Janet Gladys Aitken

Janet Gladys Aitken (later Campbell, Montagu, and Kidd; 9 July 1908 – 18 November 1988) was a Canadian-British aristocrat and socialite.

In her later life she obtained a license as a helicopter pilot and bred Fjord horses on her farm in Ewhurst, Surrey.

A prominent socialite of her time, she was known to entertain members of the international jet set, politicians, and royalty at her second home in Barbados, where she was a friend and neighbour of the American diplomat W. Averell Harriman.

[1][2] Her paternal grandparents were William Cuthbert Aitken, a Scottish-born Presbyterian minister, and Jane Noble, the daughter of a wealthy farmer and storekeeper.

In 1910 the family moved from Canada to the United Kingdom, and her father bought Cherkley Court, a mansion in Surrey.

She grew up with her family entertaining Sir Winston Churchill, Rudyard Kipling, and David Lloyd George at their home.

[2] After her mother died, her father married Marcia Anastasia Christoforides, the widow of his friend Sir James Dunn.

Her husband, who was a flying instructor with the Royal Air Force, was killed in 1940 while fighting in World War II.

She and Kidd moved to a farm in rural England, where they enjoyed fox hunting and were neighbors of Evelyn Waugh.

Cherkley Court, Aitken's childhood home in Surrey