Asthall Manor Park. The youngest of the Mitford sisters Deborah, later Duchess of Devonshire, was born at Asthall in 1920. Her sister Diana had an appendectomy on the spare-bedroom table. The Mitfords were great socialites, and Asthall hosted frequent hunting and shooting weekend parties, regular guests included Clementine Churchill, Frederick Lindemann and Walter Sickert. Nancy Mitford's fictional Alconleigh in "The Pursuit of Love" is based largely on Asthall, and family life there is described in Jessica Mitford's autobiographical "Hons and Rebels". Redesdale had never planned to make Asthall Manor a permanent home, and in 1926 the family moved into nearby Swinbrook House
The Gay Sisters The Gay Sisters The Gay Sisters is a 1942 American drama film directed by Irving Rapper, and starring Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Donald Crisp, Gig Young (who adopted his character's name as his screen name) and Nancy Coleman. The Warner Bros. motion picture was based on a novel by Stephen Longstreet. Sisters Fiona, Evelyn, and Susie Gaylord, are orphaned when first their mother goes down with the "Lusitania" and then their wealthy father, Major Penn Gaylord, is killed in France in World War I. Before Penn left for France, he told Fiona, the eldest, that the Gaylords have