I got a ’gram this morning saying I can’t go down the Danube with Tom & Boud, will you tell whoever sent it it was j.n. or jolly nice of them to spend an extra 5d on saying ‘very sorry’?
There are some lousy people called the Grevilles here & the other day they asked Chris & me to go on a picnic with them. But when the time came they simply went without us, wasn’t it rude of them. So we pretended to the others that we had been on the ’nic & that it was heaven with champagne & everything. But when I saw the slaver’s killing old père de famille-ish face believing it all I couldn’t contain my giggles so it all came out. So the s. was simply horrified at me telling such a lie & he said his faith in human nature was shaken. So now we’re always telling him lies like ‘we saw two people fall out of a boat this morning’ & then he says ‘did you really’ & we say ‘no!’ It teases like mad.
Love from Tarty
Dear Bird
Would you send me a letter with a German stamp & an Olympic Games stamp on it like you sent to Muv because Sex Hay1 longs for one. DON’T FORGET.
I’ve started a new National Movement & its slogan is FOOD & DIRT. That’s what we stand for. There are 3 members. It started with Peter Ramsbotham2 & me & then Sex joined.
It’s called Nourishilism.
It’s a very swell movement.
Goodness the weather.
What a silly muddle about the Danube thing. Poor old Squalor will be disappointed again I suppose.3 The whole family is abroad except me. Typical.
Jaky4 sends his love.
Sex has been staying here. Ivan5 has got a job about anti-aircraft intelligence at the Home Office. Isn’t it killing, I mean the intelligence bit. I’m afraid poor England will be beaten in a war if we have Ivan as chief.
Isn’t it wicked about the bombing of the Alhambra. If only all the Spaniards could be converted to Nourishilism it would never have happened. THE BRUTES.
Well DON’T FORGET about the Olympic stamp.
Hail Food!
Hail Dirt!
Hail our leader Ramsbotham!
Yours in National Nourishilism, Dawly
Diana with Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister; Heinrich Hofmann, Hitler’s official photographer; and Albert Speer, the Reich’s chief architect. Haus Wahnfried, Bayreuth, 1936.
Darling:
I have so much to erzähl [tell] and as I can’t sleep I have got up to erzähl it. When I arrived here I felt so ill that I went to bed and took a lot of aspirin, and then I rang up Magda1 and arranged to meet her the next morning, and I rang up the Kit2 and told him about everything being put off.3 Next morning Bill4 came round, and then he left and Magda and I took all the papers and went to the police etc. While we were talking she happened to let it out that the Führer was in Berlin, but she added it would be impossible to see him because he was just off to the manoeuvres. Then she rang up Brückner and said she would like to talk to the Führer for a minute about my affair. We went shopping to get her clothes for Greece and while she was trying on a message came, would she ring Brückner up. She only did so an hour later, it was pure agony because I kept thinking the Führer would have scrammed. However we were asked to go round at 7.30, and in the end we stayed for dinner and saw a lovely film with Lillian Harvey.5
But now I must tell you how sweet the Führer was. He came into the room and made his beloved surprised face, and then he patted my hand and said ‘Es hat mir so eine Freude gemacht, dass Sie sind zum Parteitag gekommen und jeden Tag im Kongress gewesen sind’6 or words to that effect, and he was so wonderful and really seemed pleased we had gone every day, and he said specially to the Schlusskongress, so I said we had been freuing [enjoying] ourselves over that the whole week. He asked after Tom and I said ‘Der Judenknecht is fast National-sozialist geworden’7 and he roared with laughter and said ‘Ihr Bruder ist ein fabelhafter Junge’8 twice over. Isn’t Tom lucky. Then I said we loved the wonderful parades and he said it was the best Parteitag he had ever had because everything had geklappt [worked]. He had noticed Janos.9 He sent you his love; and darling everything is arranged for the 6th, and it is to be in Schwanenwerder10 and the Führer is giving up his day to it and everything is to be done without Joan Glover11 I am so happy now because it all seemed to be hopeless without talking to the Führer first, but now it is all perfect, and not too late for you, is it? I terribly want to bring J[onathan] & D[esmond] over, what do you think? They needn’t know what is going on but I would so love them to be blessed by a glimpse of the Führer. He has gone off last night to the manoeuvres at Kiel or somewhere. He looks in blooming health & his skin is peeling from so much sun.
All love darling, Nardy
Magda is being an angel, and she can talk of nothing but your marvellous attack on Joan Glover and how pleased they all were with you for doing it, that day you know.
Darling
I am sitting in a bower of orchids envying you, because I expect you are still in the Führer’s train. Yesterday was the loveliest and at the same time the most terrible day for me. The wedding itself was so beautiful, and the blick [sight] out of Magda’s window of the Führer walking across the sunny garden from the Reichskanzlei was the happiest moment of my life. I felt everything was perfect, the Kit, you, the Führer, the weather, my dress, Magda, the Standesbeamter [registry clerk], the Doktor, and even Bobbie1 and Bill [Allen]. The Führer’s orchids and Widemann’s roses, and the Kit’s orchids, and