Jessica Mitford

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy seven, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:32

Our castaway this week is a writer and a member of a celebrated family, Miss Jessica Mitford.

Presenter0:39

Could you adapt yourself to loneliness, Miss Mitford? You are on this island. You don't know how long for.

Jessica Mitford0:45

I

Presenter0:45

I think I'll

Jessica Mitford0:46

Right.

Presenter0:46

Bye.

Jessica Mitford0:46

Uh

Presenter0:46

Uh I hate it.

Jessica Mitford0:47

It actually Yeah.

Jessica Mitford0:48

Unless I had a few records.

Presenter0:49

You have eight.

Jessica Mitford0:51

Yeah. Uh

Presenter0:51

Yeah.

Jessica Mitford0:51

To move.

Presenter0:52

Music play a big part in it.

Jessica Mitford0:53

In your life?

Jessica Mitford0:54

I'm afraid not really. I only like pop music. I don't I'm not really musical.

Presenter0:58

Yeah.

Jessica Mitford0:58

Mm. The first one you've chosen to take with you? After the ball. Why do you choose that?

Jessica Mitford1:04

Well, I tried to choose things that were various parts of life. After the Ball was a tremendous song to us. We used to sing it round the piano. My mother played all those kinds of songs, like I'll sing these songs of Araby and songs of her childhood, you see, and so we sort of grew up with them.

Speaker 21:21

After the dancers leaving, after the stars were gone.

Speaker 21:30

Many a heart was aching If we could reach them all

Speaker 21:38

Many the hopes that were shattered of

Presenter1:49

After the ball sung by Floddie Ford.

Presenter1:53

You were the fifth of the sixth Mitford sisters, the daughters of Lord and Lady Reiddale. Life when you were young was was a country house one, wasn't it, with with a London house for the season? Yes, mostly.

Jessica Mitford2:04

country though, especially for us children. And did you go to school? No, we weren't allowed. My mother was very much opposed to the idea of girls going to school at all. So we went th we did not have that pleasure. I should have loved to go, but no. It was governesses? All goves.

Presenter2:19

May we just run through the the family list? Your elder sister was Nancy, who wrote historical biographies and...

Jessica Mitford2:26

Well, she also wrote some jolly funny novels like The Pursuit of Love, in which she guides up our whole family. It was really autobiographical. Was it?

Presenter2:26

Looks like

Jessica Mitford2:35

And then Pam, we haven't heard much about Pam. No, Pam always wanted to be a horse when she was a child. She was the only one of the children that didn't actually sort of succeed in fulfilling her childhood ambitions.

Presenter2:44

Her childhood

Presenter2:46

Mm-hmm. And your only brother Tom was killed in the last war.

Jessica Mitford2:49

Yes, you have.

Presenter2:50

Then the third sister, Diana, who married Sir Oswald Moseley. And unity.

Presenter2:55

whose life became a tragedy.

Jessica Mitford2:57

Yeah.

Presenter2:57

Yes. And your younger sister, Deborah, now the Duchess of Devonshire.

Jessica Mitford3:02

That's it. You had your own language, I believe.

Jessica Mitford3:05

Well, we had a couple of languages. Unity and I had a whole language called Baudeldige.

Jessica Mitford3:11

Into which we could translate anything because it was actually a language. I mean, it's just like translating from English to French, except that no grown-ups could understand it, fortunately. So we used to um

Jessica Mitford3:22

Translate things into Baudledage for safe singing in front of the grown-ups because they wouldn't know what it was. Could you give us a sample?

Jessica Mitford3:30

Well one is a a song that um it was called Sex Appeal Sarah.

Jessica Mitford3:36

And the Bible did translation goes like this.

Jessica Mitford3:39

Im Zagze Bittelzildra, me Badli Grands Bildra, Imsteem a Bildrandstege.

Jessica Mitford3:47

There was always a sign-off even

Presenter3:49

Yeah.

Jessica Mitford3:50

That sort of sound.

Presenter3:51

Yes. Well, it's certainly a private language, isn't it? I mean, it takes some.

Presenter3:56

Getting into.

Jessica Mitford3:57

People on buses couldn't understand it.

Presenter3:59

I can believe that.

Jessica Mitford4:00

They would point at us and sort of say, I wonder what foreigners they are.

Presenter4:05

Well, let's have your second record.

Jessica Mitford4:06

Uh

Jessica Mitford4:07

I'm Sex Appeal Sarah. The one you've just been singing. Absolutely. Who's going to sing it now? This is going to be by Douglas Bing, comedian. In English. Right, exactly.

Jessica Mitford4:17

I'm six of you, Sarah, My body gets better Each time they appear on the screen Oh, I lead such rare pranks with dear Dougie Fairbanks Really risky for me

Jessica Mitford4:30

I know all the Lou Binos, a go-to there, he knows We start off with cocktails and end up with Enos. I'm Slick Sal, And when I was a girl, I was constant and clever and clean.

Presenter4:43

Douglas Byng singing Sex Appeals Sarah.

Presenter4:47

Of the six Mitford sisters, some of them were, shall we say, difficult. Your mother seems to have taken it all quite serenely.

Jessica Mitford4:54

She was amazing, actually. I don't think I realised how amazing she was until towards the end of her life. Because, I mean, when I was a child, I didn't like her at all. I hated her. Because she was so frightfully strict and cold and unapproachable. And besides, not letting us go to school, you see. But then I began to realise that she probably had rather a thin time of it. Was there a sort of rapprochement when you were both older? Oh, there was a terrific rapprochement. But not for a long, long time. Not until after I'd moved to America, remarried, and had a daughter aged, then aged seven, by my first husband. Her name is Constantia Romilly. And when Constantia was about seven, she wrote to my mother thanking her for a present that she mum had sent for Christmas. And she said, in her laborious childish scrawl,

Jessica Mitford5:45

Thank you so much for the present. I wish that you would come and visit us in Oakland one day. And to my absolute consternation, my mother sent a telegram saying have accepted Dinky's invitation, arriving in a fortnight. And after that things were different. She was marvellous. She was absolutely bent on friendship.

Jessica Mitford6:03

Let's have your third record. What's that to be?

Jessica Mitford6:06

The third one is Louise, which is also extremely reminiscent of childhood, because we were all madly in love with Maurice Chevalier, as who wouldn't be, I'm sure that anyone listening to his record will be.

Speaker 26:17

Louis

Speaker 26:19

Just to see and hear you.

Speaker 26:23

Joy I never knew.

Speaker 26:26

But to be so near you.

Speaker 26:30

Praise me through and through

Speaker 26:33

Anyone can see why I wanted your gee

Speaker 26:37

It had to be bur The wonder is this, can it be true someone like you could love me?

Presenter6:47

Maurice Chevalier. Now this rebellious thing that ran in the family who began saving up running away money.

Jessica Mitford6:54

Well, I started saving up, I think, when I was about twelve, and that was right after I was totally denied my very last effort to go to school, which was an effort to go to the local grammar school. My mother said, No, absolutely not. So I started running away account in Drummonds, which is our family bank.

Jessica Mitford7:12

Sent them ten shillings and they wrote back saying that we respectfully acknowledge the ten shillings. It was a wonderful letter. They signed off your obedient servants.

Presenter7:21

How splendid

Jessica Mitford7:22

Especially splendid when you get to America, because the Bank of America is nobly's obedient servant.

Presenter7:28

Who brought politics into the family in the first place? Two of your sisters veered off to the extreme right, you to the extreme left. Who started it?

Jessica Mitford7:36

Well, uh Diana Moseley, then Guinness, and she took up with Sir Oswald Moseley with just forming the British Union of Fascists. And I think the other ones have got unity interested.

Jessica Mitford7:46

In fact, I was probably far more interested than Unity when we were much younger in politics than she was. I mean she didn't really get interested until she was eighteen, at which time I was fifteen. But I was deeply interested by about thirteen in in pacifism and that sort of thing. And so that actually I was sort of an anti-fascist before she was a fascist, I think.

Presenter8:08

There's a scandalous story of you stealing five pounds from the proceeds of a Conservative fet and sending it to the Daily Worker.

Jessica Mitford8:14

Well, you see, Bobo and I were both at the fate. My mother used to have these fates every year, or at least the Conservative Party had them. And my mother would have a stall of produce which we would help sell. And so we were there, and the stall was unattended, except for us. And here's all this lovely money floating around that my mother had earned from the stall. So I said, I think I'll take five quid of that and send it to the daily worker. So Unity said, well, I'm going to take five quid and send it to the fascists. So we both did.

Presenter8:40

Oh, well, it was fair. At any rate, you had your way. Eventually, of course, you used your running away account.

Jessica Mitford8:42

Yeah.

Presenter8:46

when you ran away with your first husband Esmond Romilly.

Jessica Mitford8:50

Yes.

Presenter8:51

He went off to Spain.

Jessica Mitford8:52

That's right. In the middle of the Spanish War. That was early nineteen thirty seven.

Presenter8:57

He had served in the international

Jessica Mitford8:59

National Brigade. He had. He was one of the youngest volunteers to be in that brigade and he happened to be in the German battalion because the British battalion was not yet formed when he went over.

Presenter9:10

Mm-hmm.

Presenter9:11

You were made a ward in chancery, but that was a step that wasn't very effective.

Jessica Mitford9:16

Yeah. Uh

Jessica Mitford9:16

It was rather hopeless. You see, the idea of being award in chancery is that it gives much more control because a a judge can order you to obey curfew, to do whatever he tells you, in fact, on pain of being remanded, say, to a wayward girls' home or something like that. But as I was already out of his jurisdiction, I wrote and pointed this out and said that unless he gave permission for my marriage to Esmond, I might have a large family and that wouldn't be very proper. So he did give permission. Yes. How old were you then? Nineteen. And you were married in Spain? No, in France, actually, in Bayonne.

Jessica Mitford9:51

Record number four, please.

Speaker 19:53

Uh

Jessica Mitford9:53

Record number four.

Speaker 19:53

Recognize

Jessica Mitford9:54

which is the Petebog Soldiers, but it's sung in German. It's one of the great Spanish Civil War songs. And the history of this one is that it was actually a song that was composed by inmates of the German concentration camps, Jews and Communists and other people found unacceptable by Hitler. They composed this song in the concentration camps. It then became a theme song of the German brigade.

Jessica Mitford10:21

which was the Tailman Brigade in the in the Spanish Civil War.

Speaker 210:25

Here sings immortal heart on sea.

Jessica Mitford10:31

And meet if heart and

Jessica Mitford10:35

More field in all darkness One day and partners

Speaker 110:45

Ah thank you.

Jessica Mitford10:49

Don't feel on the breath ein flag and me can

Speaker 110:50

Yeah.

Speaker 210:51

Keep red icon.

Presenter10:58

Die Moorsoldarten, The Peat Bog Soldiers, sung by Ernest Bush, and chorus.

Presenter11:04

Why did you and your husband, Esmond Romilly, elect to emigrate to the United States?

Jessica Mitford11:09

Well, when we first went over, it wasn't really with the idea of emigrating. But as you probably know, you can't get jobs in America unless you're on an immigration visa, which we got.

Jessica Mitford11:19

But the re the purpose, I think, was the despairing feeling after the Mun Munich betrayal by Chamberlain and the capitulation to Hitler. And we could see that the appeasement people in this country, including of course the fascists and people like Sir Oswald Moseley, who's now my brother-in-law, were beginning to dominate the political scene in a terrifying fashion. We thought that

Jessica Mitford11:41

War was bound to break out, but we would stay in America until it broke out and then return home. And of course Esmond did come back. He volunteered for the Air Force, but he was killed after he'd been there a short time.

Presenter11:53

Yes, and you were left with the baby daughter, Constancia.

Jessica Mitford11:57

What to do?

Presenter11:57

Uh

Jessica Mitford11:57

Uh

Presenter11:57

The Uh

Jessica Mitford11:57

Yeah.

Jessica Mitford11:58

Well I had various jobs, finally in Washington.

Jessica Mitford12:01

I'd learned a little bit of typing and got a job in the American Government with a very disheartening job description of sub-eligible typists. But joining.

Presenter12:12

You made that office work your way eventually.

Jessica Mitford12:15

Well, I didn't open

Presenter12:15

Well I don't

Jessica Mitford12:17

Yes, in some ways. I mean, see in other words, um

Jessica Mitford12:21

It was really a very important agency. It was the one to hold down prices and to enforce rationing and so on. And that was what I found enjoyable because at least it really did seem part of America's war effort after America got into the war.

Speaker 112:32

Mm-hmm.

Jessica Mitford12:35

And um so it was I mean it was a good job for me.

Jessica Mitford12:40

Then you you met it again, uh a man you met in that That's right.

Presenter12:43

A man of a very different background to your own.

Jessica Mitford12:48

Right.

Presenter12:49

Yeah.

Presenter12:49

And you both joined the American Communist Party and began working very actively. Now for what? The overthrow of the American Government, World Revolution, what was the big thing?

Jessica Mitford12:58

Well of course it would have been nice to overthrow it. But um actually what we were mainly working for at the beginning and the whole Communist Party position then was the strongest possible prosecution of the war against Hitler. So this was the first thing, you see, and that was during the war when we were in about nineteen forty three and we'd moved to California by then. Well then after the war

Jessica Mitford13:21

I got mostly active in the civil rights movement, that is rights for black people, and that became sort of the all absorbing passion of life for a very long time, for a number of years in fact.

Presenter13:31

Yes. And then you became rather disillusioned with the cause.

Jessica Mitford13:35

No. I don't think I ever got exactly disillusioned. It was that the Communist Party took what I thought was a hopelessly bad position in regards to a number of things, particularly in regards to, you know, permitting itself to be continually dominated by foreign Communist parties, principally the Soviet Union, instead of striving in the direction of a radical American movement. Are you still a Communist? Do you consider yourself one? I'm not a party member. I still feel that

Jessica Mitford14:02

The the goals of communism, which are essentially the fair distribution of the earth's resources, is probably the only way, in the end, you know, to create a decent world.

Jessica Mitford14:13

Let's have record number five. What's that to be?

Jessica Mitford14:15

That well known anthem, the Red Flag, which used to be I don't know if it still is the official anthem of the Labour Party of Great Britain as well as of the Communist Party. Except that we Communists used to sing, The People's Flag is palest pink, it's not as red as you might think, to tease the Labour Party.

Speaker 214:38

Uh

Jessica Mitford14:48

Yeah.

Jessica Mitford14:50

We can call

Presenter14:59

The red flag sung by the Centenary Choir.

Presenter15:02

Now, your career as a writer, Miss Midford, you began with a a light hearted, or fairly light hearted, piece of autobiography, Ons and Rebels.

Presenter15:10

Why did you write that?

Jessica Mitford15:12

Fortunespide.

Presenter15:12

Do to

Jessica Mitford15:13

Well, you know, in one way you could say that the reason I started writing at all was because after the civil rights movement folded up, which I was so involved in in the fifties, I found myself in around nineteen fifty six, almost middle aged. I was already thirty eight or so.

Jessica Mitford15:32

Um and totally unemployable because I still had no job skills and so uh having nothing else to do I just started writing.

Presenter15:41

And after that first piece of autobiography, three books about the American way of life and death.

Jessica Mitford15:47

Well, The American Way of Death, of course, was tremendous fun to write. And actually, the repercussions of it are still tremendous fun, because the Undertakers got furious. It's really a tease on the Undertakers. They're absurd caskets and burial footwear and things you wouldn't believe unless you'd actually seen them, as I have. And so that was fun to do. And the other two? Well, one was about the trial of Dr. Spock. That was at the height of the Vietnam War, when the famous Dr. Spock, who wrote the baby book, and other people were indicted for conspiracy to aid Nibet draft resistors. And so the trial was jolly interesting in Boston. So I went and covered that and wrote a book. And then I did another one about prisons, which came out a few years ago, The American Prison Business, it's called here.

Presenter16:35

This was uh another campaigning book.

Jessica Mitford16:38

As it was, it was about the injustices of the prison system in America.

Presenter16:43

And now you've written another slab of autobiography, A Final Conflict.

Presenter16:48

This brings the story a little further up to date. Not quite up to date.

Jessica Mitford16:52

No, it ends about 63. It ends really with writing The American Way of Death.

Presenter16:56

And it appears exactly at the same time as your sister Diana's autobiography.

Jessica Mitford17:01

I know, it's rather a pity. It's what the Evening Standard calls a boom in the Mitford industry.

Presenter17:06

What are we to expect of Vol 3?

Jessica Mitford17:09

I'm sure the English reading public earnestly trusts that it will be spared of all three.

Presenter17:16

Let's have record six.

Jessica Mitford17:18

Record six.

Jessica Mitford17:20

Lullaby of Broadway, a wonderful song which I heard before I came to America and which symbolized America to me. People used to say, you know, America's not a bit like the musicals and the movies that you've seen. I thought it was exactly like that, and that's why I've chosen Lullaby of Broadway.

Speaker 217:37

Come on along and listen to the lullaby of Broadway. The hippo and valley who, the lullaby of Broadway, the rumble of the subway train, the rattle of the taxis, the daffodils who entertain at Angelo's and Maxine's when a Broadway baby says good night, it's early in the morning. Manhattan babies don't sleep tight until the dawn.

Presenter18:07

The lullaby of Broadway sung by Winnie Shaw on the soundtrack of Gold Diggers of nineteen thirty five.

Presenter18:14

You're on this island, which isn't a bad island. The climate is good, there's fresh water, there's everything you need.

Presenter18:21

Are you a practical person? Could you look after yourself?

Jessica Mitford18:24

Oh dear. I wish you hadn't asked that. I'd be hopeless, actually. You're not a good cook?

Jessica Mitford18:30

We see Bob does all the cooking at home.

Presenter18:32

Your husband

Jessica Mitford18:33

Yeah.

Presenter18:33

Listen.

Presenter18:34

Does he do all the housework as well?

Jessica Mitford18:36

Well

Presenter18:36

Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica Mitford18:36

Yeah.

Jessica Mitford18:37

Well, I really does do quite a lot of it. I mean, whatever stand in the way of repairs and so forth is rather done by him and shopping. What do you do?

Jessica Mitford18:46

Why right? Because he practices law. It's not a very fair division. Um but he likes all those things, and I don't especially. Would you try to escape? He'd like to be looking out for a boat every second, absolutely.

Presenter18:58

Let's have record number seven.

Jessica Mitford18:59

The next record is Dancing Cheek to Cheek. Oh yeah, that was one of our favorite songs. In fact, when we were teenagers, my mother took three of us, Unity and Debo and myself, on a cruise of the Mediterranean.

Jessica Mitford19:12

and um there was dancing at night, you know. And there was a man there with a sort of huge, huge nose. He and we called him the Chicken Man because of his large nose. So we we used to sing Dancing Beak to Beak when dancing with him.

Speaker 219:26

Heaven

Jessica Mitford19:28

I'm in there.

Speaker 219:31

And my heart beats so that I can hardly scream.

Jessica Mitford19:32

Heartbeats so that I can hardly scream.

Speaker 219:37

Yeah.

Jessica Mitford19:37

And I seem to find the happiness I see when we're out together dancing cheek to cheek.

Presenter19:50

Fred Astur singing Cheek to Cheek from Top Hat, once again 1935.

Presenter19:56

What's your last record going to be, number eight?

Presenter19:59

Yeah.

Jessica Mitford19:59

It's gonna be you're gonna lose your girl.

Jessica Mitford20:02

You see, the point about that record is that there was a song, again when we were children, that used to be very popular. I don't suppose anybody's heard of it today, but I'm frightfully glad we found it. But Deborah, the youngest of us, was a tremendous thumb sucker, and she sucked on until she was nine years old, as a consequence of which one thumb is about half an inch shorter than the other one. It's sort of sp r rather splayed out, if you know what I mean, and short.

Jessica Mitford20:30

So we used to sing You're Going to Lose Your Thumb to the song of You're Going to Lose Your Girl, to that tune.

Presenter21:38

You're Goin' to Lose Your Girl by Carol Gibbons and the Savoy Hotel Orpheans. If you could take just one of your eight records, which would it be?

Presenter21:46

Yeah.

Jessica Mitford21:46

It would be

Presenter21:46

Yeah.

Jessica Mitford21:47

Pete Bog Soldiers, I think. A very stirring song.

Jessica Mitford21:50

and one luxury to take to the island with you.

Jessica Mitford21:54

I think I'd have a small tin of gentleman's relish from Fortnum's. For your tea? Well, it's because we were never allowed it, it was considered too expensive for children.

Presenter22:03

What are you going to have it on? Because um

Jessica Mitford22:05

Oh, that's true. No button Thursday.

Presenter22:07

No buttered toast.

Jessica Mitford22:08

Oh, there you are, I'll be hoping.

Presenter22:09

Nevertheless, we'll give you a very large supply of it, and one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare as the conventionally obvious choices, and we don't allow big encyclopedias.

Jessica Mitford22:21

Well, there's a marvellous book called Orphan Island. It was one of the first grown-up books I'd ever read. You know, when you're about ten or nine and you've read a full-length book, you feel rather proud. And this book by Rose Macaulay is fascinating. It's a funny and wonderful book.

Presenter22:35

Splendid. Well, thank you, Jessica Mitford, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Jessica Mitford22:40

Thanks ever so much.

Presenter22:41

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 122:51

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