In our case it was not recovery but a downward slope we were facing. Rationing did not end until 1954, nine long years after the end of the war, and recovery was painfully slow. This of course makes fascinating reading to anyone wanting to know British history and I would say easily equals the lives of the Mitford family themselves. This starts from her birth date, a blank date in her mother’s engagements book, on the 31 st of March 1920 until very recently – a huge amount of history of which she was in many ways rather privy to. In her open and frank writing, you imagine there is predominantly a sparkle in her eye and a wry smile on her face as she writes (apart from obviously discussing the war, the deaths of some of her children not long after birth and the deaths of her husband and siblings who she has outlived), she takes us through her childhood in the Mitford house, her debutante days in the 1930’s, meetings with Hitler and the Queen (not at the same time), marrying a Duke’s second son, becoming a Duchess and inheriting Chatsworth, Hardwick Hall and huge death duties, to her life as a widow and Dowager Duchess now. Deborah Devonshire is someone I have become particularly interested in over the last few years since reading ‘Letters Between Six Sisters’ and becoming a Mitfordoholic and also since finding out she was the Duchess of Devonshire who made Chatsworth, which was a huge part of my childhood growing up down the road in Matlock Bath, come alive again. So I might have to throw impartiality out the window with my thoughts here. Invariably, and in particular in the case of a one such as ‘Wait for Me!’ you are reading the book because it’s someone who you are fascinated by and their life.

John Murray, memoir, hardback, 2010, 370 pages, a gift and from publisher (one went to my Gran)Ī memoir is a very difficult kind of book to surmise and really give impartial thoughts on.

Wait for Me! by Deborah Mitford