What do you think?
Rate this book
Clarissa Eden: A Memoir - From Churchill to Eden
In 1955, at the astonishingly young age of 34, Clarissa Eden entered No. 10 Downing Street as the wife of the new Prime Minister, Anthony Eden. Born Clarissa Churchill in 1920, her uncle was the great Winston, and when she married the 55-year-old Eden, then Foreign Secretary, at Caxton Hall register office in 1952, there were crowds as big as the gathering that had cheered Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Wilding's wedding there six months earlier. A renowned beauty, she was at home with her mother's Liberal intellectual circle, and mixed in her youth with the pillars of Oxford's academic community, Isaiah Berlin, Maurice Bowra, and David Cecil among them. According to Antonia Fraser, she was “the don's delight because she was beautiful and extremely intellectual.” Her close circle of friends included some of the leading cultural figures of the twentieth century, including Cecil Beaton, Evelyn Waugh, and Orson Welles. Her observations and insights into these men and their world provide a unique window into the mid 20th century. As the spouse of the most important man in Britain, the hostess at No. 10 and Chequers, Clarissa Eden was inevitably privy to a multitude of top-level secrets. The Suez crisis and Eden's ill health meant that she shared just four years of Anthony's political life and eighteen months as Prime Minister's wife. This individual, discriminating and honest memoir is her first account of extraordinary times.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published October 25, 2007
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 1, 2011
Clarissa Eden was born Clarissa Churchill in 1920, the daughter of Winston Churchill’s younger brother Jack and Lady Gwendeline Bertie, known as ‘Goonie’. Her upbringing and education were typical for an upper-class girl of that time. She was sent for a few years to Kensington High School – ‘the only sensible schooling I got’ – but was then packed off to a fashionable boarding school where the emphasis was on riding, drawing and music lessons. It was her mother’s view that what really mattered was to be ‘clever, charming, lovely and lovable’; such things as exams and qualifications were of no importance.
Boarding school was followed by ‘finishing’ in Paris. Here, among other enlightening experiences, Clarissa saw her first naked female body – that of Josephine Baker, performing at the Folies-Bergère dressed only in a circlet of bananas. Another encounter in Paris was with Donald Maclean, the Russian spy. ‘He complained that I was not a proper Liberal girl like the Bonham-Carters and the Asquiths – I was too smart. It turned out that he wasn’t a proper Liberal boy either.’
On her return to England Clarissa decided, whatever her mother might think, to get herself properly educated. Enrolling as an undergraduate and taking a degree wasn’t an option, but she took herself off to Oxford anyway and studied philosophy with a variety of dons. She soon felt at home with Oxford’s most renowned intellectuals, including Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Spender (‘huge, Germanic and ironic’) and Maurice Bowra (‘a bullish appearance and the voice of a sergeant major’).
Philosophical studies were ended by the war, during with Clarissa worked at ‘decoding’ in the basement of the Foreign Office, putting up with Pam Churchill (wife, later ex, of Randolph) in the Dorchester. After the war, she turned to journalism, getting to know a wide variety of writers, critics and painters.
Then in 1952, to the amazement of all their friends and acquaintances, the 32-year-old Clarissa became engaged to the 55-year-old Anthony Eden, then Foreign Secretary and eventual successor to the Prime Minister, Clarissa’s Uncle Winston.
The role of the political wife in the 1950s was a self-effacing one. From now until her husband’s death in 1976, and particularly during his time in office, Clarissa devoted herself to ‘looking after him and being sure that everything was just right for him’. Her own friends and interests had to take a back seat. Very occasionally she lets slip a note of frustration about this. ‘How self-important all politicians are,’ she comments at one point, and she was cross not to have been included in a trip to Yugoslavia, particularly as Marshal Tito had invited her. But on the whole she has no regrets.
This is a fascinating (and copiously illustrated) memoir, full of insights into personalities and events from someone who saw them close up and from a unique perspective. It has been sensitively edited by Cate Haste, who provides just enough background information to set Clarissa’s memories in context.
Clarissa seems to have met just about everyone, from the Duke of Windsor (‘a wistful man’) to Greta Garbo (‘With a low and melodious voice, nothing she said was of the slightest interest – and very often made no sense – but one was enchanted all the same.’) She also provides some very touching glimpses of her aging uncle, clinging cantankerously on to office, driving everyone around him to a despair mingled with profound admiration.
And where else could you read about a young Prince Charles on a family picnic, refusing to give up his cushion to the Prime Minister on the grounds that ‘I’m tired too. I’ve been running about.’? Or about an evening at Balmoral, relaxing with the Queen, the Duke and – incongruously, given the entertainment on offer – the Principal of the Church of Scotland: ‘Afterwards a film in the ballroom. It was a French X film about gang warfare with a very loud soundtrack and shots of women with breasts exposed.’
Clarissa has a ready wit and a deliciously dry sense of humour. She gives a very amusing description of the two Soviet heavyweights, Khrushchev and Bulgarin, overwhelmed after meeting the Queen: ‘the two Russians were very excited in the car going back to Claridge’s, saying, “The Queen said to me…” “No, she said that to me…” and so on.’
But perhaps my favourite anecdote was of Clarissa’s accidental discovery of the cyanide pill, issued to Anthony during the war in case of capture by the Germans, which had been ‘rattling around in his sock drawer for thirty years’.
[An edited version of this review first appeared in The Daily Mail in November 2007.]
Boarding school was followed by ‘finishing’ in Paris. Here, among other enlightening experiences, Clarissa saw her first naked female body – that of Josephine Baker, performing at the Folies-Bergère dressed only in a circlet of bananas. Another encounter in Paris was with Donald Maclean, the Russian spy. ‘He complained that I was not a proper Liberal girl like the Bonham-Carters and the Asquiths – I was too smart. It turned out that he wasn’t a proper Liberal boy either.’
On her return to England Clarissa decided, whatever her mother might think, to get herself properly educated. Enrolling as an undergraduate and taking a degree wasn’t an option, but she took herself off to Oxford anyway and studied philosophy with a variety of dons. She soon felt at home with Oxford’s most renowned intellectuals, including Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Spender (‘huge, Germanic and ironic’) and Maurice Bowra (‘a bullish appearance and the voice of a sergeant major’).
Philosophical studies were ended by the war, during with Clarissa worked at ‘decoding’ in the basement of the Foreign Office, putting up with Pam Churchill (wife, later ex, of Randolph) in the Dorchester. After the war, she turned to journalism, getting to know a wide variety of writers, critics and painters.
Then in 1952, to the amazement of all their friends and acquaintances, the 32-year-old Clarissa became engaged to the 55-year-old Anthony Eden, then Foreign Secretary and eventual successor to the Prime Minister, Clarissa’s Uncle Winston.
The role of the political wife in the 1950s was a self-effacing one. From now until her husband’s death in 1976, and particularly during his time in office, Clarissa devoted herself to ‘looking after him and being sure that everything was just right for him’. Her own friends and interests had to take a back seat. Very occasionally she lets slip a note of frustration about this. ‘How self-important all politicians are,’ she comments at one point, and she was cross not to have been included in a trip to Yugoslavia, particularly as Marshal Tito had invited her. But on the whole she has no regrets.
This is a fascinating (and copiously illustrated) memoir, full of insights into personalities and events from someone who saw them close up and from a unique perspective. It has been sensitively edited by Cate Haste, who provides just enough background information to set Clarissa’s memories in context.
Clarissa seems to have met just about everyone, from the Duke of Windsor (‘a wistful man’) to Greta Garbo (‘With a low and melodious voice, nothing she said was of the slightest interest – and very often made no sense – but one was enchanted all the same.’) She also provides some very touching glimpses of her aging uncle, clinging cantankerously on to office, driving everyone around him to a despair mingled with profound admiration.
And where else could you read about a young Prince Charles on a family picnic, refusing to give up his cushion to the Prime Minister on the grounds that ‘I’m tired too. I’ve been running about.’? Or about an evening at Balmoral, relaxing with the Queen, the Duke and – incongruously, given the entertainment on offer – the Principal of the Church of Scotland: ‘Afterwards a film in the ballroom. It was a French X film about gang warfare with a very loud soundtrack and shots of women with breasts exposed.’
Clarissa has a ready wit and a deliciously dry sense of humour. She gives a very amusing description of the two Soviet heavyweights, Khrushchev and Bulgarin, overwhelmed after meeting the Queen: ‘the two Russians were very excited in the car going back to Claridge’s, saying, “The Queen said to me…” “No, she said that to me…” and so on.’
But perhaps my favourite anecdote was of Clarissa’s accidental discovery of the cyanide pill, issued to Anthony during the war in case of capture by the Germans, which had been ‘rattling around in his sock drawer for thirty years’.
[An edited version of this review first appeared in The Daily Mail in November 2007.]
January 1, 2022
Clarissa was the niece of Winston Churchill who married his heir apparent…a divorcee 20 years her senior. Clarissa is a remarkable woman who saw the world, studied at university and many friends all over. She had no shortage of suitors, but she was too independent for them so she married then Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden at the age of 32.
This is a mix of journal entries and brief snapshots of the time and people. Transitions could be smoother, but she was essentially a fly on the wall during a critical chapter. The most shocking thing to me is she passed in November 2021 at 101. Wow! Seems to have never lost her cutting wit and directness.
This is a mix of journal entries and brief snapshots of the time and people. Transitions could be smoother, but she was essentially a fly on the wall during a critical chapter. The most shocking thing to me is she passed in November 2021 at 101. Wow! Seems to have never lost her cutting wit and directness.
March 28, 2011
I found her early years were much more fascinating than her later years. Her early years, as Clarissa Churchill (Winston Churchill's niece), were spent with artists, writers, photographers, etc. while the later years, married politician Mr. Eden, were spent with politicians and all the politics that go with it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews