Victim of the English Rose conman
Lady Diana appeared in two films, one a 1918 wartime propaganda effort. Because she was such a well known socialite , media magnate Lord Beaverbrook got her to write a column and for a short time she was nominal editor of a short lived magazine , Femina .
Her fame was such that her name appeared in a wartime version of the musical hall song Burlington Bertie , expressing the desire to eat a banana with Lady Diana nursing at Guy's Hospital .
A huge crowd turned out for her wedding, police out in force. In the part of her first book covering the engagement , wedding and honeymoon in Paris , Florence, Rome a former owner of the volume in the trilogy marked several paragraphs , inserted a few more exclamation marks .
Back in London , rushing to watch fireworks in Hyde Park, she fell and broke a leg . An exclamation was inserted in the text relating to her receiving frequent shots of morphia which could be bought without a prescription in any chemist . Duff , working in the Foreign Office, very badly, drove her about in Lord Beaverbrook's car.
They leased a house for 50 years with a minimum of servants, five -attracting another margin highlight in the book .
Because of her fame , a "gentleman" put a proposition to her, initially for 200 pound, raised to an extra 500 pound if she became the chairman of a company that would distil English roses into an essence . He turned out to be a conman, arrested on a charge of obtaining money under false pretences. She had to appear in court and said she must have seemed unwordly and naive to fall for the trickster.
Diana admitted she and Duff were living above their means yet were never in debt.. She jumped at the opportunity to appear in two films , one The Glorious Adventure , set in the days of good King Charles, in which actor Vic tor McLagen made his debut as the jailbird villian.
She wrongly described him as having been a champion heavyweight in his native Australia, his big pugnacious face she had to punch in defence of her honour. He had been born in England , fought the famous Jack Johnson, and went on to appear in several movies in America with John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. There is a photo of her in the clutches of McLagen on the set .
Off to boomtime America
The second volume In the trilogy ,entitled The Light of Common Day , begins in 1923. With Duff, she sailed to America to play the part of Madonna in the play ,The Miracle. New York made a big impression. The streets, she wrote, were paved with gold. Everyone she knew of in every class was flourishing, moving further west, getting a new radio set, buying a fur coat or a better car.
Duff threw in his job at the Foreign Office, stood as a Conservative and was elected.
Called back to America for The Miracle opening in Cleveland ,Ohio, Diana collapsed on stage . The play toured far and wide . Diana made the cover of Time magazine (above) in 1926.
Fast forward through the start of the 1930s Depression ; she toured England with the Miracle; became close to novelist Evelyn Waugh, who introduced her to The Wind in the Willows .
Hitler and Mussolini
Motoring through Germany with Duff in 1935 , they glimpsed Hitler on several occasions and listened to him deliver a speech, causing a stir by walking out before he had ended . Duff interviewed Mussolini in Rome and told the Junior Imperial League that Germany was preparing for war and he was labelled a warmonger by the Daily Express.
In the summer of l936, in Paris , Duff made a controversial speech, " framed with care", to convince the Germans that if they went to war , they would be beaten .
Soon after , he and Diana were invited by King Edward aboard a yacht he had hired for a cruise of the Mediterranean; in the party was the American divorcee , Wallis , the woman for whom he would abdicate. During the voyage Diana became ill from tonsilitis, Wallis downed scotch and soda , and Duff wore saggy shorts and a battered yachting cap which made him look like a W.W.Jacobs bosun, a turn of phrase which would delight our Shipping Reporter. .
When Duff was made First Lord of the Admiralty they moved into Admiralty House ,with all its nautical accountrements that included an elaborate dolphined bed , Captain Cook paintings, a Nelson bust and other relics. They also had the the use of the sloop HMS Enchantress , with a captain and crew numbering 150.
Becoming increasingly disenchanted with PM Neville Chamberlain's appeasement to Hitler. Duff struggled to mobilise the British Fleet . It was even stated that if there was war with Germany , it would be due to Duff and Jews. There are details of meetings , luncheons with German Ambassador Ribbentrop, at which one of the guests, Emerald Cunard , asked him why Herr Hitler disliked Jews and did he believe in God.
Duff made a brave statement in parliament which attracted both praise and criticism, the resignation of The Times parliament roundsman after his report was turned into an attack on Duff . Winston Churchill had branded it one of the bravest speeches . Duff resigned after the Munich agreement.
Lady Diana included fascinating inside information about those tense days before the "apocalypse " .
NEXT :American lecture tour , Churchill makes Duff Minister for Information.
