Handsome Brute: The True Story of a Ladykiller

by O'Connor, Sean

  Both Joan and Doreen’s duties with the WRNS were very much office-based jobs with little chance of action. Ironically, the nearest they came to danger was at home in Kenton. At 8.10 a.m. on 28 June 1944, the peace of a typical English summer morning had been devastated by a violent explosion that engulfed the entire neighbourhood.

  Without any warning there was a colossal compression and explosion immediately followed by all kinds of crashes, bangs, screams, sounds of breaking glass and God knows what else.

  The neighbourhood had been targeted by a V1 bomb – the deadly ‘doodlebug’. Seconds after the blast, Newton Myers, a twelve-year-old schoolboy who lived at 5 Kenton Gardens, emerged from his family’s Anderson raid shelter in the garden to witness a world in chaos:

  I clambered out of bed and through the door of the shelter, out through the back room door into what was left of our hall. There was dust everywhere . . . and there were other yells, shouts and screams coming from other places. At this moment my father appeared staggering down the stairs which were still relatively intact. His face was a mask of blood and he was shouting ‘this is the end, this is the end’ over and over again. As we met at the bottom of the stairs he picked me up and rushed out into the front garden with me in his arms. Then he put me down and I rushed back into the house. I went into what was left of the front room. The mantelpiece had come away from the wall and was lying horizontal across the sofa. The bay window was halfway out into the garden. When I looked out and to the right all I could see were what appeared to be the roofs of our neighbours’ houses. The only problem was that they were at ground level with no houses underneath them. Dust was everywhere, there were still screams and moans coming from the buried, dying and injured . . . Before long the rescue teams arrived and started the grisly task of recovering the bodies. I was unlucky enough to see one of my friends’ sisters on a stretcher under a blanket being carried past me towards the ambulance. As the stretcher-bearer passed me, a doctor pulled back the blanket, I had the unpleasant sight of someone who had been completely flattened. Not a pretty sight . . . This whole incident had a disastrous effect on my nerves. Up until now I had borne the bombing with typical British phlegm. However now I begged my father to take me out of London. I was panic stricken and absolutely terrified.6

  Thirteen people were killed in the attack. The most severe damage was suffered by Kenton Gardens, but the whole area was reduced to rubble. Though their house was hit, Charles and Grace Marshall and their daughters were relieved to have escaped with their lives, Grace having often despaired during air raid warnings as Joan always refused to use the Anderson shelter in the garden. Significantly, though, Doreen did not escape the incident completely unscathed. From that morning onwards, a shock of grey began to appear in the dark curls of her hair, just above her right temple. This was very distinctive in such a young woman – a continuous reminder to her and everyone she met of the unspoken but continuing effects of the Blitz.

  With ‘Kenilworth’ uninhabitable, the Marshalls moved four miles further to the northwest and rented a half-timbered, semi-detached house in Woodhall Drive, Pinner. The house had been built in the early 1930s, very much in the stockbroker Tudor style beloved by John Betjeman. In a conservation area today, it remains a hymn to Metroland – parquet floors and Bakelite door handles, manicured lawns, sculpted privet hedges and quiet avenues surrounding a village green; all the elements of comfortable pre-war middle-class life.

  Living the first months of peace in the suburban comfort of Pinner, the Marshalls were well aware that they were very lucky to have survived the war with the family intact. A photograph taken in the garden at Woodhall Drive shows a happy, relaxed family group, the horrors of the war behind them – no inkling of the terrible tragedy ahead.

  On Friday morning of 28 June, Charles Marshall drove Doreen to Waterloo Station and saw her off on the 9.30 train to Bournemouth.7 Given the huge holiday crowds mixing with recently demobbed servicemen swarming around the station, Doreen and her father may not have even noticed Faulkner’s, the busy hairdressing shop on the station concourse. The Waterloo branch was ably managed by a Mr William Heath but that day he was not at work, having pressing family issues to deal with at home.

  Settling into her first-class carriage, Doreen checked her luggage, which consisted of two suitcases and her black suede clutch-style handbag. In the bag she kept a small pigskin notecase, four or five pounds in cash, her driver’s licence, about sixty clothing coupons and the return half of her railway ticket. She also carried with her a key for the house in Woodhall Drive, keys to the suitcases, a lipstick, a comb and a couple of family photographs. She powdered her face with a blue and gold enamel powder compact, oblong in shape containing rouge, powder and a space for cigarettes. Though there was a crack across the mirror of the compact, Doreen kept it as she’d been given it by her sister Joan.8 She also carried a small silver penknife in her bag, with a matching fountain pen. She had won them as a schoolgirl at an ice-skating competition at Wembley. The pen was inscribed with her name.9

  Arriving at Bournemouth Station, Doreen took a taxi to the Norfolk Hotel on Richmond Hill. The hotel, one of the oldest in Bournemouth, was the only one not to have been requisitioned during the war years, so preserved a rather select reputation. The building still operates as an hotel today, opposite the Art Deco offices of the Bournemouth Echo, which had been built in 1932. Doreen was booked into Room 94 by the receptionist, Elsie Jones. She confirmed that she would be staying for ten days, as her letter had indicated. She signed the registration form and was shown to her room.10

  That evening Doreen telephoned her father to say that she had had a comfortable journey and had arrived safely. She also had a chat on the phone with her sister and mentioned that she had talked to another guest at the hotel, an American antique dealer by the name of George Wisecarver.11 Doreen phoned home again on Sunday and told her father that she was all right, but feeling a bit lonely, so she was looking through some books in her room.12 Talking to her sister on the telephone, she mentioned that Mr Wisecarver had invited her on a trip to Exeter, but she didn’t want to go. She rang home again on Tuesday 2 July and spoke to her mother. She also sent letters to her father and sister which arrived in Pinner on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, but in these letters – her last – she didn’t refer to anybody she had met since she arrived in Bournemouth. She did write that ‘unless I speak to somebody shortly I shall scream’.

  For a young woman alone, there was plenty of entertainment for Doreen to occupy herself with at the local cinemas that week. The Electric in Bournemouth was showing the new Gene Tierney picture, Leave Her to Heaven. The Blue Dahlia at the Odeon starred Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake and the Astoria at Boscombe was showing Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer in The Rake’s Progress. But it was too hot to sit in a dark cinema during the day, as the weather that week was glorious.

  Summer came into its own yesterday [2 July] with a heatwave which, though ideal for holidaymakers, left some office workers somewhat prostrate. Sea bathers increased in number at lunchtime by Bournemouth folk going down for a preprandial dip – for some, their first bathe of the summer. The temperature rose between 3 and 4 p.m. to 80 degrees, the highest recorded so far this year.13

  On the morning of Wednesday 3 July, Doreen took a walk on the promenade, packed with families at the height of the holiday season. But having been in Bournemouth for nearly a week on her own, she was now feeling isolated, bored and lonely. In her mind she had already decided that she would return home early. She would take the train back to Waterloo tomorrow. Wednesday would be her last day in Bournemouth.

  That morning, whilst stopping to watch a Punch and Judy show on the promenade, Doreen was delighted to meet an engaging young man – tall, tanned, blond and handsome with startlingly blue eyes made even more remarkable by the backdrop of the sea and the cloudless blue sky above the beach. She felt at ease with him and after several days of feeling rather sorry for herself, she was glad of his company. He in
troduced himself as Group Captain Rupert Brook – but she must call him ‘Bobbie’ or ‘Bob’. He was extremely charming, a real gentleman. He recalled his meeting with Doreen some days later.

  I was on the promenade on Westcliff when I saw two young ladies walking along the front. One was a casual acquaintance I had met at a dance at the Pavilion during the latter part of the preceding week. (Her Christian name was Peggy but I was unaware of her surname.) Although I was not formally introduced to the other young lady I gathered her name was ‘Doo’ or something similar. The girl Peggy left after half an hour and I walked along the promenade with the other girl I now know to be Miss Marshall. I invited her to have tea in the afternoon and she accepted.14

  Despite later attempts by the Bournemouth police to trace ‘Peggy’, she was never found. In all probability she never existed and is one of several phantom figures that Brook conjured in his various statements. Doreen had been very open with her family that she was lonely in Bournemouth and mentioned all of the few acquaintances she had made, so it seems unlikely that she wouldn’t mention befriending another young woman if she had, indeed, met one. Brook may have been attempting to suggest that his first meeting with Doreen was more socially correct – an introduction through a mutual acquaintance than the rather casual pick-up that it was. The name ‘Peggy’ may have been inspired by his recent acquaintanceship with Peggy Waring who had only returned to London on the preceding Saturday. It seems much more plausible – and more consistent with his usual behaviour – that he noticed Doreen was alone and introduced himself. She might have stood out particularly to him because of the distinctive shock of grey hair above her right temple.

  I met her along the promenade about 2.45 p.m. and after a short stroll we went to the Tollard Royal Hotel for tea. It was about 3.45 p.m. The conversation was fairly general. She said she had served in the WRNS and mentioned she had been ill and was in Bournemouth to recuperate.15

  Since the departure of Peggy Waring and Peter Rylatt, Brook had spent a considerable amount of time with some other guests at the Tollard Royal, Mr and Mrs Heinz Abisch, a German couple who lived on the Finchley Road in London. Brook would join them for drinks before lunch and dinner and for coffee after meals. That afternoon, Abisch and his wife returned to the hotel for tea where Brook was already sitting in the lounge with Doreen. Mr Abisch was amused to see Brook with yet another girl. He had had several mild flirtations with girls in the hotel – and Peggy Waring from whom Brook had seemed inseparable had only recently returned to London. Abisch smiled knowingly at him. At this point, Brook excused himself from Doreen and went over to buy a newspaper from the porter, passing Abisch. As he did so, he turned to Abisch and said ‘in quite a nasty tone’, ‘I’ll soon wipe that smile off your face.’16 Brook then returned to tea with Doreen in the lounge and Mr and Mrs Abisch left the hotel. After tea, Brook suggested that they meet again that evening for dinner. With no other plans and nobody to answer to, Doreen said she’d be delighted. She left the Tollard Royal at 5.45 and returned to the Norfolk Hotel to dress for dinner.

  Just before 7 p.m., Doreen went to the desk at the Norfolk Hotel and asked James Newland, the porter, to call her a taxi as she was going to the Tollard Royal for dinner. Newland rang Autax, a local cab firm. The car soon arrived and Newland saw Doreen into it.17 After a few minutes, when the car arrived at the Tollard Royal, Doreen got out and paid the driver, Sydney Bush. He remembered a distinctive glass fob watch she wore on the lapel of her lemon-coloured coat. She gave him no instructions to be collected later.18

  The events of the evening preceding Doreen Marshall’s death read like the scenario for an Agatha Christie play; the lounge of a Bournemouth hotel, an assembly of witnesses, including a retired major and his refined lady wife (Mrs Gladys Davy Phillips). Even the weather was suitably dramatic, as the evening was dominated by a violent thunderstorm with vivid lightning and heavy rain. It began with Doreen’s arrival at the hotel, as she had arranged with Brook that afternoon. Brook recalled her entrance:

  At appoximately 7.15, I was standing outside the hotel and saw her approaching on foot.19 I entered the hotel, went to my room to get some tobacco and came downstairs again just as she was entering the lounge. We dined at 8.15, sat talking in the lounge afterwards and then moved into the writing room. The conversation was again general but she told me she was considering cutting short her holiday and returning home in a day or two. She mentioned an American staying in her hotel and told me he had taken her for car rides in the country. She also mentioned an invitation to go with him to Exeter but I gathered although she did not actually say so, she did not intend to go. Another American was mentioned – I believe his name was Pat – to whom I believe she had unofficially become engaged some while before.20

  Brook deliberately suggested that Doreen may have had other boyfriends and that, as a single girl on holiday and away from home, she had made the most of her freedom. Though a plausible story – Bournemouth was still full of American servicemen waiting to be repatriated – there’s no evidence that Doreen had met any other men at all, let alone become engaged to one. Wisecarver, her American acquaintance, was a respectable antiques dealer and had already left the country. Doreen was also known by her family to be a ‘quiet girl who didn’t have boyfriends’.

  Doreen had dressed smartly and stylishly for dinner. Under her distinctive fleecy lemon box coat she wore a plain black silk frock with matching black sandals. She was also wearing silk stockings and a pair of cultured pearl earrings matching her Ciro pearl necklace. On one of her fingers she had a three stone diamond ring, set in platinum, which was a twenty-first birthday present from her parents. Under her arm she carried her black suede handbag. She used her blue compact to powder her nose. As she did so, Brook noted that it was cracked. Doreen explained that she was clumsy: ‘I’m always breaking things.’

  Heinz Abisch and his wife returned to the hotel and went in to dinner at about 7.30 p.m. Shortly afterwards, Brook came into the dining room with Doreen and they sat two tables away. The dinner menu that evening offered a choice of two soups, trout or roast duck, cauliflower and cream sauce with boiled new potatoes. This was followed by raspberry ice or pear trifle. Brook ordered a magnum of champagne, though Doreen drank little.21

  After dinner, he escorted Doreen into the lounge, where the Abisches were already settled. He took one of the armchairs and Doreen sat opposite on a sofa. Winifred Parfitt came into the lounge at about 8.30 p.m. to take her coffee after dinner and Brook introduced her to Doreen. He explained that Doreen was an old friend and that he had not seen her for some time, but had bumped into her on the sea front that morning. Doreen didn’t contradict this statement, and she may well have felt it was less awkward to comply with Brook’s social white lie. Brook also told Mrs Parfitt that Doreen had served in the WRNS. Mrs Parfitt had also been in service in the admiralty during the war so she and Doreen had a great deal in common to chat about.

  Sitting only three or four yards away from them, Abisch overheard Brook call Doreen ‘darling’, and watched as she was introduced to Mrs Parfitt. Eavesdropping, he heard that Doreen was staying at the Norfolk Hotel, she was from Pinner and ‘would be going home the next day’. Mrs Abisch was sitting on a sofa to the right of Brook, when he suddenly turned to her and said, ‘Pull that skirt down. It makes me mad.’ Both Mr and Mrs Abisch were puzzled by Brook’s remark, as Mrs Abisch’s skirt had not ridden up sufficiently to justify it.22 Brook and Doreen were served glasses of port on the house by Wilkinson the night porter, but Doreen refused hers, saying she had had enough to drink. Brook drank both glasses. Mrs Parfitt noticed that Doreen had only one drink – a gin and orange – during the whole evening, but Brook had had several, mostly beer in pints. To Mrs Parfitt, Brook seemed ‘in a very cheery mood – not drunk – just cheery.’ According to the hotel rules, drinks served outside the dining room should be paid for when ordered, but Mr Parfitt recalled that Brook told the waiter, ‘I haven’t got a bean on me today. I meant t
o go to the bank this morning. Put it down, old chap, on my crime sheet.’23

  As the summer evening turned to night, the weather began to change. After the intense heat of the day, a storm was on its way, rumbling from a distance at first, but by 10.45 it had developed into a dramatic electrical storm, with lightning cracking across the vast dark sky in front of the hotel.24

  Brook then suggested that they might listen to some dance music, so he, Doreen and Mrs Parfitt moved from the lounge to the writing room where there was a portable radio. That night John Reynders and his orchestra were broadcasting on the BBC Light Programme from 10.30 p.m. As the wireless played dance music, Doreen chatted some more with Mrs Parfitt, telling her that she had been ill and had come to Bournemouth to recuperate. Mrs Parfitt did think that Doreen looked rather pale. Finding her sympathetic, Doreen confided that she had been rather lonely in Bournemouth and her stay had not been particularly happy. She complained that she was not feeling well and that she felt dizzy. She supposed it was because she was feeling very tired. She may actually have been feeling unwell as her sister later confirmed that Doreen was expecting her period. She asked Mrs Parfitt to persuade Brook to take her back to the Norfolk Hotel.25

  At about 10.45 p.m., Doreen visited the ladies’ cloakroom. While she was out of the room, Mrs Parfitt told Brook that she thought Doreen wanted to go home, but he was flippant – it was far too early. Mrs Parfitt then followed Doreen to the ladies’ as she thought she might be ill. When she got to the cloakroom, Mrs Parfitt wasn’t sure if Doreen had been sick in the lavatory, but she was powdering her nose from her blue compact and refreshing her lips with her American lipstick. She seemed to be getting a little brighter after they went back to the writing room. The wireless was now playing music by Billy Ternent and his dance orchestra, accompanied by Ruth Howard and Gerry Fitzgerald.26