ep-06 Issue - The Heraldry Society

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2 MARY, LADY SOAMES LG DBE by David White The Guest of Honour at the Society’s Dinner at Apothecaries Hall in November is to be Lady Soames, LG, DBE. Mary Soames, now 85, has had a remarkable life, much of it spent at the centre of the British political world. The daughter of Sir Winston Churchill, and the wife of Christopher Soames, cabinet minister, Ambassador to Paris, and final British Governor of Rhodesia, she has also carved out a career for herself as a writer and arts administrator. When, in 2005, the Queen appointed her as only the third non-Royal Lady of the Garter it was widely welcomed as an inspired choice. Her parents, Winston Churchill and Clementine Hozier, married in 1908 and she was the youngest of their five children. Mary Soames is the final survivor. Her father bought Chartwell, his house in Kent, shortly after Mary was born in 1922 and it was there that her childhood was spent; visitors to the now National Trust property can see the Wendy house built in the garden for her. The age gap between her and her nearest sibling, Sarah, was such that she has reflected that her upbringing was more like that of an only child, ‘I lived chiefly among grown-ups, with whom I was on the whole more at ease than with children of my own age’. Attending two Kentish day schools she was at home at Chartwell to meet some of the many visitors who called upon Winston Churchill, not just politicians but others, including Walter Sickert and Lawrence of Arabia. In early childhood she was unaware of the fame and importance of her father, who would allow her to ‘help’ him with his bricklaying. But as a teenager she was treated by him as fully adult and asked her opinion of current affairs. After her father had become Prime Minister in 1940, she was, to her considerable annoyance, sent by her parents to live at Chequers to avoid the Blitz. Not yet of military age, she worked as a billeting officer for the WVS in Aylesbury. At 18 she joined up, spending the next five years in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, first as a private, then as a sergeant, and ultimately as a junior officer. She could not escape being the Prime Minister’s daughter. ‘It was much easier’ she has said ‘when I was in the ranks. Once you were an officer it was much more of a struggle to be accepted. I remember my terror whenever I was sent to a new Mary, Lady Soames wearing her robes as a Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter, in procession to St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle for the annual service of the Order of the Garter on 19 June 2006. Photograph by Philip Allfrey in Wikipedia Commons unit’. Her work was in anti-aircraft batteries. For a period she was posted to a battery in Hyde Park, where her father would sometimes ‘drop in’ when she was on duty. She witnessed the flying bomb fall on the Guards Chapel. Later she was on the coast at Hastings, shooting at flying bombs as they came across the Channel, before she moved on to make up part of the defences of liberated Brussels. But her war service also entailed serving as an ADC to her father during his visits to Quebec and Potsdam. Stalin she remembers as ‘small, dapper and rather twinkly’. In 1947 she married Christopher Soames, who had spent the war in the Coldstream Guards, but who soon now left the army and began running the farm at Chartwell. In 1950 he was elected MP for Bedford and Mary Soames threw herself into the work of an MP’s wife in the constituency. But she felt her mother had been too much the political wife, and for her own children she would always make the school holidays sacrosanct. Items for inclusion in the Gazette post to: The Editor, The Heraldry Gazette, at the address given on page 15, or e-mail to: heraldry.gazette@mac.com
Christopher Soames has been described as ‘a figure very much larger than life. His conversation could usually be heard in the next room’. He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to his father-in-law in the last two year of his second premiership, and rose on through the ministerial ranks to become Secretary of State for War in 1958, and subsequently Minister of Agriculture from 1960 to 1964. Throughout all this Mary was at his side. The loss of his Bedford seat at the 1966 General Election seemed a blow. In 1968 he was still looking for another seat in Parliament when the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, made his quite unexpected offer to send him to Paris as the British Ambassador. His special task was to prepare the ground for British entry to the Common Market. The Paris embassy is a fine and very grand 18th century house, at one time the home of Pauline Borghese, Napoleon’s sister. It was here that Mary Soames spent four happy and highly fulfilling years supporting her husband, entertaining at her table, among others, Presidents De Gaulle and Pompidou, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Large Soames family parties were held at Christmas, to which Mary’s now widowed mother came over from England. After Paris, Christopher and Mary Soames were in Brussels where he served as Vice President of the European Commission from 1973 to 1977. Here she did not feel as involved in her husband’s work as she had living ‘in the shop’ in Paris. She began researching the life of her mother, Clementine Churchill, which was published to great acclaim and success in 1979. The election of a Conservative Government in 1979 saw Christopher Soames return to the cabinet as Leader of the House of Lords. The hardest task of his career came later that year when he was appointed as Governor of Southern Rhodesia to oversee elections and the granting of independence to the long troublesome colony. In this he was successful and much praised as was his wife who was with him in Rhodesia, or Zimbabwe as it soon became. For her services there she was appointed DBE in 1980. The subsequent history of Zimbabwe and the behaviour of President Mugabe has greatly distressed her. Christopher Soames died in 1987. In widowhood Mary Soames found a new role at the National Theatre, chairing its governing body for six years. She has continued to write, publishing a history of the 5th Duke of Marlborough and his Duchess, an account of her father as a painter, and an edition of her parents’ letters to each other. Those who have seen the Garter procession at Windsor in recent years will know that Lady Soames cuts a very elegant and impressive figure. We are greatly looking forward to having her as the Society’s Guest of Honour. GREATER MANCHESTER HERALDRY SOCIETY ANNUAL HERALDRY STUDY DAY Supported by The Heraldry Society and by the Cheshire & Lancashire Heraldry Societies at HELMSLEY HALL, SALFORD (opposite the UNIVERSITY) FRIDAY OCTOBER 12th 2007 10.30am until 4.00pm This Year’s Speakers are Malcolm Howe Heraldry of Sharples with appendix to his previous talks to us Hugh Murray Arms of the Archbishops of York Stephen Slater Insignia of the Royal Household Jim Winstanley Heraldic Art and Design Tickets £15.00 inclusive of welcome coffee & lunch Obtainable from the Treasurer Barry Wilde Thornfield 60 Thorn Road Swinton SALFORD M27 5QT Full Programme and Directions will be sent with Ticket Items for inclusion in the Gazette: post to the Editor, The Heraldry Gazette, at the address given on page 15 or by e-mail to heraldry.gazette@mac.com 3
Page 1: THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF THE HERA
Page 5 and 6: feathered gold and resting its sini
Page 7 and 8: Visit the website at www.theheraldr
Page 9 and 10: an heraldic weekend CAMBRIDGE 2008
Page 11 and 12: Baron Goulld of Broookwood (Philip
Page 13 and 14: e afraid . . . Members of the cast
Page 15 and 16: membership news We welcome the foll

ep-06 Issue - The Heraldry Society

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