Unity Mitford

Sir,

Having been a reader of Motor Sport for something approaching forty years and learning over this period that you have a penchant for accuracy and rightly so, I write to respectfully point out that the “Unity” mentioned in “RFC Officer’s Diaries,” May issue, would not have been Unity Valkyrie Mitford, if this is who you had in mind, since in 1916 she would only have been two years of age having been born in 1914 four days after the conflict was started in fact. I felt pretty certain she was 25 years old at the time of her attempted suicide (Sept. 3rd 1939), but checked my facts before putting pen to paper by referring to “Hens and Rebels” written by her sister Jessica Mitford, and to “A Fine Old Conflict” by the same authoress.

I write the foregoing not in anyway as a criticism, (Motor Sport has been my “bible” over the years for the motoring truths as far as is humanly possible), but in order to keep the record straight as I am sure you would wish. With the declining standards around us today it is heartening to find Motor Sport upholding the best in journalism.

Kenneth Dixon Lloyd, Coventry

[I should have realised but, as ever, the senders have supplied the facts, other letters also having pointed out the age discrepancy—Ed]