Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 2): 1938-43
by Chips Channon
edited by Simon Heffer
Hutchinson, £35, 1,120 pages
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This doorstop of a book is the second of Henry Channon’s long and much-anticipated uncensored diaries, and it’s well worth the wait. For many decades his heirs withheld permission of publication, fearing Channon’s more stinging comments on those who opposed his – misguidedly, as he eventually realised, but deeply right-wing – political views at the cusp of the Second World War. Some he (often justifiably) considered charlatans would upset worshipping widows and reality blinkered offspring. A sensible approach; wiser to hold fire than shot-scatter Sasha Swire-wise, though a later, living diarist Roy Strong succeeded in including many a withering demolition job without a qualm.
