, for she was. Yes, you're quite right she was. I really loved her more than my parents, as far as love goes.

Lady Mosley5:21

Yes.

Presenter5:26

And her threat, if we were naughty, she said I should go and pack my trunk.

Presenter5:32

and I really believed that Niela killed one with horror the idea of not having her. But she was a wonderful person, and she stayed with us until my youngest sister was grown up, and then

Presenter5:44

retired and she lived to be over ninety.

Presenter5:47

As the years went by, did you, or did any of you, realize that you, the Mitford girls, were really rather special?

Presenter5:55

Absolutely not, no. And in fact, I really don't believe we were particularly special. I think something that's been invented.

Presenter6:03

of late Tia Al Sraley are the newspapers.

Presenter6:07

But you were phenomenally talented in all sorts of things.

Speaker 46:10

Um

Presenter6:11

We were bad at nearly everything. We were always the worst at games and worst at everything, really. We didn't consider ourselves at all talented. But rather imaginative and rather good with words. Well, I suppose if we were great readers. You see, we had one very precious thing at home, which is a wonderful library, which had been collected by

Presenter6:33

Generations. Not by my father. He never read a book.

Presenter6:37

But he didn't mind us taking books out of the library, provided we put them back.

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And uh nobody censored our reading.

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And I think that probably was how we educated ourselves, because the governesses were fairly limited.

Presenter6:52

Shall we hear your second piece of music? The next one is Malaya Kalaf.

Presenter6:56

It's the aria from Normal, and it shows Kalas at her great, extraordinary best, her very, very beautiful, tender voice she had.

Speaker 47:13

Host of Him.

Speaker 47:20

Lost a divorce or a dream.

Speaker 47:47

Praise the Sauker, praise the Sauker and dear.

Presenter7:58

Maria Callas singing the Aria Castadiva from Bellini's Norma, with the orchestra of La Scala Milan, conducted by Tullio Seraffine.

Presenter8:08

What, Lady Moseley, did you six girls think would happen to you in later life if you had no preparation at all for the outside world? No, and my father sometimes used to say I think he used did it to tease us, really. I hope you children realise you have to earn your own living. I've got no money to leave you.

Presenter8:26

And then we all used to begin to cry, because we couldn't think what we could possibly do.

Presenter8:32

Would you earn us anything?

Presenter8:34

So marriage was seemingly the only option. Although we didn't think about marriage, at least I didn't.

Lady Mosley8:34

So map.

Lady Mosley8:35

Yeah.

Presenter8:39

It was the last year I thought of, and and of course that

Presenter8:42

I suppose, in a way, is what most people in those days they they thought if you were a girl, that's what you did, you married.

Presenter8:49

So you delighted, didn't you, in being a Deb in the twenties. You came up to London and had a wonderfully gay time. Yes, we had I had great fun. I was fairly disappointed in a way by it, but of course I almost immediately married Raleigh.

Presenter9:04

You married Brian Guinness. I married Brian Guinness when I was eighteen.

Lady Mosley9:05

And

Presenter9:08

And then, really, of course, life became great fun. Because, you see, all his Oxford friends and so on, they really were extremely brilliant people. I mean, they remain my friends all my life.

Presenter9:19

There are very few left now, but Princesses had acton.

Presenter9:22

and uh Peter Quinnell, I think they're about the only ones left of that generation.

Presenter9:28

Well, now you'd been married for about three years, and you had two children by Brian Guinness, when in nineteen thirty two you met a leading politician of the time

Presenter9:38

Oswald Moseley, can you recall that meeting? Yes, I can, really.

Presenter9:44

We were at a dinner party in there uh we were next to one another.

Presenter9:48

But then after that we met constantly because see he was out of Parliament and um went everywhere with his wife and we went all over the place and I suppose we met perhaps two or three times a week.

Presenter10:02

And he was fascinating. So you met, as we said, in nineteen thirty two. You were both married to other people, but you were both very strongly, mutually attracted.

Presenter10:12

And not long after that you were to become lovers? Well, I left my first husband.

Presenter10:18

and uh never dreamed of marrying mostly. There was no question of it. He was very happily married.

Presenter10:24

But nevertheless I thought it was really better to make a clean break and live on my own.

Presenter10:29

Which I did subsequently.

Presenter10:31

But subsequently his wife in fact died of the same thing.

Lady Mosley10:34

What Jita.

Presenter10:39

Peritonitis.

Presenter10:40

It was before the days of antibiotics and you just did die. I mean, it was quite the usual thing to happen with bad appendicitis.

Presenter10:47

And so it was that some four years later in 1936 you were able to marry. After about three or four years we married.

Lady Mosley10:51

So you were able to marry.

Presenter10:55

Would it be fair to say that despite the deal of suffering that your association with Moseley brought you?

Presenter11:02

Nevertheless, your memories are ones of blissful happiness.

Presenter11:09

Shall we have your third record there?

Presenter11:11

Well, it's the final movement.

Presenter11:14

Of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and I choose that for the island because.

Presenter11:19

It's so optimistic.

Presenter12:11

Well, that would chase away dull care, wouldn't it? The Ode to Joy from the final movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. nine, the Choral Symphony, with the Philemonia Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Otto Klemperer.

Presenter12:24

It was, Lady Moseley, at about the time that you met Sir Oswald that he was founding the British Union of Fascists. Why was he so attracted by Fascism?

Presenter12:34

It was just the name, then, which was given to her.

Presenter12:38

A a movement which is more or less worldwide really or generate all over Europe.

Presenter12:43

Um

Presenter12:44

which embodied, I suppose you'd say, a great many of his economic ideals.

Presenter12:50

But it was a party um which he decided should wear a uniform, the black shirt, and um should have uh certain military overtones, the salute and so on. Yes, well the black shirt had various

Lady Mosley13:01

Yep.

Presenter13:04

advantages, really. One w was that it was extremely cheap. I think it cost a shilling.

Presenter13:10

And therefore, unemployed people could wear it. And so if you had that and

Presenter13:15

grey flannel trousers. Nobody knew what your background was and it made for a sort of comradeship, he thought. I think it probably did.

Presenter13:24

and it was such a success that an Act of Parliament had to be passed to forbid them wearing it.

Presenter13:32

Was not that Act of Parliament passed for rather different reasons?

Presenter13:36

That is to say, that when they wore that uniform and they marched through the inner cities of London and Manchester, um great violence came in its wake. Well, th they were attacked by Communists, but not really.

Presenter13:49

I mean, the very often very peaceful marches, for instance, through East London and through Manchester, all the big cities really. But people were injured in the demonstrations. West, when there's a fight, people are injured, of course.

Lady Mosley13:58

In the same demonstration.

Presenter14:03

It was a movement which in the beginning was supported by um very many what one might call respectable Conservatives, was it not? A certain number, because they also saw that there was hopeless there was a hopeless situation, really. England was in a very bad way.

Presenter14:18

But they were people, those respectable Conservatives, who were to fall out of love with the movement when it became increasingly violent. Yes. Well, you see, I think think people are extremely unfaithful in politics. I mean, they're very disloyal.

Presenter14:32

They they're delighted with somebody and then they suddenly become less delighted with them.

Presenter14:37

Was your husband, Lady Moseley, anti-Semitic?

Presenter14:40

He really wasn't. You know, he didn't know Jew from a Gentile.

Presenter14:45

himself, but

Presenter14:47

as the jewels were so ante him,

Presenter14:50

and a tech.

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as much as they possibly could.

Presenter14:54

both in the newspapers and physically when there were marches in

Presenter14:59

Places like Manchester and so on, where there are a lot of you.

Presenter15:02

He he

Presenter15:04

as it were picked up the

Presenter15:06

The challenge

Presenter15:08

And uh

Presenter15:09

Then

Presenter15:10

A great number of his followers who rarely were anti-thematic.

Presenter15:15

joined him because they

Presenter15:17

They thought they were able to fight their old enemy. But did he not call them an alien force? Did he not say in a speech once in nineteen thirty six, they were an alien force which rises to rob us of our heritage? Yes. You see, one of the things that that

Presenter15:31

Horrified it was that we had this enormous empire

Presenter15:35

And he did think that the Jews

Presenter15:38

and the city in general.

Presenter15:40

invested far too much in countries that had nothing to our empire.

Presenter15:45

And how did he and you feel when you discovered that um Hitler's version of anti Semitism was to end in extermination?

Presenter15:55

Well, you see, we didn't discover that for so long. First of all,

Presenter16:00

After the war, I simply didn't believe it, having been in Germany a good bit because my sister more or less lived there.

Presenter16:09

And it was years before I could really believe that such things had happened.

Presenter16:14

And do you believe it now?

Presenter16:17

I belie I don't really, I'm afraid, believe that six million people would I think it's just not

Presenter16:23

conceivables too many.

Presenter16:25

But you see, whether it's six or whether it's one, really makes no difference morally.

Presenter16:30

It's equally wrong.

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I think it was a a a dreadfully wicked thing, myself.

Presenter16:37

Shall we hear your next piece of music?

Presenter16:40

It's the end of the first act.

Presenter16:42

After

Presenter16:44

Sung by Maria Muller as C. Glinda.

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and Wolfgang Wintgassen.

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as Sigmund.

Speaker 416:54

Rest of a flight to the proper Supreme Pottery for chasing it rain

Presenter16:59

Uh

Speaker 417:01

Shouts and praises.

Speaker 417:43

Please note.

Speaker 417:48

I live in the ball.

Presenter17:53

Part of Wagner's Die Walker, sung by Wolfgang Wintgassen and Maria Müller, and the Wiertenbergischer State Orchestra, conducted by Ferdinand Leitner.

Presenter18:03

Valkyrie was, in fact, the second name of your sister Unity, wasn't it? Yes, it was, because she was born at the outbreak of the First War.

Lady Mosley18:07

Yes, it's a

Presenter18:11

She was a young woman fascinated by Adolf Hitler, wasn't she?

Lady Mosley18:14

Yeah.

Presenter18:16

Why, she loved being with him. She

Presenter18:19

He was, of course, extraordinarily fascinating and clever. Naturally you don't get to be where he was.

Presenter18:25

Just by being

Presenter18:27

The kind of person people liked to think he was.

Presenter18:30

You met him quite a lot as well. Oh, yes, several many times, Ellie.

Lady Mosley18:32

There we have.

Presenter18:35

Of course, at that moment, you see, he was the the person who was making the news for Tumatz.

Presenter18:42

And therefore

Presenter18:44

Extremely interesting to talk to.

Presenter18:46

Did you admire him? Very much. He had extraordinary sort of mesmeric eyes. I think many people remarked that.

Presenter18:54

blue eyes and also he he had so much to to s to say. I mean, he was so interesting, fascinating.

Presenter19:03

Perfectly willing to talk.

Presenter19:05

You you communicated in German.

Presenter19:07

Yes, he didn't know any English.

Presenter19:10

He was in fact a guest at your wedding, wasn't he?

Presenter19:13

He was a guest, Jess.

Presenter19:14

Now you were a guest of Hitler's a couple of weeks, I think, only before the declaration of war in nineteen thirty nine. Well, a month before. Yes, because we were at Bayreuth, really. He invited us.

Lady Mosley19:22

Um

Presenter19:27

But i th when he told us about the war

Presenter19:31

that he felt sure it was coming. That was a luncheon.

Presenter19:34

that he gave at um Farnfreet.

Presenter19:37

He said war was inevitable. Yes, he said he wanted to speak to us privately, and then he said I'm afraid war is inevitable.

Presenter19:44

You've written since that on hearing him say that war was inevitable, you were not just in despair for the reasons that you described, but also because you knew that it would mean the death of your sister.

Presenter19:56

I knew it would mean the death of my sister, but I also knew it would mean the death

Presenter20:00

Of of millions of other people, and of course my brother was killed in the war, my only brother.

Presenter20:05

And they were really the the two of the family in a way that were nearest to me because

Presenter20:11

I became I was between them, I was the middle of the family.

Presenter20:15

And of course that was a tremendous sorrow. But how did you know it would mean the death of your sister? That Unity would. She'd always said so. She couldn't said she didn't wish to live if France if England and Germany were at war.

Presenter20:29

She cannot fill it very.

Presenter20:31

attached to Germany, but of course naturally loved our own country.

Presenter20:36

said that she was torn in two, and she said she couldn't live through that.

Presenter20:40

And indeed she she put a gun to her head shortly afterwards.

Lady Mosley20:41

Shortly afterwards.

Presenter20:45

Shall we have your fifth piece of music there?

Presenter20:49

Our conversation is so sad that the records seem rather out of place.

Presenter20:54

Um

Presenter20:56

As well now we have Gersten Vlogstadt.

Presenter20:59

Singing the Lieberstot from uh

Presenter21:02

Tristan and Ivalda.

Presenter21:05

and conductor Schwartzwengler, a conductor who was very much admired.

Presenter21:10

by every one. Hitler admired him very much and gave him what they called a golden button.

Presenter22:13

That was Kiersten Flagstadt singing The Lieberstadt from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Wilhelm Furtwengler.

Presenter22:23

The war also cost you and your husband dear, of course, Lady Moseley, because you were both imprisoned shortly after it began. Well, not very shortly after. You see, they kept saying

Presenter22:34

One of the evil things we are fighting against.

Presenter22:37

Is that there's no free speech?

Presenter22:39

Enjoyment.

Presenter22:41

And uh here, of course, we have free speech.

Presenter22:45

So, having been told that, he held meetings. He always was expecting.

Presenter22:50

to be told by the police now there to be no more meetings, or by the by the Government for Travis.

Presenter22:56

But he never was, and uh he always said it would have been very cowardly, believing as he did that war was a terrible mistake.

Presenter23:05

and that we could have a negotiated peace.

Presenter23:08

before either England or the empire had been attacked in any way.

Presenter23:13

he must speak his mind. But wasn't that a grave miscalculation to stand up and support a a system of government and a cause which had now become this country's greatest enemy?

Lady Mosley23:20

System of

Presenter23:25

Well, the y you see, it was what they called a phony war. Nothing had happened between England and Germany, or the Empire and Germany.

Presenter23:33

And

Presenter23:34

Then the as you know, of course, the Germans invaded Norway.

Presenter23:38

And we invaded Norway, although it was a neutral country.

Presenter23:42

And the Germans?

Presenter23:44

One. I mean, they just occupied it. Well

Presenter23:48

After that.

Presenter23:50

Obviously it was rarely war.

Presenter23:52

And um

Presenter23:55

He then said,

Presenter23:56

Of course.

Presenter23:58

The newspapers now are beginning to speak of invasion.

Presenter24:02

And if any such thing would happen there's no question of where British Union would stand.

Presenter24:06

We'd fight to the last man.

Presenter24:09

to drive the foreign invader from our soil.

Presenter24:13

So in other words, the phony war was then over, because and

Presenter24:16

It wouldn't have occurred to him after that.

Presenter24:19

To uh speak for negotiate peace, it seemed too late. But undoubtedly, you were both seen as potential traitors.

Presenter24:27

I don't think so. Certainly not by people like Churchill, who knew us. I mean, it never occurred to me I should be arrested.

Presenter24:36

Why do you think, then, that you were both imprisoned? I think

Presenter24:40

But of course we've no way of of of proving it because there's no paper saying so. But I think probably.

Presenter24:47

Labour, the labour party.

Presenter24:49

who formed an important part of the coalition, because obviously if you go to war you can't have different parties.

Presenter24:57

It's got to be united. I think they probably said one of their conditions for making a coalition.

Presenter25:03

would be

Presenter25:04

for us well, not not me, I don't think, but my husband to be arrested. But surely Churchill would not have accepted such a condition from a from the thing to prosecute the war.

Lady Mosley25:12

Well I think

Presenter25:16

He did he did accept it, and he's constantly said during our imprisonment to Randolph, who used to hand it on to my brother,

Presenter25:25

Tom

Presenter25:26

He used to say Of course I don't believe in this fifth column and he knew perfectly well.

Presenter25:32

that uh we were not traitors.

Presenter25:35

To listen to you speak, Lady Moseley, sometimes, when when you're talking about those events of so long ago, it's almost, I think, some people would say, as if you're rewriting history.

Presenter25:47

No, no, that's just how it was. I can remember it so well.

Presenter25:51

It's very, very vivid in my memory.

Presenter25:53

Tell me what it was like in prison. You were put into Holloway, weren't you? And your husband into prison? Utterly and completely disgusting.

Presenter26:03

The dirt and the horror of prison.

Presenter26:07

But you see, the awful thing for me was leaving the children.

Presenter26:11

'Cause I had four children.

Presenter26:13

Two.

Presenter26:14

boys aged eight and ten.

Presenter26:17

and two babies, one eighteen months and the other a few weeks old.

Presenter26:22

And that really was dreadful, because of course

Presenter26:25

Years went by and they changed completely.

Presenter26:29

and one missed all those years of them.

Presenter26:33

Shall we pause for some more music there?

Presenter26:35

Oh no.

Presenter26:37

We've got a very exciting record of from Carmen. Again, I'm afraid not really very relevant to all these dreadful things that we've been speaking of.

Speaker 426:50

In a jam, jammes bonus de la Ceux de Maim, Jeffemre, Se je prangur d'a coire.

Speaker 427:11

Siege of the Seizure Thamer.

Presenter27:15

Yeah.

Speaker 427:30

Yeah.

Presenter27:49

Julia McGuinness Johnson singing the Habanera from Bizet's Carmen with the French National Orchestra conducted by Lorin Marzel.

Presenter27:59

So you and your husband left this country in nineteen fifty one for France, and really you've lived there ever since? Yes. Sir Oswald died, didn't he, in nineteen eighty one?

Lady Mosley28:08

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Presenter28:12

You together were great friends of the Windsors, weren't you? We were quite friends because they were neighbours, really. Same value as us.

Presenter28:20

and uh they were always extremely kind.

Presenter28:23

And she was a marvellous hostess, I gather the Duchess. I mean, she really was. Fantastic. The food was too lovely for words and the

Lady Mosley28:25

Yeah.

Presenter28:33

The uh whole sort of ambiance was great fun. She always made things great fun. I remember somebody saying she made a fate of any dinner where she she took such trouble over, I suppose, even flowers, everything.

Presenter28:46

She was off her ship.

Presenter28:47

Perfect for that, no doubt.

Presenter28:50

And was it always obvious how much the Duke adored her? Yes, it was absolutely obvious. Whoever you were sitting next to, you always had half a.

Presenter28:59

Offer ya for her.

Presenter29:01

and half an hour.

Presenter29:02

But of course he had

Presenter29:04

Charming manners.

Presenter29:06

Did she, do you believe, adore him as much in return?

Presenter29:10

I don't suppose she dawdled him as much as he dawdled her, but she was extremely

Presenter29:15

Curtis and

Presenter29:17

Affectionate.

Presenter29:19

They were. You must one must admit they were extremely happy, as far as it goes. I d I think that all the running came from him.

Presenter29:27

I don't think she the least bit wanted the marriage, or to be queen, or anything like that. She'd have liked to go on as she was, I feel sure.

Presenter29:34

But having said that, I mean she made the best of it.

Presenter29:38

You and Sir Oswald, of course, had something in common with them in a in a sense that you were both in a kind of exile.

Presenter29:46

Well, yes, well you say that because they ran away at the exiles because he refused utterly to go back.

Presenter29:53

As long as she was not given her proper title. That there was nothing of that sort for us. We went back constantly, and he never considered himself an exile. He considered himself a European. Was there a sense in which your husband was, if you like, waiting for the call?

Presenter30:09

Well, they say that, but of course he used to laugh at the mana tells the Binocle he knew the binocular.

Presenter30:15

But ye nevertheless, whatever crisis arose, and Heaven knows there have been good many since the war,

Presenter30:21

One way and another?

Presenter30:22

He always?

Presenter30:24

thought very carefully and had a solution for it.

Presenter30:28

And so I think he some of his solutions probably were actually adopted.

Presenter30:33

What do you think to day of of Britain?

Presenter30:38

It's very hard to say. You see, in London, for example, I love the denizens, I love the Londoners.

Presenter30:45

I love my relations who live here, I thought.

Presenter30:48

But I can't say I should rather like to have to live in London.

Presenter30:52

And see, it gradually made uglier and uglier as the days go by.

Presenter30:56

Shall we pause there for your seventh record? What's that?

Presenter31:02

I've chosen up one pop record. It's partly because it's really based on Handel, I think.

Presenter31:08

also because it's got such mysterious words, and also because it was such a favourite tune.

Presenter31:16

on the French wireless, that whenever I was waiting for the news or something French, they used to play it. And it happened to be a very hot, delicious, hap happy summer at the temple where I live, and so it's got memories for me, but not really my kind of music otherwise. I mean, I'm not a great pop fan.

Speaker 431:37

So I told you.

Speaker 331:46

As the middle told his tale

Speaker 331:52

Let her face at first, just go sleep

Speaker 331:57

Turn the white

Speaker 332:00

Should

Presenter32:02

I should like to make one comment on that.

Presenter32:05

My choice there seems to be a great deal of singing.

Presenter32:09

And normally speaking, I would have had more symphony and Beethoven's quart quartet I love.

Presenter32:16

But

Presenter32:17

My terrible deafness.

Presenter32:21

Forbids me to hear strings.

Presenter32:23

And so that really the only thing I can hear more or less is the f human voice and uh

Presenter32:28

Orchestra up to a point, but I lose a tremendous lot. And music means much less to me than it did. I have to remember it.

Lady Mosley32:32

Yeah.

Presenter32:36

And what about your memories of of the gaiety and the laughter of bygone years? Do you miss all of that? No, because I still have just as much laughter.

Presenter32:45

I've got wonderful friends in Paris and here, and um I'm afraid we laugh the whole time.

Presenter32:52

Do you have, Lady Moseley, any great regrets about your life?

Presenter32:58

I'm not sure, really, whether I have.

Presenter33:02

I sometimes wondered whether

Presenter33:05

You see, had I known, had I had the slightest idea

Presenter33:08

That uh I should be imprisoned.

Presenter33:13

I would have never have touched.

Presenter33:16

will say I would I'd have given up going to Germany or whatever.

Presenter33:20

But first of all I hoped there was going to be peace. It never really I never really believed there would be a war. I hoped

Presenter33:26

human reason would

Presenter33:29

prevail. But had I known, I suppose I rarely would have felt my duty was with my children.

Presenter33:35

Because it's a dreadful thing to miss three and a half years of their lives.

Presenter33:40

Do you then, from from what you say, regret your friendship with Hitler?

Presenter33:44

I can't regret that. It was so interesting and fascinating.

Presenter33:50

All the the well known and famous people I've known in my life, I couldn't regret having known them, because for one thing it's something to measure by.

Presenter34:00

The nonsense that gets written.

Presenter34:02

And I suppose it will be till Doomsday, because that is

Presenter34:07

Not only journalism, but I'm afraid it's human nature if you don't like somebody.

Presenter34:11

You're taxing.

Presenter34:13

Shall we have your last piece of music?

Presenter34:15

Well, now, this is something I can have fairly well for his piano.

Presenter34:19

Alexander Byrolovsky, who plays

Presenter34:22

Champat said beautifully.

Presenter35:06

Alexander Breilovsky, playing Chopin's Polonaise in F sharp minor, opus, forty four.

Presenter35:12

Well, now, as you set sail, Lady Moseley, for our desert island, which of the records that you've chosen do you think you will treasure most?

Presenter35:21

I think I might treasure most the

Presenter35:24

The Valkure.

Presenter35:26

Why?

Presenter35:28

It's so romantic.

Presenter35:30

And beautiful, Relly.

Presenter35:33

And what book would you like to find waiting for you on the beach?

Presenter35:36

Alongside the Bible and Shakespeare.

Presenter35:39

I'm very happy to have a Bible in Shakespeare for many reasons. Probably the chief reason I hope it's the authorised version.

Presenter35:48

is that it's early seventeenth century English, which is so beautiful. But they are rather short on jokes, so I thought I might have Proust if I'm allowed his novel. It's rather long.

Presenter36:00

So I've read it many times, but each time one finds new beauties and new things to laugh at. It makes you laugh out loud.

Presenter36:08

And of all the things that you have known in this material life, what luxury would you most like to have supplied to comfort you?

Presenter36:16

I think for my luxury I choose a soft pillow and soft

Presenter36:21

Rog.

Presenter36:23

Diana, Lady Moseley, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Lady Mosley36:35

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.