Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 1) cover art

Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 1)

1918-38

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Born in Chicago in 1897, 'Chips' Channon settled in England after the Great War, married into the immensely wealthy Guinness family and served as Conservative MP for Southend-on-Sea from 1935 until his death in 1958. His career was unremarkable. His diaries are quite the opposite. Elegant, gossipy and bitchy by turns, they are the unfettered observations of a man who went everywhere and who knew everybody. Whether describing the antics of London society in the interwar years, or the growing scandal surrounding his close friends Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson during the abdication crisis, or the mood in the House of Commons in the lead-up to the Munich crisis, his sense of drama and his eye for the telling detail are unmatched. These are diaries that bring a whole epoch vividly to life.

A heavily abridged and censored edition of the diaries was published in 1967. Only now, 60 years after Chips' death, can the text be shared in all its glory.

©2021 Chips Channon (P)2021 Penguin Audio 20th Century Diaries & Journals Europe Great Britain Historical Memoirs, Diaries & Correspondence Modern Inspiring England Funny Thought-Provoking

Critic reviews

The greatest British diarist of the 20th century. A feast of weapons-grade above-stairs gossip. Now, finally, we are getting the full text, in all its bitchy, scintillating detail, thanks to the journalist and historian Simon Heffer, whose editing of this vast trove of material represents an astonishing achievement. Channon is a delightful guide, by turns frivolous and profound. (Ben Macintyre)
Wickedly entertaining . . . scrupulously edited and annotated by Simon Heffer. Genuinely shocking, and still revelatory. (Andrew Marr)
Sensation, spite, social climbing, high society, self-indulgence, sex; Chips Channon had the raw materials to make his uncensored diaries newsworthy a century after he began them. They shock, repel and compel because they don't conceal . . . He is calculating, selfish, amoral, vain, ambitious and deluded, and more of us should follow his example. Not in the living, but in the recording of it. (Jenni Russell)
All stars
Most relevant
I was a little surprised by criticism of the narration; I found it excellent, with the strident, mid Atlantic, voice perfect for how I would imagine the diarist. It's well read with flavour and texture in the performance.

My struggle with the audio book is the absence of footnotes or additional contextual information. The editor's introduction talks of the importance of the footnotes but there is none in the audio. Consequently I was left with sentences of untranslated French which is far beyond my school boy knowledge, and rapid fire references to many different people who I was unclear of the context of. It is perhaps my ignorance, but only a handful of people were familiar to me and some required pausing and Google: something I can only occasionally do with an audio book.

I am still enjoying it a great deal, but I think I will get the second volume in print.

edit: I ended up buying the book, the audio book is just missing too much without the footnotes. However I've ended up still listening, albeit a little behind my reading.

Missing footnotes a challenge for this listener

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I came to the book expecting him to have been wildly amusing. After all, he was famous for nothing in particular. Turns out he was not amusing at all, but a spoiled and silly person. If you want to see inside the head of a vain, antisemitic, vastly over-entitled and hateful man this book is perfect. I was riveted. It's historically interesting because CC knew every upper-class bod you've ever heard of from 1920-38 and some of them became far more well known after World War II. Channon's diaries probably reflect the social attitudes of most people he knew in London and Paris and in the US too; but for sheer self-centred foolishness he would be hard to rival.

What a ghastly, ghastly man

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This was a fascinating insight into the kind of life I will never know. The reader has a lovely voice; clear and beautifully enunciated. I would really like to have known about the rest of Henry Cannons life. I warmed to him in spite of his snobbishness.

Henry Channon

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A slow burner but once you get into the book you find the how the other half lived. Also the circles this man moved in. All a good history lesson of Pre World War II England and Germany. Especially the abdication. A good listen.

Slow Burner

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Overall I enjoyed this memoir - it set the scene of the time and was particularly interesting around the time of the Munich crisis. Be aware however that Channon held some objectionable views which are voiced here and to our modern Sensibilities are shocking. He comes across as a self obsessed socialite although his genuine love for his son is touching.

Chipps Channon memoir

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