Sonia Melchett

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Sonia Melchett (now Sinclair) is a leading London socialite who, along with her sister Bunty Kinsman, was a prominent member of the Chelsea Set of the 1950s. She is also an authoress in her own right.


[edit] Biography

Sonia Elizabeth Graham, was born in India along with her younger sister, Bunty, and is the daughter of Katherine ('Wendy') and Dr Roland 'Rags' Graham, a doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps. On the family's return to England, she attended the Royal School at Bath. After World War II, she worked for the British Control Commission (Allied Commission) in Berlin, Germany, often frequenting the Travemunde Officers' Club. In 1947, she married Julian Edward Alfred Mond, 3rd Baron Melchett and later the first Chairman of the nationalised British Steel Corporation, and they had one son, Peter Mond, 4th Baron Melchett, and two daughters, Kerena and Pandora. For most of their married life they lived in Tite Street, Chelsea, London and on a farm, Courtyard, at King's Lynn, Norfolk. They built a villa, Casa Melchett, near Formentor in Majorca and took family holidays there. Julian Mond died while on holiday there in June 1973 and was buried in the family mausoleum in St Pancras cemetery, Finchley.

Sonia Melchett was friends with Marcia Falkender, James Callaghan, Reginald Maudling, George Melly and his wife, Diana, single-handed sailor Mike Richie, publisher George Weidenfeld as well as the more Bohemian London set, and often featured in Nigel Dempster's Daily Mail column. She is mentioned in Andrew Barrow's books, Gossip and International Gossip and in Douglas Sutherland's Portrait of a Decade, London Life 1945-1955 She also features in The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt.

After being linked with Sir Hugh Fraser (politician) in the social columns of the British press, she married the writer Andrew Sinclair and they currently reside in London.

[edit] Publications

  • Passionate Quests Five Modern Women Travellers, Faber and Faber, 1992. ISBN-13: 9780571129461 ISBN: 0571129463
  • Someone is missing : a memoir, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1987 ISBN-13: 9780297791294 ISBN: 029779129X
  • Sons and Mothers, Virago Press, 1996 by Victoria Glendinning (Editor), Matthew Glendinning (Lady Sonia Melchett was one of seven contributors) ISBN-10: 1860492541,ISBN-13: 978-1860492549

[edit] External links

  • Bright Young Things, Oxford University [[1]]
  • The Independent on Sunday, Oct 30, 2005 'Beyond the Fringe' [[2]]
  • The Independent on Sunday, March 30, 2003 'The Talk of the Town guide to Shocking London' [[3]]
  • BBC News, Tuesday, July 27, 1999 'Lord Melchett: Aristocrat eco-warrior' [[4]]
  • The Daily Telegraphy, Mandrake, 'Reunited atlLast' 11.06. 2005, [[5]]
  • Anna Ford/Jonathan Aitken incident [[6]]
  • Michael Alexander, a member of the Chelsea Set [[7]]
  • Nigel Dempster, Daily Telegraph, 13.07.2007 [[8]]
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