Chips Channon’s uncensored diaries are addictive – and troubling
5/5
MP Chips Channon, photographed by Cecil Beaton
Credit: Sothebys
Nobody knows for certain why Henry Channon was called “Chips”. One theory is that as a young man he shared lodgings with a friend whose nickname was “Fish” – which is rather nice, as it’s hard to think of anyone less likely to have set foot in an ordinary fish and chip shop. For Chips Channon, the ultimate aristocrat manqué, was born with a reasonably sized silver spoon in his mouth, and thereafter worked hard on converting it into a soup tureen of solid gold.