Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon

by Henry Channon, Robert Rhodes James (Editor)

When Sir Henry ("Chips") Channon died in 1958, he left a detailed and almost continuous diary that he had kept for nearly forty years. In 1918 he had arrived in Europe, a young American from Chicago, just twenty-one years old. With his charm, ability, and ambition he made a rapid rise in English society. He married Lady Honor Guinness, became an MP, and, in the crucial years 1938-41, served at the Foreign Office as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mr. R. A. (now Lord) Butler. He was an MP until his death, and was, from the late twenties, a leading personality in London society. His friendships were many and varied; King Edward VIII, the Duck and Duchess of Kent, Lady Cunard, Terence Rattigan, the Duff Coopers and the Wavell, among many others, attended his salon in Belgrave Square.

In this edited version of his diaries, new and startling light is cast upon such episodes as the abdication of King Edward VIII, appeasement, the downfall of the Chamberlain Government and the dissensions between Sir Winston Churchill and Lord Wavell. The diaries have a real historical significance as an evocation of an age and a world that have vanished forever.

Genres: Biography, Politics, Diary, History, Memoir

512 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

He was educated in the United States and France and served in Europe with the American Red Cross during the First World War.

Reviews

[Manray9 · Rating 5 out of 5]

”Chips”: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon is a sophisticated and delightfully snarky glimpse of life among the British elite in the thirties, forties and fifties. Channon was a Tory MP in the thirties, an insider during the premiership of Neville Chamberlain, and a fringe participant in Churchill's regime. Chips' diaries lend firsthand detail to the Abdication Crisis, the Munich negotiations, and London life and politics throughout World War II. Despite many years in Parliament, Channon's political influence was peripheral, but with his diaries he left an indelible legacy.

Important figures come alive in Chips' pages: King Edward VIII, Wallis Warfield Simpson, Neville Chamberlain, Churchill, Rab Butler, Eden, Hore-Belisha, Duff and Diana Cooper, Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, Field-Marshal Wavell, Somerset Maugham and a smorgasbord of kings, princes, dukes, earls, tycoons, generals, artists and writers. Chips knew everyone who was anyone and wasn't reluctant to “dish the dirt.” His keen insights into people were only offset by his shameless snobbery.

I must point out, while the diaries are good reading, they expose the unpalatable affinity of Chips' circle for Franco and German Nazism. The British upper classes dreaded Leftism and practiced a casual antisemitism that is jarring to modern readers. Chips, in fact, never referred to the political opposition as Labour, but always as “the Socialists.” In 1936, he and his wife, an heiress to the Guinness fortune, were wined and dined in Germany by Göring and Goebbels (Göring's fête in Berlin is a standout scene in the diaries). In London, Joachim von Ribbentrop was a frequent guest at the Channon townhouse on Belgrave Square. Chips was so steeped in conservative conformity that, for a politician, he was surprisingly tone deaf to popular opinions of his time. Although he attributed his failure to rise to higher office to personal animosities and his individual shortcomings, in fact he was too closely associated with Neville Chamberlain and the policy of appeasement to find a prominent place in government after 1940.

The historian A. J. P. Taylor dubbed ”Chips”: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon a “classic,” while Nancy Mitford said “You can't think how vile & spiteful & silly it is.” Both descriptions are apt. It's worth reading and earned Five Stars from me.

Note: These diaries are expurgated and incomplete. Chips' son, Paul, and historian Robert Rhodes James edited this version for publication in 1967. Additional books were discovered later. In accordance with Paul's will, the full unexpurgated diaries are restricted until 2018.

[Buck · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, that didn't last long. I knew going in that Channon was a snob, a toady and a Nazi-appeaser, but such niggling considerations never really fazed me in the past: book whore that I am, I would happily read Satan himself if he wrote good prose. Unfortunately, Channon's prose, though serviceable, is nowhere near good enough to overcome my loathing for the man and everything he represents. Ten pages in and I already felt queasy; another ten and my slight aversion had turned to retching, sputtering distaste. Imagine a Corgi in a dinner jacket, waving its tail whenever some royal personage entered the room and running to sniff the regal crotch. That's Channon. How did Britain ever manage to hold off Hitler with such useless, twittering popinjays in charge of the country? Thank God for the working classes, eh?

[KOMET · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoy reading diaries of famous or notable people. Sir Henry Channon, better known as "Chips" by friends and detractors alike, managed to make a name for himself --- albeit on a minor scale --- in politics (as a member of the British Parliament between 1934 & 1953) and high society.

Though born an American, "Chips" divorced himself from his native land shortly after the First World War, and embraced fully and unreservedly all things British. Indeed, he became a British subject and married into one of the wealthiest families in Britain during the early 1930s. This added to the wealth he had already inherited from his father's side of the family, allowed "Chips" to lead a largely carefree existence. One of his contemporaries, Harold Nicolson, who was a frequent guest at the parties the Channons became known for, reflected that: "Oh my God how rich and powerful Lord Channon has become! There is his house in Belgrave Square next door to Prince George, Duke of Kent and Duchess of ditto and little Prince Edward. The house is all Regency upstairs with very carefully draped curtains and Madame Récamier sofas and wall-paintings. Then the dining-room is entered through an orange lobby and discloses itself suddenly as a copy of the blue room of the Amalienburg near Munich - baroque and rococo and what-ho and oh-no-no and all that. Very fine indeed."

As a member of Parliament, "Chips" supported Franco during the Spanish Civil War and became associated with the pro-appeasement wing of the Conservative Party, as exemplified by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. "Chips" had a special fondness for Chamberlain, who gave him a small diplomatic role in Yugoslavia (Prince Paul of Yugoslavia had been a schoolmate of "Chips" in Oxford; the two had become the best of friends) early in the Second World War. His hopes of acquiring a higher political profile were dashed when Winston Churchill (with whom "Chips" was fairly acquainted) succeeded Chamberlain as Prime Minister on May 10, 1940.

The best part about this book was "Chips' " unerring skill --- through his wit and keen powers of observation --- for conveying to the reader his perceptions of places, events, and people with whom he socialized or served with in Parliament. He's unflinchingly honest, not above pointing out the shortcomings of his friends. I enjoyed the journey this book took me on. But "Chips" Channon was not somebody I found likeable. He was vain, pompous, and a snob. Yet, for all that, I found what "Chips" related about life both between the wars and in the immediate postwar era fascinating stuff. Now I wonder what other juicy tidbits will come to light when the rest of "The Diaries" (in toto, it runs to 3 million words) will become available to the general public in 2017? For anyone who loves to read juicy, engaging, and well-written diaries from famous/notable people in decades past, this is the book for YOU.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry Channon was one of those people in British politics who was everywhere yet did little. Born to an Anglo-American family, a visit to London during the First World Ear awakened a lifelong Anglophilia that he slaked by moving to England and assiduously worked his way up the social ladder. Marriage to the Guinness family gave his entrée into politics via a safe seat in Parliament, where he sat from 1935 until his early death in 1958.

Apart from a three-year period as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office Channon spent his career in the House of Commons as a back-bencher. Yet his name looms larger today than that of many of his office-holding contemporaries thanks to his diaries. Kept intermittently from 1918 until 1954, they are a chronicle of a wealthy and socially-connected politician who dined with royalty and served alongside giants. The text drips with names from the era’s social register and from the highest reaches of British politics, all of which Channon lovingly recorded as evidence of his status both at Westminster and in London society.

What makes his diaries so readable, though, is Channon's eye for the telling detail and his ear for the revealing anecdote. Thanks to them the reader gets a series of glimpses into British politics and high society in the 1930s and 1940s, all of which are amusingly if snobbishly recounted. Through them we also get a sense of Channon himself: an ambitious figure who never reached the heights he thought himself capable of attaining. While he may never have become the political figure he hoped he would be, his diaries are in themselves an achievement which we can treasure. Even in their heavily expurgated form they are among the best eyewitness accounts of the era, and while Simon Heffer's forthcoming edition promises a more comprehensive sampling of entries he will be hard pressed to improve upon Robert Rhodes James's excellent introduction to Channon's life.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book for the most part, however there were some boring bits where it got a bit heavy into the politics etc as I'm not a great politics follower, but its learned me some of the politic talk and what certain things mean about governments etc which can't be a bad thing.
Chips can also rather irritate with his constant going on about all these titled people - all of whom he knew of course and had entertained at some point in his life...he seems to have a memory which can skip back into any particular time period of his life and know when he last saw a person or spoke with someone. Quite amazing (thats not sarcasm either)

I really enjoyed his explainations of Royal events and of the Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson episode. Chips is very erudite and good at explaining things and painting a vivid picture of just how things were which makes for very interesting reading. I do feel that Chips wrote his diaries with a constant view to people in the future reading it and being over awed by his status in British society. Sometimes he can be a little tedious but overall he is enjoyable to read.

What I find fascinating is the fact that he keeps referring to "people in the future" and I am one of those people. In the final chapter he describes the Coronation of our current Queen and I found it particularly intriguing that I read that chapter in the very year that Her Majesty celebrates her Diamond Jubilee (2012)

Indeed I was equally fascinated that Chips wondered if his son would be an elderly man for the reign of King Charles III - with me in 2012 as I read those words knowing that Prince Charles is still not yet King and Chips Channon's son is no longer with us.

Overall this is probably quite a heavy read for someone who is not deeply interested in this period in history and it probably would not be any good for a person who is not deeply interested in politics. However I really enjoyed the book and I am no great political reader so I guess it depends on how much you're willing to put up with a few boring bits in order to find the parts which are fascinating to yourself.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whenever I read anything about England during the Edwardian period, WWI, the time between the wars and during WWII, especially about the abdication, Chips Channon and his snarky observations are there. When I say everything, I mean everything! Can't say how many book I've read where I've seen him quoted. He was an unrepentant social climber, American (of course), and an extremely astute commentator of the time. It was evident after reading this book, edited by his son, that the whole story does not lie within, and that many of the quotes I've enjoyed over the years were clearly taken from manuscripts which have not been published. Big disappointment, only 3 stars.

[Asta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unique entry into the world of England's privledged classes just before, during and after the Second World War. He wore his appeasement bias like armour and his anti-Semitism as casually as a shrug. A social climbing, snarky, gossip-trading Tory MP with a love of country estate weekends and shadenfreude.
I'd rate this higher, despite my dislike of the man, if it weren't for the heavy-handed editing so evident throughout.

[J P · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is once of my favorite books as it takes you back into the rarified world of pre-war social life of a Conservative MP and gives a gripping account of the royal family, and run up to the second world war.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ultimate royal/celeb watcher of the thirties. Diana Cooper, the black dining room. Wallis and David. Cunards and Astors.

[Thomas Boyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stories of inter war London. Interesting insight into 'society'.

[Susanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating era. One unending party and lots of champagne seem the main features. The lead up to WW2 and events in London during WW2 are worth reading.