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Brought to you by Penguin
The second volume of the remarkable Sunday Times bestselling diaries of Chips Channon
This second volume of the bestselling diaries of Henry Chips Channon takes us from the heady aftermath of the Munich agreement when the Prime Minister Chips so admired was credited with having averted a general European conflagration through the rapid unravelling of appeasement and on to the tribulations of the early years of the Second World War It closes with a moment of hope as Channon in recording the fall of Mussolini in July 1943 reflects The war must be more than half over
For much of this period Channon is genuinely an eyewitness to unfolding events He reassures Neville Chamberlain as he fights for his political life in May 1940 He chats to Winston Churchill while the two men inspect the bombedout chamber of the House of Commons a few months later From his desk at the Foreign Office he charts the progress of the war But with the departure of his boss Rab Butler to the Ministry of Education and Channons subsequent exclusion from the corridors of power his life changes and with it the preoccupations and tone of the diaries The conduct of the war remains a constant theme but more personal preoccupations come increasingly to the fore As he throws himself back into the pleasures of society he records his encounters with the likes of Nol Coward Prince Philip General de Gaulle and Oscar Wildes erstwhile lover Lord Alfred Douglas He describes dinners with members of European royal dynasties and recounts gossip and scandal about the great the good and the less good And he charts the implosion of his marriage and his burgeoning passionate friendship with a young officer on Wavells staff
These are diaries that bring a whole epoch vividly to life
Chips Channon 2021 P Penguin Audio 2021
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