Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 1): 1918-38

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Abbott, James Arthur; Abbott, James A. (April 2006). Owens, Mitchell (ed.). Jansen. New York, NY: Acanthus Press. ISBN 978-0-926494-33-6. That same frankness tells on Channon’s politics, though. He’s an intolerable, pro-appeasement bore on the subject of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and his political views are frequently inexcusable (as late as March 1938 Channon wrote, “I hate society at the moment: it is too fanatically anti-Hitler”). Despite—or perhaps because of—all that, his entries remain vivid and propulsive. His energy appears to have been unflagging, because almost every day finds him recounting some party or another and who said what to whom—and what they really wanted to say instead. Carley, Michael Jabara (1999). 1939 The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War II. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. ISBN 9781461699385. He dined with Marcel Proust and Jean Cocteau as a young man in Paris in 1918, was a close friend during the abdication crisis to Edward VIII, and partied with Nazis in 1930s Berlin.

To make things sadder still, it looks as though the British royal family is going the same way. The general strike of 1926 and the increasing influence of Labour MPs at Westminster – “Bolshies” snorts Channon, who was returned as Conservative member for Southend in 1935 – suggests that George V’s reign could be the last. Not least because the next generation is so unsuited to the job. The four boys – the Prince of Wales and the Dukes of York, Kent and Gloucester – all seem nervy, epicene, mummy-damaged (although Queen Mary herself, all chilly sparkle, is naturally divine). Not that this stops Chips becoming friends with all of them, and allegedly sleeping with at least one. Things have got really bad when he notices that the Duke of Kent, who has popped round to dinner from next door, has taken to wearing trousers that have a zip instead of a button fly. It is like hearing the tumbrels rumble in the street. The short answer is, a lot. But first it should be admitted that, when Channon is up against other writers giving an account of the aristocracy in the last days of its pomp, he is only quite good. Henry "Chips" Channon and Lady Honor Guiness leaving St. Margaret’s Westminster after a rehearsal for their 1933 wedding. Keystone There are exceptions. Channon idolised Lord Curzon, the former governor-general of India and cabinet minister, and his portrait of this deeply strange and complex man is gripping. When the people he is describing are particularly fruity, the diary comes alive again, as with a visit to the Duke of Argyll in 1925: “They are an odd brace, this brother and sister both past 50 and still unmarried. Lady Elspeth is the manlier of the two. Her dirty hair and unkempt appearance and appalling figure cannot hide her great beauty and distinction. She wore a knitted dressing gown that very nearly wreaked havoc with my appetite. Argyll talks in a high falsetto voice about Celtic legends and folklore and ritualism and bells – bells are his hobby…”Reviewing the published diaries in The Observer in November 1967, Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, "Grovellingly sycophantic and snobbish as only a well-heeled American nesting among the English upper classes can be, with a commonness that positively hurts at times. And yet – how sharp an eye! What neat malice! How, in their own fashion, well written and truthful and honest they are! … What a relief to turn to him after Sir Winston's windy rhetoric, and all those leaden narratives by field-marshals, air-marshals and admirals!" [34] Channon is never explicit about his relationship with Coats but it is highly probable that it was at times an actively homosexual one – stigmatised by its illegality, which ended only in the year of the diaries’ original publication. Coats, a fastidious man, was certainly not ready to reveal that relationship to a wider world, even had Channon’s family wanted him to. It’s not that Channon doesn’t penetrate these inner sanctums. He’s like a deathwatch beetle on Benzedrine. He drills his way into balls, dinners and country house weekends, squeezing his elegant form between European heads of state and English grandees, exchanging catty remarks with dowager duchesses or King George’s solemn children. As soon as he has married a member of the fabulously wealthy Guinness family, he has the King (by now Edward VIII) round to dinner. And the American celebrities who amused the aristos are in the diary jostle too – Tallulah Bankhead, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Cole Porter, Fred Astaire. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. The diaries are candid. “There’s an awful lot of drinking and drug-taking – not necessarily by him – but it’s a very decadent society he moves in,” said Heffer. Most of his friends don’t work for a living. “They are the idle rich. And he looks at it and he’s not censorious, but he describes it in great detail.”

The King has become known as RS, rubber stamp, as Winston has absorbed all power and is, in fact, a virtual dictator… There is some speculation as what will happen on Wednesday next when the Conservative Party meets to elect a new leader in Neville’s place; in all probability everything is rigged for Winston to succeed! a b c Cooke, Rachel (28 February 2021). "Gossip, sex and social climbing: the uncensored Chips Channon diaries". The Guardian . Retrieved 2 January 2022. a b c d McSmith, A, "Original Westminster hellraiser: The secret world of Chips Channon", The Independent, 13 April 2007An utterly addictive glimpse of London high society and politics in the 40s and 50s, superlatively edited by Simon Heffer. Robert Harris