58: The Other Mitford Girl

The Mitfords continue to fascinate us, thanks to the witty novels, biographies and letters they wrote, their political involvement on both left and right, and their brush with world history. Rarely a year goes by without another Mitford documentary, film or television series, a volume of letters or a biography. In our latest podcast our emphasis moves from the girls to their mother – matriarch of one of the most outrageous, controversial, influential, glamorous and intriguing families of the twentieth century.

Sydney Redesdale (née Bowles), known by her family as ‘Muv’, was never going to have a conventional life. Her mother died when she was 7, and from the age of 14 she ran her father’s house. She fell in love with David Mitford (later Lord Redesdale) as a teenager and they married in 1904. Of their seven children, Nancy, Pamela, Tom, Diana, Jessica, Unity and Debo, two became bestselling authors, one was imprisoned and two lost their lives as a result of the Second World War, and their political views ranged from fascism to communism.

Sydney was the original Mitford girl, from whom much of her daughters’ legendary strong will, self-confidence and extremism was born. Nancy’s satires of aristocratic life between the wars, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, portray Sydney as Aunt Sadie, vague and rather disconnected, but in fact Sydney was a divisive character and her daughters squabbled about the nature of the ‘real Muv’ for even longer than they argued about their own political differences.

Our guests on this podcast are two modern Mitfordians, Rachel Trethewey, biographer,  historian and author of Muv: The Story of the Mitford Girls’ Mother, and Frances Donnelly, broadcaster, writer and contributor to Slightly Foxed. Alongside discussion of Sydney and the difficulties of writing about someone with whom you disagree and find hard to like at times, the guests and our editors choose their favourite Mitford titles.

Summer reading recommendations include R. C. Sheriff’s The Fortnight in September and Anne Tyler’s Three Days in June.