How terrıbly common!
Writer Nancy Mitford wrote waspish books - that skewered the upper classes and her family. Set for TV, ‘The Pursuit Of Love’ stars Lily James and Dominic West
Nancy Mitford was fond of saying, ‘Talk about what you know, and you won’t get so angry.’ Her family were less inclined to agree, though, when she mined her eccentric upper-class upbringing for her many novels. The eldest of the six Mitford sisters, the daughters of Lord Redesdale, the girls received no formal education; their father was convinced that schools gave women nothing except large calf muscles and poor manners. Yet despite his best efforts, Nancy (right) went on to become one of the most successful writers of the 20th century. Her waspish 1950s guide to U or Non-U (U being upper class) laid bare the words that betray class origins, and instilled terror in the aspirational post-war middle classes who wrote to her.
Now the world of U and NonU is being recreated for a new generation in Emily Mortimer’s BBC adaptation of The Pursuit Of Love, Nancy’s most successful novel. The three-part drama’s cast includes Dominic West, Lily James and Andrew Scott - and has led to its own modern day scandal. In the book, Mitford re-cast her own family as the capricious Radletts, with five sisters growing up in a cold country house with no culture or social life. The story is told through the eyes of their Cousin Fanny, and at its heart are the desperate attempts of Linda Radlett to find love.
The public were agog at this window into the world of the upper classes and many thought it must have been purely down to imagination. But as her sister Jessica joked at the time, Nancy has no imagination whatsoever. As the saying goes, truth is often stranger than fiction...