Secretive sex, political spats and the end of WW2: Chips Channon’s final scandalous diary

telegraph.co.uk:

caused a stir.Channon personally knew the leading figures of his day – from Winston Churchill and his son Randolph, who Channon loathed, to Queen Elizabeth (later, the Queen Mother) – and was unsparing in his character assassinations of each.For the last four years, I have pored over the original material, which spans almost 40 years and totals some 1.7 million words, distilling it into three volumes – all uncensored.This final volume picks up the narrative in July 1943, just after the fall of Mussolini, and covers the final years of war, as well as the breakdown of Channon’s marriage to Lady Honor Guinness, together with his affairs with various well-known men.Towards the end of the war, he met and fell in love with playwright Terence Rattigan, with whom he has a tempestuous relationship.

There was also tension between Channon and his long-standing partner Peter Coats, a gardening writer who became chief of staff to the Viceroy of India, Lord Wavell during the war.

However, Channon was soon pursuing other men too, even in the early 1950s when the Home Secretary was ordering the police to arrest men engaging in homosexual activities.Channon continued to live in style after his divorce in 1945, thanks to the generosity of his father-in-law, Lord Iveagh.

However the reader gets hints of Channon’s physical decline. He was a heavy smoker and drinker. He died on 7 October 1958 after suffering a severe stroke.In his family photograph albums there are several snaps of him in the last summer of his life looking suddenly aged.