Kick: The True Story of Kick Kennedy, JFK’s Forgotten Sister and the Heir to Chatsworth
The remarkable life of the vivacious, clever – and forgotten – Kennedy sister, who charmed the English aristocracy and was almost erased from her family history.The favourite child of Joe Kennedy and favourite sister of Jack, Kick Kennedy was spirited, vivacious and legendary for her charm. When the Kenndys sailed to Britain in 1938 she was presented as a debutante amid the pre-war social whirl of the British aristocracy. Here she met a shy, tall, handsome man called Billy, and, rebelling against family, faith, and country, soon married him. He was William Cavendish, heir to Chatsworth and the Duke of Devonshire, the most eligible bachelor in England. But their days of married bliss proved short, as war would bring tragedy and loss.Uncovering her spectacular life in full for the first time, Paula Byrne depicts a remarkable woman who bewitched the Churchills, Astors and Mitfords, and yet was almost erased from Kennedy family history.
Читать Kick: The True Story of Kick Kennedy, JFK’s Forgotten Sister and the Heir to Chatsworth онлайн беплатно
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2016
Copyright © 2016 Paula Byrne
Paula Byrne asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover photograph © Corbis
The author has made every effort to trace copyright holders of images reproduced in this book, but will be glad to rectify any omissions in future editions.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins..
Source ISBN: 9780007548149
Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN: 9780007548132
Version: 2017-03-08
For my boys, Tom and Harry
(Kennedys through and through …)
and in memory of my grandfather, Robert Kennedy
CONTENTS
2. A Beautiful and Enchanting Child
10. Travels with my Mother: Russia and England
11. Politics and Europe Revisited
13. At the Court of St James’s
25. ‘This Country is at War with Germany’
34. Red Cross Worker of World War II
42. ‘I Love You More Than Anything in the World’
43. The Marchioness of Hartington
PROLOGUE
Hyannis Port, Cape Cod, 1937.
Joseph Patrick Kennedy stood on the veranda of his newly restored ocean-front beach-house, watching his seventeen-year-old daughter, Kathleen, water-skiing on Nantucket Sound at breakneck speed. Of all his girls, she was the one whom he loved the most. She was as plucky and fearless as her brothers, imbued with the same restless energy and drive. One of the reasons her father favoured her was because she wasn’t afraid of him. She wasn’t afraid of anyone. As she approached the sprawling white clapboard house with its green shutters, the speedboat and its tow-line abruptly began to jackknife, veering this way and that in spiky, jerking movements. Joe’s eyes narrowed as he watched the boat. Kathleen was dangerously close to the motor and he feared that she would be cut to pieces, crushed by the boat, carved up by the blades of the propeller. What on God’s earth was she doing?
His serious face suddenly broke into that radiant Kennedy smile and his shoulders relaxed. He saw exactly what she was doing. She was spelling out her name in the foamy surf.
K I C K
Kathleen Agnes Kennedy was born on 20 February 1920. Everyone, with the exception of her mother, who called her Kathleen, called her ‘Kick’. It began when her younger siblings found it hard to pronounce her name. She became Kick.1 Her moniker suited her perfectly. It was also said that K.K. was known as Kick because her ebullient personality reminded her father of a high-spirited pony.2 She was vivacious and quick-witted. As a little girl she loved to kick off her shoes, loved to run barefoot in the sand. When she became a debutante in London in the late 1930s, and a guest at England’s finest country houses, she would surprise polite society by her habit of kicking off her high-heeled shoes in company. Many a haughty aristocratic eyebrow would be raised, especially among the young debs put out by the unruly conduct of the Kennedy girl. But she soon charmed them all, winning them over with her jokes, her effervescence and her ease of manner.
She wasn’t a girl whom it was easy to constrain. Part of a large, clever family, she had to fight to be heard. She could be as headstrong as her boisterous brothers, but she was never belligerent or aggressive, as the male Kennedys could be. There was a sweetness and gentleness about her. Kick, blessed with an open, happy disposition, was cheerful and sunny, rarely moody or sulky. She was kind but tenacious. Children who are quietly determined, though seemingly malleable, are often the ones to be anxious about. They tend to get their own way.
