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Articles
Chips Channon Diaries 1938-43: The Energy and Verve of a Great Diarist
Simon Heffer (ed.), Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 2): 1938-43. London: Hutchinson, 2021, 1098 pages, £35, $49.40, Kindle $24.99.
An editorial triumph
Every reviewer of Channon Volume 1 mentioned the magnificent work of Simon Heffer in editing these important diaries. Chips’s circle of acquaintances was enormous. Even to scholars of the period, it can become bewildering as new names are constantly introduced. Heffer appears omniscient as he untangles and explains “Who Was Who.” Additionally one senses a dry humor in many of his footnotes. It becomes almost a running joke that Channon is congenitally unable correctly to identify peoples’ ages.
The only quibble might be that these volumes are not truly “unexpurgated.” According to Heffer, Volume 2 represents only about 75% of the period covered by the diaries. We may take him at his word that only repetitions and lists of people are omitted (xiv). Nonetheless, ominous ellipses (….) seem often to appear just when things get interesting.
Volume 1 followed Chips in his earlier years, when he was a desperate social climber, determined to be rich. Now, in Volume 2 we see an older, more mature man. He has achieved most of his youthful ambitions. He has married into enormous wealth. Channon owns two substantial properties: 5 Belgrave Square and Kelvedon Hall in Essex. He is one of the unquestioned leaders in London social circles. These should now be happy years, but they are far from unalloyed.
Family Life
Several major threads to Channon’s life during these years are woven together beautifully. Family, politics, society, friends and lovers are all covered in the diary, to varying extents. Family is primarily represented by his wife, Honor; son Paul; and in-laws, the enormously rich Guinesses (Lord and Lady Iveagh). Their fortune funded much of his lavish lifestyle. The relationship with Honor gradually deteriorates. Soon after the birth of Paul in 1935, Honor cuts off their sexual relations, a huge blow to Chips, who fervently wanted more children. Eventually Honor leaves Channon and, in an exuberant “Chatterleyesque” gesture, moves in with her lover on a nearby farm.
Interestingly Chips’s in-laws appear to be entirely on his side after the separation. The Guinnesses are absolutely against the idea of a divorce, a major social disgrace in those days, and are mortified by Honor’s antics.
A further wrench comes in June 1940 when Chips evacuates Paul to Boston for safety. Whatever we may think of Channon, there is no question that he loves his son deeply and genuinely. Although this volume ends three years later with Paul still in America, there are numerous diary entries in which Chips misses him and agonizes about bringing him back. After Honor’s departure Channon’s estate planning (he retained No. 5 and Kelvedon) is almost exclusively centered on assuring Paul’s future.
Politics
Although elected as MP for Southend in 1935, politics are far from being Channon’s primary interest. Nevertheless, he certainly relishes being involved, primarily as an offshoot of his social life. Influence is deeply important to him. It is interesting to note how often he takes personal credit for promotions, sackings and honors.
During the Norway debate and Churchill’s premiership Chips’s entries reflect his devastation at Chamberlain’s fall. But for all his perceived hatred of Churchill, Chips actually blows quite hot and cold over time. While never really liking him as a person, he comes to recognize Churchill’s indispensability in winning the war. On 28 January 1942 he writes: “I have decided to go over to HMG as I see no alternative but my heart is not with them” (715). The Churchill that Channon did genuinely hate was Randolph—and that was no passing phase.
While Channon was not a politician per se, he was a relatively dutiful attendee at the House of Commons. It is notable, however, how often he is present when history is made, but does not himself recognize the fact:
On Churchill’s “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat speech, 13 May 1940: “He spoke well, dramatically in support of the new all party govt: but he was not well received” (316).
On the “Finest Hour” speech, 18 June 1940: “The Prime Minister made a statement to a crowded house…I wasn’t very impressed, but suppose that the nation will be” (344).
On “The Few” speech, 20 August 1940: “Winston made a great speech which lasted fifty-five minutes; but I was unimpressed” (385).
Princes and politicians
Many of Chips’ closest friends reemerge in this volume. Most notably, in January of 1941, he is able to visit Paul of Yugoslavia, his erstwhile roommate at Oxford, having been sent on an unlikely diplomatic mission to shore up neutral Yugoslavia against pressure from Hitler. The mission fails; Paul is deposed and goes into exile in Kenya. Later he is allowed to move to South Africa.
At a more tragic personal level, Chips is devastated by the death, in a flying accident, of Prince George, Duke of Kent. Not only had the Duke been one of Chips’ oldest and closest friends. But his wife, Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, was the sister of Princess Olga, wife of his beloved Paul of Yugoslavia. Chips had been deeply involved in both their courtships and marriages.
In addition to existing and “society” friends, the diary documents two new significant, and surprising, friendships in this volume. The first was with Rab Butler. When Butler became Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, Chips was his Parliamentary Private Secretary. As Chips had always made himself useful to Chamberlain on a fetch and carry basis, gaining a reputation as an excellent organizer and arranger, and had always hankered after a position in the whips’ office, his promotion was perhaps not unexpected. What was not expected was the friendship which developed between two men of such differing personalities. Rab actually lived at No. 5 for lengthy periods during the war. Chips did his utmost to make him comfortable moving in society, and Rab reciprocated with political advice.
Coats and Wavell
When Rab was shuffled to the Education Ministry, Chips declined to go with him. The work would be too boring, he assumed; and he greatly enjoyed his work in the Foreign Office. But the friendship continued unabated. The attraction was sufficient that Rab devoted a whole chapter of his second volume of memoirs, The Art of Memory, to Channon. Like most, Butler wondered how this import from America had leveraged his way to the highest echelons of British society.
In July 1939 Chips met Peter Coats for the first time. It was a relationship that was to last until Channon’s death in 1958. For much of this volume Peter is an absent figure, although far from absent in the diary. He was on General Wavell’s staff, ultimately becoming his ADC in Cairo. It was from this connection that the second friendship evolved.
Wavell and Channon had met during the latter’s visit to Paul of Yugoslavia—he had spent two weeks with Peter in Cairo. The two had struck it off, and it was therefore natural that when Wavell was recalled to London in May of 1943 Chips should have had him stay at No. 5 (along with Peter, of course). The friendship with Wavell appeared, in many ways, to be remarkably similar to that with Rab Butler. As with Rab, Wavell’s personality was entirely dissimilar to that of Channon. And as with Rab, Chips set about introducing and grooming the Field Marshal for London society, even lending him copious quantities of his own clothing. He appears to have played a significant part in, and indeed claims much of the responsibility for, Wavell’s appointment as the next, and penultimate, Viceroy of India.
Frank but circumspect
The diary shows the relationship between Channon and Coats as genuinely loving, at least on the part of Chips. We do not have Coats’s thoughts, but their survival together indicates that it was mutual. Chips appears to have been someone who could disassociate casual sex from love. Although he had plenty of short affairs, they mostly either pre-dated Coats or were conducted in Coats’s absence.
Those who read these diaries hoping for a Frank Harris My Life and Loves volume are due for a disappointment. Nor is there anything of the Roger Casement Black Diaries. For the most part Channon writes quite obliquely about his sex life. Readers must make their own decision—as in this entry for 7 October 1941: “I had the Crown Prince [of Greece] on my hands all day.… I took him to the RAC for a Turkish bath and we shared a cubicle for two hours and slept the sleep of the guilty” (650). Other partners in the time-frame of this volume include Jay Llewelyn and his own brother-in-law Alan Lennox-Boyd.
Chips and Vinegar
It important to bear in mind that the homosexual conduct Channon was engaged in was, in the England of the time, a criminal offense. It may well be the case that the society in which he moved tended to turn a blind eye. But the keyword, as with all extra-marital affairs, was discretion. It might have been standard for a hostess to assign adjoining bedrooms depending on the understood relationships of her guests. But it was beyond the pale to be indiscreet, to do something which upset the servants or frightened the horses. It was this state of mind which caused her parents’ outrage with Honor. They did not so much mind her separation as, to them, the outrageous public way in which it was done.
That said, Channon was undoubtedly an emotional man. However, the role in life he played meant much of that emotion had to be disguised. Unable to wear his heart on his sleeve, he instead wore it in his diaries. This may go a long way to explaining their cattiness, which has been noted since the 1967 Rhodes James edition. What becomes clear as one reads the voluminous whole, is that Channon’s dislikes, hatreds, loves, and likes all tend to be highly ephemeral tempests which come and go almost on a daily basis.
The energy and verve of a great diarist
We reach the end of this volume with a portrait of an immensely complex man. The previous simplistic stereotype of an irredeemable snob and shallow social climber will no longer stand. Those qualities are certainly still there, but there is much more to Channon that that. He was demonstrably a serious influence in the space where society and politics coincide. Despite his casual approach to sex he is also a devoted father, torn by the absence of his son.
But for all his fluttering insecurities, we also appear to see a Chips at peace with who he is: “Long talk with Rab who reaffirmed his advice to me; that I shall never go far myself politically since whatever talents I possess lie in other directions; but that I can—and have—considerable political influence. But it is in London and society that I shine: I can, and already do, lead and rule a larger section of London society which takes its colour and life from me” (10 November 1942, 897).
Channon’s ability as a chronicler was established with the Rhodes James edition. Having seen two installments at far greater length, we can now assert that he is a superb diarist. He had an extraordinary ability to capture and present the interesting. One can only admire the energy it must have taken simply to make hand-written daily, mostly lengthy, entries, amidst the social whirlwind in which he lived. Two thousand pages in, and we are left yearning for more. Luckily a third, and final, installment is due out later this year.
The author
Dave Turrell is happily retired from a lifetime career in Information Technology. He is a longtime Churchill bibliophile and collector, and is proud to have been a deputy editor of Finest Hour. His days are spent arranging his books on his own plan and, even on the rare occasions where he cannot be friends with them, he is at least content to make their acquaintance.