The scorchingly honest assessments of the great and not-so-good that flowed from ‘Chips’ Channon’s poison pen.
The writers of British political and social diaries tend to be witnesses of great events rather than the main players. Disraeli and Gladstone, Lloyd George, Churchill and Thatcher left no daily journals, presumably because they were too busy making history, as opposed to watching it unfold.
The diarists we read and remember – Alan Clark, Chris Mullins and Henry Channon’s friend and contemporary Harold Nicholson – were close enough to power to have a ringside seat, but sufficiently distant and detached to observe with a caustic and cynical eye. And they are of course great gossips, for as ‘Chips’ Channon writes: ‘What is the use of a discreet diary? One might as well have a discreet soul.’