The second volume of Simon Heffer’s unexpurgated version of Chips Channon’s diaries sees the American-born Conservative three years into his parliamentary career and part of the coterie around Rab Butler. The manic socialising of his rise in British society remains (on meeting the Queen of Spain he noted: “Her face is a libidinous one and I wondered was she flirtatious? It would be fun to have an affair with a queen. Shall I pursue it?”). But the politics is even more fascinating.
Although Channon, an appeaser, was never a wielder of political power himself, he was close enough to those who did to report vividly on these fraught times. He watches in dismay as the “miracle” of the Munich agreement unravels (by his actions, “Hitler never helps us”) and his hero Neville Chamberlain, “the greatest man of all time”, is superseded by the “angry Buddha” Winston Churchill. These years also include the end of Channon’s marriage to the brewing heiress Lady Honor Guinness and the beginning of his relationship with the landscape designer Peter Coats. Heffer’s meticulous and generous footnotes mean that Channon’s gossipy revelations are elevated into a serious work of history.
By Michael Prodger
Hutchinson, 1,120pp, £35
Content from our partners
