TOM MITFORD- A FEARFUL OLD TWISTER -1909-1945

 

TOM MITFORD
A FEARFUL OLD TWISTER

A NEW BOOK FROM WILLIAM CROSS

SHORT TIME LINE

1904  :  Tom’s parents  Hon David Bertram Ogilvy  Freeman-Mitford   and Sydney Bowles marry.

1904 :  Tom’s sister Nancy born  28 November.

1907 : Tom’s sister Pam born 25 November.

1909 : Tom born 3 January at 1 Graham Street, London.

1909 : Tom baptised on 10 February as Thomas David Freeman-Mitford.

1910 : Tom’s sister Diana born 17 June.

1911 :  Tom at Undercliff Road, Boscombe, Bournemouth on the 1911 Census.

1914  : War declared on 28 July.

1914 : Tom’s sister Unity born 8 August.

1914 :  Tom’s father David goes to war with the Northumberland Fusiliers.

1915 : Death of Tom’s uncle Hon. Clement  Freeman-Mitford heir to the Barony of Redesdale, eldest brother of David on 13 May.

1915 : Tom’s father David becomes heir to the Barony of Redesdale on 13 May. Tom becomes an ‘Honourable’.

1916: Death of Tom’s paternal grandfather ‘Bartie’ Freeman-Mitford:  Lord Redesdale  17 August.

1916 : Tom’s father David becomes Lord Redesdale, Tom is next heir in waiting.

1917 : Tom’s sister Jessica born  11 September.

1918-9 :  Batsford Park : The Mitford Family Home sold off.

1919: Asthall Manor : Acquired as  the new Mitford Family  Homestead.

1919: Tom goes off to Lockers Park Preparatory School, Hemel Hemstead.

1920: Tom’s sister Deborah born 31 March.

1922 : Tom’s maternal grandfather ‘Tap’ Bowles dies 12 January

1922 : Tom goes to Eton College as an Oppidan Scholar  at Lent Term under House Tutor FW Dobbs in Jourdelay House.

1922-1928 : Tom’s Eton College  key contemporaries include James Lees-Milne, ( diarist) Randolph Churchill ( son of Winston), Nigel Birch  ( politician)  and  Edward James ( Poet).

1924-7 : Tom joins  Cadets C.Q.M.S. Eton College. Contgt and  later 16^th London Regiment.

1926 : David  , Tom’s father,  pet family name of  ‘Farve’ takes a long lease on 26 Rutland Gate, South Kensington, London SW7 with adjoining stables and a Mews flat.

c 1928 : Tom loses his virginity with Baroness ‘ Baba’ De’ Erlanger, having previously  engaged in homosexual affairs at Eton  with Hamish Erskine, Robert Byron, and others.

1928 : Tom leaves Eton College having made a name for himself in sport, drama and in musical events.  Rejects going to University in England.

1922-1930s : Tom’s six sisters reach their ‘coming out’ years as debutantes and are presented at Court by Sydney, pet family name  Muv.

1928 : Tom begins his travels through Europe, including to  Italy, Germany,  Austria and Hungary,  for pleasure and to study  music and law.

1928-1939 :  Tom stays as a paying guest at Castle Bernstein  meets Count, Janos Almassi  and his neighbours including two sisters,  the Countesses Erdody. Tom  remains in close touch with regular visits for a decade and more  and has  Intimate affairs with them ( almost certainly sexual/ diviant).

1928 : Tom has  romantic flings in Vienna and Berlin with Penelope Cunard and others.

1929 : Tom returns to England to the family  homes in London and Swinbrook.

1929 : Tom enrols as a trainee  barrister at the Inner Temple.

1920s-30s : Tom shares a flat with Randolph Churchill and later has his own flat at 4 Rutland Mews.

1929 : Bruno Hat Hoax – Tom is importuned by Lytton Strachey.

1929 : Tom meets Tilly Losch ( Austrian ballet dancer and later Hollywood  actress) in Paris and begins a 10-year-long affair.

C1929-1944 : Tom has a series of carnal affairs with numerous women including  Baroness Baba D’erlanger, Doris Castlerosse,  Lady Diana Cooper, Janetta Woolley, Penelope Dudley Ward,  Sheilah Graham, Barbara,   Countess of Moray,  Lady Carolyn Paget,  La Jana, and  Tilly Losch.

1930s : Tom is flying with the Auxiliary Air Force and has an accident.

1930-1: Tom is a part of the Mitford family ski-ing and skating trips to Switzerland.

1932 :Tom is called to the Bar and begins to seek "briefs"  and has own London flat at 4 Rutland Mews with a housekeeper.

1933 -1940s : Tom is active in the Territorials – “ Queens Westminsters”.

1930s  : Tom is involved in running “ The Worst Play Club” and regular first- nighter.

1933 : Tom provides support to his sister Diana during her divorce from Bryan Guinness.

1933-34 : Tom’s affair with Tilly Losch reaches a crisis point with Tilly’s divorce from Edward James.

1934 : Tom is junior consul in the Haddon “ Letters to the King” blackmail scandal.

1935 : Tom Is junior consul in the Rattenbury  Murder Case defending “George Stoner”.

1935- 1939 : Tom is on call  as aid/driver / companion for his sisters Diana and Unity during conquest of Germany and pursuit of Adolf Hitler. Tom meet Hitler and attends several Nazi Rallys at Nuremberg. Back in England  Tom also joins Oswald Mosley’s BUF. 

1936 : Tom’s mistress Tilly Losch leaves Britain for USA (  she returns 1938) and has a holiday with tom in Austria. Tilly goes to a TB clinic in Switzerland.

1937 : Tom is involved in the “ Ward of Court” application over  elopement of his sister Decca with Esmond Romilly.  Tom defends sister Deborah in a legal action for libel against the "Daily Express".

1938 : Tom is a dilemma over the Munich crisis and invasion of Austria.

1938 : Tom is made up to Deputy Judge Advocate  General dealing  with Court Martials.

1939 : Tom is called up for  full time military service as war clouds form over Europe.

1937-9 : Tom supports his father “Farve” in pro –German speeches  in The House of Lords

1939 : Tom attends a BUF meeting at Earls Court  addressed by Oswald Mosley and salutes – his former mistress  Tilly ( a Jewess)  attends with Randolph Churchill and leaves in horror.  She ends the relationship with Tom. Tom is trouble for taking the salute to Mosley.

1940-1944 : Tom is  army training and posted with the “ Queens Westminsters” to Italy, North Africa and Palestine. 

1940s : Tom ( with Muv) makes representations to Winston Churchill to have Diana and Oswald Mosley  ( interned  as a danger to the state)  brought together in one prison – and this was achieved.

1944:  Tom spends 6 months back in London at Army Staff College – Several references of note covering the period in James Lees-Milne Diaries.

1945 : Tom reassigned to a  Unit away from the European land mass  goes as Adjutant to  1 Battn Devonshire Regiment – in  the jungles of Burma.

1945 : March Tom is wounded and transferred to hospital where he dies on  30 March 1945.

1946?  : Farve has  the memorial  to   “ A Very Perfect Son and Brother “  for Tom placed in St Mary’s Church, Swinbrook.

1958 : Farve Dies at Otterburn, Northumberland –  his last years are  spent with his mistress.

1963 : Muv Dies at Inch Kenneth – the Scottish Island owned by Tom.

https://history-vandals.blogspot.com/2025/03/tom-mitford-fearful-old-twister.html

 

https://history-vandals.blogspot.com/2025/03/tom-mitford-new-book-from-william-cross.html

 

The book " TOM MITFORD: A FEARFUL OLD TWISTER" is available from the Author William Cross, FSA Scot

 

Email William Cross, FSA Scot

 williecross@aol.com

 

 

TOM MITFORD : A NEW BOOK FROM WILLIAM CROSS, FSA SCOT

 

HON.THOMAS DAVID FREEMAN-MITFORD

TOM MITFORD :  A FEARFUL  OLD TWISTER

 Meet Tom Mitford : “ A Very Perfect Son And Brother”

 Tom Mitford’s parents David and Sydney Freeman-Mitford  produced seven children: six famous daughters, the legendary comely, scandalous, Mitford Girls of Society trouble and strife, and one son, a perfect boy, son, and brother, Tom.

 After Tom’s death aged 36, in 1945, fighting as a soldier in wartime Burma, some sad, touching, and even lamentable memorials were raised to his memory. One describes him as  a very perfect son and brother; lovely words chosen tearfully by his father, David, who was left agonisingly bereft by Tom’s passing.

 Of course everyone who knew Tom was  shocked at his passing: family, comrades, friends and lovers, but Tom’s father David, Lord Redesdale, was most of all cut down; he was never the same man ever again. 

TOM MITFORD TOUCHING MEMORIAL  AT ST MARY'S CHURCH, SWINBROOK

Tom’s parents had separated several years before his demise so each was forced to grieve for their only beloved son entirely alone in their own small corner, numbed in comprehending it, and in terrible despair.

 

The marital estrangement of David and Sydney was in part  owing to a feud over their differing beliefs at the time of the rise of Nazism and the posturing of two of their daughters,  Tom’s sinister sisters, Diana and Unity, who were fanatical followers of Adolf Hitler.

 

Tom’s dad, aka Farve, who was  David Mitford, Lord Redesdale, was a minor British aristocrat and  peer of the realm ( see sketch, below).  He  eventually  saw through Hitler’s deceit and corruption and thought the Nazis were a murderous gang of pests,  but his wife Sydney, Lady Redesdale, thought  that Hitler had such good  manners  and she believed in him.

                                                                Lord Redesdale: Farve

 Sydney preferred to sit things out on the fence, in order to protect her two fascist daughters and ensure their survival. The Redesdales could judge better than most of their fellow countrymen and women since they’d met Hitler in Germany in the mid-1930s through Diana and Unity’s sojourning with the Third Reich.

Tom Mitford also met Hitler through his errant sisters, and  the two men enjoyed polite exchanges. The Fuhrer thought Tom intelligent, and Tom was respectful towards the tyrant.  It was effortless for Tom because he was a good actor and a trained legal advocate. He was accomplished at hiding any critical inner feelings from being detected by convincing  role-playing, and pleasing anyone, whether it be friend or foe. 

Was Tom enticed by all the period drama, the rhetoric, the mass hypnotism, by the anti-Jewish fervour of the propaganda rallies?  Yes, he probably was. Was he pro-Hitler? May be.  Probably more pro-German, and he was no Jew-hater! 

He was chiefly present at these political events in Germany for another more important reason to him; that was in order to  keep an eye on his wayward sisters.

That brought with it a need to utter the shout of Heil! Hitler!,  whether he believed in it or not.

Tom spoke the German language fluently and could truthfully  declare his great unquestionable love for Germany as a country. He had a passionate feeling for its heritage, its music and culture, but he was, almost certainly, always a British patriot, one who at the end of the day died in a foreign field fighting for Britain and freedom.

The veracity of the cherished words chosen by David Mitford  for Tom’s memorial at St Mary’s Church, Swinbrook, may be revisited but only with care. Such a daunting sentiment raised in glory to anyone is hard to expunge or dismiss after such a life cruelly cut short and early death. It stands as the most  understandable expression of the heartache of a  parent turned into an adoring epitaph.

 

 ENQUIRIES ABOUT THE BOOK PLEASE EMAIL THE COMPILER WILLIAM CROSS

 

williecross@aol.com

 

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THE SEVEN MITFORD SIBLINGS

UNITY, TOM, DEBORAH, DIANA, JESSICA, NANCY AND PAM

OUTRAGEOUS

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TOM MITFORD : A FEARFUL OLD TWISTER

 

A TRIBUTE TO

THE  HON. THOMAS DAVID FREEMAN-MITFORD

A NEW BOOK FROM WILLIAM CROSS, FSA SCOT

 

Tom Mitford died 80 years ago this year (2025) on Good Friday, 30 March 1945. It is therefore a most fitting time to give him a retrospective glance, a biographical sketch, and this is why this narrative has been compiled.

It first takes the form and outline of a chronology/timeline from Tom’s birth in 1909 onwards, through his early childhood days growing up in wartime London, then to the Cotswolds countryside alongside his somewhat dysfunctional   parents and sisters. Then, in 1919, on to prep School at Locker’s Park, Hemel Hempstead, where he made several friends for life amongst his contemporaries, some of whom are themselves minor historical figures. Next, in 1922,  onward to Eton College, and in 1928 to Tom’s serious study of music and law and facing the growing pangs of temptation and love in Hungary, Austria and Germany, followed by his return home to train at the bar and become a barrister, and  was some time a Judge. 

Later on in the 1930s Tom’s glorified chaperone role to serve his Nazi-loving sisters Diana and Unity in sometimes  driving them though Nazi Germany where he was  compelled to meet Adolf Hitler and attend propaganda rallies.  Drawn into the politics of the time in the flare path of his sisters’ alarming beliefs, he does seem vulnerable to  accusations of sharing more than a curiosity about the Nazis, particularly based on some pro-Nazi remarks he made in the 1940s, a confession of his beliefs to an old school friend, James Lees-Milne. That disclosure has been taken as confirming Tom’s much truer posture, yet it may also be an example of Tom’s ability to twist things round so that people hear what they want to hear.

Other aspects of Tom’s life are considered, too. Central to them is his branding as being a pleasure-seeker of sexual experiences, some of them on the edge of being  decadent and depraved. Tom’s many “love” (read carnal) affairs with men and women are covered. Also previously unpublished letters, written by Tom in his long,  fiery relationship with the Austrian ballet dancer Tilly Losch.

Besides all that, there is passing mention of some of Tom’s court cases as a lawyer, and as Judge Advocate presiding over Army Court Martials. Also his Territorial Army days, his wartime exploits and his weeks  in the jungle in Burma before being hit by a sniper’s bullet.

      THE MEMORIAL TO TOM MITFORD AT ST MARY'S CHURCH, SWINBROOK

ENQUIRIES ABOUT THE BOOK PLEASE EMAIL THE COMPILER WILLIAM CROSS

 

williecross@aol.com