To War with Whitaker
1994 memoir by Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly
To War with Whitaker: The Wartime Diaries of the Countess of Ranfurly 1939–1945 is a memoir of World War II written, in diary form, by Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly. It was first published by William Heinemann in 1994. The following year, Mandarin Publishing issued it in paperback, describing the memoir as "A love story that knows no bounds":
When World War II broke out, Dan Ranfurly was dispatched to the Middle East with his faithful valet, Whitaker. These are the diaries of his young wife, Hermione, who, defying the War Office, raced off in hot pursuit of her husband. When Dan was taken prisoner, Hermione vowed never to return home until they were reunited. For six years, travelling alone from Cape Town to Palestine, and meeting such charismatic characters as Churchill, Eisenhower, and a parrot called Coco on the way, she kept her promise.
The Countess's lively prose style is characterised by frankness, a sharp eye for character – not least that of the short, chubby, phlegmatic valet Whitaker – and an acute ear for dialogue. For example, when the Earl received a telegram at the outbreak of war in 1939 ordering him to report to his regiment, she writes: "After reading this Dan asked Whitaker if he would like to go with him. The old fatty looked over the top of his spectacles and said, 'To the War, my Lord? Very good, my Lord.'"
Her husband, The 6th Earl of Ranfurly, a nobleman of Ulster-Scots descent, was a lieutenant in the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry.
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This entry incorporates text from “To War with Whitaker” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.