I seem to be reading more serious books these days. I recently finished Melinda Gates' book: The Moment of Life - How Empowering Women Changes the World. I found it almost astonishing that it happened to echo the message of David Attenborough's book that I wrote about last week.

There are chapters dealing with topics such as maternal and child health, education, child marriage, women in agriculture, unpaid work, women in the workplace and women excluded from society. Each of these chapters tells stories of women the author has encountered in her work for the Gates' Foundation. She talks about aiming to lift people out of poverty at the start and then discovering that empowering women was the key to that. They resisted this initially, calling it 'mission creep' but eventually the penny dropped. 

The stories don't just come from Africa or India, but from impoverished areas in the US, which I find appalling. Ignorance breeds ignorance wherever it happens. 

One of the stories that stayed with me was about Patricia, a woman farmer in Malawi. While the rest of her family and village celebrated Christmas Day, she was meticulously planting her small field, because that was when the rains were predicted to come. Farmers need five things to succeed: good land, good seeds, time, knowledge and farming supplies. The barriers between these things and Patricia existed simply because she was a woman.

1. Up until recently women in Malawi could not inherit land. A law has been passed recently but the culture is slow to change. Paying rent for her plot was expensive and prohibited her being able to increase the size of her plot. It also stopped her investing in improving the land. 

2. Her husband made the decisions about where the family's money was spent and she had no say so couldn't acquire farming tools that would make her work more productive or for other tools like cooking pots that would shorten her other work to make more time for farming.

3. Her husband also had the say over how she spent her time: collecting wood and water, cooking meals and washing up after, caring for the children. Any work to grow food for the family had to come after those tasks. Even had she the means to hire farm labour, the workers wouldn't like taking orders from a woman.

4. Even the quality and choice of seeds was influenced against her as a woman. Development organisations working to create seeds resistant to pests or to grow larger plants would speak with community leaders to get their input. Those leaders were always men who were most interested in crops they could sell, where Patricia wanted to grow nutritious crops to feed here children, like ground nuts (peanuts) or chick peas (garbanzo beans). And because the men didn't do the work in the fields, they never thought to tell seed developers to make tall plants: the women complained that harvesting short plants was hard on the back. 

5. Giving useful information to women about farming is tricky. Few poor households have TVs so radio was thought to be the best option, except that women don't control the radio dial. Most men would not wish to listen to an educational programme and would select something more entertaining, Also, women are not allowed out of the house without the permission of their husbands. They will be beaten - and believe it to be justified - if they leave without permission. The solution in Ghana was to talk with men to encourage them to allow them to let their wives meet together in groups of ten or fifteen. 'so she could increase the family's income'. 70% of the world's poorest people make money from growing and selling food from their small plots of land. Making those plots more productive would give families more money. 

Some time later, Gates attended a group meeting and was surprised when the group leader said

Raise your hand if - before you joined the self-help group - you could grow enough food to last your family the whole year. 

Not a single hand went up. Then the leader said

Raise your hand if you had surplus to sell last year.

Almost every hand went up. 

Patricia's solution was a bit different. A CARE organisation worked with couples and had them switch roles and role play. She was able to tell him to 'Do this, do this, do this, do this...' He came to realise that if she had no help in the household work then they would always be short of food. He became a more supportive husband and she finally had what she needed to succeed at her farming endeavours.

The book is careful to explain how empowering women also helps men: there is more food, children are healthier, there is perhaps money to educate their children which reflects well on the head of the family and, in one scenario, a man worked out that if helped his wife with the work - contrary to community expectations for men - his wife was happier and less tired and so their marriage bed was happier.

It is not just men who hold women down, but other women as well, particularly when it comes to female genital cutting (using the word 'mutilation' is derogatory and not conducive to discussing the issue with villagers). The consequences for individuals and for families aren't always obvious to people who blindly follow traditions and it is necessary to find ways to help them see the benefits of change. 

Another surprise from Gates' book was that she tackles the role of religion in suppressing and damaging women. I've ended up buying the book, as I did Attenborough's book, to re-read and study. 

My first choices for charitable giving have always been women's causes, particularly Planned Parenthood, women's refuges or homeless shelters for women. At the back of Gates' book is a list of causes she recommends, many of which she described their work in the book:

Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee

www.brac.net

CARE

www.care.org/our-work

Family Planning 2020

www.familyplanning2020.org

Girls Not Brides

www.girlsnotbrides.org

Kakenya’s Dream

www.kakenyasdream.org

Malala Fund

www.malala.org

#MeToo Movement

www.metoomvmt.org

Population Council

www.populationcouncil.org

PRADAN

www.pradan.net

Saksham

www.community.org.in/story

Save the Children

www.savethechildren.org

Tostan

www.tostan.org

Gates Foundation

www.gatesfoundation.org

www.momentoflift.com 

Nella Last's War

Nella Last'sWar:  The Second World War Diaries of 'Housewife, 49'.  The Trustees of the Mass Observation Project.

Just the title and the authorship need explanation I think!  To start with, Britain undertook to do some social research beginning in 1937.  The organisation was, and I guess is, called Mass Observation.  It stopped sometime in the 1950s but picked up again in the 1980s.

One of the initial projects involved asking about 500 volunteers to keep diaries and to submit them to the organisation periodically.  In addition to diaries there were specific questionnaires sent out and all sorts.  The variety of topics they asked people about is hilarious.

Anyhow, Nella Last was one of the volunteers and when she sent in her diary pages she identified herself by her age and occupation: 'Housewife, 49'.  This identifier was later used by actress, writer, etc., Victoria Wood, in a 2007 television drama based on Nella's diaries.  Which gives you a hint of how interesting they are. [If you've not run into Victoria Wood, you missed out.  She's a national treasure.]

I loved this book for many reasons:

• It is a first hand account of a civilian's experience of WWII, including being bombed and living in shelters, rationing, etc.
• Born in 1889, she would have been about my Grandma's age, but she was far more exuberant and determined than Grandma ever was - she reminded me quite a lot of my Mom.  
• Hearing all the things she did (cook, clean, run a charity shop, run a canteen, organise a wartime sewing circle) between the ages of 49 and 56 reminds me how lazy I am.
• She - even more than most women of her day apparently - was really good at being frugal.  She had a limited housekeeping allowance that remained the same all through the war.  
• Through the diary, you see her attitude change and her confidence grow.  She stops being a doormat for her husband (who sounds a bit of a lump) and begins to appreciate her own worth. 
• She was clever and creative and she made important contributions to her community just by doing what she loved to do:  cooking, crafting, recycling - and being very organised.
• She talks about anything and everything in a down to earth way. Her husband worked for in a family owned business and they ran a car, which makes them fairly prosperous. People above her on the social ladder clearly turned to her competent and practical ways for aid just as much as those below.
• She always served her husband a hot lunch, which he came home for.
• She felt the most thrifty means to feed her family was to do what they called 'hotel meals', consisting of 'a soup, a savoury dish and a sweet'.  Of course soup can be made from yesterday's left overs; her savoury dishes tended to be casseroles made up of small bits she gathered.  The sweet was often something make shift involving gelatin, tinned fruit, evaporated milk or cream, if she didn't have the means to bake an actual cake.
• She always hid her 'economies' until the war forced everyone to be more careful; then she discovered her frugal skills were much envied and her advice sought.
• She clearly adored her two grown sons, but she wanted them both to live full and fulfilling lives, even if it meant they might not always be safe or near to her.
• In short, she had stacks of character.

If any of these ideas interest you, can I suggest you put your hands on this book?  It isn't indexed as I'd like it to have been, but I found a link that includes some of my favourite quotes.  It doesn't include any of her funny recipes, but you'll get a flavour of the kind of person she was.

Family, friends, woman's role

In these extracts, Nella writes of moments in her family life during the war. She reveals her feelings towards her husband, her sons, her past life and her anger at the limitations that society imposed on women at this time.

Monday 25 September 1939: I've got a lot to be thankful for. Even the fact - which often used to stifle me - that my husband never went anywhere alone or let me go anywhere without him, has settled into a feeling of content.

Sunday 8 October 1939: Next to being a mother, I'd have loved to write books - that is if I had the brains and the time. I love to 'create' but turned to my home and cooking and find a lot of pleasure in making cakes etc. He [her son Cliff] seems to have got the idea that I'll go into pants! Funny how my menfolk hate women in pants. I do myself, but if necessary for work, would wear them.

Wednesday 15 January 1941: I gave Cliff a very big helping as he had to catch the train back [to his base] after lunch. He said 'If you ever have to work for a living, Mom, come and cook for the Army'. I said 'What do you mean - work for my living. I guess a married woman who brings up a family and makes a home, is working jolly hard for her living. And don't you ever forget it. And don't get the lordly male attitude that thinking wives are pets - and kept pets at that.'

Saturday 24 January 1942: Nella had a huge row with her husband, over whether their son Cliff should volunteer for overseas service. Her husband wants him to remain at home in a 'safe' job, whilst Nella wants him to fulfil himself. Her anger seems to be related to her exasperation at her husband's lack of imagination and resistance to new ideas.

In the early years of their marriage, times were hard and her husband's family was of little help. Nella was still angry at their patronising and arrogant behaviour towards her in those times.

He went on and on about Cliff being a fool and if he had remained a PT instructor, he might never have had to go. Nella replied Would you cling so tightly to Cliff that you would kill all that was fine in him as long as he stayed in England. What about honour and duty. He said 'You always did talk daft, I want my boy to be safe'.

Nella replied angrily

I thanked God I was a fool... and had tried to teach my lads to be fools and if he had been a bit more of a fool, he would have been more of a man. His boy, indeed. He has never taught, cared for, tried to understand either of them - or ever thinks of writing to them - and is not always interested enough in their letters to listen if I read them. Cliff must live, and not shun Life and always be afraid of things and ideas.

Cliff told his parents that he had let it be known that he was willing to go abroad. He was taken aback by his father's face with tear-filled eyes, crying 'I want you to be safe'.

Nella said

Safe for what? Till his soul dies in his body... and bitter inward thoughts turn his blood sour and torment him.

Death, freedom and marriage

Wednesday 21 March 1942: Cliff's best friend, George, was killed. On Cliff's return home, Nella Last quotes his words.

'I never knew death before, that dreadful nevermore feeling. So much has gone. I cannot linger around a bookshop. I never cared for anyone as much as George. We belonged. Our friendship was one of mutual likes and dislikes.'

Nella Last writes:

So dreadful to see distress one cannot do anything to help or comfort. Words are hollow and brittle things. I could only hold him [Cliff] closely. So much passing that was beautiful and good

Sunday 12 April 1942: When I was a girl, it was considered very odd not to be married at 21 or 22, and my mother said 17 or 18 was the age most girls thought of marriage when she was young. Looking round friends and acquaintance's boys and girls, sons of 25 to 30 with no thought of marriage and girls who are going off to the Services and saying 'Oh we will wait till after the War to get married'.

I feel this conscription of women will be a backward step, for it is taking the best, most formative years from a girl's life and giving her a taste of freedom that many crave for. Will they settle later to homes and children?

Sunday 17 May 1942: My wedding anniversary - 31 years ago. I was married in blue but as no make-up was worn then by a respectable girl, it robbed me of what colour I had. I can remember my huge dark eyes, blazing in my poor white face and my attempts to rub and pinch a bit of colour into my cheeks. My mother thought I was lovely, my husband thought I looked white and afraid.

Thursday 10 May 1945: I love my home dearly but as a home rather than a house. The latter can make a prison and a penance if a woman makes too much of a fetish of cleaning. But I will not go back to the narrowness of my husband's 'I don't want anyone else's company but yours'.

I looked at his placid blank face and marvelled at the way he had managed so to dominate me for all our married life, at how, to avoid hurting him, I had tried to keep him in a good mood.

I know that I'm not the sweet woman I used to be but rather a frayed battered thing, with nerves kept in control by effort that at times became too much and nervous breakdowns were the result. No one would ever give me one again, no one.

Monday 18 June 1945: I can never go back to that harem existence that my husband thinks so desirable.

Queen Katherine

Queen Katherine by Linda Porter.  This is about Katherine Parr, the sixth and last wife of Henry VIII. The one who lived.  This book banishes some of the commonly held beliefs, for example that she was a dowdy old thing that nursed Henry in his old age. She was anything but, in fact she was being courted by the best catch of her day, Thomas Seymour, when Henry stepped in.  She married Seymour in secret soon after Henry died. 

I was astonished to learn that she had been married and widowed twice before she married the King.  Particularly as she never had any children by her first two husbands in spite of being married something like a total of 14 years. Her second husband got dragged into something called the Pilgrimage of Grace, a popular uprising protesting the dissolution of the monasteries.  I'd never heard of this uprising either.  She had no children other than a daughter by Seymour; Katherine died within a week of giving birth.  She only outlived Henry by just over a year. Her fourth husband was beheaded six months later for treason.  I found myself counting on my fingers a lot while reading this book: people died quite young back then, for all sorts of natural and political reasons. 

There was one part that made me laugh and I re-checked the book so that I could share it with you.  It was the marriage vows of Henry VIII and Katherine:

Henry:  I, Henry, take thee Katherine, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part, and thereto I plight thee my troth. 

Katherine:  I, Katherine, take thee Henry to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward for better or worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to be bonaire and buxom in bed and at board, till death us do part, and thereto I plight unto thee my troth.

And some of us women worry about having to promise to 'obey'!

As usual, I'm fascinated by strange words and had to look some of these up:

plight:  pledge or promise

troth: fidelity, allegiance (variant of truth)

bonaire: cheerful and pleasant

buxom:  obedient, lively, yielding 

board:  dinner table

See other Tudor terms at: http://www.thetudorswiki.com/page/Tudor+Words+Glossary  

Cliff Notes

If this appears on a different day to my last post, I will have accomplished at least something I've not managed most of last week; I don't seem to be able to get that right at all!  Anyhow...


In between visiting the ceramic art gallery in California and the pottery display in the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens, I was browsing the biography section of my library and found Lynn Knight's book about Clarice Cliff.

Loads of folks here in Britain have heard of her, but I never had until reading this book, which I quite enjoyed.  I have to confess that I am still not that in love with ceramics, though I do appreciate them more than I did.  The thing I really liked about Knight's book was that it described so much of what life in the inter-war period was like for an ordinary working class family in Tunstall, one of the towns in Stoke, AKA The Potteries.  After all, everyone didn't live a Downton Abbey lifestyle.  Except that Cliff was far from ordinary.

She determined early on that she would be a designer, a relatively lofty position in the trade (where, typical of Britain, every job has its place in the pecking order) and certainly not one generally held by a woman.  She visited aunts who were pottery painters, took art classes and even left a steady and reliable job at one company to join another where she felt she would have more opportunity to advance.  This was a very unusual choice in that day, but her instincts proved her right.  Through her own talent and ambition, and perhaps aided by a clandestine relationship with her married boss, she advanced to have her own workshop and painters at a relatively early age.   The relationship with the boss is particularly interesting as she certainly never had the appearance of a 'femme fatale'.

It's clear that the whole of her energy went into her work and that she had a nearly inexhaustible source of ideas for new shapes and colours.  She was sent to further training and art classes and travelled to Europe to learn new ideas.  Cliff didn't just come up with pictures to decorate pieces, she designed new shapes.  For example, in the period following the first world war, there was a demand for tea sets that took up less space and she supplied flat-sided pots and cups that all fit together neatly.  She also developed new purposes for pottery, things like decorative ashtrays (now that more women smoked) and things to hang on the dining room or kitchen wall.

Another contribution she made was to send groups of her painters - only the prettiest ones of course - to London and other big cities to do painting demonstrations in large department stores to draw attention to the new pieces available from A.J. Wilkinson's.  By this time there were a very few other notable female pottery designers and some other successful business women, but her story was one of the very few that began from a working class background and in a place other than London.

I must admit that very little of her work is to my taste and we won't be collecting her pieces in this house, though we could use a tea set where all the pieces actually match and one with flat sides has a lot of appeal!  She is mainly known for the line labelled 'Bizarre' and this is a theme she carried on for most of her career, though there are some much more conservative designs that I like quite a bit.  I would need to check the book out again (and for all I know it's been sold...) to find those pattern names.  However, if you are generally a fan, you could always join the collectors' club.

She lived at home until a relatively advanced age (37) and then finally broke all the rules and found her own flat, which of course she decorated extravagantly with her own artwork.  In 1940, after the death of his wife, Colley Shorter and Clarice were married and she went to live at his house, called Chetwynd House, until her death in 1972.

This name, 'Chetwynd House' is apparently rather popular in that part of the world.  There is a Chetwynd House in Stafford which was a post office during the lifetime of Cliff and Shorter.  Colley Shorter apparently named his home for another family home in Wolstanton in Newcastle (under Lyme, not upon Tyne), another part of the Potteries urban area.  That building is now the Wolstanton Working Men's Club. 

Chetwynd House is still a family home, though the present owners apparently have to cope with the fact of their home's famous past resident.  I find it rather satisfying that the fame is not attached to Colley Shorter, owner of A. J. Wilkinson's pottery company, but to the ambitious and talented woman, Clarice Cliff.

Miss Marple

I’m incredibly late to the game in so many areas it’s untrue (that’s how Brits say 'it’s unreal’).  I could easily give several examples, but I’ll get to the point and confess that I’ve just discovered Miss Marple on the telly.  Sure, I’ve skipped across her here and there whilst channel surfing.  I sometimes land on Poirot for a few minutes, but I’ve never watched one of them from beginning to end either but at least the clothes are more interesting.

It was Bill’s idea to order the Miss Marple series and we’ve been thoroughly enjoying them, though on our DVDs the programmes don’t appear to be in the order they would have appeared on TV.  I've looked up the dates in which the videos were produced; also the year the books were published.  The next time we go through we can watch them in a more sensible order.  I would guess that Miss Marple was quite well off living in a thatched cottage with a fair sized garden.  She also seems to hang out with a number of women with the title ‘Lady’ and her best friends are either wives of Vicars or Colonels, which would suggest connections to upper class.  Her nephew can afford to send her to the Bahamas for a holiday.  So you see, there are quite a few clues in addition to her accent.  Wikipedia gives a more informed overview of her situation, presumably having already watched all the films and read all the books.

This isn’t the inter war period, like Poir0t, but it’s good all the same.  The videos were produced in 1984 and 1992 and seem to include post WWII details.  The first book was written in 1930, and a couple in 1942, but most of them appeared in the 50's and 60's.  However, the videos are considered a good example of 'heritage television' and that may well be why we enjoy them so much.

I think Miss Marple is a role model of sorts, being as how she's interested in gardening and knitting as well as murders.  True, she’s an old busybody, but that’s part of her information gathering nature of course.  Her clothes are very staid and predictable, as they tended to be here in the 1950s.  Nothing I’m keen to wear, but she did have some nice silk shirt dresses in the warm weather of the Bahamas.   She is a master in the art of courtesy, a mixture of assertiveness and self-effacement.  She's entirely unintimidated by men of authority or wealth, completely comfortable with people in all stations of life.

Although I’ve lived here for 15 years, I still struggle with some of the English accents on videos and often put on the sub-titles so that I catch all the dialogue.  In this case, however, Bill got a special price on the video set as the subtitles are in Dutch – only in Dutch - and they can’t be turned off.   As one does with lemons, Bill amuses himself with finding quaint Dutch words for things.  I’m so enthralled with watching old age and dignity I don’t much notice the text any more.  She’s not pretty, but many of us aren’t or won’t be.  That doesn’t seem to bother her much at all.  You might notice that some of my posts are labeled ‘vanity’.  Though I’m fairly interested in make-up and hairstyle and clothes, beyond being appropriate and presenting my best self for the day, the obsessional end of that spectrum seems rather foolish to me.  There are differing views about what constitutes aging gracefully, but I’m thinking Miss Marple is a fine example of one approach.

Joan Hickson was 78 when she began filming the Miss Marple series, the oldest woman to have a contract for a major television series according to her obituary.  She died in 1998, aged 92.  Looking at her birth date (1906), I’m thinking maybe she qualifies as ‘interwar’ and I may need to see about finding some of her other work. 

If you haven’t seen the Miss Marple series, I can highly recommend it!  Of course there are also the books.  Strangely, I’ve never got into Agatha Christie before, but there is a first for everything, isn’t there?

Long Live the Queen

Today is the 85th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II.  Last week one of Bill's relatives in California, Annette, emailed me this series of photographs and I remembered the Queen's birthday was coming up.  I never think about how long she has been Queen, she's the only Queen of England in my lifetime.  I thought you might enjoy this pictures as much as I did.

 

Pretty amazing, eh?

Pamela - Part Three

If you recall from yesterday, we left 'poor' Pamela newly widowed, about 51 years of age, and just getting back in touch with her old friend Averell Harriman, who was by then 79 years old and also recently widowed.  He met up with Pamela at Duchin’s place and they apparently picked up right where they left off.  Duchin reported flipping on his front porch light and finding the two making out in the dark, half undressed.  How embarrassing…how undignified.  I’m still aghast…could it really have been that easy to seduce a 79 year old multi-millionaire?  [Where did I go wrong?]  Then again, they did have a shared history from WWII and London-town.  They were married soon after.

This had impacts upon other people, large and small.  For one, Harriman’s financial manager queried whether he should continue sending the now Mrs. Harriman that monthly check – the one she’d been getting for 30 years?  The impression given was that Harriman himself had forgotten all about it.  Part of me thinks that someone so careless with their money deserves to lose it.  

Duchin reported getting some nominal present that first Christmas, something along the lines of a tie.  Pamela’s son, Winston, got an airplane.  A real one.  Alida Morgan (beautiful, striking woman with white hair, shown in a very red room; must find out more about her), Harriman’s grand-daughter (actually, step-grand-daughter; her maternal grandfather was apparently Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney) dropped by to see him one day and was turned away.  "Leave a card, make an appointment," she was told.  She was never alone with her grandfather again, not even on the telephone, without Pamela’s interfering presence preventing any real personal contact or complaints about the increasing distance between them.  Part of me thinks that anyone so careless about their personal relationships deserves to lose them.  

I’m still working on figuring out what was so wonderful about Pamela.  Whatever it was, her new 79-year-old husband got a ‘new lease on life’.  The programme reminded viewers how important a man Harriman had been in his lifetime, the 48^th governor of New York, two time presidential candidate.  Strangely enough I’d only ever heard of Averell Harriman because he’d married Pamela Harriman, who had something to do with Churchill.  I felt a bit better after reading his Wikipedia entry that most of his political career happened before I was born.  Nevertheless, in 1971 he was apparently still a big player on the Washington scene and he had a home in Georgetown.  Pamela’s political career began with her salons. 

salon -- n
1.	a room in a large house in which guests are received
2.	an assembly of guests in a fashionable household, esp a gathering of major literary, artistic, and political figures from the 17th to the early 20th centuries

Word Origin and History: 

1699, "large room or apartment in a palace or great house," from Fr. salon  "reception room," from It. salone  "large hall,"  Sense of "reception room of a Parisian lady" is from 1810; meaning "gathering of fashionable people" first recorded 1888 (the woman who hosts one is a salonnière ). Meaning "establishment forhairdressing and beauty care" is from 1913.  From www.dictionary.com

One of her biographers describes her working at her on parties like a professional cowboy on a seasoned cutting horse:  she’d choose her man and cut him out of the crowd.  The lassoed politician would be taken to the couch where they would chat a few minutes; she’d ask what she wanted to know, give what information she had.  Then she’d return the heifer back to the herd and select the next one, continuing throughout the evening.   Apparently this all required infinite charm and finesse and she was a master at work.  I don’t quite follow what is so hard about this, but obviously this isn’t my social area.

With Pamela’s interest and Harriman’s money, cash once again flowed into the Democratic campaign chest.  (Mind, I’m not saying I’m against that at all; but I do try not to be political here.  This is about interesting people, not politics.)  A short clip is shown of Pamela being interviewed on a TV talk show.  [Interviewer:  What would you say was Reagan’s weak spot?  Pamela:  When Reagan went into office the US deficit was $59 billion; it is now $200 billion.]  She comes across as cool and competent.  She’s also discovered a cause (the word protégé comes to mind, but I’m not sure it’s apt):  Bill Clinton.  The programme pretty much says that it was Pamela Harriman’s backing that propelled Bill Clinton into the top office. 

I was alive and voting, if not very politically aware, at that time and I don’t remember any association between Clinton and Pamela.  I would have said I had only heard of Pamela since living in England and being interesting in all things British.  Perhaps I had heard the name before, but didn’t catch on.  I was busy around that time with husband #2, 20-month old step-son, finishing a master’s degree, dealing with the deaths of both my parents, moving to SLC to a new job.  You know, life?  Anyhow...

Two weeks after the Presidential victory, Clinton asked Pamela what she wanted; a politician has to pay his debts, of course.  In 1993 she traveled again to Paris, this time as US Ambassador to France.  I’m not saying she wouldn’t be good at that job, in fact, it sounds as though it was what she’d been training for all her life, according to Sir Henry Wotton:  

"An ambassador is an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country." 

Apparently she and President Chirac got on like a house on fire and she got a lot of his time, more than most other ambassadors.  Life in Paris was good for Pamela.

However, February 1976 found her in Kent for the christening of one of her great-grandchildren.  Always an avid horsewoman, at age 76 she enjoyed a brisk five-mile horse ride.  The next day she returned to Paris and was taking exercise at the Paris Ritz.  In her 20^th lap of the pool she suffered a stroke, from which she died a few days later.  I confess to being impressed that she had such an active life style all the way to her death; I take it as an explanation of how she kept her looks for so long.  (That and a bit of surgery.)

As Shirac had once promised, ‘before she left French soil’ she was awarded the Grand Cross.  Her son Winston reported that she’d not been gone 3 minutes (as in removed from life support) when Clinton was on the phone to him.  Upon learning that she’d been awarded the Grand Cross, Clinton declared “We’re not going to be out-done by that.”  Winston (who died in March 2010) said it was “as though the Atlantic became a large poker table”, with Presidents of the two countries vying for Pamela’s posthumous favours, so to speak.   Clinton sent AirForce One to bring Pamela home to the US (she’d become an American citizen in 1971) and she was given military honours and a State Funeral, something no other ambassador has received.

The programme on the whole did a great job, I thought.  They laud Pamela’s achievements, give glimpses into the history, life and lifestyle of many rich and famous people.  They also document the trail of tears and bitterness that was her wake.  She was attractive (Bill thinks rather beautiful, even), confident, obviously charming and she certainly knew what she wanted.  

Though she had no formal education she was must have been fairly clever.  I’m certain she was a hard worker.  It must take work to spend that much money!  I don’t think ‘good in bed’ covers it, but I confess that I don’t really understand what courtesans actually do.  I read somewhere that women who marry for money end up earning every penny and I believe there is some truth in that.  I think I would prefer to pay my own way in the world than to pander to some rich man, but had life offered me a millionaire, or three, I might have thought differently.  Whilst the programme leaves you with the impression of ‘rags to riches’, she started off pretty well up and I can’t help think this was part of her English charm to rich American men, being the daughter and sister of a Baron.

I, too, applaud her for living a full and interesting life.  I'm not much bothered that she was a courtesan or whatever, but I do feel for the family members she pushed aside.  According to Wikipedia, the Harriman estate is still under dispute.  

I did find one good thing she did:  according to that article, she left her estate not only to her son, but also to his first wife, the mother of her four grand-children.  Putting aside whether it was her money to give, I’ll give her brownie points for that.

Pamela - Part Two

In the spring of 1947, Pamela Churchill moved to Paris.  I’m not clear about where she did it or exactly how, but she "became a courtesan".  That's not a word I have cause to use very often, so I looked it up:

cour·te·san

/ˈkɔrtəzən, ˈkoʊr-, ˈkɜr-/ Show Spelled–noun

a prostitute or paramour, especially one associating with noblemen or men of wealth.

Origin:
1540–50;  < Middle French courtisane  < Italian cortigiana,  literally, woman of the court, derivative of corte court

OK, I get it now.  Anyhow, she hooked up with men like the Aga Khan (I'm guessing this one, as he held the title about then) and one of the Rothschild sons.  According to Virginia Rounding, author of The Grand Horizontales, (the book is about four other courtesans, not her) Pamela spent twelve years perfecting her art of seduction.  Part of her routine was to spend an evening talking with a man, get him into bed, and the next day to go to Cartier.  There she would purchase a silver cigarette box and have something engraved in the lid as a gift for him.  I’m not clear why or which part of it all was so irresistible but she had a fair success rate, apparently.  By the time she was 30 she had a fortune in gifts from her lovers.

Her son, Winston Churchill, said his was not a particularly maternal mother.  However, from the age of 8 or 9, she had a use for him.  If she had no male escort, he was to put on his navy suit, white silk shirt and tie and provide her an escort.  Must have been some upbringing.

At some point in this period, Pamela linked up with handsome (?) Italian playboy, Gianni Agnelli, heir to the Fiat fortune, with a string of homes between St. Moritz and St. Tropez, the programme said.  She spent five years trying to land him, but in the end he dumped her, in spite of the fact she’d become pregnant and he made her have an abortion.  What could she expect?  After all, she was divorced and he was Catholic.  And these are not nice people.  

In 1953 when celebrations were held for the coronation of the new Queen Elizabeth, Pamela was desperate for an invitation.  No chance, though.  The ambassadors’ wives knew all about her and they were not having it!  Can't blame them, can you?

In 1959, at nearly 40, Pamela took herself off to New York, to a room at the Carlyle Hotel.  Somehow she managed to snag herself the Broadway producer, Leland Hayward, who’d had affairs with the likes of Garbo and Hepburn.  They were married on the 4^th of May 1960.  Brooke Hayward, Pamela’s step-daughter, said her father had explained his marriage with the observation that Pamela was the ‘greatest courtesan in the world.’  The narrators say that for the next ten years Pamela did her job as an English trophy wife and made a great life for him.  Whilst taking care of him, however, she also took care of herself.

Apparently self-care Pamela-fashion included fresh flowers, to the tune of $10,000 a year.  In the 1960s.  According to this Inflation Calculator  the present value of that money would be between $59 and $73 thousand dollars.  I'm thinking that's a lot of roses!

Step-daughter Brooke also reported that Pamela had diamonds "in swathes".  A friend,  seeing the collection, remarked that "it was F.S. Fitzgerald stuff" (must read some, sometime) and Pamela tended to wear the lot.  Paints a picture of a walking Piccadilly Circus, I think, but then this is a bitter step-daughter speaking. 

Said step-daughter at one time was married to actor Dennis Hopper, who admired the art the Haywards had on the walls, pieces by Matisse, Picasso and the like.  Upon hearing her son-in-law remark how much he admired a particular piece, Pamela’s response was to tell her husband they really ought to leave that piece to a museum.  So, a strong message not just to the son-in-law but also to the step-daughter. 

Hayward died in 1971 and at the reading of the will, it transpired that there was no money left.  Pamela had burned through it all.  She was ‘ruined’, but within six months, she was married again - to her final husband, Averell Harriman.

The day after Hayward’s funeral she was on the phone to Peter Duchin, son of bandleader Eddy Duchin and - more importantly - godson of her old friend Harriman.  

The TV programme didn't explain that Peter Duchin's mother had died when he was only a few days old and that the Harriman's had raised him.  Nor did they mention that Duchin was eventually also son-in-law to Pamela, being the second husband of Brooke Hayward.  And they say that the upper class in Britain are all related to some degree...  One thing is for sure, reading about the lives of these people doesn't highly recommend fame and fortune in support of happy relationships.