Mitford family to "The Times" journalist Ben Macintyre, as "Diana the Fascist, Jessica the Communist, Unity the Hitler-lover; Nancy the Novelist; Deborah the Duchess and Pamela the unobtrusive poultry connoisseur". The family traces its origins in Northumberland back to the time of the Norman conquest. In the Middle Ages they had been Border Reivers based in Redesdale. The main family line had seats at Mitford Castle and Mitford Old Manor House prior to Mitford Hall in 1828. The sisters achieved notoriety for their controversial but stylish lives as young people, then for their public political divisions between communism and fascism. Nancy and
Pamela Frankau service in Hampstead Cemetery. Margaret Webster dedicated her first autobiography "The Same, Only Different: Five Generations of a Great Theatre Family" (1969) in Frankau memory. Frankau's final novel 'Colonel Blessington' was edited by her cousin, the writer Diana Raymond and posthumously published in 1968. Pamela Frankau Pamela Sydney Frankau (3 January 1908 – 8 June 1967) was a popular English novelist from a prominent artistic and literary family. Abandoned by her novelist father Gilbert Frankau at an early age, she soon became a prolific writer herself. She stopped writing for a decade after the death of her lover, the poet