Judy Montagu spent her late teenage years and early twenties directing anti-aircraft defences during the Second World War as a Captain in Gunnery for the British Army. Demobilised in 1946, she set out in search of fun and freedom in America and found herself swept into a bright and glamorous social circle. She soon counted Joe Alsop and the Cushing Sisters among her new friends and even began to consider becoming a US citizen.
In 1949, determined to understand America more deeply, Judy embarked on a three-month tour of the country by Greyhound bus. Letters of introduction opened doors to a range of encounters, capturing an extraordinary moment at the height of the Anglo-American alliance. At each stop, Judy met newspaper editors, political leaders, and celebrities. In Texas - where she rode in a rodeo - she was the guest of Jesse H. Jones in Houston and Amon Carter in Fort Worth. In Hollywood, she had tea with Mary Pickford, and by the time she reached Illinois, her final state, she met and fell in love with Adlai Stevenson. As a cousin of Clementine Churchill, Judy's travels attracted regular press attention, adding another dimension to the diary.
The Greyhound Diary, edited by Judy's daughter Anna Mathias, is written in a snappy, well-paced style that reveals Judy Montagu's fascination with people and politics. She is generally generous in her portraits of fellow travelers, while offering a more caustic, often witty, take on her grander hosts.
Judy Montagu (1923-1972) was the latest in a long line of spirited, independent-minded aristocratic women. During the Second World War, she served with distinction in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. A frequent visitor to the United States, she returned often in the post-war years, and in 1962 married the American photographer and art critic Milton Gendel. The couple settled in Rome, where they raised their daughter, Anna Mathias — the editor of these diaries.
Anna Mathias is a retired teacher of Art History and Critical Thinking who worked at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. She has contributed obituaries and reviews for The Art Newspaper.
"Book of the Week...Buses, as Judy's daughter Anna Mathias writes in her enticing introduction to her mother's vivid travelogue, were a far cry from the modes of transport favoured by the more affluent..Judy longed to strike up conversations with strangers of all social classes - and the best way to do this was to travel by Greyhound" — Ysenda Maxtone Graham, The Daily Mail
"Best Books of October...No less than two friends have told T&C that we simply must dive into this new release, a diary from a British aristocrat who took a 1949 bus trip across the United States...We're not clamoring to take a cross-country bus trip, but we certainly will be rushing to dive into this account of one." — Norman Vanamee, Emily Burack and Adam Rathe, Town & Country
"The Greyhound Diary invites the reader to think about the narrative thrust, the accidents and incidents that accrete and shape life...Judy and the world described in her diary may no longer exist, but Mathias has given us a record of a life whose flowers and fruitage are well worth visiting." — Joanna Pocock, The Spectator
"Judy's hitherto unpublished diary is not only fun but informative-- enhanced by her daughter Anna Mathias's intelligent introduction and footnotes. The diary covers 253 hours, 78 days, and 8,860 miles, 'in an arc' from Washington to Chicago. Judy wrote up her experiences daily, sometimes at 3am, sending them to be typed by her friend Minnie Cushing Astor's secretary." — Elisa Segrave, Catholic Herald
"In 1949 Montagu, following service in the anti-aircraft defences in the Second world War, adventured to America, travelling across the country by Greyhound bus, with just a very well-stocked address book for company. These are her dazzling and gorgeous diaries which are a brilliant insight into American life in the first half of the 20th century. I especially loved reading about her experiences in Texas, and the diaries are very sensitively annotated and edited by Montagu’s daughter Anna Mathias." ––Clover Stroud, On The Way Life Feels
"Montagu criss-crossed the country, met Hollywood stars, rode in a rodeo, and had a love affair with Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson––and that's just for starters." ––Third Coast Review
"For an off-piste Christmas gift, I recommend Judy Montagu’s The Greyhound Diary. Born in 1923, she was the daughter of Venetia Stanley, the object of the prime minister Herbert Asquith’s indecent adoration. A lifelong friend of the Churchill family, like Mary Soames she spent the war as an anti-aircraft gunner, then in 1948 embarked on a three-month tour of America by Greyhound bus, alone but with sheaves of letters of introduction to smart and clever people. Her diary of the experience is droll as well as observant. She liked Americans and eventually married one, with whom she had a daughter, who has edited this book. Montagu’s short life — she died at 49 — was in many ways a sad one, but she was a brave original." ––Max Hastings, The Times (UK)
"One of this year’s books I most enjoyed was The Greyhound Diary by Judy Montagu (Zuleika), describing her bus journey across the United States in 1949, aged 26. It sounds unpromising, but the well-connected Judy – daughter of Venetia Stanley and first cousin of Mary Churchill – travels armed with letters of introduction giving her entry to a vanished world. She writes with verve and insight of her encounters on the bus, travelling through the segregated southern states, and her odyssey culminates in an affair with the future Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson. The diary lay unread for 75 years and has been carefully and wittily edited by Montagu’s daughter, Anna Mathias." ––Robert Harris, The Observer (UK)
"I can’t stop talking about this book right now… The Greyhound Diary by Judy Montague, edited by her daughter Anna Mathias. I knew Judy very well; she was a great friend of Princess Margaret. She went off to war and actually manned a gun, I believe in Hyde Park. She knew quite a few Americans, and she went on this Greyhound trip all over America. And I did the same thing, but selling my pottery. I didn’t meet the same people as it was a bit later. But I always loved Judy. She died quite young. That book is just out, and I’ve been talking to my friends about it." –– Lady Glenconner, Country and Town House
