It seems such an ordinary story, this handsome but otherwise unremarkable young couple settling down to a quietly happy marriage, looking forward to further children. Though they had no great prospect...
David was one of nine children, and Sydney was one of four. Their respective siblings produced, between 1910 and 1927, twenty-one children with the surnames Mitford, Farrer, Kearsey, Bowyer, Bowles an...
Several letters, written by Nancy to her father in France, survive. She had been learning French after David’s mother told Sydney, ‘There is nothing so inferior as a gentlewoman who has no French.’ In...
So why did Sydney – a pretty girl, whose greatest enjoyments in life were sailing, visiting France and ice-skating, and who loved the parties and dancing she attended as a débutante – marry David, who...
The Isle of Wight, with occasional visits to
There was talk of Sydney going to Girton, the women’s college at Cambridge, and she went to view the college, but for some unknown reason the idea was dropped. Only a handful of women attended univers...
At about this time David hit on a scheme to end their financial problems. With his growing family, their limited income must have been the cause of constant worry to him. Stories of the rich strikes i...
Sydney enjoyed living in the country, though she took no direct part in field sports. After her marriage, there is no record of her shooting or hunting, though as a girl she rode well and often, and w...
In a televised version of one of Nancy’s books, these child hunts were given a more sinister connotation with the children running terrified through woods while their father, on horseback, thundered a...