7. In his Victory broadcast on 13 May 1945, Churchill thanked all the services for the part they had played in securing victory. There was, however, no mention of Bomber Command. Bomber Harris campaigned for the rest of his life to have their achievements and sacrifices recognized. Harris commented that ‘the bomber drops things on people and people don’t like things being dropped on them, and the fighter shoots at the bomber who drops things. Therefore he is popular whereas the bomber is unpopular. It’s as easy as that’ (Bishop, Fighter Boys, p. xxxii). Only after years of campaigning has a monument to Bomber Command been unveiled in London in 2012, but the controversy continues.
8. Martin, The Flyer, p. 152.
9. Holiday Camp (1947) directed by Ken Annakin, produced by Sydney Box.
10. The New Statesman and Nation expressed little surprise at the increase in violent crimes perpetrated by ex-servicemen: ‘They’ve been trained in lawlessness, ordered to behave like thugs and decorated for doing it . . . what do you expect?’, 12 January 1946.
11. Byrne, Borstal Boy.
12. Brock, The Life and Death of Neville Heath.
13. Letter from James Hodge to Sir Theobald Mathew, Director of Public Prosecutions, 18 May 1951, TNA DPP 2/1522.
14. Taylor, A Wreath of Roses, 1949.
15. Early in The West Pier, the young psychopath Ralph Gorse ties a schoolgirl to a garden roller on a cricket pitch with a skipping rope, a reference perhaps to the incident reported in the press that Heath had beaten a girl so violently with a ruler that she had to be sent home. Gorse’s malevolent adventures continue in Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse. The last book, Unknown Assailant, ends with Gorse terrorizing a young woman and tying her up: ‘He liked to tie women up in order to get the impression that they were at his mercy, and he also liked to be tied up by women and to feel that he was at theirs’ (Unknown Assailant, Chapter 15, p. 130).
16. Morland, op. cit., p. 17.
17. Aulier, Hitchcock’s Secret Notebooks, p. 544.
18. Spoto, The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock, p. 496. In Hitchcock’s version Heath would be gay, obsessed with muscle magazines and, at one point, caught masturbating in bed by his mother – a classic Hitchcock anti-hero cut from the same cloth as Norman Bates.
19. According to Fast, Hitchcock said, ‘I’ve just seen Antonioni’s Blow Up! These Italian directors are a century ahead of me in terms of technique! What have I been doing all this time?’ (Spoto, op. cit., p. 496).
20. The 1971 Frenzy was based on Arthur La Bern’s Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square. The novel is suffused with references to Heath. Though set in the 1960s, it focuses on a penniless, divorced and disillusioned pilot, Dick Blamey DSO, DFC and Bar, falsely accused of murder in an alien London – cleaner but duller than its heyday in the war years. ‘This, he thought, is not the heart of London. It’s the anus’ (p. 27). Hitchcock goes even further in emphasizing the references to Heath in the script. At one point Hetty Porter (Billie Whitelaw) directly quotes a line that Heath had mentioned to Yvonne Symonds: ‘He must have been a sexual maniac.’
21. UK Homicide Act (1957) Chapter 2, Part 1 (section 2: ‘Persons Suffering from Diminished Responsibility’). Quoted in Hollis, The Homicide Act.
22. Orwell, ‘Decline of the English Murder’ in Collected Essays Volume IV: In Front of Your Nose 1945–50, p. 100, originally printed in Tribune, 15 February 1946.
23. Later, The Sunday Mirror.
24. Orwell, ‘Raffles and Miss Blandish’, Collected Essays, p. 247.
25. Daily Mail, 28 September 1946.
26. The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Detective Superintendent H. Lovell Dorset Constabulary, 18 July 1946, MEPO 3/2728.
27. Byrne, op. cit., p. 144.
28. Bixley, The Guilty and the Innocent, p. 112.
Prologue
1. The outline of the events at the Strand Palace Hotel is taken from three witness statements opened to the public for the first time in 2011 in a file held at the National Archives (TNA), DPP 2/1522. These are the statements of William Luff (22 June 1946), Thomas Paul (24 June 1946) and Pauline Miriam Brees (27 July 1946). Significantly, Pauline Brees’ statement was taken a month after that of the two members of staff of the Strand Palace. Pauline was the widow of Squadron Leader Alec Brees, DFC, who had been killed in a flying accident on 23 August 1945.
2. Benton, Benton and Wood (eds.), Art Deco 1910–1939, pp. 217, 239. Bernard had a huge influence on the ‘look’ of inter-war London in terms of interior design. Having originally worked as a stage designer in Britain and the United States, as well as designing the interiors for the Strand Palace Hotel, he also designed the Cumberland Hotel, the Regent Palace Hotel and the Lyons Corner Houses throughout the 1920s and thirties.
3. Ibid., p. 238.
4. See Allport, Demobbed.
5. Thomas Paul says Armstrong was wearing underpants; Luff remembered him as being ‘completely nude’. In his subsequent attacks on women, Heath also seems to have been naked. Paul claimed that Pauline was tied with ‘a pair of braces or a tie’ and Luff remembered a belt. Pauline herself recalls a handkerchief being used to bind her, which is more consistent with Heath’s later behaviour.
6. Many newspapers and books further embellished this moment, claiming that Heath was unable to stop beating Pauline when Luff and Paul entered the room. The News of the World, 29 September 1946, stated: ‘Heath stood over her in maniacal frenzy and had to be forcibly restrained while [she] was set free.’ In Crime, Punishment and Cure, Giles Playfair and Derrick Sington suggest that ‘the hotel detectives . . . had to restrain Heath forcibly’ (p. 78). There is no evidence for this manic behaviour in Luff, Paul or Brees’ statements.
7. In his statement on 19 July 1946, TNA HO 144/22871, having interviewed her personally, Spooner wrote that Miss Brees ‘appeared of the prostitute class’ but later revised his opinion in his overview of the case on 2 October referring to her as ‘a respectable young woman’.
8. Pauline Brees, 27 July 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
9. No professional production was playing at the theatre at the time as it played host to performances by students from RADA.
10. Dialogue quoted from Pauline Brees, 27 July 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
11. Critchley (ed.), The Trial of Neville George Clevely Heath, p. 169.
Chapter 1
1. From Clement Attlee’s election victory speech 26 July 1945, quoted in Kynaston, Austerity Britain 1945–51, p. 76.
2. Entry for Thursday 26 July 1945, Coward, The Noël Coward Diaries, p. 36.
3. Kynaston, op. cit., p. 116.
4. Evening Standard, 7 June 1946.
5. Ibid.
6. All quotes News of the World, 9 June 1946.
7. Imperial War Museum Film Archive, MGH 214, V Day, 8 June 1946.
8. Mass Observation reports quoted in Kynaston, op. cit.,p. 115.
9. Bournemouth Daily Echo, 19 June 1946.
10. For details of the progress and challenges of rationing, see Calder, The People’s War, pp. 276–79 and 404–408, and Longmate, How We Lived Then, pp. 140–55.
11. Quoted in Allport, Demobbed, p. 119.
12. Frank Luff, Imperial War Museum Archive: No. 27267.
13. Kynaston, op. cit., p. 118.
14. Daily Mail, 1 June 1946.
15. Daily Express, 24 June 1946.
Chapter 2
1. Daily Mirror, 25 September 1946.
2. Nicholson, Millions Like Us, p. 144. Years later Christian Lamb called her memoirs I Only Joined for the Hat (Bene Factum Publishing, 2007).
3. Drummond, Blue for a Girl, p. 57.
4. Though ‘jewellery, handbags, umbrellas and coloured fingernails are not uniform. Make-up, if worn, must not be obvious.’ Drummond, op. cit., p. 57.
5. Drummond, op. cit., p. 151.
6. Bigland, The Story of the WRNS, p. 183.
7. Yvonne Symonds’ evidence at the trial is available in Critchley (ed.), The Trial of Neville George Clevely Hea
th. A handwritten document taken from her statement at Worthing Police Station on 24 June 1946 and her testimony at the Police Court on 20 July 1946 are held in TNA CRIM 1/1806.
8. Wyndham, Love Is Blue, p. 10.
9. Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant, p. 96. Crisp remembered discussing the attractions of men in uniform with Margery Gardner in the window seat of a cafe in the Kings Road and commented waspishly, ‘I should have guessed that she was a born murderee. She used to wear a leopardette coat.’
10. See Francis, The Flyer, p. 21.
11. Simpson, I Burned My Fingers, pp. 115–116.
12. ‘Character of Witnesses’, 24 July 1946, TNA MEPO 3/2728.
13. Re. Panama Club, including club rules and layout, see Solomon Joseph, 28 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522. Heath had become a member under the name of Armstrong on 20 February 1946 and claimed to be living at the RAF Club in Piccadilly.
14. Edward Louis Barton, 1 July 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
15. News of the World, 29 September 1946.
16. Nicholson, op. cit., p. 104.
17. Wyndham, op. cit., p. 103.
18. Elizabeth Wyatt, 29 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
19. Barbara Osborne, 21 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
20. Ward Lock Red Guide, Worthing, p. 22.
21. Ibid., p. 4.
22. Worthing Herald, 5 July 1946.
23. Heath himself had little time for the pictures. ‘The cinema is mainly a place to go when you want to sit down.’ Dr Young’s handwritten report, 6 December 1946, TNA P COM 9/700.
24. Daily Telegraph, 21 June 1946.
25. George Girdwood, 25 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
26. The building – complete with nautical frontage – remains and is now a Cornish pasty shop.
27. Angus Bruce, undated, TNA MEPO 3/2728.
28. John Charters Symonds, 24 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
29. There is no further trace of Yvonne Symonds in UK archives after 1947. When Major Symonds died in 1977, Yvonne’s two children were living in Belgium, so she may have moved abroad to join her mother’s family after Heath’s trial.
30. The site of the Blue Peter Club still exists on the beach at Angmering, now occupied by an Italian restaurant.
31. This dialogue is taken from Yvonne Symonds’ statement at Worthing Police Station, the evidence she gave at West London Police Court and her testimony at the Old Bailey, TNA CRIM 1/1806.
32. Barratt was actually a superintendent.
33. People, 23 June 1946.
34. George Girdwood, 25 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
35. Yvonne Symonds, 24 June 1946, TNA CRIM 1/1806.
36. Percy Alexander Eagle, Worthing, TNA MEPO 3/2728.
Chapter 3
1. Margery’s boyfriend at the time was Peter Tilley Bailey.
2. Typescript of both letters, TNA MEPO 3/2728.
3. Quoted in Adamson, The Great Detective, p. 162.
4. Reginald Spooner’s report, 18 July 1946, TNA HO 144/ 22871.
5. ‘Character of Witnesses’, 24 July 1946, TNA MEPO 3/2728.
6. ‘“Borrowed” Car Chased Round Hyde Park’, Evening Standard, 27 September 1945.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Elizabeth Helen Wheat, 22 June 1946, TNA MEPO 3/2728.
10. Wheat, The Wheats of Sheffield, p. 249.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid., p. 250.
13. Letter from Margery Wheat to her parents, 15 March 1936, collection of Melody Gardner.
14. Elizabeth Helen Wheat, 22 June 1946, TNA MEPO 3/2728.
15. Letter from Margery Gardner to Mrs Wheat, undated (probably 1940), collection of Melody Gardner.
16. Lofthouse, Then and Now, passim.
17. Mathews, Chelsea Old Church 1941–1950, pp. 7–9.
18. ‘Grantham Hotel Theft’, Grantham Journal, 16 January 1942.
19. Ibid.
20. Elizabeth Helen Wheat, 22 June 1946, TNA MEPO 3/2728.
21. Author interview with Melody Gardner, 4 October 2011.
22. Marley (ed.), The Daily Telegraph Story of the War, p. 84.
23. The name V1 is an abbreviation of Vergeltungswaffe Eins or ‘Revenge Weapon Number One’.
24. Gardiner, Wartime, p. 549.
25. Calder, The People’s War, pp. 559–60.
26. Faviell, A Chelsea Concerto, p. 135.
27. ‘Robot Plane Hits Nurse’s Home: Children are Trapped’, Evening Standard, 17 June 1946.
28. Letter from Margery Gardner to Mrs Wheat, 27 July 1945, collection of Melody Gardner.
29. Kynaston, Austerity Britain, p. 197.
30. Ralph Macro Wilson, 24 June 1946, MEPO 3/2728.
31. Letter from Margery Gardner to Mrs Wheat, 27 July 1945.
32. Daniel Hamilton Shields, undated, TNA MEPO 3/2728.
33. Ruth Wright and Mrs Hambrook, 25 June 1946, TNA MEPO 3/2728.
34. Wheat, The Wheats of Sheffield, p. 251.
35. Elizabeth Helen Wheat, TNA MEPO 3/2728.
36. Peter Tilley Bailey, 25 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
37. Further statement of Iris Humphrey, TNA DPP 2/1522.
38. Joyce Frost, 22 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
39. A Streetcar Named Desire premiered in New York in December 1947.
Chapter 4
1. Peter Alan Gardner, 22 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
2. Further statement of Joyce Frost, 30 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Peter Tilley Bailey, 22 June 1946 and 25 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522. Tilley Bailey said he couldn’t remember if this was Tuesday or Wednesday.
7. List of Exhibits Sheet 5, taken from 24 Bramham Gardens SW5 21 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
8. Joyce Frost’s two statements, TNA DPP 2/1522.
9. List of Exhibits Appendix 2, found on armchair in Room 4, Pembridge Court Hotel, 21 June 1946. Property of Margery Gardner. TNA DPP 2/1522.
10. Gynomin advertisement – ‘an approved method of family planning’, British Medical Journal, 27 October 1951.
11. Eva Eileen Cole, 1 July 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
12. Mary Catherine Hardie, 26 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522. Catherine also stated that she had never met or heard of Margery before, so may not have been aware of the status of her relationship with Peter Tilley Bailey. As Margery perhaps suspected, Tilley Bailey would spend the night with Catherine Hardie at his flat in Coliseum Terrace.
13. Ronald Anthony Edward Birch, 25 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
14. Iris Humphrey, 22 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
15. Further statement of Iris Humphrey, TNA DPP 2/1522.
16. Phyllis Mary Brown, 28 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
17. Harold Harter, 22 June 1946 and further statement of Harold Harter, 27 June 1946, DPP 2/1522.
18. Some newspapers in the UK and abroad (e.g. Cape Times, 1 July 1946) reported that Margery left in Harter’s taxi singing, ‘I’ve got a date with my sweetie.’ There is no evidence of this from any of the many witnesses who were present at the entrance to the club.
19. Daily Express, 25 June 1946.
Chapter 5
1. Adamson, The Great Detective, p. 161.
2. Ibid., p. 45.
3. Ibid., p. 57.
4. One of Spooner’s superior officers, quoted in Adamson, op. cit., p. 274, claimed that Spooner ‘was ridiculous with money . . . it flowed through his fingers when he was in a public house. His one fault was that he drank too much.’
5. Adamson, op. cit., p. 116.
6. Ibid., p. 120.
7. ‘[Spooner] did not appreciate wildness and profusion even in his garden (his flowers were planted in rows, each tied to a stick whether it was necessary or not), and one day, after examining the luxuriant but straggly growth of a peony that Myra’s sister Kathleen had given them, and which he had cut and trimmed without effect, he came into the kitchen and told Myra, ‘You know, that kind of bush is an embarrassment in my garden.’ Adamson, op
. cit., p. 275.
8. Ibid, p. 124.
9. See Farndale, Haw-Haw.
10. Adamson, op. cit., p. 129.
11. Ibid., p. 159.
12. Quoted in Adamson, op. cit., p. 282.
Chapter 6
1. Rhoda Spooner, 25 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
2. Further statement of Barbara Osborne, 24 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
3. Further statement of Elizabeth Wyatt, 16 July 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
4. Alice Wyatt, 24 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
5. Frederick Averill, 2 July 1946, TNA HO 144/22871.
6. Reginald Spooner, 18 July 1946, TNA HO 144/22871.
7. Simpson, Forty Years of Murder, p. 126. Simpson’s assistant, Jean Scott-Dunn, who was later to become his wife, was ‘located under a hairdryer in Knightsbridge’ when she was called by the police to attend at the Pembridge Court Hotel.
8. Finger and palm prints are available of Margery Gardner and the hotel staff, as well as photographs of fingerprints on the sink and door handle, TNA MEPO 3/2664.
9. Reginald Spooner’s report, 18 July 1946, TNA HO 144/22871, and his review of the case on 2 October 1946, HO 144/22782.
10. Elizabeth Wyatt, TNA DPP 2/1522.
11. Barbara Osborne, TNA DPP 2/1522.
12. Further statement of Alice Wyatt, 18 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
13. Elsie Mary Ellen Thomas, 23 June 1946, TNA MEPO 3/2728.
14. Procter, The Street of Disillusion, p. 111.
15. According to Spooner’s overview of the case on 2 October 1946, Heath told his parents that his wife had left him for another man thus ‘breaking up’ his life, TNA HO 144/22872.
16. Reginald Spooner, 22 June 1946, TNA DPP 2/1522.
17. Reginald Spooner, 1 July 1946, TNA MEPO 3/2728. The list of names, addresses and telephone numbers from Heath’s address book are also held in MEPO 3/2728.
18. Reginald Spooner’s report, 18 July 1946, TNA HO 144/22871.
19. Dr Keith Simpson, TNA DPP2/1522. Simpson was also to claim in Forty Years of Murder that Margery was a masochist: ‘she liked being bound and gagged’ (p. 127). Despite there being little evidence for this, Simpson quotes Casswell’s erroneous assumption in his own autobiography of 1961 that ‘a month before her death [Margery] had been in another hotel bedroom and had only been saved from possible murder by the extremely timely intervention of an hotel detective. She had been heavily thrashed, and Heath was standing over her in an almost fiendish fashion.’ This is fully discussed in Chapter 22.
Handsome Brute: The True Story of a Ladykiller Page 39
