The Toast accepted this piece prior to the death of Debo Mitford, and is running it now in her memory. You would probably enjoy the book in question.
“He begged plumes from the hats of his women friends and, picking one up, would sigh with nostalgia and say things like, ‘Ettie Desborough, Ascot, 1921.’ Once the flies were ready, he lay in the bath imagining he was a salmon while Edward, the butler, pretending to be a fishing rod, jerked them over his submerged head.”
*
“I once asked him what his idea of hell was. ‘Honey on my bowler hat,’ came the answer.”
*
“Herbrand, the Eleventh Duke of Bedford (whose best friend was a spider)”
*
“An unloved was dismissed as ‘some mournful woman’ and whatever this anonymous female did was wrong. She (and other people’s babies) might also be ‘a meaningless piece of meat’ and that was that.”
*
“Under the headings ‘rent, rates, wages, heating, cleaning materials, food, clothes, travelling, and other necessities’, she instructed us to account for an income of £500 a year. We pored over our sheet of paper, trying our best to apportion the money. Nancy finished almost before the rest of us had started. We read out our proposals and when it came to her turn, she waved her paper and said, ‘Flowers: £499. Everything else: £1.’ Muv gave up.”
*
“One night he [Evelyn Waugh] poured a bottle of Green Chartreuse over his head and, rubbing it into his hair, intoned, ‘My hair is covered in gum, my hair is covered in gum,’ as the sticky mess ran down his neck.”
*
“When Unity was about eight she made an unforgettable picture of a man walking in a field wearing a turban and little else. He had a bag hanging around his middle and was broadcasting seed as though it were peas and beans. The title of the drawing was ‘Abraham and his Seed Forever.””
*
“Farve drank water out of Grandfather Redesdale’s magnificent goblet made from the melted-down gold medals won by his Shire horses.”
*
“She used to pick up poor Miss Dell, the governess, who was rather small, and put her on the sideboard.”
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“(My mother told me that their father, Geoffrey Howard, had a glass eye and used to surprise people by tapping it with a fork at meals.)”
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“One wet day Granny looked at the tapestry that hung on the curve of the magical stairs between the first and second floor of the house and thought it rather gloomy. She got out some poster paints and encouraged the children to do their best to cheer it up”
*
“My engagement book for the week in California reads: ‘Tuesday 12 February: dinner with Communists.’ ‘Wednesday 13 February: dinner with more Communists.”
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“He arrived one evening when no one had been in to tidy and everything was lying about. His first words, in a trembly voice, were, ‘Secateurs on the mantelpiece, saws on the hall table.””
*
“‘There is no excuse,’ he wailed with emphasis on each word, ‘for coarsely mashed potatoes.””
*
“There was a troublesome chef who was given notice several times but refused to leave. In order to get rid of him, Grandfather decided to shut the house and go to China, taking Weenie with him. On the day of departure the trunks were packed and stowed in the ‘growler’ that was to take them to the station to catch the boat train. Grandfather came down the steps and said, ‘It’s raining, my dear Piggy. We won’t go.”
*
“When loyally accompanying her second husband, Robert Treuhaft, on a hiking holiday in an American national park, she intoned, ‘Nature, nature, how I hate yer.””
*
There was a bidet in our hotel bathroom and Nanny, Decca and I, who had never seen such a thing, hurried out to buy goldfish assuming that was what it was for.
*
“After breakfast he refilled his coffee cup and took it to his study. He let it get cold and drank what he called his ‘suckments’ at intervals during the morning. A tidy, new-to-the-job maid took the cup back to the pantry, emptied and washed it. This enraged my father: ‘Some monkey’s orphan has taken my suckments.’ Thereafter he locked the cup in his safe.”
*
“Some monkey’s orphan has taken my suckments.”
*
“SOME MONKEY’S ORPHAN HAS TAKEN MY SUCKMENTS.”
*
Tags: beauty, books, deborah mitford, ella risbridger, the mitfords
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I refuse to believe that bidets are for anything OTHER than goldfish.
Note to self: buy safe for secure storage of suckments
Man. Butlers got to put up with a lot, huh.
OK, now I HAVE to know more about the best-friend-was-a-spider guy.
this post has caused me to quake with silent laughter, I shall be buying the book directly, oh my god, perfect.
The term “meaningless piece of meat” is now safely residing in my insult bank. To be used sparingly, of course.
Nancy used it, substituting “flesh” for “meat” IIRC – it turns up in “Don’t Tell Alfred,” a book for which I have an unreasonable amount of affection.
There is no such thing as “an unreasonable amount of affection” when it comes to Don’t Tell Alfred. One of the funniest books in the world.
these all sound like people I would like to know. oh dear.
Honey would be difficult to get out of a bowler hat, I’d imagine.
“Am I eccentric enough to plausibly pass for old money?’ she asked herself. “Yes,” she decided, “I certainly am.”
I just want to say that I hope someone pet that dog right after the photo was taken.
I hope so too, but definitely not the staff — I fear they were too busy pretending to be fishing rods and getting chewed out for throwing out cold coffee.
Reading these has moved Debo up to third place in my Mitford rankings.
We read out our proposals and when it came to her turn, she waved her paper and said, ‘Flowers: £499. Everything else: £1.’ Muv gave up.
WE ARE ALL NANCY MITFORD
She’s fourth for me – Decca (for her politics), Nancy (for her novels), Pamela (for her normality) come before her.
Disappointed this doesn’t include the part where Debo goes hot-tubbing with Ladybird Johnson. But I mean, every sentence in this book is a gem.
This was perfect. Out of all the uses that have ever been attributed to bidets (I know plenty of people who have shit in them), goldfishbowl is the best one. If I ever have children, I’m going to refer to them as suckments.
“He begged plumes from the hats of his women friends and, picking one up, would sigh with nostalgia and say things like, ‘Ettie Desborough, Ascot, 1921.’ Once the flies were ready, he lay in the bath imagining he was a salmon while Edward, the butler, pretending to be a fishing rod, jerked them over his submerged head.”
I don’t know, things like this tend to fill me with rage that these are the people who get to be ridiculously wealthy and own loads of stately homes and vast land holdings and so on. (I read Deborah Devonshire’s books on the Chatsworth estate and the house itself recently, and was filled with the desire for bloody revolution because it was so obscenely unjust.)
There’s a Chatsworth documentary on Netflix instant right now that literally does not mention Debo. In fact, it is pretty light on women altogether, except for Georgiana, because sex. Peregrine is there, talking about how everything with go to his firstborn son. There is no possible way to change the system. His hands are tied. Etc.
Also, at one point he says dukes are just like everybody else. His personal fortune is estimated at 1.3B US. So.
Ugh.
(How can you not mention Debo? She made Chatsworth into a profitable business when it looked like it might need to be sold!)
I watched this also, found it about 5 hours too short.
“One night he [Evelyn Waugh] poured a bottle of Green Chartreuse over his head and, rubbing it into his hair, intoned, ‘My hair is covered in gum, my hair is covered in gum,’ as the sticky mess ran down his neck.”
Yup, definitely been there before…
My tactic at used book sales is to pick at random and start reading the middle. Whatever I don’t want to put down gets bought. Wait for Me! was definitely a keeper.
I must buy this immediately. Has anyone here ever read Ronald Firbank? It’s like his characters have come to life. The melancholy recital over the wilting plumes …
I made an account for this post, you have finally pulled me in!
In my quest to read Wait For Me, I have discovered the following: my uni library has it; Debo’s Library of Congress name heading is “Devonshire, Deborah Vivien Freeman-Mitford Cavendish, Duchess of, 1920-“, which is a great title to have; and according to the Library of Congress, she is still alive, which – yes good.
Also I plan to go get Wait For Me the next time I’m on campus.
Some intrepid Toastbrarian will update her authority record and she’ll be officially dead in the eyes of LC. 🙁
Some intrepid Toastbrarian will update her authority record and she'll be officially dead in the eyes of LC. 🙁
Without seeing this article, I borrowed this from the library on a whim this weekend. Has The Toast started subconsciously downloading in my brain?
Definitely read the book of letters between her and Patrick Leigh Fermor. So touching and heart-breaking as they get older and older and everyone dies around them. Plus you know he was soooooo in love with her.
I actually love this book so much, and 100% did not notice how weird so much of it was until I read this piece. Wow. What drugs were the Mitfords on? Gotta get me some of that.