Mary Soames (1922-2014) was the youngest child of Winston and Clementine Churchill. She was brought up at Chartwell in Kent and, aged eighteen, joined the ATS and served in mixed anti-aircraft batteries in England and Europe. She accompanied her father as his ADC on several of his wartime overseas journeys. In 1945 she was awarded the MBE (military). In 1947, she married Captain Christopher Soames, Coldstream Guards, later Lord Soames, PC, GCMG, CH. In 1998 she edited the private correspondence between her parents, Speaking for Themselves, completely revised and updated the celebrated biography of her mother, Clementine Churchill, in 2002 and completed her own autobiography, A Daughter's Tale, in 2011.
There can surely be no more difficult task than to write a biography of one's own mother; but Mary Soames has been brilliantly successful. * Daily Telegraph * A delightful book...affectionate and also frank. -- A.J.P. Taylor * Observer * Lady Soames has carried out the extremely delicate and difficult task of writing the real story of her mother. I found it particularly moving because I had a deep affection for her father and mother. -- Harold Macmillan The finest biography for a decade -- Lynda Lee Potter