VARIED CAREER OF LADY AVON

Press, Volume C, Issue 29588, 10 August 1961, Page 2

VARIED CAREER OF LADY AVON

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SUVSAH VAUGHAN]

When Clarissa Spencer Churchill was married to Anthony Eden nine years ago, she was reasonably certain Chat one day her husband would be an earl, Anthony Eden was certain to be Britain’s Prime Minister one day and it is customary for a Premier to be given an earldom on bis retirement. But she would scarcely have foreseen that the title would have come so quickly or that it would have followed such difficult circumstances—the Suez disaster, Eden’s resignation, his long illness. And when she watched her husband became the Earl of Avon at the House of Lords the other day, she must have looked back on the nine years since her marriage and reflected that they seemed like 90, though I don’t imagine that she was sorry for herself. It is not like a Churchill to have self pity. Deb Routine She was the daughter of Major Spencer Churchill, Sir Winston Churchill’s only brother. Her mother was Lady Gwendoline Bertie.

daughter of the seventh Earl of Abingdon, a charming, cultivated woman and one of the beauties of her day. Just before World War H, Clarissa was a debutante and indulged in the typical deb routine—parties, the social and fashion rounds, with plenty of golf and tennis (which she still enjoys). She took lessons in drawing, studied French literature, went to Oxford. During toe war, she had a decoding job in the Foreign Office, worked for a time at the Ministry of Information, gfel and learned to put togeth^ 1

a newspaper article —a skill which she found so agreeable that after the war she went into journalism. She worked for a fashion journal and later got a job as a film publicist. Later still, she went into publishing.

It was a pleasant life—interesting, well-paid work, meeting plenty of people. She had a flat in the West End and a week-end cottage in the country. She became Mrs Anthony Eden in 1952, when she was 32. Eden, then Foreign Secretary. had been married before to the daughter of an M.P., and had been granted a divorce two yean earlier on the grounds of his wife’g desertion. Eden then seemed to be swinging on a star. In an American poll, he had once been voted the most handsome man in the world, and, at 55, seemed to have his best political opportunities still ahead of him. Three years later, when Churchill resigned, Eden became Prime Minister. Clarissa was the youngest Prime Minister’s wife Britain had seen this century. Saw Her Through Blonde, blue-eyed Lady Eden (as she became when her husband was knighted) did her job well. Although shy, her charm and intelligence saw her through. After Suez, she showed other qualities—fortitude and determination.

She nursed her husband through hospitals in America, convalescence in the West Indies. She comforted him when he was worried, protected him against reporters. Now her life has again reached an equilibrium. Lord Avon intends to make a political career in the Lords. Lady Avon will again be a political hostess. After so much misfortune, the hope will be that happiness comes along in abundance.