Childhood
Unity Mitford was born in London, England to David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, conceived in the town of Swastika, Ontario where her family had gold mines. She came from a large family with five sisters and one brother. Her biographer, Jan Dalley, believes that, "Unity found life in her big family very difficult because she came after these cleverer, prettier, more accomplished sisters." While another biographer, David Pryce-Jones, added: "If you come from a ruck of children in a large family, you've got to do something to assert your individuality, and I think through the experience of trying to force her way forward among the sisters and in the family, she decided that she was going to form a personality against everything". It has been speculated that Unity turned to right-wing politics as a way to distinguish herself within the family. As Dalley states: "I think the desire to shock was very important, it was the way that she made herself special. When she discovered Nazism and discovered that it was a fantastic opportunity to shock everybody in England she’d discovered the best tease of all. She was educated at St Margaret's School, Bushey.
Her younger sister, Jessica, with whom she shared a bedroom, was a dedicated communist. The two drew a chalk line down the middle. One side was decorated with hammer and sickles and pictures of Vladimir Lenin, and the other decorated with swastikas and pictures of Adolf Hitler. Dalley commented "they were kids virtually, you don’t know how much it was just a game, a game that became deadly serious in later life."
Read more about this topic: Unity Mitford
Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“By contemplation’s help,not sought in vain,
I seem t’ have liv’d my childhood o’er again;
To have renew’d the joys that once were mine,”
—William Cowper (1731–1800)
“From his childhood onwards this boy will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers.... In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour of the world and probably rumours of a morganatic marriage alliance will follow, and the end of it will be the country will be called upon to pay the bill.”
—James Keir Hardie (1856–1915)
“The fact remains that the human being in early childhood learns to consider one or the other aspect of bodily function as evil, shameful, or unsafe. There is not a culture which does not use a combination of these devils to develop, by way of counterpoint, its own style of faith, pride, certainty, and initiative.”
—Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)