Benny Hill in his sixties heyday. "The notion that Benny was a lonely man is so depressing and wrong. He just liked his own company. He was very happy walking alone, living alone, eating alone, taking holidays alone and going to see shows alone. I often wonder whether he needed anybody else in his life at all…except perhaps a cameraman". - Bob Monkhouse On Easter Sunday morning in 1992, and just two hours after he had been speaking to a television producer [...]
Donald Duart Maclean and Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess Guy Burgess woke at around 9.30 on the morning of Friday, 25 May 1951 in his untidy musty-smelling bedroom. Next to his bed was an overflowing ashtray and lying on the floor was a half-read Jane Austen novel. Burgess had got in the habit of rising relatively late since his return from America three weeks previously where he had been second secretary at the British embassy in Washington. He had left the US in disgrace, and at the British Ambassador's behest, after several [...]
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink and Prunella Stack meet in March 1939 On March 7 1939, a few months before the beginning of the Second World War, and just nine days before Germany invaded Czechoslavakia, a German woman called Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, described by Hitler as 'the perfect Nazi Woman', arrived at Croydon Airport and was met by the wife of the German Ambassador Frau von Dirksen. A few hours later Scholtz-Klink was introduced to Lady Douglas-Hamilton, formerly Prunella Stack, coincidentally known as 'Britain's Perfect Girl'. They were both at a dinner at Claridges organised by the Anglo-German Fellowship [...]
Teddy Boys admiring the view on Clapham Common in the early 1950s On the balmy summer evening of Thursday, July 2nd, 1953 there were maybe around two hundred teenagers hanging around a bandstand and its accompanying cafe situated roughly in the middle of the two hundred acres that make up Clapham Common in South London. The band was playing hits of that year such as Frankie Laine's 'I Believe' and Dickie Valentine's 'Broken Wings' and noticeably smartly-dressed young men were feigning disinterest in the girls who were dancing to the music. The self-conscious young [...]
lack American soldier and girlfriend at the Bouillabaisse Club in Old Compton Street, 1943 According to Alexander Cadogan, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office the cabinet meeting at Great George Street on 13th October 1942 was very disappointing: Everyone spoke at once while PM read papers. Discussion was on a low level. In fact the only contribution Churchill made personally during the whole meeting was to look up, after Viscount Cranborne, Secretary of State for the Colonies, had pointed out that one of his black Colonial Office [...]
Savoy Turkish Bath in Duke of York Street, 1951 - "A vigorous lathering on a marble slab with a wooden pillow." Late in 1951, on a cold foggy afternoon, the type that only London in those days could serve up, a young woman called Grace Robertson, one of the few female professional photographers of the time, spent a day amongst the regular clientele in the tarnished and faded elegance of the Savoy Turkish Baths in London's St James. Robertson photographed the customers as they went from one hot room to [...]
The Rector of Stiffkey, Harold Davidson with Estelle Douglas 1932 'It is very hard to be good, once you have been bad.' - Barbara Harris The Reverend Harold Francis Davidson, the Rector of the small Norfolk parish of Stiffkey for twenty-five years, was utterly besotted and bewitched by pretty young girls -- of that there was no doubt. Exactly how he behaved in the company of said pretty young girls was more up for debate. And in 1932 practically the whole [...]
Police photograph of Bobby Britt and his party guests at his flat at 25 Fitzroy Square, January 1927 At one in the morning on 16th January 1927 Superintendent George Collins of the Metropolitan police knocked on the door of the basement flat at 25 Fitzroy Square. A woman called Constance Carre eventually answered and Collins told her that he had a warrant to arrest the occupants. 'Mr Britt was going to give us a Salome dance,' she said, as if the answer would send them on their way. Ignoring her the Superintendent and his [...]
St Paul's Cathedral, 29th December 1940 A long long way from St Pauls Cathedral in Bermuda on the 26th November 1940 Harold Harmsworth, better known as Lord Rothermere -- the famous proprietor and co-founder of the Daily Mail, died of what was described at the time as 'dropsy'. Just before the tired and sad old man fell unconscious he said: There is nothing I can do to help my country now. It could be said, especially in the years preceding the Second World War, that he hadn't really [...]
Eric Morley, the creator of Miss World, noting down some important vital statistics. There were two separate protests at the Royal Albert Hall on 20 November 1970. One of them, the iconic flour-bomb demonstration directed at the Miss World contest by a group of young feminists, has become part of popular social history. The second, a potentially more serious event (something similar would certainly be taken as such today), has almost been completely forgotten. At around 2.30am, on the morning of the Miss World contest, a group of about four or five young people [...]
The Gateways Club in Chelsea approximately 1953 The owner of the Gateways Club Ted Ware sticking out like the proverbial thumb Gina Ware around the time of her marriage to Ted Ware in 1953 Dancing at the Gateways I found these wonderful pictures today, all of which feature the famous lesbian Gateways Club in Chelsea. The updated and fascinating story of The Gateways Club can be found on an earlier [...]
William Joyce William Joyce, the man with the famous nickname 'Lord Haw Haw', is Britain's most well-known traitor, of relatively recent times anyway. He had a catchphrase as famous as any comedian's and to cap it all he had a facial disfigurement in the form of a terrible scar that marked him as a villainous traitor as if the words themselves was tattooed across his forehead. Saying all that, a lot of people have argued that he shouldn't have been convicted of treason at all, let alone be executed for the crime. [...]
Colin Wilson on Hampstead Heath, 1956 The author Colin Wilson once said: "I had taken it for granted that I was a man of genius since I was about 133. For a short few months after the publication of his first book entitled The Outsider in 1956, it seemed that the rest of the world thought so too. The Outsider was a collection of essays that explored the philosophical idea of 'the outsider' in literature including that of Kafka, Camus, Hesse, Sartre and Nietzsche. It was an impressive collection of modern writers but it seems [...]
Mickey Deans, Judy Garland and Johnnie Ray at Chelsea Register Office, March 1969 On March 15th 1969 at Chelsea Register Office on the Kings Road, Judy Garland married a gay discotheque manager and part-time jazz pianist called Mickey Devinko better known as Mickey Deans. After the brief ceremony, which was actually her fifth, Garland said; "This is it. For the first time in my life, I am really happy. Finally, I am loved." Not that loved, because despite the long celebrity guest-list, not one of Judy's [...]
James Earl Ray's passport photos 1968 At 11 o'clock in the morning on Saturday, June 8th 1968 an immigration officer at Heathrow Airport took a look at a passenger's Canadian passport and said; "Would you please step into our office for some routine questions, Mr Sneyd". The man he called Mr Sneyd entered the office but when he saw a policeman standing there, all he could say was "Oh God, I feel so trapped" and allowed himself to be arrested. The bespectacled Mr Sneyd was found to have a .38 [...]
James Earl Ray's passport photos 1968 At 11 o'clock in the morning on Saturday, June 8th 1968 an immigration officer at Heathrow Airport took a look at a passenger's Canadian passport and said; "Would you please step into our office for some routine questions, Mr Sneyd". The man he called Mr Sneyd entered the office but when he saw a policeman standing there, all he could say was "Oh God, I feel so trapped" and allowed himself to be arrested. The bespectacled Mr Sneyd was found to have a .38 [...]
Billie Carlton A young pretty actress called Billie Carlton had a starring role on stage at the huge Victory Ball held at the Albert Hall on 28th November 1918. Tatler had a few months previously described one of her appearances on a London stage, saying that she had: 'cleverness, temperament and charm. Not enough of the first, and perhaps too much of the latter.' While one newspaper described her appearance at the ball: It seemed that every man there wished to dance with her. Her costume was extraordinary and daring [...]
Elvira Barney arriving at her parents house at 6 Belgrave Square, 7th July 1932 Visiting England apparently on a whim and a year before she made her first film late in 1925, a seventeen year-old Louise Brooks became a dancer at the Cafe de Paris in Coventry Street and it was here that she reputedly became the first person to dance the Charleston in London. The Piccadilly nightclub had quickly become the place to be seen when it had opened in December 1924, not least because the Prince of Wales soon became a regular visitor. [...]
Marie Lloyd at home in 1921, a year before she died. There is a strange, but rather brilliant documentary, directed in 1967 by Norman Cohen, called The London Nobody Knows , the beginning of which features a slightly incongruous James Mason, in very smart polished shoes, gingerly stepping over the literally putrefying remains of an old music hall theatre. The building was the Bedford Music Hall on Camden High Street and it was said to be Marie Lloyd's favourite place to perform. Unfortunately the theatre closed permanently in 1959 and the sad, [...]
Marie Lloyd and Claire Loumaine 1913 If Heat magazine had existed before the First World War they would have surely printed the picture above which features a 43 year old Marie Lloyd embracing and kissing a woman called Claire Loumaine. The photograph was taken on 25th April at Paddington Station where the music hall star had gone to meet Loumaine on her return from Australia Does anyone know who Claire Loumaine is? I can't find anything about her at all. There is a strange film made in 1967 called The London [...]
Another Nickel In The Machine
Watch: Trailer for Dave Grohl’s documentary, Sound City
Childish Gambino - "Heartbeat" (Official Music Video)
First Aid Kit – Emmylou
Hardwell Bootleg Pack 2012
James Blake – Live Album
