The Magic of My Youth by Arthur Calder-Marshall

David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, the 2nd Baron Redesdale Characters based on Lady Idina also appeared novels by Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh). (Idina Sackville was to become the subject of several books and films – White Mischief by James Fox, later a film Frances Osborne’s The Bolter, a biography. However, there is no record of Gef ever having succumbed to drink, despite visits to the Peel Castle pub. Note how these mongooses are here described as playing merrily with ping-pong balls, much as Gef himself amused himself for hours with a little rubber ball (later psychometrized by Nandor Fodor’s medium, Mrs Vincent). One night, Idina, Ann and Tom gave the mongeese some beer in a saucer, which they loved – too much – and “were soon rolling around in front of the fire – the three of us were in stitches watching them attempt to stand! It was the only time we were able to touch them.”įrom: The Bolter: Idina Sackville – the Woman who Scandalized 1920s Society and became White Mischief’s Infamous Seductress. Ann remembered that she and Tom gave them ping-pong balls which the mongeese rolled along their stomachs before flicking them against the wall, thinking they were eggs that would smash. Other pets included two mongeese, who lived in the woodpiles on each side of the large fireplace in the sitting room and were vicious to the household cats and dogs. Lady Idina’s unconventional and pleasure-seeking behaviour – and indeed that of the entire ‘Happy Valley set’ (the aristocratic colonial elite who lived in Kenya between the wars) were the subject of much gossip, following the murder of her husband Joss Hay:

The setting is ‘Clouds,’ Lady Idina Sackville’s house on Mount Kipipiri above the Rift Valley in Kenya.

The Magic of My Youth by Arthur Calder-Marshall