TOM MITFORD BIOGRAPHY : BUYING A COPY OF "A FEARFUL OLD TWISTER"

 TOM MITFORD : A FEARFUL OLD TWISTER

THE ONLY BROTHER OF THE OUTRAGEOUS MITFORD SISTERS

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It was Tom's  sister, Nancy who described him as a             " fearful old twister".

Tom was not a headline seeker, he “ploughed his own solitary furrow”:  yet,  he often faced  dilemmas that tested his loyalty in the madcap actions of his close family and friends.

 After schooldays at Eton College, where he made friends with  the caddish Hamish St Clair Erskine, Winston’s son,  Randolph Churchill & art collector/poet, Edward James, Tom studied music and law in Austria and Germany, he had great admiration for Germany, its art, language & people.

Revealing a sense of fun, he took part in the 'Bruno Hat Art Hoax' that typified the ‘Bright Young Things’ of the late 1920s, but  Tom was a serious operator.

In the 1930s he trained as a barrister,  was  active in the Territorial Army and adored flying.  He was the family’s spokesman and chaperone when his sisters went off the rails on crazy pursuits of love and Nazi leanings, giving them, it seems, his support.  But beneath the façade Tom was almost certainly seething at being dragged through their infamy, but he was also uncovered as a pro-fascist.    

In  his own carnal affairs Tom’s behaviour could be predatory, but ever the charmer, albeit with a twisted streak,  one who broke  hearts with sarcasm and false promises and rightly or wrongly, faced charges of “professional bad manners” and  betrayal. His letters, published here, to one old flame, the Austrian dancer, Tilly Losch, show  him to be an  emotionally immature, vulnerable figure, but this love affair was a long charade for them both.  

A complex man, he never married.  Refusing to “Kill Germans” he spent his army years of WW2  fighting in Italy, Palestine and Burma, where he died from a sniper’s bullet on 30th March 1945, leaving his family grieving over their “ very  perfect son and brother”. But does he merit this epitaph?

Tom is usually only written  of afterwards, in  the shadow of his parents and sisters’ notorious lives, but here he takes centre stage.

This is the only  full length biography of Tom Mitford.

                        THE MITFORD FAMILY MOTTO

IMAGES FROM  THE BOOK 

" TOM MITFORD : A FEARFUL OLD TWISTER"

BY WILLIAM CROSS,  FSA SCOT

ANY QUESTIONS  PLEASE CONTACT THE AUTHOR 

BY E MAIL

                                             williecross@aol.com