The wedding was a political affair if ever there was one. First to arrive was the bridegroom, Britain's foreign secretary Anthony Eden. Then came a limousine carrying the Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, and his wife Clementine. Finally, to the loudest cheers, the bride appeared. When the ceremony was over, the guests moved on to 10 Downing Street for the reception.

The bride was Clarissa Churchill, daughter of Sir Winston's brother. At 31 she already counted some of Europe's leading artists and intellectuals among her friends. Now she was about to dazzle statesmen around the world. Three years later, in 1955, she would become - in the words of the Daily Telegraph's obituary - "the most unusual of all the political wives who have occupied 10 Downing Street."

Although many considered her as clever as her husband, Clarissa had little formal education. She left school at 16, and though she studied with one of Oxford's leading philosophers, AJ AyerSir Alfred Ayer was a champion of logical positivism., her lack of qualifications meant she could not be a member of the university.

Her beauty and intellect made a huge impression. One student compared her hair to a cornfield at daybreak, and two writers - Lord BernersA composer, painter and novelist who was himself the model for Lord Merlin in Nancy Mitford's novel The Pursuit of Love. and John Pope-HennessyAn art historian who became director first of the V&A and then of the British Museum. - used her as the basis of characters in their novels. Her friends included Evelyn WaughA brilliant satirical writer whose books include Decline and Fall, Scoop and Brideshead Revisited., Lucian FreudA British painter who was the grandson of Sigmund Freud. In 2015 his painting The Brigadier was sold for £35.8m., Greta GarboA famously beautiful and private Swedish actress whose films include Queen Christina and Anna Karenina. and Cecil Beaton.

She spent much of World War Two at Winston Churchill's side. She decoded secret messages and helped produce an English newspaper for Russian readers. When peace came, she worked publicising movies such as The Third ManA classic British film scripted by Graham Greene and starring Orson Welles..

Marriage to Anthony Eden brought her into contact with world leaders from Russia's Nikita Khrushchev to the US's Dwight Eisenhower, and again made her a witness to global events. During the 1956 Suez CrisisThe crisis arose when Egypt's President Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, which was largely owned by British and French investors. Britain and France joined Israel in attacking Egypt, but had to withdraw under pressure from the US and Russia., she said she felt "as if the Suez Canal was flowing through my drawing-room".

The crisis took such a toll on her husband's health that he had to resign as prime minister. Clarissa spent the next 20 years caring for him. After his death, she travelled widely and took up deep-sea diving.

Despite her life in the public eye, she was a private person at heart. When interviewed about the people she had known, her friend Hugo Vickers observed, she never talked about herself. And though she was persuaded to publish her memoirs, a reviewer noted that they had "the instinctive reserve of a more reticent generation".

There could not be a greater contrast with someone like Adele, who this week gave an interview to Oprah Winfrey about her divorce, her difficult relationship with her father, her weight loss and her alcohol abuse.

In an article for Unherd, Park MacDougald argues that psychotherapy has changed our culture for the worse. People have come to believe that they are the centre of everything, and that their feelings are more important than the moral and religious codes of the past.

Some say, no. They belong to an age which was totally different from our own, with outdated values. They grew up before the invention of things we take for granted such as the internet, so they cannot grasp the issues of our digital world. They had their turn in charge of things; now they should keep quiet.

Others argue that they have experienced things we can only read about in history books, so we should take every opportunity to learn from them. Our values may be different from theirs, but they are not necessarily better: it is vital to remember that people see the world in a variety of ways.