Posts Tagged ‘gay’

No.1 Eaton Square, Lord Boothby and Ronnie Kray

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

A shit of the highest order…well, a bit. Not entirely.


boothby-kray-and-holt

At the flat of Lord Boothby, situated at the prestigious address No 1 Eaton Square in Belgravia, three men looked up towards a photographer who duly pressed the camera’s shutter. The resultant photograph featured, perched on a small sofa, Lord Boothby himself, Ronnie Kray the infamous East End gangster, and Ronnie’s friend, the good-looking young cat-burgler called Leslie Holt.

It was early 1964, and for the struggling Conservative government at the time, the photograph not only threatened to cause another scandal that rivalled the previous year’s Profumo affair, but it almost certainly enabled the Kray twins’ criminal career of extortion and protection to remain pretty well unchecked for the next five years.

Robert Boothby MP in 1945

Robert Boothby MP in 1945

Sir Robert Boothby filming outside Parliament in 1954

Sir Robert Boothby filming outside Parliament in 1954

No 1 Eaton Square today

No 1 Eaton Square today

The Eton and Oxford educated Lord Robert Boothby was in 1964 one of the country’s more famous politicians (in March that year he had appeared on Eamonn Andrews’ This Is Your Life). He had entered Parliament at just 24 and had once been tipped as future leader of the Conservative party not least because he had been the private secretary and friend of Sir Winston Churchill. Churchill made him Minister of Food for the wartime government in 1939. However Boothby was not without his flaws and was sacked only a year later after lying to parliament about a financial deal with which he had intended to pay off his, not inconsiderable, gambling debts.

Boothby remained in politics and was even made a peer in 1958 by the Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. It was a particularly benevolent act as the first (and last) Baron Boothby of Buchan and Rattray Head had been having an affair with the PM’s wife since around 1930. During this time Boothby fathered a child with Lady Macmillan (the Macmillans brought up Sarah Macmillan as their own) but in those days no one broke rank and told the voters. In fact, it never even got to Sarah herself – she was apparently casually and cruelly told who her real father was when she was 21.

The writer and broadcaster Sir Ludovic Kennedy (and Boothby’s cousin) said of him “…to my certain knowledge [Boothby] fathered at least three children by the wives of other men (two by one woman, one by another).” Kennedy also once called him, and to his face, “a shit of the highest order”; Boothby’s response was to rub his hands, give a deep chuckle and say “Well a bit. Not entirely.”

Boothby’s undeniable charm, along with his friends in very high places, kept any scurrilous rumours, malicious gossip and untoward publicity about him away from the front pages of Fleet Street . However Britain’s newspaper industry was beginning to develop a taste for Establishment blood.

Prime Minister Macmillan and his wife in 1960

Prime Minister Macmillan and his wife in 1960

The colourful, although up to now reasonably discreet, life of Boothby was shaken up on the 12th July 1964 when the Sunday Mirror, as part of an ongoing expose on ‘the biggest protection racket London has ever known’, ran a story under the headline “Peer and a gangster: Yard probe.” The newspaper claimed that the police were investigating a homosexual relationship between a “prominent peer and a leading thug in the London underworld”. The peer was a “household name” and that the inquiries embraced Mayfair parties attended by the peer and the notorious gangster. The following week the Sunday Mirror’s front page announced “The picture that we must not print”. However the newspaper helpfully described the picture, saying that it showed a gangster and a the peer in the latter’s Mayfair flat.

A few days later the German magazine Stern, not so worried about Britain’s libel laws, printed an article entitled ‘Lord Bobby In Trouble’ and went so far as naming Lord Boothby and Ronnie Kray. When the story broke Boothby was holidaying in France and later would disingenuously say that he was initially baffled as to the peer’s identity. When he arrived home he called his friend, former Labour Party chairman and journalist Tom Driberg who, according to Boothby, said ‘I”m sorry Bob, it’s you’.

Lord Boothby was at this stage in a tricky situation, while he admitted to having met Ronnie Kray during two or three business meetings, he flatly denied the rest of the allegations. However if he decided to do nothing about the situation it would seem as if was admitting the accusations, but if he sued the Mirror he could be involved in a lengthy and expensive court case with the risk that the tabloid would rake up all kinds of revelations to support the story.

At this stage the people who led the Tory party were convinced that the scandal was likely to rival the Profumo affair (which had similarly bubbled under the surface for a while) a situation the Tories could ill-afford as there was almost certainly a general election looming. Two Tory back-benchers had even reported to their Chief Whip that they had seen “Lord Boothby and (Tom) Driberg importuning males at a dog track and were involved with gangs of thugs who dispose of their money at the tracks”. At Chequers the story and its implications were debated by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Dilhorne, the Home Secretary, Henry Brooke, and the Prime Minister and they must have thought the worst.

Tom Driberg and Lord Boothby

Tom Driberg and Lord Boothby

Luckily for the Tories Boothby’s connection with Tom Driberg, which was coming to light, meant that the Labour party were in no mood to take advantage of the situation. If Boothby went to court then it seemed more than likely that Driberg’s private life would also be raked over and exposed. According to Francis Wheen – his biographer – Driberg was a regular at Ronnie Kray’s flat, where ‘rough, but compliant East End lads were served like so many canapes’.

It was known to most of Westminster and Fleet Street (Driberg had been the William Hickey gossip columnist in The Daily Express) that few attractive men were safe from Driberg’s attentions and he was, as a contemporary would describe him, “a voracious homosexual”. Homosexuality was then, of course, illegal – voracious or otherwise. By all accounts Driberg was an enthusiastic follower of the concept that there is no such thing as a heterosexual male, only that some are a bit obstinate.

In 1951, to the complete and utter disbelief of Westminster, Driberg announced that he was to marry an Ena Binfield. Churchill, shown a picture of the rather, it has to be said, plain bride-to-be, remarked, ‘Oh well, buggers can’t be choosers.’ A policeman at the commons expressed sympathy for Binfield: ‘Poor lady, she won’t know which way to turn.’

Driberg as William Hickey in 1940

Driberg as William Hickey in 1940

Tom Driberg marries Ena Binfield

Tom Driberg marries Ena Binfield

The involvement of Tom Driberg MP in the story meant that Harold Wilson’s personal solicitor, the overweight and rather louche solicitor Arnold Goodman became involved. To Wilson, as well as many others, Goodman came by the name ‘Mr Fixit’. The lawyer offered to represent Lord Boothby and advised by Goodman, Boothby wrote a famous letter to the Times denying all of the Mirror’s allegations. The letter stated that he was not a homosexual and that he had met the Ronald Kray;

“who is alleged to be king of the underworld, only three times on business matters and then by appointment in my flat, at his request and in the company of other people … In short, the whole affair is a tissue of atrocious lies.”

'Mr Fixit' Lord Goodman in 1965

'Mr Fixit' Lord Goodman in 1965

Boothby also wrote to the Home Secretary explaining that he had not known Kray was a criminal, and had in any case turned down the business plan he had been discussing with him. Kray had wanted to be pictured with Boothby because he was a personality, and it would have been churlish to refuse. The Kray twins at this stage were not, to the general public anyway, particularly well-known but this was changing, much to the twins delight, because they liked having their photographs taken with well-known celebrities of which Lord Boothby was one.

with Judy Garland in 1964

with Judy Garland in 1964

Reggie Kray with Shirley Bassey

Reggie Kray with Shirley Bassey

Krays with Barbara Windsor

Krays with Barbara Windsor

with George Raft and Rocky Marciano

with George Raft and Rocky Marciano

Ronnie with Christine Keeler and Leslie Holt

Ronnie with Christine Keeler and Leslie Holt

Mw

with Joe Louis

After The Times published the letter Goodman won a quick agreement from the International Printing Corporation, owners of the Sunday Mirror, saving Boothby from the court case he, and the Government, were dreading. This wasn’t all, Goodman won his client a record out-of-court settlement of £40,000 and a grovelling and demeaning public apology signed by Cecil King, the chairman of IPC.

Derek Jameson, the Mirror picture editor, and future editor of the Daily Express and News Of The World, at the time remembered that for a long time Fleet Street refused to go anywhere near the Krays: ‘Dodgy trouble, ₤ 40,000, not very nice,’ he said. Subsequently the Twins were known by the Mirror for years as ‘those well-known sporting brothers’.

The Commissioner of the Metropolitan police – Sir Joseph Simpson – had to deny publicly that there had been a police investigation of the Boothby-Kray affair. However since the beginning of 1964 the Kray twins and their gang had been under the scrutiny of Detective Chief Inspector Leonard Read, also know by his nick-name ‘Nipper.’

Leonard 'Nipper' Read

Leonard 'Nipper' Read

The 'well known sporting brothers' and their mother Violet

The 'well known sporting brothers' and their mother Violet, back in the day.

On January 10th 1965 the Kray twins were arrested and charged with demanding money with menaces from Hew McCowan the owner of a club in the West End called the Hideaway. They were refused bail and sent to court.

It was hard enough for Read to find anyone with enough suicidal tendencies to testify against the Krays as it was, but the case against them wasn’t helped when a month after their arrest Boothby stood up in the Lords and inquired whether the Government intended to keep the Kray twins in custody for an indefinite period? He added ‘I might say that I hold no brief for the Kray Brothers’. There was a complete uproar in the house after the question, to which Boothby shouted ‘we might as well pack up’.

On the way to court

On the way to court

Ronnie leaving the court a free man April 1965

Ronnie leaving the court a free man April 1965

The twins welcomed back home by their parents Violet and Jimmy Lee

The twins welcomed back home by their parents Violet and Jimmy 'Cannonball' Lee

At the end of the trial the jury failed to reach an agreement and a re-trial was ordered however the judge eventually stopped the trial finding for the defendants. It must have seen to Fleet Street and the Metropolitan police that the Krays had a complete hold over the Establishment (surely it is without doubt that the Krays must have been essentially blackmailing Boothby for him to ask questions in the House of Lords on their behalf) and indeed their control over London’s underworld continued seemingly unchecked for the next four years.

Wanda Sanna at her marriage to Lord Boothby 1967

Wanda Sanna at her marriage to Lord Boothby 1967

Lord Boothby married for the second time in 1967 to a Sardinian woman called Wanda Sanna thirty-three years his junior. ‘Don’t you think I’m a lucky boy!’ he shouted out to well-wishers outside the ceremony at Caxton Hall round the corner from his flat. He died in Westminster in 1986 aged 86.

The Krays were arrested again in 1969 for the murders of George Cornell and Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie. Sixteen of their firm were arrested at the same time thus helping witnesses to come forward without fear of intimidation. As soon as people started speaking out it was relatively easy to gain a conviction. Ronnie and Reggie were sentenced to life-imprisonment with a non-parole period of 30 years for the murders of Cornell and McVitie, the longest sentences ever passed at the Central Criminal Court for murder.

Tom Driberg, known to many as ‘the most disreputable man in parliament’ was made a peer in 1974 and died of a heart-attack in the back of a taxi in the summer of 1976. Oh, for characters like Driberg (and Boothby for that matter) in these days of the horrifically bland New Labour politicians.

As for the third man in the picture, I can’t find out too much about what happened to the cat burglar Leslie Holt – he was far less in the public eye than the other characters in the story. He was Ronnie’s sometime driver and lover and he was used as occasional bait to entrap the likes of Robert Boothby and Tom Driberg (who both loved the occasional dangerous foray to the other side of the tracks). Holt eventually became the partner of a Dr Kells based in Harley Street and it was said that the society doctor would supply customers for his cat-burglary activities. It was a lucrative project that worked well until police became suspicious of the criminal double act. Holt suddenly died at the hands of Kells under anaesthetic for a foot injury and the doctor was arrested but eventually mysteriously acquitted.

boothby-and-kray

An excellent documentary The Gangster and the Pervert Peer made by Blakeway about the relationship between Ronnie Kray and Lord Boothby will be broadcast on Channel 4, Monday 16th February 2009.

Here are some great pieces of music that were in the charts from around the time the Boothby scandal broke. You can imagine Leslie Holt tapping his feet to some of them at the Hideaway if not the other two protagonists in the picture. The picture that the Sunday Mirror dared not print.

Terry Stafford – Suspicion

The Animals – Bury My Body

Dave Clark Five – Because

The Beatles – Any Time At All

Marvin Gaye – Can I Get A Witness

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Islington, Elton John and Long John Baldry

Friday, November 14th, 2008
“It’s absurd, you don’t really love her. You’re just a damned fool!”

In a basement flat on the corner of Liverpool Road and Furlong Road in Islington, the freshly monikered Elton John (to his friends and even himself it was still Reg) lived with his writing partner Bernie Taupin and his fiancé Linda Woodrow. On the 7th June 1968 Elton had written to an old school friend writing “Just a few lines to let you know I am getting married on 22nd June at Uxbridge Registary (sic) offices … Well if you think it’s a bit sudden you’re right. Seeing as we were living together we thought as well get married. Nothing much happening record-wise because I’ve got problems with my record company at the moment. Reg.”.


Only a week or so before Elton wrote the invite, Bernie and Linda were both having a an afternoon nap in their Furlong Road flat. Linda recalled ‘I came out of my room and Bernie came out of his, both thinking we’d heard a noise. We went into the kitchen, and there was Elton lying with his head in the the gas oven.’

Bernie quickly pulled Elton away from the oven fearing the worst but soon noticed that the gas was only turned to ‘low’ and the kitchen window was wide open. Elton had even thoughtfully placed a cushion in the oven to make his suicide attempt slightly more comfortable and in the end Linda merely remarked that it was just a waste of good gas.


Although the suicide attempt hardly seemed wholehearted it was nevertheless a cry of help from a man who was getting more and more confused and upset about his life. He was actually in a deep depression about his career, the failure of his first single and the continued false dawns and disappointments trying to sell his and Bernie’s songs. He was also coming to terms about his sexuality although up to then it didn’t really occur to anyone not least himself that he was anything but heterosexual. The lack of interest in women was just seen as a symptom of his shyness.


Towards the end of 1967 Dwight announced to the surprised members of Bluesology, a band led by the tall 6ft 7 inch singer Long John Baldry and for which he played keyboards, that he had ‘pulled a bird’. Bluesology had played at a nightclub called Fiesta in Sheffield and watching the band was a very short man who called himself The Mighty Atom, a DJ at the local Locarno ballroom, accompanied by a skinny blonde girl called Linda. The Mighty Atom apparently drove around town in a white E-Type Jaguar with wooden risers on the pedals and they must have made an odd couple as Linda was just shy of six feet.

Linda and Reg quickly found a lot in common and she travelled around with him for the last few dates of the Bluesology tour. At the end of the tour, just before Christmas 1967, Reg announced that he was leaving the band. Although Elton had been getting more and more frustrated about not being able to sing, it hadn’t helped that Baldry had just got to number one with the syrupy ballad ‘Let The Heartaches Begin’ – when he sang the hit a backing track was used and the rest of the band had to stand around doing nothing but looking suitably morose. Before Reg parted company he asked politely if he could borrow parts of Elton Dean, the saxophonist, and Long John Baldry’s names to re-name himself Elton John.

Linda and Elton found a basement flat in Furlong Road and Bernie Taupin soon moved in with them in the spare room. Linda was heiress to the Epicure Pickle company could live off a comfortable trust fund. Philip Norman, Elton’s biographer wrote that Elton had begun his affair with Linda “in the spirit of a non-swimmer, plunging headlong with eyes shut and fingers pinching nose, hoping that, if he went straight in at the deep end, everything would somehow sort itself out”.

Elton's first photo-shoot in 1968

Elton's first photo-shoot in 1968

It of course didn’t and in June 1968, three weeks before the proposed wedding, Elton was having a drink with Long John (who was to be Best Man) and Bernie at the Bag O’ Nails club in Kingsly Street where they both tried to dissuade him from the marrying Linda. Bernie remembered that Baldry, by then an unrepentant’out’ gay man, went on at Elton all evening – ‘It’s absurd, you don’t love really love her, you’re just being a damned fool…’. Almost certainly Baldry pointed out a few things about Elton’s sexuality that he might not been entirely aware of. Although Elton has since written “I cannot believe I never realised that he was gay. I mean, I didn’t realise I was gay at that time, but looking back on it now, John couldn’t have been any more gay if he tried”.

Long John Baldry on Top Of The Pops 1968

nme-bag-o-nails

bag-o-nails

Long John Baldry, although to his many fans after the success of ‘Heartaches’ wouldn’t have had a clue, was as flamboyantly ‘out’ to his friends as it was possible to be in 1968. Which possibly shows Elton’s innocence at the time but it has to be noted that homosexuality had only been legal in the UK for less than a year. Baldry had become rich (for a short time) from the number one hit and was leading a very hedonistic life in 1968, often attending the non-stop party at the home of Oliver composer Lionel Bart, who shared his interest in young men – the age of consent for gay men at the time was, of course, twenty-one.

Baldry’s sister Margaret does not go into detail, but does reveal that “some of them were very young. John was blackmailed on a couple of occasions. I used to meet a lot of these young guys who were way beyond their years, and they were clearly out to get his money.”

Baldry at the hairdresser John Stephen in Carnaby Street 1968

Baldry at the hairdresser John Stephen in Carnaby Street 1968


By the time the Bag O’ Nails closed Baldry, Elton and Bernie were joined by PJ Proby and also Cindy Birdsong from The Supremes, all acting as celebrity agony aunts and telling him that it was wrong to marry Linda.

PJ Proby

At four in the morning, and drunk, Bernie and Elton trudged back to Furlong Road. Elton was determined to finish the relationship and that night he did just that. ‘All hell broke loose’ according to Bernie with Linda pretending that she was pregnant and that she would commit suicide in the hope that Elton would change his mind. All to no avail.

In the morning Elton called his mother and in a few hours a van drew up outside the Furlong Road flat driven by his stepfather Derf Farebrother. In less than an hour Elton, Bernie and their respective record collections made the journey back to Elton’s family home at 30a Frome Court, Northwood Hills. Bernie and Elton were still sharing bunk beds at his old family home eighteen months later. Elton by then a huge star.



Long John Baldry, immortalised as Sugar Bear in Elton’s song ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’ never repeated the success of ‘Let The Heartaches Begin’. However he will always be remembered as instrumental in the birth of British blues and a link between black American blues and British rock. Other than Elton John he played with Mick Jagger before the Rolling Stones existed, went to school with Charlie Watts where they started a Jazz and Blues appreciation society and he famously found an 18 year old Rod Stewart singing a version of John Lee Hooker’s Dimples on the platform at Twickenham station.


Brian Auger and Trinity with LJB and Rod Stewart 1965

LJB 1973
After recording a relatively successful album in 1971 called ‘Take It Easy’, a side each produced by the now very famous Elton and Rod Stewart, Baldry moved to Canada in 1978 where he recorded sporadically including a record called ‘Out’ which could either have been about his sexuality or that he had recently been released after being institutionalised due to mental health problems. He died of a severe chest infection in 2005. It was always difficult for Baldry to accept that he was more well-known for who he knew and who had played in his bands than for his music.

Linda Woodrow (now Hannon) lives in America and seemingly still bitter about Elton John and the, it has to be said, slightly misogynistic and one-sided ‘Someone Saved My Life’. Making up for not marrying Elton in 1968 she has since married four times.

The Mighty Atom has now sensibly reverted back to his real name Chris Crossley and is now an artist in Brincliffe, Sheffield.

The Mighty Atom today

Reg's erstwhile fiance Linda Woodrow in 2007

Linda Woodrow and The Mighty Atom today

Two messages, received on 5th December 2008, from Linda Woodrow or Hannon as she is today.
I am very curious as to where you got all the information about me. Some of it is correct and some is not. You need to find out the truth before you go printing things about me.

Linda Hannon

There are many stories about Reg putting his head in the gas oven. In most of them I was to blame, however Reg was going through a very frustrating time with his music. He was then recording at the Dick James studio. I used to sit there many evenings while he played his music. At that time he was only earning approx. 100 pounds a week or less, it is true that I did take care of both him and Bernie financially. I didn’t realize at the time that he was bi-sexual. I think he used to fantasize after John Baldry. Reg had been out with both John and Bernie when they came home very drunk and Reg informed me that he was leaving. It was definitely John who told him not to get married. I cared very much for Reg and had really hoped for a future with him. At that time I never imagined that he would become such a huge star.
Linda


Someone Saved My Life Tonight – Elton John
Don’t Try And Lay Down No Boogie Woogie – Long John Baldry
It Ain’t Easy – Long John Baldry
Empty Sky – Elton John
Dimples – John Lee Hooker
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