The Other Mitford by Alexander Diana

Author:Alexander, Diana
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752478975
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2012-09-21T04:00:00+00:00

Night time in the park gives the house an eerie gloom, with the wind howling in the fir trees, the dogs whining plaintively and the horses neighing at the approach of footsteps … The secret of Mrs Jackson’s visitors has been well kept by the villagers of the neighbouring hamlets round the estate, where Squadron Leader Jackson was ‘the squire’ before war broke out.

Although Squadron Leader Jackson was highly entertained by such wholly inaccurate reports, feelings against Mosley by a nation at war were extremely inflammatory and soon Derek was forbidden by Home Secretary Herbert Morrison to return to Rignell until the Mosleys had left. Derek was furious and told Morrison exactly what he thought of a man who had been a conscientious objector in the First World War and saw fit to tell a much-decorated RAF officer who he could or could not entertain at his home. There is no record of this interview and Derek’s language can only be imagined. In any case, Derek’s secret work was incomprehensible to anyone not a physicist.

Diana and Mosley had to go. Lady Redesdale found a home for them to rent at The Shaven Crown, a partly deserted inn at nearby Shipton-under-Wychwood, and for the first time since 1939 Diana, Mosley and Diana’s four boys were together for Christmas Day. They spent the day with Lady Redesdale and Unity, all crammed into the tiny dining room of Old Mill Cottage at Swinbrook where, due to the lack of turkeys and geese, they ate ‘a large, enormous chicken which was almost as good’.

When the war ended Derek became increasingly disillusioned with post-war Great Britain and the tremendous tax burden which the new Labour government levied on people as wealthy as him. He was offered the post of Professor of Spectroscopy at Oxford – and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society – but he and Pam decided to settle in Ireland where taxes were not so high and where he could resume his love affair with horses, racing and hunting.

Derek was not an ungenerous man – he made grants to Oxford University for the benefit of the Clarendon Laboratory and made a substantial contribution towards the installation of a spectroscope at the Oxford Observatory. His spat with Herbert Morrison – now number two in the Atlee government – over the Mosleys did nothing to make him want to stay in England. The last straw was the Inland Revenue’s attempt to make his wartime earnings subject to surtax, when he had intended to donate the money to a trust for RAF widows. He declared his intention to leave England for good.

As well as the advantageous tax laws, it was a visit to Lismore Castle in County Waterford, where Derek and Pam stayed with Debo and her husband Andrew, which finally persuaded Derek to choose Ireland as his home. Lismore is a fairytale castle and one of the great sights of that part of the world. Derek was seduced by the good weather and the prospect of endless hunting and racing in this Land of the Horse.

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