John Julius Norwich in Bath

‘Please, darling monster, write as often as you can,’ were the words written by Diana Cooper to her son, John Julius Norwich, in 1939. This extraordinary correspondence between a mother and son transports us from the late thirties to the early fifties, through the rumblings of war and the Blitz to post-liberation Paris.

Lady Diana Cooper was an aristocrat, society darling and an actress of the stage and screen. When she married rising political star Duff Cooper, they became the golden couple who knew everyone who was anyone; they sat at the very heart of British public life. In private, however, and as war swept through Europe, Diana’s letters to John are a vivid record of the constraints of their time and a touching portrait of the love between a mother and son.

Come and hear the story behind the letters from Diana’s only son, the ebullient John Julius Norwich himself.