Grant Duff, Shiela (1913–2004)
Grant Duff, Shiela (1913–2004)
English journalist. Born May 11, 1913, in London, England; died Mar 19, 2004; dau. of Adrian Grant Duff (killed in WWI) and Ursula Grant Duff; granddau. of Sir John Lubbock, 1st Lord Avebury, and Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff; attended St. Margaret Hall, Oxford; m. Noel Newsome, 1942 (div. 1950); m. Micheal Sokolova (who changed his name to Sokolov Grant), c. 1952 (died 1998); children: 2 daughters, 3 sons.
Visited Germany with Goronwy Rees (1932); worked in Paris; became the only full-time British journalist in Prague (1936), writing for The Observer and The Spectator; returning to England (1937), became an adviser to Winston Churchill on Czechoslovakia; critical of Britain's appeasement of Germany, wrote 2 influential books in support of a free Czechoslovakia, the bestselling Europe and the Czechs (1938) and A German Protectorate: The Czechs under Nazi Rule (1940); became editor of the Czech section of the BBC's European Service; had a relationship with Adam von Trott (their letters were published as A Noble Combat, 1988).
See also memoir The Parting of Ways (1982).