Category: Literature

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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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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Welsh Rabbit

Churchill was appointed Home Secretary in 1910. Aged thirty-five he was the youngest since Robert Peel.

Lamentation

Feeling a little under the weather I have postponed reading Sonia Purnell’s biography of Clementine Churchill and turned to lighter fare more suited to my mood.

Limping Lady

C.C.’s comment “what about Carrie?” made me think but maybe one day she will be worth a biography although she is more likely to make a pre-emptive strike by writing a memoir about the red wine stains on her upholstery.

It Begins with C

I would only quite like to read Cherie Blair’s 2008 memoir but I haven’t. I wait for a biography of a Prime Minister’s wife (beginning with C) and then two come along.