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...
Evelyn Waugh visited them there in 1953, finding them in a state which
he described as "destitution"; nevertheless, he judged their cottage very
pretty, clean and sweet-smelling, and relished their hot scones, choice of two
jams, plum cake and China tea
...
One of the pranks was to pretend to be a newspaper reporter from
a non-existent paper. On one memorable occasion, Teresa Jungman interviewed
Beverley Nichols at Claridge's while Zita and Eleanor Smith hid under a table.
Zita's diaries were filled with descriptions of their antics, everyone
"screaming" with the fun of it. In later life she commented: "We were all so
over-excited. We were all talking about ourselves always."
...
Sitwell first spotted her at a party, and was struck by her
resemblance to a page in Tiepolo's Antony and Cleopatra. They met in the autumn
of 1926, and then again while staying with Stephen Tennant, another well known
figure of the jeunesse dorée. While Sachie fell for Zita, she was attracted to
his brother, Osbert.

Zita James
(Filed: 23/02/2006)

Zita James, who died in Ireland on February 18 aged 102, was the
elder of the two Jungman sisters, famous in society as "Bright Young People" in
the 1920s.

Gamine and mischievous, Zita and Teresa Jungman were determined
to enjoy life. The Bright Young People were known for their treasure hunts,
devised by Zita and her sister. Originally, there were eight girls, four couples
competing. Zita contrived many of the clues, once persuading a Hovis factory to
bake clues in special loaves, and on another occasion prevailing upon Lord
Beaverbrook to print a mock version of the Evening Standard with fake headlines
and a concealed clue.

Eventually, the treasure hunts became too popular, with
Rolls-Royces jostling each other in small mews and competitors fighting for the
clues.

One night, for a bet, Zita and Lady Eleanor Smith tried to spend
the night in the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud's. In order to ensure a
modicum of comfort, they moved the wax effigies of the "Princes in the Tower"
from their bed. They were relieved when a night-watchman brought their vigil to
an end.

Innocent as all this was, the older generation was shocked. In
later life Zita wrote to Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, one of the original
team: "The terrible things we did are boomeranging back on us now. I can't help
feeling that your mother must have regretted the circumstances that brought us
together, she must have thought us horrid, and our goings-on intensely vulgar.
We enjoyed it, of course."

Cecil Beaton often photographed the Jungman sisters. He described
them as "a pair of decadent 18th-century angels made of wax, exhibited at Madame
Tussaud's before the fire". Zita, in turn, noted the "feminine cadences" in his
character.

Beaton admired Zita's complexion and unearthly hollow voice, her
serpent-like nose and the firmness of her jaw and mouth. He elaborated: "With
her smooth fringes, and rather flat head, like a silky coconut, like a medieval
page, and with her swinging gait, she looks very gallant, very princely. But she
can, if she wishes, easily become a snake-like beauty, with a mysterious smile
and a cold glint in her upward slanting eyes, though it is more likely that she
will impersonate to perfection a charming village maiden laughing deliciously up
an apple tree."

Zita's page-boy looks attracted the love of Sacheverell Sitwell
and Mario Panza, an Italian diplomat at the embassy in Budapest, among others.
She was the best friend of Lady Cynthia Mosley, and godmother to her son, Micky.
In her brief heyday in a wayward section of society her star blazed bright,
before she retreated into decades of quiet, though not unwelcome, obscurity.

Zita Mary Jungman was born on September 13 1903. Her father, Nico
Jungman, was an Anglo-Dutch artist who married Beatrice Mackay in 1900. They
divorced in 1918, Nico dying in 1935. Zita's mother then became the second of
three wives of Richard Guinness. "Gloomy Beatrice", as she was called in certain
sections of society, became part of that extended clan of Guinnesses which
produced so many well known characters in the early years of the 20th
century.

These Guinnesses were but distantly related to the brewing family
of Iveaghs and Moynes, and descended from Richard Guinness, a barrister in
Dublin, born in 1755. Zita and and her younger sister Teresa were not Guinnesses
by blood, but claimed as cousins Loel, Meraud (Mrs Alvaro Guevaro) and Tanis.
They were also close friends, and close in age, to the three nieces of Lord
Iveagh, Aileen (Plunket), Oonagh (Lady Oranmore and Browne), and Maureen
(Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava).

After Zita's mother became Mrs Richard Guinness, the family lived
in some style in Great Cumberland Place. As a child, Zita took ballet lessons in
company with Lady Eleanor Smith, whose mother, the Countess of Birkenhead, had
ambitions to turn her daughter into a new Pavlova. Both sisters were educated at
a day school in Queen's Gate and raised as strict Catholics.

Zita's mother liked to entertain, and she mixed actresses with
society, which was unusual at the time. Cecil Beaton recalled tables groaning
with caviar, oysters, pâté, turkeys, kidney and bacon, hot lobsters and
delicious meringues; guests would include Ivor Novello, Gladys Cooper, Tallulah
Bankhead and Oliver Messel. Zita and her sister were invited to the great houses
of the day, to the Desboroughs at Taplow Court and the Salisburys at
Hatfield.

The two girls wanted for nothing, and Beaton was surprised that
at a party given for them by their mother they rushed about having a good time,
"not looking at all excited at having such a glorious party". In the early 1920s
they teamed up with Lady Eleanor Smith, Loelia Ponsonby, Enid Raphael and others
to become the Bright Young People, with their bottle parties, charades and
treasure hunts.

One of the pranks was to pretend to be a newspaper reporter from
a non-existent paper. On one memorable occasion, Teresa Jungman interviewed
Beverley Nichols at Claridge's while Zita and Eleanor Smith hid under a table.
Zita's diaries were filled with descriptions of their antics, everyone
"screaming" with the fun of it. In later life she commented: "We were all so
over-excited. We were all talking about ourselves always."

When Cecil Beaton broke into this rarefied world in late 1926,
the group discovered a photographer who could encapsulate them in romantic poses
and publish the results in Vogue. When he presented Zita with the results of his
first sitting with her, she lay back in a chair and gazed at the prints in
silence, occasionally emitting a grunt of intense satisfaction.

While in the midst of all this fun, she found time to type up the
manuscript of Sir Denison Ross's History of India, although it took her five
years. Her life also became complicated by romance. Sacheverell Sitwell, then an
aspiring poet, fell for Zita, despite having been married for a year to Georgia
Doble. He pursued her in vain for some years, inhibited not only by his own
marriage but also by Zita's ardent Catholicism.

Sitwell first spotted her at a party, and was struck by her
resemblance to a page in Tiepolo's Antony and Cleopatra. They met in the autumn
of 1926, and then again while staying with Stephen Tennant, another well known
figure of the jeunesse dorée. While Sachie fell for Zita, she was attracted to
his brother, Osbert.

Despite her antics, Zita enjoyed deep, spiritual conversations
and hoped to find a sympathetic confidant in Sachie. She was disappointed by his
absorption in frivolous, social topics. Despite this, there was a long, wholly
Platonic, involvement, not without suffering on both sides - and not free from
the jealousy of Sachie's wife Georgia, who, to confuse things further,
befriended Zita.

On one occasion, soon after their first meeting, Sachie begged
Zita not to marry "just anyone". The thwarted romance was played out across
Europe as the Sitwells and Zita travelled together or happened to materialise in
the same place.

Georgia tried to promote a romance with Osbert, but (Christabel)
Lady Aberconway intervened, and presently Osbert found happiness with the love
of his life, David Horner. And so it continued, Sachie occasionally penning a
poem or declaration of love, which he never dared to send to Zita. "My
balm-giver, my golden tree, shake your curled hair ceaselessly… " he wrote in
1928, during a row with his wife.

Matters deteriorated when it appeared that Zita might marry the
diplomat Mario Panza or Arthur James, a Yorkshireman and a grandson, through his
mother, of the 4th Duke of Wellington. She finally settled for James, and they
were married at St James's, Spanish Place, in London, on January 29 1929, with
her sister Teresa, Tanis Guinness, Ursula James and Patricia Jowett as
bridesmaids.

The marriage was ill-fated from the start, many concluding that
Zita had rushed into marriage just for the sake of it. By design, Sachie turned
up in Naples and became entangled in her honeymoon. Sitwell soon concluded that
James was a man of no interest, dense and mean with money. He predicted that
Zita would soon tire of him. In the event, Zita did not take to Yorkshire life,
and she and James were divorced in 1932; there were no children of the
marriage.

After her divorce Zita continued to see Sachie until about 1934,
when, after he had engaged in affairs with Lady Bridget Parsons and a young
dancer called Pearl Argyle, their friendship waned. In 1935 she wrote to him,
expressing sorrow at the retraction of his friendship. They did not meet again
until they were in old age.

In later life, Zita shared a cottage in Gloucestershire with her
sister. Evelyn Waugh visited them there in 1953, finding them in a state which
he described as "destitution"; nevertheless, he judged their cottage very
pretty, clean and sweet-smelling, and relished their hot scones, choice of two
jams, plum cake and China tea. Matters improved after Teresa was left an
inheritance by an early admirer.

Latterly Zita and her sister moved to Leixlip Castle, Co Kildare,
where they settled in the beautiful Garden Cottage, surrounded by the images of
their romantic past - paintings by their father, portraits by Ambrose McEvoy.
There Zita celebrated her 100th birthday in 2003, but this was not the end. The
following spring she made her television debut in a BBC4 documentary about Cecil
Beaton.

She and her sister remained staunch Catholics, regularly
attending Mass, and Zita was a devotee of the film The Sound of Music. Having
risen at midday, she would watch this film - or part of it - before retiring to
bed at about 3am.

Zita Jungman's sister Teresa survives her.

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