Asthall Manor, Oxfordshire. I am walking in the gardens where the Mitford myth was made. Here are the steps on which a famous photograph of the family was taken in the 1920s: Lord and Lady Redesdale — “Muv” and “Farve” — with their six daughters and one son, in order of age: Nancy, Pamela, Tom, Diana, Unity, Jessica (Decca) and Deborah (Debo).
I am here because Nancy wrote a novel based on their lives at Asthall. She called it The Pursuit of Love, renamed the Mitfords the Radletts, transformed Asthall into Alconleigh, and described the taking of a parallel photograph: “There they are, held like flies, in the amber of that moment — click goes the camera and on goes life; the minutes, the
