Lady Winifred Burghclere and her Troublesome Daughters By William Cross, FSA Scot

 

Lady    Winifred    Burghclere  
And   her   Troublesome   Daughters
Four   Immoral   Tales   From   The   Roaring  Twenties

NEW BOOK  : NOW AVAILABLE 

FROM THE AUTHOR WILLIAM CROSS, FSA SCOT 

SYNOPIS

 

Winifred Burghclere  was  the  clever   sister of the Lord Carnarvon who discovered Tutankhamun, a biographer of Restoration toffs  and lady of letters. Her early years  were  spent at Highclere Castle, the back drop to TV’s ‘Downton Abbey’.    

Her widower father, the 4^th  Earl, a Cabinet Minister   made her his private secretary, Winifred learned early on how to keep secrets. Twice married she produced four lively, racy daughters from her second  marriage to the quixotic Herbert Gardner,  an actor playwright who turned to politics, a former  Liberal Government Minister  he was raised to the peerage.

 

A stickler for rules, duty and  old world  values  Winifred completely hemmed her daughters in,  they  were kept under their mother’s grip, bullied, isolated  and schooled by governesses. The girls   were named  Juliet,  Alathea, Mary and Evelyn Gardner,  each had a long string of  other forenames. They  began as  a peculiar  mix of  the prudish and  moral,  “as  naive as nuns “,   then  became  the complete  flip  side of this,  amoral, and unconventional, hence troublesome.

 

The  Gardner  girls’ rebellious period  overlapped with  the Great War and its aftermath into the Bright Young Things era and the roaring twenties. Each of the  girls had disastrous  marriages  albeit with  interesting men  like Geoffrey Fry  a member of the Fry’s chocolate family,  he  was  Private Secretary to several Prime Ministers and married the  very disturbed slim, boyish,  Alathea. The youngest Gardner daughter Evelyn  was the first wife of  Evelyn Waugh,  the  writer  of  Scoop and Brideshead Revisited  who  pop up in the infamous ‘ He-Evelyn-She- Evelyn’ partnership.

 

In this tale of  aristocratic snobbery,  scandal  and love  William Cross  ( author of several books on the Carnarvons of Highclere Castle ( Downton Abbey) ) offers a quaint  blend of  exciting, amusing,  shocking tales, unearthing  the inevitable  excesses, casualties and  horrors  of   the era’s pleasure domes  of night club frolics,  themed  dances,  crazy parties and drink, drugs and sex fuelled  romps   on the  London scene : all of which  forced four ‘poor little rich girls’ to  quickly grow up and face the consequences of their actions.  

FOR MORE BACKGROUND DETAILS  GO TO THIS LINK BELOW

https://lady-winifred-burghclere.yolasite.com/details-of-lady-burghclere-and-daughters.php

ISBN 10 1-905914-41-5   ISBN 13 978-1-905914-41-8     

Published by  Book Midden Publishing c/o William . Cross,  58 Sutton Road  Newport  Gwent   NP19 7JF   United Kingdom 

MORE INFORMATION  AVAILABLE DIRECT FROM THE AUTHOR    

email WILL CROSS

williecross@aol.com