An Archival Look Back at WWD’s Coverage of the Mitford Family and ‘Bright Young Things’ Crowd

A look back at WWD’s coverage of the Mitford family and Bright Young Things crowd throughout the years.

In 1965, Thelma Sweetinburgh from WWD’s Paris bureau visited Nancy Mitford at her home on the Left Bank’s Rue Monsieur, shortly after the publication of Mitford’s book “Don’t Tell Alfred.” “There is more work in my books than appears,” Mitford said. “And I work hard…and always in bed…all by hand, I never type.” The author told Sweetinburgh that she was unfamiliar with the Beatles and “the rockers,” and had never been to a night club in her life. “Dinner parties tend to go on all night, you get stuck with neighbors who aren’t particularly exciting…then my eyes begin to droop,” Mitford said.

Jessica Mitford published a researched account of the U.S. prison system, “Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business” in 1973. Discussing her book with WWD, Mitford told reporter Nancy Collins that she was a proponent of abolishing the entire prison system. “Of course there’s no easy solution, but I’d like to see them open up the doors and let anyone who wanted out. I don’t think the crime rate would rise because most of the people in prisons don’t below there. They are just victims of our system and are usually poor and black,” Mitford said of her stance. “Of course, to do away with prisons you’d have to do away with society. This society, this brand of capitalism breeds crime.”

Asked how she imagined lawbreakers should be handled in lieu of prisons, Mitford said, “Well, I think many of them could be handled by a good talking to from their friends and neighbors. You see, the qualities of aggressiveness and competition which are fostered by capitalism put some people in prison and others in the White House. The criminal mentality? You mean Nixon? You know it all starts with him really, and he certainly isn’t locked up, is he?”

Hatty Waugh, the daughter of novelist and social satirist Evelyn Waugh, was the subject of a 1978 profile in WWD’s Arts & People column. At the time, Waugh refused to pay $1.50 to purchase a magazine that had published a favorable review of her second novel “Mother’s Footsteps.” Her debut novel, “Mirror, Mirror,” was panned when it was released in the U.S. “Critics said that I was a pathetic writer just cashing in on Daddy’s name,” Waugh told reporter Valerie Wade. “Somebody even bought it because it got the worst review he’d ever seen. Actually, I thought the book was a laugh a line.”

In 1985, WWD writer Christopher Petkanas profiled controversial Mitford sister Diana Mosley, nee Guinness, on the publication of her book “Loved Ones,” which included portraits of her social circle including Evelyn Waugh and Mosley’s husband, and British fascist leader, Sir Oswald Mosley. Asked about the popular interest in her family, Mosley — who was imprisoned during WWII for her close ties to the Nazi regime — said, “The press decides on certain families and writers about them without much reason, really. They force one to the front of the stage, then say, ‘How boring.’ So, you see, they have it both ways. What Shakespeare said is so true, really: The appetite grows with what it feeds on.”

The following year, Marybeth Kerrigan reported on the filming of Evelyn Waugh’s comic novel “Scoop” in London, based on her experience as a war correspondent in the 1930s. “We’re hooked on nostalgia in this country — we’re addicted to it,” said film star Nicola Pagett. “We will not let go of the great days gone by. Of course, we do it well — our energies and emotions are there.”

In 2004, Stephen Fry discussed “Bright Young Things,” his screen adaptation of Waugh’s novel “Vile Bodies,” which he first read as a teenager. Fry directed the film, which starred Emily Mortimer and Stephen Campbell Moore. Fry mulled the modern day version — or lack thereof — of “bright young things,” and how the golden age of parties was long past. “They’re all vulgar commercials funded by the studios or sponsored by Grey Goose and Tattinger Champagne. I never, ever accept an invitation to something that has the name of a luxury goods company on it,” Fry told WWD writer Marshall Heyman. “You can’t ever be a Bright Young Thing,” he added. “You can be a youth with a zest for life and a love of language and nothing that is part of a commercial. You musn’t be selfish. You musn’t be thinking, ‘Look at me.’ If you find yourself following, just go ‘Baaa.’”

In 2010, Deborah Cavendish, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire and youngest of the Mitford sisters, sat down with WWD London bureau chief Samantha Conti at the Chatsworth estate. The duchess was promoting her memoir “Wait for Me!: Memoirs of the Youngest Mitford Sister.”

WWD: In the book, you talk about the big parties you organized or attended, and your coming out in 1938. What do you remember most about that year?

Deborah Cavendish: My poor mother! There were six of us girls, and she had to go night after night and sit on those gold chairs. She wasn’t at all social — absolutely not. When the Kennedys came to London [Joseph Kennedy was ambassador to the Court of St. James’s], they made a sensation, not because of Joe but because of Rose, because she’d got nine children and was thin as a sylph and beautifully dressed and all those things. They were an amazing lot of them when they were all together. Eventually. toward the end of the summer, Joe Jr. and Jack came, and they immediately took up the social round. I put in my diary, “Danced with Jack Kennedy, very nice but rather dull.” And then 23 years later, smash-bang, he was president of the United States. But the point of the story is that my mother — sitting on her gold seat — said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if that boy doesn’t become president of the United States.” She had great instinct about people.