As one of the high-society sisters who enthralled and scandalised 20th Century England, Unity Mitford's return home from Germany in January 1940 caused an outcry. Fresh from an ill-fated dalliance with Adolf Hitler and with a bullet lodged in her brain, Unity had the government, MI5 and the nation's gossip columnists hot on her heels. So how did she end up living with a family in a quiet Warwickshire vicarage?
The first memory Margaret Laidlaw has of Unity Mitford is of her standing under a chestnut tree in Leamington Spa with Margaret's mother.
Margaret, who was eight years old, remembers the most notorious of the Mitford sisters looked like nobody she had ever seen before.
"She was very tall with a lovely ruby brooch at her neck - she always wore that. She had fair hair. That's my first real memory of her," Margaret said.
"My mother said, 'This is Auntie Unity and she may be coming to stay with us'. I remember feeling confused - I had never heard any mention of an Auntie Unity.'"
Image copyright Margaret Laidlaw
Image caption Unity was installed in the vicarage as a permanent house guest, living there with Margaret and her sister
A few weeks after that first introduction, Unity was installed as a permanent house guest at the vicarage in Hillmorton, Warwickshire, where Margaret lived with her father the Rev Frederick Sewell-Corby, her mother Bettyne and her younger sister.
Margaret remembers watching bewildered as her father's clothes and books were removed from her parents' bedroom.
Margaret's mother had to sleep in the same room as Unity and nurse her through the night.
"Unity was incontinent - I knew this from the sheets galore that were hung out on the line each morning," Margaret said. "And she had a leg that was paralysed and swung like a log when she walked."
Margaret's father went to sleep in his dressing room and locks and bars went on all the vicarage doors and windows.
Image copyright Fred Ramage
Image caption Unity was returned to Britain via Switzerland after her suicide attempt in Germany
"I think Unity was under what you and I would call house arrest," Margaret said. "She was never, ever alone."
But unbeknown to the little girl, "Auntie Unity" was no relative and her reputation was notorious.
She had been discussed in the House of Commons. Her whereabouts was considered to be a matter of national security.
For she was rumoured to be the girlfriend of Adolf Hitler himself.
More:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39304317One of those odd little corners of the War that are still interesting.
