She recounts how she was raised among her gaggle of sisters and married a second son of a duke, Andrew, which meant that he would inherit nothing under the British aristocratic rule of primogeniture. Andrew’s elder brother was killed in the war and Andrew thus became the Duke of Devonshire on the death of his father.

Now in her nineties, Debo Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, looks back on a long life in this autobiography with a wry eye. Pamela was the calm and serene one, a British country woman and finally Deborah (Debo), the author, the youngest and ultimately luckiest one, who married a young sweetheart and unexpectedly became a duchess with enormous wealth and properties. Much has been written about this group, but, it turns out, there is much more to write. Jessica (Decca) became a communist and eventually emigrated to America where she wrote, cadged dinners and drinks from capitalist acquaintances and developed a circle of like minded communist friends. The couple were imprisoned during World War II, considered “dangerous” to the British nation, in fact denounced by the elder sister Nancy. Unity was a fascist, met and fell in love with Hitler and tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide when World War II broke out. Diana married Oswald Mosley, head of the British Union of fascists. Nancy became a famous novelist, drawing on her family for portraits of characters.

They invented their own language in childhood and each grew up into an arresting personality. Nancy, Diana, Pamela, Unity, Jessica or Decca and Deborah or Debo. What more is there to say about the brilliant Mitford sisters who reigned in England and America in the mid 2th century? Six sisters, they were an eccentric British lot, raised by an extremely eccentric father and rather more conventional, long suffering mother.

Wait for me by deborah mitford