Month: December 2024

Quare Fellows

I get muddled between Bowles and Burroughs. Both American writers who lived in Tangiers, were gay and of a similar vintage; Bowles 1910 – 1999, Burroughs 1914 – 1997.

Partial Portraits

Winston Churchill in Great Contemporaries writes biographies of twenty-five famous men, there are no women, who he knew. It’s an appealing format and one any of us could adopt but could we, would we?

Christmas with Chips IV

Chips (Channon) records Christmas Day in his diary: 1944 – 1952. Monday 25th December, 1944. The Old Rectory, Elveden, Suffolk. A day too ghastly and cold almost to chronicle! Paul and I started out in the very cold for Henlow at 11.15: thick fog overtook us as we crept the whole way – warm welcome… Continue reading Christmas with Chips IV

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Christmas with Chips III

Chips (Channon) records Christmas Day in his diary: 1940 – 1944. Christmas Day, Wednesday 25th December, 1940. HMS Edinburgh Castle, Freetown, Sierra Leone. Of all the Christmases this is the most exhausting and unpleasant. I didn’t sleep last night for the noise of the lizards at Bathurst racing in my room . . . and… Continue reading Christmas with Chips III

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Christmas with Chips II

Chips (Channon) records Christmas Day in his diary: 1936 – 1939. Friday, 25th December, 1936. A day of cards, we must have had nearly 300 from all over the earth, but none from either poor Wallis Simpson nor the Duke of Windsor. Many cables, but bad presents. Honor, Paul and I are all ill, or… Continue reading Christmas with Chips II

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Christmas with Chips

Chips (Channon) records Christmas Day in his diary: 1924 – 1935. Thursday, 25th December, 1924. Christmas – the gloomiest of days. I arrived from New York feeling very lonely and thinking of all the happy Christmases I have had in England and of Madresfield where I had promised to be now – a bitterly cold… Continue reading Christmas with Chips

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Christ the King

Today marks the official birthday of Christ the King. King Charles’s Birthday Parade, marking his official birthday, was held on Saturday, 15th June this year. King Charles III, wearing Irish Guards uniform, takes the salute from a dais outside Buckingham Palace after the Irish Guards trooped their Colour. The King’s Christmas speech this year was… Continue reading Christ the King

From Conrad

To Diana Cooper, 23rd December 1945, Barhatch, Cranleigh, Surrey. And I got your letter about Maurice.* It was of deep interest to me. Especially as I can’t talk to Diana about him. Diana thinks writing poetry and being a Catholic (or having any religion) the two big unpardonable idiocies. So you can’t expect much sympathy… Continue reading From Conrad

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On This Day

Conrad Russell, 1878 – 1947:  “Russell was the youngest of the six children of Lord Arthur Russell and Laura, the daughter of Paul Louis Jules, Vicomte de Peyronnet. He was accordingly a nephew of the Duke of Bedford, and a cousin of the philosopher Bertrand Russell, as well as of the latter’s son, his namesake… Continue reading On This Day

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On A Clear Day

It’s grand to be in London on a cold, dry, sunny December day when the air is gin clear. There may be a bit of pollution but it’s invisible unlike the pea-soupers in Holmes’s London and World War Two.