Wonderful interview! Absolutely fascinating. Anne de Courcy is quite remarkable - very funny - 95 or 96 at the time of the interview!

I loved the volumes, great reading and lots of thanks to Simon Heffer and Chip's relatives who approved of the publishing.

A charming sociopathic con man like his father. The gloss is off colonial boys . As time goes on we will take more seriously the harm done in coercing and manipulating women into fake relationships. This blights lives and kills. The work is one thing, but it's time to stop letting boys get away with murder.

Congratulations to Mrs de Courcy. Fascinating lady.

I'm reading it now, here in the States. It's really good, quite an eye-opener, to say the least!

I only read bits of Chips, knew he was in the centre of everything, but I only bought 2nd hand, mainly opshop finds, for the last 30 years, because I run an animal rescue - but I am mourning I am not likely to find them before my old life is over. The 20 years before that, I bought from antiquarian bookshops - and built up a nice history/biography section. But now I honestly have more books to read than years to read them. But I still keep adding, still keep making a new stack in front of the old stack of books that need to be read ASAP...

Excellent interview on Chips Channon's compelling diaries!

They are fascinating to read, but Chips is such a horrid Nazi-loving anti-Semite, democracy hating (he was born American), snobbish, trivial, closeted and has no redeeming personal qualities beyond his ability to write in compelling detail and he has no sense of self awareness, but has a sense of observation that makes them so interesting. But I always want to take a cold shower. I love Simon Heffer, who is such a brilliant historian, I am reading both of his long histories "High Minds" about the Victorian era, and "The Age of Decadence" about the Edwardian era, and his editing having seen original manuscripts. This is a wonderful interview!!!

I started with the second volume as this era is most interesting to me. Channon doesn't hold back and one can understand why the first editions were heavily redacted.

wonderful interview, thanks so much. So valuable to have a more fully-dimensional view of a figure so often portrayed without any complexity.

I'm a huge fan of AN Wilson. Francis is wonderful. This is all new and so exciting. Thanks.

25:00 abdication crisis

Loved this, thanks.

Professor Jane Ridley is amazing. Love her work and all her books and lectures.

Excellent interview! I am thoroughly looking forward to this particular epic read - utterly fascinating! NB. Any tentative date for the publication of Volume 3 yet?

Halfway through volume 2 at the moment. This is fascinating.

Thank you so very much for the upload of this conversation. I finished the reading of the Diaries yesterday. Thank you so very, very much. glorious research by Mr. Heffer for this book!