The Viceroy's Daughters, by Anne de Courcy

Irene, Cimmie and Baba: The Curzon Sisters.

Born to arguably India's greatest viceroy, the Curzon sisters grew up in the former half of the twentieth century. Their lives read as a who's who and where's where of one of Europe's most politically turbulant periods.

From Britain's mining strike, through the First World War, to the aristocracy's last hurrah and the Second World War, the Curzon sisters lived through it all.

As like each other as they were polar opposites, the sisters' religious, political and personal differences divide them as often as they unite them. All deeply engrained in the 1900s political landscape, they have flirtations with socialism, capitalism and fascism, and even heavier flirtations with the powerful men running these movements, which gives them as insight only few people at the time would have been privvy to.

Irene, 2nd Baroness Ravensdale, the eldest sister, enjoyed a life indulging in her passions for hunting, drinking and men. Cimmie, the middle sister, married Mr Oswald Mosley, and rose through political ranks alongside him before having her life cut tragically short at the age of just 34. Baba, the youngest and most brazen of the three, lived her life in a blaze of selfish glamour. Often cruel to her family and patronizing to her husband, with a penchant for unsuitable men, Baba's strong personality shines through the book, threatening to overshine even the most famous of the historical figures who crop up between the pages.

The Curzon sisters were always destined to be recorded by history. Born to their mega rich American mother, Mary Leiter, and their famous politician father, George Curzon, the girls inherited their mother's wealth and their father's sharp tongue and sharper mind.

This similarity in personality led to a clash beween father and daughters, and at the time of George's death his two eldest daughters were estranged from him, Irene having even been turned away as she arrived to see him on his death bed.

Irene was already a woman of eighteen when World War 1 started. She watched in horror as friends and suitors marched to their deaths. Irene then turned her attention upon the two things that would come to dominate her life: hunting and drinking. Part of the fashionable Melton Mowbray set, Irene rubbed shoulders with Princes, Dukes and other men high up the social ladder. After a good day's hunting and a hard night's drinking, Irene would spend the night with one of the lucky men: the Melton Mowbray set's loves lives become so criss crossed it's almost impossible to untangle.

Alcohol became a forced that would stalk Irene through her life; it developed from casual drinking to a problem Irene attempted to give up countless times.

As Irene threw herself into her social life, her younger sister Cimmie was to meet and marry the man who would impact upon all three sisters' lives. Oswald Mosley, always referred to by the sisters as Tom. Now remembered for his stint as the British Union of Fascists leader and husband of the infamous Diana Mitford, Cimmie met him shortly after Armistice Day 1918, when his dark reputation with its sinister Nazi overtones were still a long way in the future

Cimmie married Tom in 1920. In 1924, Tom left the Conservative benches to cross the floor, and, with Cimmie, joined the Labour Party. Tom perceived greater opportunity for promotion in Labour than in the Conservatives, his personal ambition triumphing over his political beliefs.

Cimmie was eventually elected Member of Parliament for Stoke-On-Trent after a hard fought battle for a seat no one expected her to win. The year was 1929. Cimmie was a female politician in a world heavily dominated by men.

Her success was short lived as her husband's desire for greater power marched on. In 1931, Tom founded the New Party and several members of Labour, including Cimmie, defected to it. Turning her back on Labour did not go down well with her constituents, who felt they had been betrayed. Nevertheless, The New Party fought in the general election of that year. All of the candidates lost their seats. During this time, Cimmie bore Tom three children, and stood by him as The New Party began showing Fascist tendancies. Tom repaid her by having numerous affairs, about which Cimmie knew and tolerated, albeit unhappily.

Anne de Courcey writes how Tom, in a sudden attack of conscience, told Cimmie about all the women he'd ever cheated on her with. Except, of course, her sister and step mother – referring to earlier affairs he’d had with his father in law’s wife, Grace Hinds, and our very own Irene.

However, any doubts one might have about Irene’s morality are firmly swept to one side when we move on to Baba. Irene had a one night stand with her sister’s husband: Baba has a fully blown affair with him on the run up to and years after her sister’s death.

Baba Curzon develops from the quiet, youngest sister, her father’s favourite, into a force to be reckoned with. She marries King Edward VIII’s best friend, Edward ‘Fruity’ Metcalfe, a man eighteen year her senior, and proceeds to dominate him with her overbearing personality and much greater wealth. Fruity strikes quite a sad figure in the book. He goes from being a Prince’s favourite with a glittering career in front of him and a beautiful heiress on his arm, to being trampled on by Edward VIII, the man he loved most, and cheated on by the woman he loved most.

Fruity watches as Baba conducts her affair with Tom Mosley, furious but helpless to stop it, as he was with all the many, many other men Baba selected to have affairs with.

Among these men was Dino Grandi, Mussolini’s ambassador to London, whilst simultaneously enjoying flirtatious exchanges with Lord Halifax, Britain’s foreign secretary. Her marriage is finally brought to an end when she falls for the 3^rd Earl of Feversham, Charles Duncombe.

Time and time again Baba, along with Mosley, takes advantage of Irene’s good nature and love of their respective children. Something of a hands off mother, Baba would leave her children with Irene at any opportunity in order to enjoy a holiday with her latest love.

Irene became bitterly jealous of Baba, frustrated at how selfish Baba had the husband, children and glamourous lifestyle Irene so longed for. But Baba was not without heartbreak. She was furious when Tom, newly emerged from the prison in which he had spent World War Two, chose Diana over her, and she was humiliated when Charles Duncombe refused to leave his wife for her after she had divorced Fruity.

Irene and Baba, after the turbulent first half of the 20^th Century, went on to be well respected women. Irene became of the first four women to be selected as a life peer and allowed to sit in the House of Lords, while in 1975 Baba was awarded an Order of the British Empire for her work for the Save the Children Fund.

The Curzon sisters lived fast and loose, applying this attitude to their men, money, alcohol and morals. Trailblazers with little regard for their reputation, they both suffered and thrived on the back of their brazenness.