Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 1) cover art

Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 1)

1918-38

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Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 1)

By: Chips Channon
Narrated by: Tom Ward
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Born in Chicago in 1897, 'Chips' Channon settled in England after the Great War, married into the immensely wealthy Guinness family and served as Conservative MP for Southend-on-Sea from 1935 until his death in 1958. His career was unremarkable. His diaries are quite the opposite. Elegant, gossipy and bitchy by turns, they are the unfettered observations of a man who went everywhere and who knew everybody. Whether describing the antics of London society in the interwar years, or the growing scandal surrounding his close friends Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson during the abdication crisis, or the mood in the House of Commons in the lead-up to the Munich crisis, his sense of drama and his eye for the telling detail are unmatched. These are diaries that bring a whole epoch vividly to life.

A heavily abridged and censored edition of the diaries was published in 1967. Only now, 60 years after Chips' death, can the text be shared in all its glory.

©2021 Chips Channon (P)2021 Penguin Audio 20th Century Diaries & Journals Europe Great Britain Historical Memoirs, Diaries & Correspondence Modern Inspiring England Funny Thought-Provoking

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Critic reviews

The greatest British diarist of the 20th century. A feast of weapons-grade above-stairs gossip. Now, finally, we are getting the full text, in all its bitchy, scintillating detail, thanks to the journalist and historian Simon Heffer, whose editing of this vast trove of material represents an astonishing achievement. Channon is a delightful guide, by turns frivolous and profound. (Ben Macintyre)
Wickedly entertaining . . . scrupulously edited and annotated by Simon Heffer. Genuinely shocking, and still revelatory. (Andrew Marr)
Sensation, spite, social climbing, high society, self-indulgence, sex; Chips Channon had the raw materials to make his uncensored diaries newsworthy a century after he began them. They shock, repel and compel because they don't conceal . . . He is calculating, selfish, amoral, vain, ambitious and deluded, and more of us should follow his example. Not in the living, but in the recording of it. (Jenni Russell)
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Chips Channon seemed to be an odious man. However this was a different time. Eugenics theory was common throughout Europe. The UK was not exempt and the class system was rigid and social mobility rare. Through these diaries I developed a better understanding of the times leading up to the second world war and the appeasement processes which the aristocracy clung onto in order to maintain their lifestyles at any cost. Bravo Editor who must have found these diaries equally as difficult to transcribe as I found to listen to.
The casual racism; anti semitism; sexism and classism which Channon used in his diaries is so offensive to my modern ears that I was deeply emotional at times. But like a scab which one cannot leave alone I could not stop listening. The performance of the narrator was excellent and managed to exude the sheer campness of Channon who to my mind was a complete cliche.

Gripping but a difficult listen.

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A bird's eye / fly on the wall view of some of the most pivotal moments in the history of or country and Empire at the beginning of a tumultuous century. As revealed by Cups, who was at the very heart of the establishment. Best history lesson available today.

Simply fascinating

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Chips Channon admitted that he was only at home among the royalties. He was a profound snob, very much of an era that was even then beginning to disappear. He was extremely catty and self-obsessed. He plotted and planned his rise in society. He had no time for, or experience of people who were not important, titled or royal.
His days were almost interchangeable of lunches and dinners with the same cast of titled people and his affairs with men and women. There is much talk of shopping in Cartier.
His marriage to Lady Honor Guinness gave him the money he needed to fund his lavish lifestyle.
It is an interesting, if sometimes infuriating listen. The highlights being his record of the abdication crisis and the lead up to the WW2 from the close vantage point he had both with royalty and politics.
Well-written and interesting.

Snobbery

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Sir Henry (Chips) Channon was a USA born multi (as Nancy Mitford used to say) from Chicago. Anybody who was anybody went to his parties and just in case he was missing anything he went to "everybody" elses. That all, or most, of these parties were held in order to meet "someone" who "everybody" had met last week doesn't help. In some respects the most interesting material in this weighty tome are the footnotes - which sadly one does not get to hear. There are some great set pieces, state funerals, coronations (George VI, I think) and the whole abdication nonsense. Though to my surprise he very quickly goes off the boil about the Duke of Windsor - I'd have thought he would be a great fan, but he isn't. Quite caustic in fact, almost as unimpressed by him as Sir Alan Lascelles and that's pre abdication. He does like Wallis though. That he is supremely unconscious of his frantic scramble to make sure that King George VI and Queen Elizabeth don't freeze him out of high society is very funny. Creepy crawling round the Duke & Duchess of Kent is also very funny. He is very silly. Though also very well read, much more so than you would expect from wading through this vast compendium of pre war "Jennifer's Diaries". Mrs Betty Kenward was obviously influenced by him - his copy (like hers) is sometimes "I went to a delightful cocktail party for ......... at. Present were ........ Noel Coward nailed it with "I've been to a marvellous party, with Nu-Nu and Nada and Nell"

Some of the people he hero worships (Lord Curzon in particular) came across to me as utter arseholes, as Channon himself does at times. He was gay, or bi, and one assumes having a raging affair with Viscount Gage for a substantial chunk of this volume. This was illegal and if discovered he would have been socially ruined. That this same Viscount Gage was engaged in lukewarm pursuit of a certain Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon at around the same time does give pause for thought. The future Prince Regent of Yugoslavia was also a fly in the ointment - but he's not mentioned as obsessively as Viscount Gage. There is a huge amount of social - as in high society - history and gossip here but I'm not struck by Channon's writing style and excellent though the performance of the reader is it's a huge effort not to be sidetracked by the ironing. As a historical document what does surprise me is the extent to which High Society/The Court/The Season was still a place of serious politics - right up to the Second World War. My innocence.

Brideshead Wasn't Visited

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I'm glad I stuck with it. At first the narrator's voice was a little jarring but he grew on me! I think he became more English and sophisticated as Chips himself did. Very enjoyable.

Worth sticking with.

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This and the following two volumes are exquisite. Channon is the last of the great anti-heroes. An unspeakably vulgar, antisemitic, avaricious, narcissistic, pompous, bigoted, crawling, empathy-devoid nymphomaniac; also a generous and steadfast friend.

Channon was an outsider, a 'Chicago gangster' who put himself at the very very top of British society for over thirty years. He spent and screwed his way through the men and women of the aristocracy, the government and the theatre with barely a pause or a regret.

'I am only really happy in the company of Duchesses'

The Brideshead Set, Munich, the Abdication Crisis, World War at home, Kings, Queens, Emperors, coronations, royal weddings and state funerals, all here, all from self regarding first hand.

Simon Heffer has put these together with I imagine a great deal of effort and I believe a great deal of success. Tom Ward's narration is splendid, somehow both vital and of a long gone era. I'm sure that Channon's family helped to chose Ward for this considerable task - all in all about 150 hours.

I have little sympathy for Channon's character but was genuinely sad at the end of the third volume, as if I'd lost a relative.

A masterpiece of self obsessed snobbery

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It's an amazing insight by a self-obsessed social climber. It really is an amazing social/historical record. Can't wait for the next volume.

So very revealing, as events were happening.

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The narration by Tom Ward was very good with good variation of speech. I found the use of shorthand and mnemonics annoying for example “Vee Good, Vee Intimate etc” but instead I think “Very Good” would sound better. But also “P of W (Prince of Wales), and H of C (House of Commons)”. Channon, uses a lot of French phases in his diary, but they are not translated, so the listener has no idea what they mean.

I decided not to listen to the second volume as I realized I didn’t like Henry Channon as a person. He appeared childish, opinionated, snobbish, naive, gullible, vindictive and often petty. He consistently got it wrong either with world events and his support or views of people. He had extreme polarized, and negative views about people who didn’t support his position.

Well narrated, but a quite odious man

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Clarified the myth around Mrs simpson, Edward could have married her, tho Henry's take is interesting . Great engaging read, light and amusing ,

Edward & Mrs simpson

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What a plonker Chips Channon was - along with his cast of royals , minor royals , a high percentage of the government and some very rich hangers on. Why the U.K. did not have a revolution in the 1920s or 30s is beyond me.

Nasty man writes a diary

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