In the late 1990s we took my father to visit Clivedon, home of the Astors on the Thames. It is now owned by the National Trust but while the gardens are open to the public the house is a rather exclusive hotel. We managed to pursued the hotel to let my father look around it, he had not been there before the war. Also we spoke to the National Trust people and later posted the NT a copy of what my father had written on Clivedon. Later they sent a film team to interview him and he was included, with 3 other former servants, on a film they made on Clivedon. It is possible to see this film when visiting Clivedon or buy a DVD from the NT.

Later I was contacted by the BBC and was included in the Reel Histories TV series. The episode was on Clivedon and the 'bright young things' of the 1920s. I was going to be interviewed by Melvin Bragg, which was a little odd as my father was at Clivedon in 1939 but someone they were not expecting turned up and so my interview was dropped. The programme actually ended up in 2 parts as Clivedon had nothing to do with the bright young things and the bright young things they talked about had nothing to do with Clivedon. They should have done one on Clivedon and Appeasement in the 1930s.


Chapter 4 Working for Nancy Astor

Lord Astor was very active in the House of Lords; he also had a stable of horses and was a member of the American-English Movement. He was a very nice Christian sort of man – he also seemed to me to be a ‘gentleman’. Lady Nancy Astor was the Conservative Member of Parliament for the Sutton Division of Plymouth from 1919 to 1945. She was the first woman MP to sit in the House of Commons. She and Lord Astor were members of the Christian Scientist Faith. She was a prohibitionist, very much against the ‘drink trade’, she believed in fighting for ‘women and children’s rights’. She was introduced to the House of Commons by Mr Lloyd George, the then Prime Minister and Mr AJ Belstow. I believe that there is a painting of the event in the House of Commons. She told me that on arriving at the House of Commons for the first time she discovered that there was no ladies’ toilet and that she had to go and see the Speaker of the House of Commons about that. I listened to her introduce a Bill in 1934 to improve the condition of ‘women and children in factories’. She sat in the ‘opposition’ seats in the House. In those days there were only a few Labour members so the Tories had to sit on both sides of the House. Most MPs wore black jackets, striped black and white trousers, white shirt and black shoes. Lady Astor always wore black and white and at all times looked very smart. Lady Astor’s children were Bobbie Shaw (by her first marriage), William, Phyllis (Wissie), David, Michael and Jackie. All of Astor children were born with a fortune, but with, I was told, legal safeguards to prevent them going through their money before they became more settled.

The Astors had five homes: -

1. 4 St James Square, SW1 near Piccadilly Circus
2. Cliveden, Taplow, Buckinghamshire
3. Rest Harrow, Sandwich, Kent
4. 3 Elliot Terrace, Plymouth
5. Tarbert Lodge. Island of Jura in the Inner Hebrides.

In January 1939 Lady Astor asked to see me at Cliveden. I understand that she always wanted to see new members of the staff. It was on a Saturday at about 3 p.m. and I explained that my name was John Whittle but that since I was the third ‘John’ there it had been agreed that I should be known as Sidney, Sidney was the name of the person who had held my position previously. I told her briefly of my background and of my parents’ background, she seemed to personally know or know of quite a lot of the people I had worked for previously. In the course of our discussion I told her that, in my view, war would break out during this year and that I had been told that one of her sons had said that it will start in either the end of August or the beginning of September. She asked what would happen to me in that event. I told her that I would join the army and that I expected to get killed in France in about 1941. She then asked what would I do up to then. I replied that I would try and go to the Old Vic for 9d during my time off to see plays and to carry on reading, eating, sleeping and working. We had been talking for about half an hour and she asked me to close the curtain and leave as she wished to rest for a while. She did not mock or laugh at me but I think she felt sorry for me.

During the First World War the Astors had had a military hospital set up at Cliveden for Canadian soldiers. It was capable of handling up to 600 patients at Cliveden and Mrs Astor, as she was then, made a practice of visiting the soldiers. I was told that she would plead with the particularly badly wounded soldiers who had turned their face to the wall not to die telling them that she would give them a gold watch and chain if they lived. I should imagine that the suffering of injured soldiers in the first War resulted in her and many of her generation considering the appeasement from 1936-39 better than war.