On the 26th, my mother phoned her secretary, Margaret Picco, to ask her to call Sheila’s parents to let them know Sheila was all right, that my father had spoken to her, and that she had a very good lawyer. Margaret was an exceptional secretary and made verbatim notes of the entire conversation. She had formerly been in the police force and did everything by the book, in triplicate, as well as assertively keeping reporters away from the door whenever possible. She also had her own boundaries. On the 27th March, she wrote to my mother saying precisely and only this: ‘Following your phone call yesterday I rang Mr and Mrs Black, as you requested. But may I say one thing: Although in all my working years I have never refused a request by my employer or superior – please, I hope you won’t ask me to do anything else which is connected with Sheila Buckley!’ That was fair enough: Margaret was not prepared to act as a go-between for my mother and the mistress or her parents. When the letter arrived in Australia, my father showed it to Sheila who, on the 7th April, wrote to Margaret accusing her of being prissy and superficial, of having devoured what she read in the newspapers and not spared a thought for the suffering Sheila had endured over the past months. She went on to say that there’s so much pain for people to bear because there are so many people like Margaret in the world, adding that she hoped Margaret wouldn’t pass her unchristian ways on to her children so their first instinct in life would be to dance on the grave of someone else. She closed by saying she hoped Margaret had spoken to her parents in a civil manner and, if not, she’d be looking for an apology when she returned to London. Given that Margaret was always the epitome of civility, which Sheila knew very well as they’d often had reason to speak on the phone, and coming from the woman who’d been having an affair with her boss’s husband for five years, Margaret thought Sheila’s letter was a bit much. On the 11th April she sent Sheila the perfect response: a postcard of Annigoni’s painting of the Queen on which she wrote ‘Many thanks for your letter – it’s given us some laughs! I had no idea you’d such a sense of humour. It’s a very revealing memento and I shall enjoy showing it to people! Thanks again.’
Sheila replied to Margaret on the 18th April with a letter that curiously adopted a ‘we’ stand, by which she aligned herself with the Stonehouse family, with Margaret as our common enemy. It began by saying that ‘we’ are concerned that Margaret was apparently showing Sheila’s letter to others, and laughing over the deep traumas faced by the Stonehouse family, adding that she and the Stonehouse family were not on a stage to amuse Margaret and her type, accusing her of being callous and brutal. The letter went on and on, saying ‘we’ would, ‘we’ thought, ‘we’ are disenchanted and ‘we’ can do without correspondence like Margaret’s, saying it stabs at them all. Unimpressed, on the 22nd April, Margaret sent copies of the correspondence to her solicitor with the note that ‘it is possible they may – in future – be referred to’.
My father and Sheila had to report to the same police station every day and, as she had no car, they’d go together. Although Jane invariably accompanied them, she’d be removed from the press photos. The photographers loved this ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ photo opportunity and it created a more interesting news story to imply they were living together. But the longer the ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ narrative continued, the harder it was for people to understand that my father had planned his disappearance on his own and as a result of a nervous breakdown. Day by day, the ‘conspiracy’ narrative took over until there was little hope of overcoming it.
Sheila was living on her own in a bedsit with no friends around, and no longer thinking she was pregnant. She’d realised that after sending her fourth and last letter to my father on 20th December, and later wrote, ‘Worry had probably been the cause of it all.’16 My mother and father, Jane and Mathew, were in another place a couple of miles away and Sheila was back to being ‘the other woman’ while the married man lived with his wife. But this time it was different because the law compelled them both to attend the police station, and then they could go and have lunch or spend time together in her sparsely furnished room. It had a gas fire and they’d sit either side of it, talking about what had happened that day. Sometimes they made love in the single bed. They played chess and read. Meanwhile, my mother had to endure the knowledge that her husband was with his mistress, and Sheila had to endure her lover going back to his wife. The only person who didn’t think three was a crowd was my father.
My mother returned to London, leaving my father in the care of my sister and brother. He and Sheila were facing extradition, and sleeping together. Nevertheless, my father was sending my mother love letters. He usually began his letters to her ‘My darling love’, and in the month of May 1975 alone, his letters say: on the 1st, ‘You are most beautiful and I love you’; 2nd, ‘I am missing you, much love’; 3rd, ‘It has been a marvellous and beautiful relationship which will – whatever happens – live forever. Much love’; 9th, ‘It was marvellous talking to you this morning. You sounded so strong despite everything. I am so proud of you’; 11th, ‘I love you darling’; 12th, ‘I am missing you very much sweetheart. I hope you are getting some rest now. Please don’t worry about me. I am getting stronger every day. Do love you – take care’; 13th, ‘I dreamt about you last night’; 15th, ‘It was wonderful talking to you. I miss you so much’; 23rd, ‘I love you rather desperately. And I long for your company and kisses. You are the most beautiful woman in the world. Much love.’
My mother still loved him too. On the 8th June 1975 she was interviewed by The Observer. At this point in time, my parents had been married for 26 years. She said: ‘I knew John when he started out, progressed, achieved something and during all that time he has acted honourably. What has happened lately are aberrations of his personality: I just don’t think they are basically John Stonehouse, apart from the Mrs Buckley thing, which is a completely separate subject and is something that many men might do. It is all very well for people to take the holier-than-thou position because he’s a public figure. But in public life men are more exposed and vulnerable to this kind of thing. To me, he isn’t just my husband, he is somebody who embodies certain ideals. If he had been making money all his life by doing people down I wouldn’t have respected him and perhaps wouldn’t have given a damn what happened to him. But I don’t intend to join in the national sport of kicking a man when he’s down and I won’t apologise for backing him, because he’s been a damn good man, a very good husband. I’ve had a very good marriage all these years and it may well be over. I don’t know, but I can’t forget it. I don’t intend to bash him about like everybody else is. He doesn’t need me to do that: he’s got plenty of other people doing it.’17
After the trial at the Old Bailey, Sheila wrote a series of articles for Woman magazine in which it became clear that my father had been giving her the adulterer’s usual, ‘You couldn’t break up our marriage. It broke up years ago’ story. Sheila said, ‘I believe in marriage. Yes, even though I’ve had an “affair” (a word I hate just as I hate the word “mistress”) with a married man. But, you see, I think marriage is sacred only when there is love there. When love dies then the marriage is not a marriage at all. It’s phoney.’ Like so many mistresses before her, Sheila had been strung a line and if she thought my parents’ relationship was without love during any of that time, she was being fooled. In Woman magazine, Sheila said, ‘Divorce was not at all acceptable in politics in those days and it could have harmed his career.’18 Labour lost the June 1970 election and my father was not offered a position in the shadow cabinet, nor a position in the February 1974 Government when Labour scraped in with a hung parliament. He was still an MP, but there was no ‘career’ to worry about. My father could have got divorced from my mother in 1970, had he wanted to.
In the article Sheila says, ‘Only once did we ever quarrel. That was over his silver wedding party. Barbara was very anxious to throw a big celebration. John was against it. So was I. It was the only time I made a stand. I told him I thought that it was almost obsc
ene and totally hypocritical. The wrangling went on for days. And then one evening John came to the flat looking very distraught and said: “It’s no good. I’ve just had to give in to that woman. It’s the only way to keep her quiet.” I was beside myself.’ Sheila told him: ‘If you’re going to carry on with this ridiculous charade I don’t know if I should have any more to do with you. I’m beginning to lose my self-respect.’ She then picked up a sherry glass and threw it at him. Good for her. She recalled, ‘It shattered into pieces all over the place. John didn’t say anything. Just bent and slowly started to pick up the pieces. As he did so he cut his finger.’19 I was 22 at the time and involved in the preparations for that party. My father was all for it, highly enthusiastic one might say. I still have the paperwork, including the table plan laid out in his own handwriting. It was held at the Chanticleer restaurant on Palace Street, SW1, on the 13th November 1973, and was attended by 56 guests. The most important of these was Sir Charles Hardie, an old business contact who was now head of the firm which had audited BBT’s accounts in June 1973, and would be called upon to do so again in 1974. No doubt my father wanted to impress him because he also invited Sir Frank Woods, Sir Arnold Hall, Sir Charles Forte, Sir Alexander Glen, Sir Ray Brown, Lord Jim Peddie, Sir Leckraz Teelock (the High Commissioner for Mauritius), and their wives. They were my father’s business associates and friends and they were joined by my mother’s business associates and friends, and family. This was as much my father’s party, as my mother’s. After a four-course meal accompanied by Pouilly-Fuissé and Château Pichon Longueville Baron, there was dancing. We all had a great time, as proven by the thank you letters. One said: ‘We had a lovely time and you both looked so much more like a young couple about to go off on their honeymoon than celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary … Hope you enjoyed it as much as all your guests did. Barbara you looked beautiful.’
Whatever he told Sheila, my father loved my mother. And my mother loved my father. And my father loved Sheila. And Sheila loved my father. Perhaps if there hadn’t been so much love, our lives would have been simpler.
13
Where to Next?
My father disappeared because he had a nervous breakdown brought about by, or exacerbated by, overdosing on a cocktail of Mandrax and Mogadon. With that breakdown, he now had to deal with a daily tsunami of negative press. Plus, he physically had to try and escape the pack of reporters and photographers that were constantly on the hunt for him. If he tried to talk to them, they twisted what he said. John Stonehouse couldn’t win. Nobody was interested. Nobody believed him. They all thought he was lying about having a breakdown because they’d read in the newspapers that he’d phoned Sheila, met her in Copenhagen, she’d sent him letters, and her clothes had been sent out in a trunk. Clearly, it was a conspiracy, and he was a spy. His old comrades in the House of Commons were yelling indignantly that he should be brought back to the UK, and the diplomats were trying to achieve that goal, as shown by voluminous diplomatic extradition files in the National Archives at Kew. My father left England a broken and disillusioned man in November 1974, but three months later he was more tired and angrier than before. At the beginning of January, he’d been willing to go back to the UK, but the more hounded he was, and the more vitriolic the commentary became in the UK, the less he wanted to return. By the end of February, he didn’t care if he never saw the place again.
The hatred of my father was palpable, and a complete and utter horror show. I was in London ‘holding the fort’ while trying to earn a living and be as anonymous as possible. One day I was at my desk at work when a temp sitting nearby having her lunch and reading a newspaper spat out the words, ‘He should be hung!’ I knew who she was talking about without looking. She didn’t realise who I was. ‘Who’s that?’ I asked, knowing full well the answer. ‘Stonehouse!’ she spluttered. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Because he left his wife and children to run away with his secretary.’ If I saw someone reading a story about him in a paper, standing at a bus stop, next to me on the tube, or at the bar in a pub, I’d ask, ‘what’s that Stonehouse been up to today?’ and they’d repeat as fact what had been reported. I’d overhear people behind me on the bus saying vile things about him and knew, without looking, what newspaper they were reading because I read them all every day. And I knew the ‘facts’ in them were invariably wrong or had glaring omissions. The whole country was flooded with rivers of negative ‘fake news’, and there was no escape from it. Nor was there escape from the reporters themselves. They followed me up the stairs on the bus, and down the escalator on the tube. They knocked on neighbours’ doors, phoned friends or harassed them on the street. They were everywhere, like an endless swarm of biting midges.
Before police charges were laid, the press were free to say whatever they wanted. We had no time to challenge them before the next assault arrived. It was like the daily ‘Two Minutes Hate’, or more like ‘Hate Week’, in George Orwell’s novel 1984, when people vented their hatred at the image of the ‘Enemy of the People’, Emmanuel Goldstein, the renegade who’d mysteriously escaped and disappeared. Goldstein was a traitor, and many still believed my father was a traitor too, never mind that the prime minister had denied it. They thought, ‘He would say that wouldn’t he? They all cover for each other.’ The general distrust of politicians within the country became pinpointed on the figure of my father. Politicians hated him because they thought he reflected badly on them and defiled their integrity. The Tories hated him because he was a socialist. Labour politicians were venomous in their contempt, seeing him as a backslider who’d abandoned the great cause. Fascists hated him because he was anti-fascist. Communists hated him because he was anti-communist. Men hated him because he was tall and handsome, had a beautiful blonde and a beautiful brunette by his side, and was too clever by half. Women hated him because he’d abandoned his wife and children. They were all glad to see he got his comeuppance. You could hear the hissing, booing and snorts of disgust.
Only the Guardian and Observer managed to dispatch their role as reporters with honesty. They’d get facts wrong too, of course, but not deliberately, and only when they copied another paper. On the 26th January, my father wrote to the Leader of the House, Ted Short: ‘Press freedom is a false god to worship: it has become a weapon in the hands of callow, cynical and completely irresponsible men who delight in undermining and destroying the active people in politics and business who are the constructive and positive elements in society. The negativism of much contemporary journalism is a cancer in the body politic and is gradually eating away at the vitals of British democracy.’1 Having lived an entire lifetime through the press tornado, I would go further. The intensity of negativity was a form of brainwashing, so much so that even today – 40 years later – there’s hardly a true word written about my father. Recent reports just plagiarise the old, then twist them and spin them to get more juice out of them. In researching this book I’ve not seen a single book, article, web page or post that’s not riddled with inaccuracies to do with time, place, people, events and all other facts.
After Sheila arrived in Australia, the press were frantic to know if my father and she were going to try and run away together, possibly to New Zealand. No charges had been made against him in the UK and the Australians had lost interest – so long as he didn’t resign as an MP, he had the legal right to remain. On the 13th February, British diplomats were discussing the issue: ‘the Australian authorities are no longer keeping Mr Stonehouse under surveillance and … they would not arrest him on charges of contravening the Australian Immigration Act should he attempt to leave the country, as they had said they would on 1 January.’2 On the 15th February, an article in a New Zealand paper said he and Sheila, or my mother, could go to New Zealand and get a six month temporary visitors’ visa, ‘so long as they had the normal travel documents’. British diplomats contacted the NZ immigration minister’s office to find out if this was correct, and were perturbed to discover that ‘a passport would not in fact be
required if they travel from Australia (so far as we are aware, the latter point is not yet publicly known)’.3 The diplomats confirmed that his UK passport had been confiscated and taken back to the UK by Scotland Yard, and the Australian police had the Markham passport. Nevertheless, they began to get nervous: maybe he’d run away again.
On the 28th February, Jack Dixon of the Nationality and Treaty Department at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in London, wrote to a colleague: ‘We have told Canberra and Wellington that the only passport facilities that may be given to Mr Stonehouse if he applies are to be a passport restricted to a single journey to this country.’ They wanted him back. It continued: ‘There have been suggestions, repeated by Reuters yesterday, that Mr Stonehouse may be able to obtain a passport of Bangladesh of which he claims to be an honorary citizen. It is not known whether this claim is correct but the High Commissioner in Dacca suspects that if Mr Stonehouse decided to go to Bangladesh the authorities there would not stop him.’4
On 4th March, my father wrote to his old friend, the prime minister of Sweden, Olof Palme, but didn’t realise that in the open society of Sweden, mail sent to the PM can be examined by journalists before he or she even sees it. His letter began, ‘In view of the persecution I have received from the English authorities and the British press, I have decided to resign from the House of Commons in due course and renounce my United Kingdom citizenship. At that time I shall have to leave Australia and I am therefore writing to earnestly request that you grant me a Swedish passport.’ He outlined four reasons for this request, briefly: ‘I am advised that my enforced return to England could cause irreparable psychiatric damage to me’; ‘I have not been charged with any criminal offence’; ‘I have suffered the most vicious campaign of persecution by the British press’; and ‘I have adequate means.’5 This appeal was published in the Swedish press, and the news soon reached Westminster. Olof Palme’s office wrote back saying my father couldn’t have a Swedish passport unless he resided in the country, but he could apply for resident status. On the 5th March, my father went to Canberra with Sheila and Jane and visited the Bangladesh High Commission to ask for a passport, and also to the Brazilian High Commission, to see what travel options they could offer.
John Stonehouse, My Father Page 18
