Editing Unity Mitford (section)

==Return to Britain==
In December 1939, Mitford was moved to a hospital in [[Bern]] in neutral Switzerland, where her mother and youngest sister, [[Deborah Mitford|Deborah]], went to collect her. In a 2002 letter to ''[[The Guardian]]'', Deborah relates the experience: "We were not prepared for what we found – the person lying in bed was desperately ill. She had lost {{convert|2|st|lb kg|abbr=off|disp=sqbr}}, was all huge eyes and matted hair, untouched since the bullet went through her skull. The bullet was still in her head, inoperable the doctor said. She could not walk, talked with difficulty and was a changed personality, like one who had had a [[stroke]]. Not only was her appearance shocking, she was a stranger, someone we did not know. We brought her back to England in an ambulance coach attached to a train. Every jolt was agony to her."<ref name="observer2">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/dec/08/letters.theobserver|title=My sister and Hitler: Unity Mitford's war|access-date=18 May 2008|last=Mitford|first=Deborah|newspaper=The Observer|location=London|date=8 December 2002}}</ref>

Stating she could remember nothing of the incident, Mitford returned to England with her mother and sister in January 1940 amid a flurry of press interest and her comment, "I'm glad to be in England, even if I'm not on your side",<ref Name="HBG"/> led to public calls for her internment as a traitor. Due to the intervention by [[Home Secretary]] [[John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley|John Anderson]], at the behest of her father, she was left to live out her days with her mother at the family home at [[Swinbrook]], [[Oxfordshire]]. Under the care of Professor [[Hugh Cairns (surgeon)|Hugh Cairns]], neurosurgeon at the [[Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre|Nuffield Hospital]] in Oxford, "She learned to walk again, but never fully recovered. She was incontinent and childish."<ref name="observer2"/> Doctors decided that it was too dangerous to remove the bullet in her head. Her mental age was likened to that of a 10-year-old, or a "sophisticated child" as [[James Lees-Milne]] called her, although he continues that she was "still very amusing in that Mitford manner".<ref name="The Mitford Girls 2001">The Mitford Girls: The Biography of An Extraordinary Family, Mary S. Lovell, Hachette, 2001.</ref> 

She had a tendency to talk incessantly, had trouble concentrating her mind, and showed an unusually large appetite with sloppy table manners. Lees-Milne observed her to be "rather plain and fat, and says she weighs {{convert|13+1/2|st|lb kg|abbr=off|disp=sqbr}}".<ref name="The Mitford Girls 2001"/><ref>{{cite book| title=The Six| author=Laura Thompson| year=2017| page=271}}</ref> She retained at least some of her devotion to the Nazi party. Her family friend [[Billa Harrod]] recalled Unity stating that she wished to have children and name the eldest Adolf.<ref>{{cite book| title=The Six|last=Thompson|first=Laura | year=2017| pages=269–70}}</ref>

Mitford was reported to have had an affair with [[RAF]] [[Pilot Officer]] John Andrews, a test pilot, who was stationed at the nearby [[RAF Brize Norton]], up to 11 September 1941. [[MI5]] learned of this and reported it to Home Secretary [[Herbert Morrison]] in October. He had heard that she "drives about the countryside … and picks up airmen, etc, and … interrogates them." Andrews, a former bank clerk and a married father, was "removed as far away as the limited extent of the British Isles permits."<ref name="dailyTelegraph">{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1445195/Unity-Mitford-romance-ended-with-RAF-pilot%27s-exile-to-Scotland.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130421101800/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1445195/Unity-Mitford-romance-ended-with-RAF-pilot%27s-exile-to-Scotland.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=21 April 2013|title=Unity Mitford romance ended with RAF pilot's exile to Scotland|access-date=18 May 2008|last=Day|first=Peter|date=26 October 2003|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|location=London}}</ref> He was re-posted to the far north of Scotland, where he died in a [[Supermarine Spitfire|Spitfire]] crash in 1945. Authorities then concluded that Mitford did not pose a significant threat.

From 1943, she also spent long periods in [[Hillmorton]], an area of [[Rugby, Warwickshire|Rugby]] in [[Warwickshire]], staying with the local vicar and his family.<ref>{{cite news|title=When Adolf Hitler confidante Unity Mitford came to stay|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-39304317|work=BBC News|access-date=18 May 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=The truth behind Hitler's spurned lover |url=http://www.rugbyadvertiser.co.uk/news/the-truth-behind-hitler-s-spurned-lover-1-1480889 |publisher=Rugby Advertiser |access-date=18 May 2017 |archive-date=5 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171005000423/http://www.rugbyadvertiser.co.uk/news/the-truth-behind-hitler-s-spurned-lover-1-1480889 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Mitford was keen to visit her sister Diana in [[HM Prison Holloway|Holloway Prison]], and [[Norah Elam]] offered to look after Mitford at their home in Logan Place for a short period. Norah Elam and her husband Dudley escorted Mitford to see Diana and Oswald Mosley in Holloway on 18 March 1943.<ref name="McPherson & McPherson">{{cite book|last=McPherson|first=Angela|author2=McPherson, Susan|title=Mosley's Old Suffragette – A Biography of Norah Elam|year=2011|publisher=Lulu Press, Incorporated |url=http://www.oldsuffragette.co.uk|isbn=978-1-4466-9967-6|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120113154415/http://www.oldsuffragette.co.uk/|archive-date=13 January 2012|df=dmy-all}}</ref>