The Other Mitford: Pamela’s Story

The paperback edition of the first biography of Pamela Jackson, the most private of the famous Mitford sisters Pamela Jackson, nee Mitford, is perhaps the least well known of the illustrious Mitford sisters, yet her story is just as captivating, and more revealing. Despite shunning the bright city lights that her sisters so desperately craved, she was very much involved in the activities of her extraordinary family, picking up the many pieces when things went disastrously wrong
which they so often did. Joining her sisters on many adventures, including their meeting with Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, Pamela quietly observed the bizarre, funny and often tragic events that took place around her. Through her eyes, we are given a view of the Mitfords never seen before. ‘Loyal to the core,’ she possessed ‘the constancy and kindness that underpinned the wilder exploits of the Mitford family. Indeed, innocence, along with courage and kindness, was one of her remarkable qualities. But it was the innocence of a woman who had lived and suffered, loved and lost, and overcome adversity’. Journalist Diana Alexander, who was Pamela’s friend for many years, here reveals the unknown Mitford, or, as her lifelong admirer John Betjeman described her, ‘Gentle Pamela’. AUTHOR: Diana Alexander spent most of her working life in local journalism, working for Cotswold Life, Gloucestershire Life, Wiltshire Life and as a feature writer for the Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard. Having spent twelve years working as a cleaning lady for Pamela Jackson, the unknown Mitford sister, she got to know both her and her family very well, putting her in a unique position to write about the sister who rarely features in other books about the Mitford family. 8pp b/w