I will be away for two Weeks ... I wish you all ... the best. I offer you an unforgettable moment of Jeeves...

Jeeves and Wooster - Little Horseshoes

Faulks on Fiction (Part 3 - The Snob)

More Britons want Prince Charles to become Britain's next monarch than his son William

(Reuters) - More Britons want Prince Charles to become Britain's next monarch than his son William despite the huge interest in his upcoming wedding and previous suggestions he was the popular choice, a poll on Thursday said.

Shortly after William's engagement to girlfriend Kate Middleton was announced last November, two polls showed a majority of Britons thought he should succeed the Queen and not heir-to-the-throne Charles.

However, according to a YouGov survey for Prospect Magazine released on Thursday, that sentiment has now been reversed.

The poll of 2,409 people found the public would prefer Charles to be the next king by a 45 to 37 margin, a reversal of a similar survey in 2005 which backed William by 41-37.

Prospect suggested one possible reason for the reversal was that the public felt William and Middleton should be allowed to enjoy as normal-as-possible a life after their April 29 wedding.

British constitutional expert Norman St John-Stevas said there was no possibility that the throne could bypass Charles in any case.

"It would be a major breach of our constitution," he told Reuters TV.

"It would weaken the monarchy, it would make Prince William's task infinitely more difficult, it would be an act of gross injustice to Prince Charles who has done so much for the monarchy."

The poll also found that support for scrapping the monarchy had ebbed away. Shortly after the death of Charles's wife Diana in 1997, when there was widespread anger at the royal family, a quarter of Britons wanted to get rid of them.

The survey found that figure was down to 13 percent.

There was also strong support for an overhaul to a 300-year-old law which gives primacy to male heirs to the British throne.

The poll showed that by a 75-17 percent margin, the public thought the eldest child of the monarch, whatever their sex, should succeed.

(Reporting by Michael Holden, editing by Paul Casciato)

Kenneth Clark: 'A Stick in the Mud...'

Heroic Materialism Kenneth Clark

Remembering a great BBC moment ... Civilisation by Kenneth Clark

Civilisation: A Personal View (often called simply Civilisation) was a popular and influential TV series outlining the history of Western art, architecture, and philosophy since the Dark Ages. It was produced by the BBC and aired in 1969 on BBC Two. The series was written and presented by art historian Kenneth Clark (1903-1983) who also published a companion book under the same title.

The series’ groundbreaking format, in which Clark travelled around the world to illustrate his thesis, became a template for such later programmes as The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski, Life on Earth and sequels by David Attenborough, Alistair Cooke’s America, and Cosmos by Carl Sagan

Goethe and Schiller at Weimar

In 1794, nearly six years after Goethe's first interview with Schiller, the two came together again, this time only to be separated by death, and here was the most powerful influence which had thus far affected the lives of the two poets; for the closeness of the intimacy is almost without a parallel in literary history. Schiller, though not yet at the height of his reputation, had written many of the works which have made him famous, when he settled at Weimar in 1787. But he found the place deserted, Goethe being in Italy and the duke in the Prussian camp. It was chiefly on the recommendation of the former that he was appointed professor of history in the university of Jena, and this office he accepted somewhat reluctantly, fearful, as he says, lest the scholars should discover that they knew more history than the teacher. Soon afterward he married, and set to work on his History of the Thirty Year's War, contributing also, as did Goethe, after his return, to Cotta's new literary journal, the Horen.

It was not long before the close intimacy with a spirit as restlessly creative as his own began to show itself in Goethe's return to poetry. Having now the aid of Schiller's intelligent criticism, he completed his Wilhelm Meister, the plan of which he had conceived twenty years before, adding two more to the six books written before the Italian tour. The entire work, which has been admirably translated by Carlyle, is in the nature of a philosophical romance, and stands in the first rank of Goethe's writings. His aim was to attain perfect objectivity of tone, to represent men as they are and to pass no judgement upon them. It is a singular compound of pictures of life, so plain and realistic that they sometimes become actually coarse, with theories of society, labor and education so refined that they frequently lose all practical character. The hero passes with weak irresolution through a number of ordinary circumstances, apparently the sport of fortune and the plaything of chance; yet all these experiences have their definite result in the training of his character. Like the son of Kish, he goes forth to seek his father's asses and finds a kingdom. The unearthly charm of the child Mignon, the dark fate which surrounds the aged harper, like the doom of Oedipus, the uncertain yearning after a happier home in brighter climes gives a deeper undertone to the prevailing lightness of the story. The faults of the story are as positive as its beauties; but it has no antetype in literature. The style is exquisitely soft and flowing, with all the sweetness and simplicity of Werther, but more mellow and mature. In the sixth book is a piece of the autobiography of Fräulein von Klettenberg, altered to suit its new environment. It was of her that Goethe wrote: "My Klettenberg is dead! She who was so much to me!"

The period of Goethe's closest intimacy with Schiller, though the two were in daily cooperation, left but little of permanent worth from the former poet. On the other hand these are the years of Schiller's greatest activity. It was at this time that he produced his Wallenstein trilogy, probably his grandest effort, followed by Marie Stuart, Jungfrau von Orleans, Braut von Messina and Wilhelm Tell. In 1799 a dramatic school was established at Weimar, and these classical dramas were the glory of its stage. Of a proposed epic, whose theme was Achilles, Goethe completed only the first canto, and it had no successor. He then devoted himself to the works of others, translating and preparing the Mahomet and Tancred of Voltaire for the Leipsic theatre. After recovering from a dangerous illness, he sketched the outline of a trilogy dealing with the French revolution; but of this only the first part, the Natürliche Tochter, was completed. The story is a true one of a princess of the French house of Conti. The play is written with the full beauty of Goethe's style, and some passages and effects are worthy of his highest genius; but, as a whole, it is a failure. It has the quality so characteristic of Goethe's later work, of too great universality of treatment--a serious drawback in a drama. The characters are not living beings but abstractions, and the language is vague and general rather than clear and defined.


Goethe


Schiller

Goethe's Huis







Schiller's House

Wallis and David `encore`

THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF WINDSOR AND THE HOUSE OF LOVE


Wednesday September 22,2010 in Express
By Simon Edge
IT WAS a secret retreat of the exiled Edward and Mrs Simpson, now restored with the help of a woman with her own royal connection
Every weekend from the early Fifties onwards the Duke and Duchess of Windsor would leave their 19th-century villa in the Bois de Boulogne, on the outskirts of Paris, in a regal Daimler.
Close behind came a pale blue Cadillac bearing the ­Duchess’s luggage, four pug dogs and two maids.
Their destination was Le Moulin de la Tuilerie, a converted 18th-century mill house 20 miles to the south-west. Offering a refuge from the public exposure of their house in the Bois where they felt like “animals in a gilded zoo” it was the only house they ever owned and their only real home.
It was a distinctly un-French corner of France, where the Duke spoke German to his French, Spanish and Alsatian gardeners and the American-born Duchess nagged her cooks to use more tinned and frozen food.
And it has now been preserved as a piece of England-in-exile. Restored, it has been passed to a British charity, the Landmark Trust.
Stripped of the Duchess’s eccentric décor – “chi-chi and overdone”, as photographer Cecil Beaton put it – the house has now been refurbished as holiday lets. “Through its association with Edward and Wallis this lovely site has great international resonance for British, French and Americans,” says Peter Pearce, the Trust’s director.
By coincidence, it could not have happened without the daughter of another famous exile from the Windsor court, Group Captain Peter Townsend, Princess Margaret’s lover.
Once the darling of the British Empire, Edward VIII renounced the British throne in 1936 after reigning for less than 11 months. Senior courtiers had long been worried by his affairs with married women and his private callousness and his pro-Nazi sympathies made him a serious liability when Hitler came to power.
His determination to marry a twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson raised a genuine constitutional difficulty but it was a problem only for those who wanted him to remain king. Behind the scenes, it was regarded as something of a godsend.
Marrying in 1937, the newly created Duke and Duchess of Windsor paid a high-profile visit to Germany where they were fawned upon by the regime. “It’s a shame he is no longer king,” wrote Hitler’s propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. “With him we could have entered into an alliance.”
The Duke spent the war as Governor of the Bahamas – a humiliation designed to put him out of harm’s way – and afterwards the couple accepted an invitation from France to settle tax-free in Paris. They bought the Mill, as they called it, in 1952.
Part of the attraction was the gardens straddling the stream where the Duke enjoyed tending his showy beds of flowers. “It is a very tranquil place where one can garden as one should in old clothes, with one’s hands among familiar plants,” he said. The landscape designer Russell Page, who was also responsible for the gardens at Badminton Park and Longleat, was brought in to remodel the natural features.
The interior was the Duchess’s preserve. “Most of the mill was tacky but that’s what Wallis had – tacky, southern taste, much too overdone, much too elaborate,” said interior decorator Billy Baldwin, a fellow American.
Diana Mosley, wife of the British fascist leader Sir Oswald, who was also exiled in Paris and a frequent visitor to the Mill, recalled: “It was very bright with patterned carpets, lots of apricot and really much more Palm Beach than English or French.”
Other visitors referred to rooms draped like circus tents and tartan carpets and fashion writer Suzy Menkes called it “pioneer homestead meets the American Dream”.
Despite the unfortunate décor the glitterati of the age were happy to accept invitations. Guests included Maria Callas, Marlene Dietrich and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
Beaton was given his own separate cottage, dubbed “the bachelor pad”, where he could bring male companions. It was perhaps his presence that prompted the Duchess, when a guest admired the Duke’s pansies, to remark: “In the garden or at my table?”
A cookbook the Duchess tried to write gives a glimpse of what her guests could expect to be served. Her Sauce Liberal, to be served with cold lobster mousse, consisted of mayonnaise, tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, double cream and a large quantity of gin. Her Avocado Pears Tahiti involved filling the centre of an avocado with rum and brown sugar.
“I wonder often if American housewives appreciate their good fortune in having so many excellent frozen foods,” she wrote.
“In France, these foods are few and expensive. Inevitably this must change when electric refrigeration becomes more general. In our household I have waged a long fight on behalf of frozen foods.”
Her husband, who poked fun at his wife’s pronunciation by referring to himself as “the Dook”, liked to read National Geographic magazine. He also reminisced about his glory days as the glamorous Prince of Wales.
He died in 1972 and the Duchess put the Mill on the market a year later. Maria Callas considered buying it but in the end it was sold for $1.3million to a Swiss banker, who died bankrupt and heirless. In 1980 the French state seized his assets and sold the Mill at auction to a Lebanese industrialist.
When it last changed hands in 2006 it had been uninhabited for four years, with goats roaming the buildings, garden paths overgrown and box hedges choked with nettles. Renovation was begun by Patrick Deedes and his wife Isabelle, whose father was Group Captain Peter Townsend. He too, as a divorcé, was deemed unsuitable to marry a royal, in his case Princess Margaret.
“Dad and Margaret were the biggest story of their day, just as the Windsors were of theirs,” says Isabelle, an ex-model for Ralph Lauren and Hermès.
Townsend went on to marry a Belgian, Isabelle’s mother, and he was a regular visitor to the Mill when the Windsors lived there. They even named a pug after him. Isabelle and her family are now tenants of the Mill’s gatehouse.
The main house and two adjoining outbuildings are now leased to the Landmark Trust and are available to rent from this month as holiday lets. “While we have not attempted to recreate the Windsors’ bright and eclectic furnishings and décor we have furnished the house, like them, with an echo of Englishness and with much to recall their happy times there,” a spokeswoman says. Sleeping 12, the main house will cost you £2,800 to rent next week.
A mural commissioned by the Duchess, who died in 1986, reads: “I’m not the miller’s daughter but I have been through the mill.” It remains on the wall of the large first-floor living room.
It’s a self-deprecating memorial to a woman vilified in Britain for keeping a king from his throne but who probably did the country a favour in the long run.

INTERMEZZO "Remains of the day"

Some Textures and Colours ... Compositions that bring comfort to your day ... Yours ... Jeeves

Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, Duke and Duchess of Windsor

Duchess of Windsor Jewellery Auction

Robbed, abused, sedated, alone... the desperate last days of the Duchess of Windsor By Hugo Vickers, to be published by Hutchinson on April 7

Robbed, abused, sedated, alone... the desperate last days of the Duchess of Windsor
By Hugo Vickers in Daily Mail

The Duchess of Windsor was permanently confined to her powder blue bedroom overlooking the lawns of her house in Paris. It was September 1977, five years after the death of her husband, the man who had been briefly, and scandalously, King Edward VIII - and she was in poor health. Her lapses of memory were worsening, a weakness that her French lawyer Suzanne Blum used to her great advantage.
With no family to advise her, the Duchess relied heavily on Blum. She was also terrified of the lawyer. However, on this occasion, as Blum demanded she look through some papers, the Duchess fought back. Without warning, the frail 81-year-old summoned up an extraordinary burst of energy, turned to her and shouted: 'I HATE YOU!'
Blum never dared enter the Duchess's presence again - at least not until the Duchess could no longer speak. But the Duchess would pay heavily for her scorn. After that day, Blum did exactly as she pleased. She sold jewellery from the Duchess's multimillion-pound collection without her permission, set about publishing love letters between the Duchess and the Duke and appointed herself keeper of the Windsor flame.
All the time, the vulnerable Duchess - abandoned by the Royal Family and with few friends to protect her - was held virtual prisoner in her own house. She was helpless, sometimes sedated and hopelessly alone...
It had been so different only a few years before. Ostracised by the Establishment after the Abdication in 1936, the Duke and Wallis Simpson lived out a golden life in America, France and the capitals of Europe. They sat at the centre of a gilded court-inexile, with a large entourage attending to their every whim.
The twice-married American socialite whom the Duke abandoned the throne to marry could be seen at glittering events. Although no classical beauty, she always dressed immaculately in haute-couture - Chanel, Givenchy or Dior - complemented by fabulous jewellery.
By the end of her life, she had amassed a legendary collection. She favoured imaginative pieces specially designed for her, including an onyx and diamond Cartier panther bracelet, a piece so beautifully articulated that it slunk over the wrist.
In 1953 the Windsors moved to a grand villa on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne, 20 minutes from central Paris. It was leased to the couple by the City of Paris for a peppercorn rent.
At either side of the large entrance gates, lampposts with ducal coronets on them were erected. The effect was that of a palace in miniature, filled with the accoutrements of Royalty, a place where two people who had scandalised the world held lavish dinners and parties attended by the rich and powerful.
Lawyer Suzanne Blum: The Duchess turned to her and shouted 'I hate you'
The Windsors also purchased the cosier Mill at Gif-sur-Yvette outside Paris, while in New York, they rented a spacious apartment on the 37th floor of the Waldorf Towers. Just to be sure they felt perfectly at home, the Windsors stored furniture at the hotel for use in the apartment during their annual visit. A tycoon friend even loaned them a Renoir to adorn the walls.
Without the formal duties demanded of other members of the Royal Family, there was opportunity for endless travelling. The Windsors were seen in Cuba with President Batista before he was overthrown by Fidel Castro. Other haunts included Venice and Vienna.
Although few members of our Royal Family would see the Windsors, the titled, the great and the good from the rest of the world paid homage to the couple.
President Richard Nixon gave a dinner for the Windsors in Washington in 1970, the Duke in white tie, the Duchess in a cream silk crepe evening dress by Givenchy. Just before the Duke died, the Emperor and Empress of Japan visited them in Paris. They entertained Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Marlene Dietrich and Maria Callas, while fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley and his wife Diana were neighbours.
Patrick Lichfield and Cecil Beaton photographed the Duchess, the latter providing a snap for her passport. Wallis was aware of her shortcomings. She once wrote: 'I'm nothing to look at. So the only thing I can do is dress better than everyone else.'
She was also the mistress of reinvention. When Beaton first met her in the early Thirties, he judged her 'a brawny great cow or bullock in sapphire blue velvet'. Following her involvement with the Prince of Wales, he commented: 'I am certain she has more glamour and is of more interest than any public figure.'
Her distinctive, slightly haughty dress sense relied on clean lines and a lean figure. Her quick wit was also celebrated. Of her extravagant tendencies and wispy frame, she once quipped: 'You can never be too rich or too thin.'
Designers vied to dress her. I remember her secretary ringing one of the great Parisian couture houses, informing them that the Duchess would be arriving to inspect pieces from the new season's collection.
A little of that high-octane life was still apparent when I first visited the house in 1972 to discuss the Duke's entry in a guide to the Royal Family to be published by Burke's Peerage.
My first visit occurred just before the Queen saw the Duke during a State visit to France, indicating a thaw in relations. By that time, the Duchess was ill and the Duke had been diagnosed with inoperable throat cancer. Within ten days of the Queen's visit, he was dead aged 77.
Although it might not have been apparent at the time, the reins were slipping from the Duchess's hands. A Satanic figure was waiting and watching - wearing the mantle of good intention to disguise her malevolence. Suzanne Blum's hour had all but come.
Most people thought it would have been better for the Duchess to have followed her husband swiftly to his grave. As Oonagh Shanley, who nursed the Duke, put it: 'The years that followed the Duke's death were unspeakably lonely for the Duchess. This period could fill many pages and could be compared to Dante's vision of Hell. She was a martyr at the hands of greedy people.'
The Duke had done everything for his wife. Now, after his death, she was on her own.
There was, of course, still a large staff. At that time, she employed two secretaries, a butler, chef, souschef, gardeners, chauffeurs, a nightwatchman and chambermaids. Then there was Swiss banker Maurice Amiguet and Suzanne Blum, who dealt with her legal affairs in Paris. Originally, Blum's first husband had represented the Windsors but she took on this role after his death.
The Duchess in Paris with her pugs, shortly before her collapse in 1975 from which she never recovered
While some of these figures were honourable, others were not. There are dangers for rich widows who have considerable worldly goods, if they are frail, more so if their affairs are handled by a dishonest lawyer and an avaricious banker, their health overseen by a doctor acting on the lawyer's instructions.
The Duchess was suffering from the early symptoms of Crohn's disease. Determined to retain her girlish-figure, she did not eat properly and was known to survive on nips of vodka.
Initially, though, all seemed well. Between 1972 and 1975, photographs showed the Duchess at society occasions in Paris, arriving in New York, or strolling along a beach in Biarritz. There were occasional interviews, and at least one photo-session with her pugs in Paris.
THE 'CHILDREN' THAT WALLIS ADORDEDOne of the Duchess's greatest pleasures in life was the presence of her pugs, Ginseng and Diamond.
The Duke of Windsor's valet once said they were like the children the couple never had. They ate from their own bowls and even travelled to New York with the Duchess.
When the Duchess fell ill, her nurses feared the dogs might infect her, so Ginseng and Diamond were taken away and lived elsewhere on the estate in Paris until they died. The Duchess never saw them again.
Without the Duke, however, age, frailty and grief would take their toll. Over Christmas 1972, she fell out of bed and, though in considerable pain, was not given proper treatment. Only in the new year was it realised that the 76-year-old Duchess had broken her hip. After surgery, she recovered, and was eventually able to walk without a stick.
While the Duchess was in hospital, Blum took the first step to assuming control over her. She dismissed Sir Godfrey Morley, the British lawyer who had handled the Duke's affairs and his last will, after persuading the confused Duchess that he was trying to get his hands on her money.
Hardly had the ink dried on a letter appointing Blum as Wallis's sole legal representative than she set to work. The French government confirmed no tax would be paid on the Duke's estate. In return, the Duchess signed a codicil to her will leaving items to France's great museums, in gratitude to the City of Paris for providing the house on the Bois. As a result of these arrangements, Blum was advanced in the Legion d'Honneur, the highest decoration in France.
After the Duchess's two secretaries left her employment in 1975 and 1978, Blum was able to control the situation as she wished.
Blum had once merely been an adviser, summoned when required. Now the relationship had been twisted to her utter advantage.
Blum and the Duchess had almost nothing in common. The Duchess lived her life at the height of fashion; Blum wore dowdy dresses or tweed suits and an ill-fitting wig, which caused the Duchess quiet mirth. The Duchess was light and social; Blum was austere and ruthless. Her eyes were as narrow as those of an old Mandarin.
The Windsors lived in a grand villa on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne, 20 minutes from central Paris. It was leased to the couple by the City of Paris for a peppercorn rent
The Duchess's health concerns continued. The broken hip had been bad enough, but now came a blow from which Wallis would never fully recover. Late in 1975, she suffered a perforated ulcer that led to a severe internal haemorrhage.
She was taken to the American Hospital and was sent home the following January a wreck. It would, many said, have been better if the Duchess had been allowed to die in hospital. Instead she was destined to live a pathetic existence for the next ten years, virtually unable to move and later unable to speak.
Sometimes, when in pain, she pleaded with nurses, hoping 'the Good Lord would take her away'. As one of the nurses said: 'It gives me great distress to see HRH, who was once a great lady, admired and feted throughout the world, who showed courage which was widely respected, becoming little by little a lady who suffers terribly.'
The Duchess had relied heavily on friends for stimulation but now Blum decided who saw the Duchess, arguing that visitors made her flustered. She was often present to hear what was said. None of this was pleasant for the Duchess.
One of those who succeeded in seeing the Duchess was Robin Beare, a distinguished plastic surgeon. Blum ensured the Duchess was sedated so she could not tell him anything. The only indication that she recognised Beare was a single tear rolling down her cheek.
Blum was continually instilling panic into the Duchess about overspending. In January 1976 she announced that the Duchess had given instructions about which silver and porcelain objects should be sold.
More...'We might have to come here for our honeymoon,' says Prince William during visit to Australian towns devastated by cyclone
Twice in February the Duchess was asked to sign new authorisations for Mr Amiguet to sell objects she might no longer wish to keep. The Duchess was still alert enough to refuse to sign these. I have seen the unsigned letters.
Despite the wish for secrecy, rumours of the sales spread in Paris with Blum suspecting the Duchess's staff. As a result, several people were dismissed.
Between September 1976 and December 1977, there was quite a distribution of spoils, none of which the Duchess would have been aware of.
According to documents I have seen, Mr Amiguet was given earrings, a bracelet and a necklace. The Duchess's doctor, Jean Thin, received watches and a gold box, despite the fact he believed that the Duchess's mind was rapidly deteriorating and it would soon be incapable of making any decisions.
Yet Dr Thin also believed her physical health was quite good and she might live quite a while.
Blum received a ring with an oval amethyst surrounded by turquoises and diamonds, an amethyst necklace and a Louis XV gold box.
My research reveals that sales in January and March 1976 made about $470,000, which Mr Amiguet deemed but a fraction of the expenses the Duchess was incurring. Further sales went on until her death in 1986.
After the Duchess returned from hospital, the staff were told that she had to be kept in the upstairs rooms. If she did come downstairs and noticed any item missing, she should be informed that the French government had asked for the piece to be restored.
In May 1977, a number of items were taken by Blum, ostensibly to be handed out as gifts. Among them were a pair of earrings made of rubies, emeralds and diamonds; a bracelet with round brilliants on platinum; a watch-bracelet with two snake chains; a gold Cartier watch; a gold cigarette box with a map of Europe, inscribed 'David from Wallis 1935 Christmas'; and a gold tiepin with a blue enamel 'E' under a crown.
A glimpse of how badly her health had deteriorated was provided by Sir Nicholas Henderson, the British ambassador to Paris, who was allowed to see Wallis in 1977. He later wrote: 'Her hands, which caught the eye immediately, were badly contorted in shape, and paralysed. Our handshakes were perfunctory. There is nothing in the face to recall that distinct and dominating look known to the whole world.'
The ambassador concluded: 'She was perfectly compos mentis but it was as though living was a big task and could only be coped with for short intervals at a time.'
Blum took action to secure final power in October of that year. She came to the house with a notary and his clerk bearing a Power of Attorney document. The purpose of this document was to cover all Blum's various actions and activities.
The Duchess could not sign because her hands were twisted with rheumatoid arthritis, so Blum sent the clerk to the Duchess's room to gain her verbal assent. The clerk began to read the document in French. Not surprisingly, the Duchess could not understand and asked if he would mind translating this document into English.
The clerk pretended that his English was not up to that and explained to the Duchess that it merely confirmed existing arrangements. The Duchess said something like, 'Oh, all right,' at which point the clerk left the room. Blum had what she wanted; she was ready for the Duchess to die.
By the spring of the following year, the Duchess ceased speaking. She had almost ceased to exist as a person. Wallis could hardly move without assistance, being turned to the right and left, moved from her bed to a couch, and then back again.
Blum now had as near full control of the Duchess as she could have, but this was not enough: she now added the role of historian to her selfappointed duties.
The lawyer had several theories that she wished to promulgate. The first, for some bizarre reason, was that the Windsors had never had sex before marriage; Diana Mosley later joked that Blum even gave the Duchess back her virginity. The second was more credible: that the Duchess had not wanted to marry the Duke and had certainly not forced him to abdicate.
Blum claimed that the Duchess had to be defended from allegations made by authors and journalists, that Wallis was upset by such things. In truth, she was beyond caring.
While in Paris in autumn 1978, I heard that the Duchess had lost use of her hands and feet and had to be carried from her bed to a clinical couch. She no longer spoke and had apparently put on 25lbs. She lived in a world of her own, lingering on, spoon-fed, miserable. In 1981 a senior doctor at the American Hospital told me the Duchess was in a pitiable state.
Many of the Duchess's staff had gone, but there was one more figure for Blum to erase from the picture. Eventually, she fell out with Mr Amiguet on the grounds that he refused to send her money from Switzerland, where the Duchess's account was held. What happened to the Duchess's millions there remains unclear.
One person who saw much of the Duchess was Elvire Gozin, her night nurse from 1976 to 1986. She said the Duchess 'died in a slum'. Visits by a hairdresser were terminated and expensive creams from Estee Lauder were replaced by cheap make-up. The bedclothes became tattered. Elvire described her as 'a prisoner in her own home'.
Elvire took photos of the Duchess in her bed, which were published after her death. One shows the head of the Duchess just visible over the sheets, with medical paraphernalia by her bed - machinery that kept her alive.
The nurse went twice to London to try to inform the Queen of the Duchess's plight. On her first visit in 1980, Elvire arrived at the gates of Buckingham Palace but was not admitted. In 1983, she saw the Dean of Windsor, Michael Mann, who said he would pass her message to the Queen and would respond. Elvire heard no more.
As further indication of the low ebb that the Duchess had reached, Dr Thin admitted to a newspaper that the Duchess had such serious arthritis that he had ordered her wedding ring from the Duke to be 'gently cut off'.
During these last years, the Duchess had one other visitor - the Right Reverend James Leo, Dean of the American Cathedral in Paris. The Dean found the house depressing, the Duke's regimental drums gathering dust, sad relics 'under brooding stillness', the garden with its 'memories of lavish summer evenings' now 'weeds, crab grass and ghosts'.
It was Leo who was summoned to perform the last rites in April 1986. He said: 'She squeezed my hand during the last rites and again as I read a short passage from the Bible.'
The Duchess died on April 24. A memorial service was held in Paris, attended by Blum, who enraged the French by putting herself forward as chief mourner.
Eleven weeks after the Duchess's death, her friend Commandant Paul-Louis Weiller invited me to look around the house. The hall was dimly lit, while tables with eagles under them stood either side of the drawingroom door.
The Commandant turned to me and said quietly: 'You would like to see the room where the Duchess died, I suppose? I have to be very tactful.'
In her bedroom, the double bed was stripped. Only the base, covered in blue silk, remained. An old white telephone was on the floor. There were two shelves either side of the bed and under the glass of one was a photo of the Duchess in bed holding her pugs, her auburn hair done to perfection.
In 1986, Mohamed Al Fayed acquired the lease on the house and in 1998 he sold some of the remaining contents at auction in New York. By this time Blum had been dead four years.
I had my eye on a gouache from the Duchess's bathroom by Dmitri Bouchene, a talented but largely unknown Russian artist. I came home with 20 Bouchenes. I look at them every day. To me they symbolise the best of the Parisian taste of the Duchess.
She was a woman of style and elegance, but a woman who had suffered too long. After years of pain and powerless, silent indignity, she was at last beyond the grasp of those who had harmed her.

"Binks"

Binks arrived at Bates, a "gentlemen's hatter," not a mere hat shop, as a stray kitten in 1921. He soon became a favorite of the shop's patrons, his rust and cream marbled fur a good match with the autumn palette of gentlemen's hats.
Binks enjoyed the freedom of the shop near Piccadilly Circus for five years before succumbing to an unknown ailment. The shop's owner had him stuffed and mounted in a glass case. There he sits to this day, a miniature top hat cocked over one ear, a slim cheroot in his mouth.
Cloth caps are stacked on either side, and antique hat boxes that might have been new when he was a kitten line the shelves above. Binks continues to exude the debonair air of a cat about town.


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"Bates Hatters" ... Adventures and survival ...

After a long tradition ... and more than 100 years ... as a family enterprise, Bates Hatters moved from 21 Jermyn Street to 73 Jermyn Street. They joined Hilditch & Key and became
Hilditch & Key / Bates

We are moving from the 1st March 2010 you will find us at our new address:

Hilditch & Key / Bates
73, Jermyn Street
London
SW1Y 6JD




The situation in 2009, before Bates joined Hilditch & Key :
(the Interior of the magnificent shop is gone, together with the context where "Binks", the stuffed cat,used to "live"...) see the next "post"...

Hat shop to stars may be tipped out after a century in Jermyn St
Danny Brierley and Terry Kirby
13 Feb 2009
The polished wooden shelves lining Bates hat shop, a fixture of Jermyn Street since 1902, display the time-honoured styles of men's headgear — from trilbys and fedoras to flat caps and bowlers.

Resolutely traditional, not much has changed since the tiny shop moved down the road to its current location in 1920. "We had an American in recently who first came in when he was a serviceman in London during the Second World War. He said to me, 'I've gone back to being 18 again'," recounts manager Michael Mole.
Now the future of the shop is under threat, with plans by the Crown Estate to redevelop its end of Jermyn Street, close to Piccadilly Circus, because the properties are "substandard and tired".
For Bates, this is almost certainly the end of the road — it may not be able to afford the rents in the new building.
It is unlikely to move to another part of London, fearing it would destroy its unique charm. "For us, it's here or nothing. We couldn't really exist anywhere else," said Mr Mole.
The shop has been doing excellent business during the winter, serving mainly domestic customers and a few tourists.
Bates has a number of famous patrons, including Tom Jones, David Bowie and the artist David Hockney. Eric Clapton is still a regular and when told of its likely fate, the guitarist said: "I would say it is the best hat shop in the world, bar none."
Bates also used to make hats for all the armed forces. It is still contracted to the RAF and fire and rescue service.Customers expressed dismay at its possible demise. Paul Wells, in London on business from Bedfordshire, said: "It is a tragedy if this shop has to close."
He bought a green checked tweed flat cap. "A lot of the time you don't really know what you have got till it's gone and that is true of places like Bates."
Educational publisher Nicholas Oulton, from Tenterden, Kent, was also shocked at the news.
After buying a brown "Weekender" trilby, he signed the shop's petition to the Crown Estate. "I'm a hat enthusiast. I was in here last summer when I bought a Panama."
Another flat cap purchaser, Stephen Cartmell, a writer from Hertfordshire, with his wife, Dorit, was returning 25 years after buying one for his father.
He said: "It's stayed in my mind since I first came, so it's got a lot of memories. We lose individual shops like this too easily and it should never happen."
Staff have been careful to preserve the shop's outdated charm, best characterised by Binks, a stuffed stray cat.
It first wandered into the shop in 1921, died just a few years later and is now displayed in a glass cabinet, with cigar and top hat at a jaunty angle. The shop also served as the inspiration for Diagon Alley's wizard wand shop in the Harry Potter films.
The only intrusions of modernity are a few novelty Bates baseball caps and clippings of stars wearing their hats — they include Patrick Swayze in a Grosvenor (similar to a Fedora) and Peaches Geldof in a bowler.
Owner Tim Boucher, who inherited the business from the last member of the Bates family eight years ago, said: "We can object to planning permission but I don't think there is a great deal else to do. We are a dying breed."
Despite an appeal from Mr Boucher's mother, Prince Charles, a champion of small businesses, has said he is unable to intervene.
A spokesman for the Crown Estate said modernisation was badly needed but the "distinctive and unique" character of Jermyn Street would be protected under the plans.