Tom Mitford

TOM MITFORD A PERFECT SON

Tom Mitford was the only offspring  not  to give his parents, David and Sydney Freeman-Mitford ( later Lord and Lady Redesdale)  anxieties and nightmares. Nancy agitated  them  when she published  books  eroding the  family’s   privacy ever after, and subjecting herself to  Peter Rodd, a never do well egotist for a husband   after  a homosexual  fiancé, Hamish Erskine,  ( who had once had an affair with Tom). Diana alarmed ‘ Muv’ and ‘Farve’ when she sunk her first marriage destroying  Cimmie  Curzon and marrying  a fascist ogre, 'Kit'  Mosley.  Pamela  when her engagement to Oliver Watney was halted on health grounds and a mismatch marriage to Derek Jackson  finally failed. Pamela, the coy country girl whom  Sidney left  her animals to be care for as the only daughter trusted with livestock, albeit later  Debo became proficient in  chicken feeding at Chatsworth. Poor, dim  Pamela  should have skipped the  ugly compromise  of marital normality  and  settled down earlier with the woman she loved. 

 Unity (Bobo) was a worry to her parents  when  she acclaimed she adored Adolf Hitler and  made a mess of shooting herself.  Decca  startled her  folks when she eloped  with her cousin Esmond,  injuring  her father  she later  dubbed        “ the old sub human” .  Jessica ( Decca)  was defiant,  revelled in  telling  a pack and  lies and chase me-chase- me games ,  delivering a  cruel stand off , getting pregnant,  becoming  a communist and an American.  The exception   was  Debo, who   married  Andrew Cavendish,   the  second son of a Duke  but someone  “ addicted to alcohol for all of his adult life” .  When  Andrew unexpectedly inherited the title of Duke of Devonshire. Debo  shone more brightly than every one of her Duchess  predecessors. But of the entire tribe Tom  was  perfect,  by comparison with all  the rest. He watched over all of them, but it suited him!