As his wife Diana told me when I was writing her biography, their first meeting was at the 21st birthday dinner (in February 1932) of Barbara St John Hutchinson, one of her great friends. Also present were Diana’s then husband, Bryan Guinness and the man Barbara would marry, Victor Rothschild. Soon after this, Diana secretly began her affair with Mosley. When the pair’s plan to run into each other “accidentally” in Arles on the way to Venice was threatened by Diana’s illness, she took Victor and Barbara into her confidence so that they could contact Mosley and avert discovery of the affair by Bryan.
Perhaps memory of these past favours swayed Mosley as well as the pressing need for funds for his fascist movement.
Anne de Courcy
Author of Diana Mosley, London SW3