Frances Osborne (1) (1969–)

There must have been something in the air, or the water, or the coffee in Kenya between the wars. It’s true that it’s an English tradition to ship the family black sheep off to the colonies, but why all to Kenya? The particular black sheep in The Bolter is Idina Sackville, who was successively Miss Idina Sackville, Mrs. Euan Wallace, Mrs. Charles Gordon, Mrs. Josslyn Hay, Mrs. Donald Haldeman, and Mrs. Vincent Soltau. There were miscellaneous lovers between and during the husbands show more (except for Mr. Haldeman, who was a white hunter and used to shoot at anyone he suspected of being involved with his wife), including a pair of Portuguese identical twins, half her age (well, I suppose they added up). Idina’s coffee plantations, Slains, was supposedly host to numerous orgies, with Idina inventing clever games like making her guests pick bedroom keys out of a bag or covering a naked guest with a sheet and having the others try to guess his/her identity by touch. Idina was beautiful, had a fondness for exotic lingerie (author Frances Osborne, Idina’s greatgranddaughter, comments “The worse a woman behaves, the better she has to look”), and, well, there probably wasn’t that much else to do in Kenya.

The whole arrangement became known as the “Happy Valley Set” (geographically incorrect, because Slains was on a mountainside). There must have been some synergy involved, since the group included a whole bunch of interesting characters: Beryl Markham, who supposedly spent her teenage years wandering naked through the forest, became the first person to fly the Atlantic east to west, and got a pension from the Royal Family after the becoming involved with the Duke of Gloucester; Karen Blixen, who ended up being Meryl Streep to Robert Redford’s Dennis Finch-Hatton; and miscellaneous others who would have been notorious rakes or shameless women anywhere else but were just run of the mill for Happy Valley. I just wonder how much was real and how much exaggerated. The scandals of the upper class (Idina wasn’t particularly wealthy, but she had a title) have always been fodder for sensation-lovers. They still are, of course – which is why I read this book. I’m not sated yet; Nancy Mitford’s novel series The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate and Don’t Tell Alfred features “The Bolter”, a thinly disguised Idina, as a main character, and I’ll have to check these out. show less

Gossip about ultra rich people is always fun, even if those people's exploits took place 100 years ago. On that strength alone it is definitely a good read.

However, I have two problems with the book. First is the emphasis placed upon the gorgeousness, the irresistible beauty of Idina. The book is filled with photos and I am dumbfounded by these claims; Idina looks exactly like former Prime Minister Theresa May. Not. Sexy.

The second problem, and much more serious from the readers' show more perspective, is the motivation behind Idina's "bolt" from her first marriage. Here's what we are told about social norms for the ultra wealthy at that time: sex outside of a marriage is totally fine, for both men and women, as long as one was discreet and the husbands only had sex with married women. Married men having sex with unmarried women was a huge no-no because it threatened titles and inheritances, as well as could cause unwanted pregnancies (married women could just slip bastard children into their existing brood). The author makes clear beyond a doubt that both Idina and her first husband subscribed whole-heartedly to this sexual system. So, okay. Idina and her first husband are full-tilt gangbusters in love, he goes off to war, they both have loads of sex with other people. She gets seriously ill, he's home on leave for 4 months and spends it not at her bedside but having sex with a married woman and also making goo-goo eyes at some sexy young unmarried thing. And this is what tanks the marriage! He abides by the rules of the sexual system and yet she still feels betrayed and chucks everything - including her kids - to go off with a guy she barely knows. It is scarcely believable. One can either not accept the author's characterization of the events, or one can accept it and view Idina as the very worst type of hypocrite; I go with the latter.

Definitely a good book, but that pivotal decision of Idina's is beyond bizarre. show less

I was drawn to this book after reading Nancy Mitford’s [The Pursuit of Love] and discovering that one of the characters was modeled after Idina Sackville, the subject of this biography. Idina came of age in the 1920s and acquired her nickname because of her penchant for abandoning husband and children. She was crazy about getting married but she absolutely hated staying married. She piled up five marriages in her 62 years and lived the life of the elite, in Kenya for the most part, after show more leaving Great Britain at the end of her first marriage. I never expected to like this book as much as I did but I found this life of the elite undeniably fascinating. They lived by a different moral compass than the average person, at least those I know of.

”As long as a high-society married woman followed these words of property protection and kept absolute discretion, she could do what she liked. In the oft-cited words of the actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell: ‘It doesn’t matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.’ The boundary between respectability and shame was not how a woman behaved, but whether she was discovered. If so, her husband could exercise his right to divorce: for a man to divorce his wife, she had to be proved to have committed adultery.” (page 21)

Life in Kenya among the British elite evolved into what came to be described as Happy Valley for the free flowing alcohol, drugs and casual sex. But there is not much emphasis on these topics. It’s just the way these people lived, men and women alike. And Idina was not the only one who had these casual sexual encounters. All of her spouses did as well.

The descriptions of the Kenyan landscape were breathtaking and Idina developed her farm to be the idyll that many of us might long for. Her life may seem chaotic to the casual observer but Idina was quite happy with her existence even though she cut herself off from her children. During WWII she attempts a reunion with them all that is somewhat hopeful but tragedy ensues.

In brief, Idina Sackville was not a person that anyone would admire but she was absolutely fascinating as a topic of biographical interest. I didn’t dislike her really, just marveled at the remarkable life she led.

Could not put it down. Highly recommended. show less

Fact is certainly stronger and more captivating that fiction. Pink Carnation author Lauren Willig's latest novel was inspired by the tragi-romantic life of Lady Idina Sackville, but this biography hooked me far more than her fictional twist on the tale. Between Idina's incredible life and great-great granddaughter Frances Osborne's breathless yet sympathetic recounting, this has to be one of the best biographies I have read.

Idina Sackville-Wallace-Gordon-Hay-Haldeman-Soltau was either a show more Bright Young Thing, living the fast and loose lifestyle of the beautiful and privileged during the interwar years - or, I think, a generous yet vulnerable woman who loved to fall in love yet feared to be left behind. The author, surprised to find out at thirteen that she was related to the infamous 'Bolter', is equally biased, but I think that's only fair. The tangled web of affairs, friendships and family ties are difficult to keep straight, and I was shocked by how many of Idina's former friends and lovers chose to end their own lives, yet Idina is more than just a scandalous reputation - Frances Osborne makes her come alive on the page and in the imagination. show less