Clarissa Churchill – as she was known until her marriage to Sir Anthony Eden – was brought up in a now vanished privileged world of intellectual, social and political London. In the introduction to his biography, Hugo Vickers provides a valuable roll-call of names. Those still living who knew Clarissa have proved invaluable sources of information, though a note of unconscious humour sometimes slips in – as when Antonia Fraser comments: ‘I was not quite glamorous enough for her’ (‘quite’ being the operative word).
Born in 1920, Clarissa began life with the ostensible advantage of being a Churchill, the niece of Winston. In fact this was not the case: her real father was Harold Baker, known as ‘Bluey’, a scholar, barrister, Liberal politician and friend of H.H.
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