Anthony eden

Clarissa Churchill – as she was known until her marriage to Sir Anthony Eden – was brought up in a now vanished privileged world of intellectual, social and political London. In the introduction to his biography, Hugo Vickers provides a valuable roll-call of names. Those still living who knew Clarissa have proved invaluable sources of information, though a note of unconscious humour sometimes slips in – as when Antonia Fraser comments: ‘I was not quite glamorous enough for her’ (‘quite’ being the operative word). Born in 1920, Clarissa began life with the ostensible advantage of being a Churchill, the niece of Winston. In fact this was not the case: her real father was Harold Baker, known as ‘Bluey’, a scholar, barrister, Liberal politician and friend of H.H.

It is often said that the best political diaries are written by those who dwell in the foothills of power. Henry Channon’s political career peaked at parliamentary private secretary to the deputy foreign secretary Rab Butler, so he was well-placed to document, and sometimes actively to participate in, the intrigues of those who inhabited the Olympian heights. Channon’s other great advantage was that he entertained — on an awesome scale. Scarcely an evening passed when he was not either hosting or attending a party in one of the capital’s grand salons: ‘All London,’ as he put it — by which he meant the great and the fashionable — flowed through his drawing room.