Kick: The True Story of Kick Kennedy, JFK’s Forgotten Sister and the Heir to Chatsworth. Paula Byrne

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30. Kick the Reporter

       31. Lobotomy

       32. Scandal

       33. ‘Did You Happen to See …’

       34. Red Cross Worker of World War II

       35. Coffee and Doughnuts

       36. Sister Kick

       37. Girl on a Bicycle

       38. Parties and Prayers

       39. Rosemary Tonks

       40. Agnes and Hartie

       41. Telegrams and Anger

       42. ‘I Love You More Than Anything in the World’

       43. The Marchioness of Hartington

       44. Operation Aphrodite

       45. Billy the Hero

       46. ‘Life is So Cruel’

       47. The Widow Hartington

       48. Politics or Passion?

       49. Joy She Gave Joy She Has Found

       Epilogue

       Acknowledgements

       Picture Section

       Sources

       Notes

       Index

       Also Available …

       Also by Paula Byrne

       About the Publisher

       Kicking the Surf

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      Hyannis Port, Cape Cod, 1937.

      Joseph Patrick Kennedy stood on the veranda of his newly restored ocean-front beach-house, watching his seventeen-year-old daughter, Kathleen, water-skiing on Nantucket Sound at breakneck speed. Of all his girls, she was the one whom he loved the most. She was as plucky and fearless as her brothers, imbued with the same restless energy and drive. One of the reasons her father favoured her was because she wasn’t afraid of him. She wasn’t afraid of anyone. As she approached the sprawling white clapboard house with its green shutters, the speedboat and its tow-line abruptly began to jackknife, veering this way and that in spiky, jerking movements. Joe’s eyes narrowed as he watched the boat. Kathleen was dangerously close to the motor and he feared that she would be cut to pieces, crushed by the boat, carved up by the blades of the propeller. What on God’s earth was she doing?

      His serious face suddenly broke into that radiant Kennedy smile and his shoulders relaxed. He saw exactly what she was doing. She was spelling out her name in the foamy surf.

      K I C K

      Kathleen Agnes Kennedy was born on 20 February 1920. Everyone, with the exception of her mother, who called her Kathleen, called her ‘Kick’. It began when her younger siblings found it hard to pronounce her name. She became Kick.1 Her moniker suited her perfectly. It was also said that K.K. was known as Kick because her ebullient personality reminded her father of a high-spirited pony.2 She was vivacious and quick-witted. As a little girl she loved to kick off her shoes, loved to run barefoot in the sand. When she became a debutante in London in the late 1930s, and a guest at England’s finest country houses, she would surprise polite society by her habit of kicking off her high-heeled shoes in company. Many a haughty aristocratic eyebrow would be raised, especially among the young debs put out by the unruly conduct of the Kennedy girl. But she soon charmed them all, winning them over with her jokes, her effervescence and her ease of manner.

      She wasn’t a girl whom it was easy to constrain. Part of a large, clever family, she had to fight to be heard. She could be as headstrong as her boisterous brothers, but she was never belligerent or aggressive, as the male Kennedys could be. There was a sweetness and gentleness about her. Kick, blessed with an open, happy disposition, was cheerful and sunny, rarely moody or sulky. She was kind but tenacious. Children who are quietly determined, though seemingly malleable, are often the ones to be anxious about. They tend to get their own way.

      That day when she traced out her name in the surf, Kick was showing off for her father, whom she idolized. But she was also doing it for herself. She had a very strong sense of self. She knew who she was. She was a Kennedy. She also had a stubborn streak. She would need those traits for what lay ahead. She would turn out to be the rebel of the family. She would kick against family, faith and country. And her name in the Kennedy family history would one day be erased, just as her ‘K I C K’ in the surf lasted only a moment before disappearing back into the ocean’s milky blue depths.

       Rose and Joe

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      A very good polite Catholic.

      Rose Kennedy

      83 Beals Street, Brookline, January 1920.

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