Sunday, 29 September 2019
Tuesday, 24 September 2019
Say it with a brooch: what message was Lady Hale's spider sending?
Say it with
a brooch: what message was Lady Hale's spider sending?
The judge
is the latest powerful woman to use a brooch to make a coded statement
All the
day’s political developments – live
Lauren
Cochrane and Martin Belam
Tue 24 Sep
2019 14.37 BSTFirst published on Tue 24 Sep 2019 13.56 BST
Lady Hale’s
image was beamed across the world with all the signifiers of the supreme court
– papers, judge’s bench, austere clothing. It was the court’s stunning verdict
that would dominate the headlines, of course, but the judge’s spider brooch –
pinned to her black dress – had the optics that made it a story of its own.
Wearing a
spider to deliver news that trapped the prime minister felt pointed – a message
backed on a safety pin. Twitter certainly read it that way. “What could Brenda
Hale be telling us with her AMAZING giant spider brooch?” wrote @Anna_Girling.
By Tuesday afternoon, there was a call for the brooch to have its own Twitter
account.
Anna
Girling
@Anna_Girling
'Weaving
spiders come not here', 'Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise
to deceive', etc.... What could Brenda Hale be telling us with her AMAZING
giant spider brooch...?
The brooch
soon made its way, via social media attention, on to a T-shirt sold by Balcony
Shirts. Based, ironically, in Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge constituency, the
company has donated 30% of proceeds to the homelessness charity Shelter. It has
raised more than £5,000 in the couple of hours after Hale delivered the court’s
verdict.
A
spokesperson for the company said: “We often print topical t-shirts, and as
everyone on Twitter was talking about the brooch we thought it was a great
angle for a new design. We can’t believe it’s taken off quite the way it has.
We picked Shelter as homelessness appears to be a growing problem in Uxbridge,
and it’s nice to do our part.”
Brooches
are enjoying something of a moment in fashion this autumn – seen on the catwalk
at Versace and Erdem – but Hale is a brooch trailblazer. She has a particular
fondness for creepy crawlies – frogs, beetles and the like. On her profile on
the supreme court website, she wears a brooch of a caterpillar – like the
spider, it’s an animal that hardly has the cute factor on its side.
With the
spider, Hale joins a list of high-profile women who have used the seemingly
unassuming brooch to send a message – at least, some observers think so.
The Queen’s
brooches for Donald Trump’s visit in 2018 – one of which was given to her by
Barack Obama – were interpreted as statements of her displeasure with the
current US president.
Madeleine
Albright, as secretary of state under Bill Clinton, was open about her use of
brooches – or “pins” to Americans. After being called an “unparalleled serpent”
by Iraqi state media, she wore a snake brooch to her next meeting with the
country’s officials and her brooch-as-statement career began.
Albright
published a book called Read My Pins in 2009 and has continued to allow her
pins to say it all.
The smashed
glass ceiling design, worn to watch Hillary Clinton make her nominee speech in
2016, broke the internet. Hale’s spider could do the same. It certainly
suggests Hale doesn’t squirm when faced with any kind of insect.
Sunday, 22 September 2019
Downton Abbey review – VIDEO:Official Trailer (Universal Pictures) HD
Downton
Abbey review – mostly harmless TV spin-off
3 / 5
stars3 out of 5 stars.
Familiar
comforts abound in a big screen outing for the Crawleys and staff
Simran Hans
@heavier_things
Sun 15 Sep
2019 05.30 BST
There is
something faintly Hogwartian about the opening scene of Downton Abbey, which
follows a hand-stamped letter’s journey via steam train from Buckingham Palace
to ITV’s most beloved Yorkshire manor. Movie spin-offs of TV shows are almost
never a good idea and this is no exception, the film’s narrative rhythm
structured in bite-size episodic beats.
The budget
seems bigger, the costumes flashier and the swooping overhead shots of the
Crawley mansion appropriately cinematic, but, truth be told, there’s little to
suggest that this has been designed for the big screen rather than as an
extended television special.
The hugely
popular series ran for six seasons from 2010 to 2015, offering an exportable
social history of Britain between 1912 and 1926. Those who followed will likely
enjoy being reunited with Maggie Smith’s withering asides, impish scullery maid
Daisy Mason’s (Sophie McShera) anodyne flirtations with a sexy plumber (James
Cartwright), and a juicy bone thrown in the direction of Robert James-Collier’s
gay footman Thomas Barrow. Those who didn’t will find it easy enough to keep up
with the plot, which centres on a visit from George V (Simon Jones) and Queen
Mary (Geraldine James).
Still, it’s
lighthearted stuff and mostly benign too, save its unashamedly effusive stance
on the monarchy.
Downton
Abbey, like plantation houses, delivers fantasy over brute reality
Michael
Henry Adams
The
American south may seem a long way from the estates of England, but in both
places a veil of caprice covers harsh truths
Sat 21 Sep
2019 06.00 BSTLast modified on Sat 21 Sep 2019 18.31 BST
The son of
a Scottish immigrant who worked as a servant, Donald Trump could hardly wait
for his banquet at Buckingham Palace. A seat next to Elizabeth II conferred a
sense of accomplishment little else could.
To many,
such behavior from an American president appeared downright unseemly. But how
could we scoff? How else have so many of us been eagerly awaiting the return of
Downton Abbey?
TV and film
can be transporting, giving us glimpses of lives we can only imagine
imperfectly. Decades before Julian Fellowes’ creation came forth to conquer
America, PBS offered a steady diet of British clotted cream. Royals,
aristocrats, castles, servants, sex. Such is the stuff of which Downton daydreams
are made.
We make our
own fantasies too. As a boy, watching Gone With the Wind, I saw plantation
houses for which I thought I could sell my soul. It seemed such an alluring way
of life.
No wonder
people complain of being lectured about slavery when they visit Savannah or
Charleston. They, like me, have imagined themselves in the master’s place. No
work to be done, fanned on white-pillared porches, sipping cooling drinks,
pondering pleasures to come. Is it surprising so many, confronted by the nightmare
behind the reverie, recoil in unacknowledged shame?
I came to
this crossroads early, no longer able to overlook the anguish of my ancestors.
I saw exquisite architecture and ideas of gracious hospitality but knew both to
be built on the worst criminality.
How alike our ruling classes are. How
nefarious the sources of their vast wealth, on which beautiful homes were built
Fortunately,
thanks to green England, I was able to transfer my affections. The Forsyte
Saga, Upstairs Downstairs, Brideshead Revisited, The Admirable Crichton. The
Shooting Party, The Remains of the Day, Gosford Park. They became my refuge and
taught me much. Entranced by an elegant aesthetic, reading countless books,
even attending the Attingham Summer School to study famous country houses, I
sought an elusive loveliness, untroubled by oppression.
At the very
lightest level, all this means I know that Downton – the whole phenomenon, the
TV series, the film, the traveling exhibition, the merchandising – is a
ludicrous and ahistorical fancy.
I know, for
example, that contrary to what we see on Fellowes’ screen, non-royal butlers
did not wear white waistcoats and that waiters did not wear dinner jackets at
all. I know ladies were never gloved while drinking or eating, candles were
never used on a luncheon table and candle shades, now found only in royal
residences, were in fact universal. For enthusiasts like me, it’s such
esoterica which makes Downton so enjoyable.
But as in
my love affair with the plantations of the American south, there was a
wriggling worm in the bud.
How alike
our ruling classes are. How nefarious the sources of their vast wealth, on
which such beautiful homes were built.
In the UK,
to take just one example, a house as sublime as Harewood, near Leeds, altered
by Robert Adam, was funded by the infamous triangular trade. Even English
currency came to be defined by slavery. With abolition by Britain in 1833 came
compensation to 46,000 slave owners for 800,000 liberated Africans, until the
banks were rescued in 2009 the largest government bailout in history.
There were
other sources of income. Indian opium, imposed on China. Farms in Ireland. The
wealth behind many of the estates of England was no less tainted than that
which built plantations in Virginia, Alabama and Georgia.
Fellowes
was careful to give his great house a more benign foundation. The Earl of
Grantham, we are told, derives his affluence straight from his Yorkshire
estates.
Hit hard by
agricultural depressions, he takes an option not available to his tenants: he
marries the daughter of an American millionaire. That said millionaire is an
untitled Jew, a dry goods merchant from Cincinnati, is among storylines meant
to show us what a good egg the earl really is, an unlikely egalitarian in
tweeds. But he’s an imprudent one too: by investing his wife’s millions in a
Canadian railway that goes bankrupt, Grantham places all his loved ones in peril.
Worse
occurred in real life, of course. Much worse. Take the brutal, polluting mills
and mines, like so many plantation fields, that often lay just outside the
gates.
Of course,
Downton isn’t real. So, to stay in the realm of art, consider Shipley, the
neo-Palladian masterpiece DH Lawrence invented for Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
There, Squire Leslie Winter talks of the miners who work his pits with all the
condescension a planter might have for his slaves.
Chatting
with the Prince of Wales, Winter quips: “The miners are perhaps not so
ornamental as deer, but they are far more profitable.”
We are the heirs to those who did all the
work, those who built the Downtons and the plantations
HRH
replies: “If there were coal under Sandringham, I would open a mine on the
lawns and think it first-rate landscape gardening. Oh, I am quite willing to
exchange roe-deer for colliers, at the price.”
In the real
world, many fine homes have been lost. Their deaths, like their lives, are all
about the money.
In
Lawrence’s book, the squire dies and his heirs tear down his hall to build
semi-detached “villas” for workers. Lady Chatterley is shocked to learn such
people are as capable of love as she is. One suspects Fellowes, the author of a
novel called Snobs, no less, might feel a similar shock if told us ordinary
people who love Downton, his facile but beautiful and seductive creation, are
capable of sincere feeling too.
We are. And
while we are equipped to daydream of such luxury for ourselves, or to pick nits
with Fellowes’ staging while we swoon at his stars in their gorgeous firmament,
we are also the heirs to those who did all the work, those who built the
Downtons and the plantations.
We know a
profound truth behind all their costly beauty and misery. Every stately home,
in every land, belongs to us too.
The rise of flat caps: genuinely classless – or a way for wealthy men to seem authentic?
The rise of
flat caps: genuinely classless – or a way for wealthy men to seem authentic?
Finally,
the ONS has added the humble flat cap to its annual list of the things Britons
are spending their money on. As an avid wearer, I know it’s the only way to get
ahead
Dan Kuper
@kuperdankuper
Tue 12 Mar
2019 18.01 GMTFirst published on Tue 12 Mar 2019 16.46 GMT
Every year
the Office for National Statistics updates the shopping basket with which it
tries to sum up Britain’s spending habits. Such outmoded fripperies as
three-piece suites, CD players and crockery sets are out. But for 2019, for the
first time, the cap fits – because alongside herbal teas and home-assistant
systems such as the Amazon Echo, the humble flat cap has joined the statistical
shopping party.
Ideally
partnered with whippets and mufflers in northern England, or football rattles
and toothless grins, the flat cap was for many years associated with the TV
chimney-clamberer Fred Dibnah who, according to his widow, kept his on the
bedpost along with his watch chain and bought three in anticipation of his
wedding. In the past 10 years, the cap has enjoyed a renaissance, taken up by a
succession of lads-made-good – Guy Ritchie, David Beckham, Alex James and Idris
Elba – before finding its ultimate expression in the Brummie
yelling-and-chivving drama Peaky Blinders, where it serves as a suitable place
to stash razor blades.
But while
the flat cap might seem an easy way for wealthy men to signal working-class
authenticity, it is in fact one of the few genuinely classless items of
clothing. Gents on a pheasant shoot have worn the cap as much as bootleggers on
a raid. And this flexibility – along with the nation’s enduring fondness for
the understated – may be why it has endured through lean times to bounce back
into the public affection.
Supposedly,
the flat cap first became popular after a short-lived law passed in England in
1571 that obliged everyone to wear a woollen hat to boost the wool trade, which
does perhaps explain its utilitarian form. It is hard to think of how you would
make a hat less showy than the flat cap, which is, after all, pretty much what
would result if you just dragged some fabric over your head, added a minimal
brim and fixed it with a band.
Comfortable
and practical for hard graft, while offering a quick-and-easy dash of style,
it’s the hat that can do it all – although there are apparently limits. BBC
News reported recently that a man had been asked to take off his flat cap on
entering a Tesco in Dudley, West Midlands. He point-blank refused; I think we
can all take our hats off to him.
As a
flat-cap sporter myself, the rise and rise of the hat brings mixed feelings.
The true aficionado has already foregone the endless parade of high-street
versions; once the Beckham family started wearing them en masse, it was time to
look further afield. The Italians do a lovely version. Swap Cillian Murphy for
Godfather-era Al Pacino; that’s how to get ahead.
Tuesday, 17 September 2019
Kray twins / Video : Krays Lords of the Underworld 1997 Channel 4 documentary Pt1
Letters
shed new light on Kray twins scandal
Newly-discovered
letters revealing the true nature of the relationship between Ronnie Kray, the
crime boss, and Lord Boothby, the Conservative peer, are being offered for
sale.
By David
Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent8:30AM BST 26 Jul 2009
The
previously-unseen notes appear to show that Boothby, a former MP and aide to
Winston Churchill, wrongly received a £40,000 libel payout from a newspaper
that had linked him with the Krays.
Allegations
surrounding "the peer and the gangster" emerged in 1964 at a time
when Westminster was still reeling from the Profumo Affair.
When the
Sunday Mirror reported in July 1964 that Scotland Yard was investigating a
homosexual relationship between an unnamed peer and a major figure in the
criminal underworld, suspicion fell on Boothby and on Kray, who, together with
his twin brother Reggie, was building a reputation for running protection
rackets and dishing out violence to those who stood in his way.
However,
Boothby chose to go public with a letter to The Times in which he denied being
homosexual and stated that he had only ever met Kray three times, always to
discuss business matters and always in the company of other people.
Facing the
threat of a libel defeat, the Sunday Mirror issued an apology to the peer and
paid out £40,000, equivalent to £500,000 today. The newspaper's editor, Reg
Payne, lost his job over the affair.
Yet a
newly-uncovered letter sent by Boothby to Kray shows that the two men were
friends, and were making social arrangements, more than a year before the peer
won his payout.
On
notepaper carrying his address in Eaton Square, Belgravia, Boothby wrote to
Kray on June 6, 1963: "Thank you for your postcard. I very nearly went to
Jersey myself, as I have never been there, and hear from so many people that it
is quite delightful.
"If
you are free tomorrow evening between six and seven, do come round for a drink
and a chat."
The brief
note is signed: "Ever sincerely, Boothby."
The
letters, which are being put up for sale by an anonymous vendor, shed new light
on one of the murkiest episodes in the career of the Kray twins.
Since
described as the "pervert peer" in reference to his sexual
proclivities, Boothby was shouted down in the Lords in February 1965 for
demanding that the Krays should be released on bail after their arrest and
charge for running the protection racket.
Another
letter from Boothby to Kray, dated April 1965 on House of Lords notepaper,
says: "I have had a great many letters congratulating me on the stand I
took in the House of Lords on your behalf; and that some of their Lordships are
now a bit ashamed of the treatment they gave me."
It adds:
"I think that they will now leave you alone. And you never can say that I
haven't done my best."
Each letter
is expected to reach an estimated £1,000 to £1,500 when sold alongside other
Kray memorabilia at Mullock's auctioneers in Ludlow, Shropshire, on August 13.
Richard
Westwood-Brookes, the auctioneer, said: "These original letters have never
been seen in public before and provide sensational new evidence on the
relationship between Lord Boothby and Ron Kray.
"They
have implications for the high-profile case Boothby won against the Mirror in
the 1960s.
"It is
clear that Boothby is inviting Kray round, and this proves the peer lied in his
letter to The Times defending himself. It also proves the men were friends long
before Boothby acknowledged."
Another
piece of Kray memorabilia sold by Mullock's earlier this year, two original
police mugshots of the twins aged about 18, was estimated at £100 but reached
£7,500.
Lord
Boothby died in 1986. Ronnie Kray, who suffered from schizophrenia, was jailed
for life for two murders in 1969 along with Reggie; he died in Broadmoor
Hospital in 1995.
Ronald
"Ronnie" Kray (24 October 1933 – 17 March 1995) and Reginald
"Reggie" Kray (24 October 1933 – 1 October 2000), twin brothers, were
English criminals, the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in the East End
of London during the 1950s and 1960s. With their gang, known as "The
Firm", the Krays were involved in murder, armed robbery, arson, protection
rackets and assaults.
As West End
nightclub owners, the Krays mixed with politicians and prominent entertainers
such as Diana Dors, Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland. In the 1960s, they became
celebrities, being photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television.
The Krays
were arrested on 8 May 1968 and convicted in 1969, as a result of the efforts
of detectives led by Detective Superintendent Leonard "Nipper" Read.
Each was sentenced to life imprisonment. Ronnie remained in Broadmoor Hospital
until his death on 17 March 1995 from a heart attack; Reggie was released from
prison on compassionate grounds in August 2000, eight and a half weeks before
he died of bladder cancer.
Early life
Ronald
"Ron" and Reginald "Reggie" Kray were born on 24 October
1933 in Haggerston, East London, to Charles David Kray (10 March 1907 – 8 March
1983), a wardrobe dealer,[4] and Violet Annie Lee (5 August 1909 – 4 August
1982). The brothers were twins, with Reggie born ten minutes before Ronnie.
Their parents already had a six-year-old son, Charles James (9 July 1927 – 4 April
2000).A sister, Violet (born 1929), died in infancy.[6] When the twins were
three years old, they contracted diphtheria.
The twins
first attended Wood Close School in Brick Lane, and then Daniel Street School.
In 1938, the Kray family moved from Stean Street in Haggerston to 178 Vallance
Road in Bethnal Green.
The
influence of their maternal grandfather, Jimmy "Cannonball" Lee,
caused the brothers to take up amateur boxing, then a popular pastime for
working class boys in the East End. Sibling rivalry spurred them on, and both
achieved some success.
Military
service
The Krays
were called up to do National Service in the British Army in March 1952.
Although the pair reported to the depot of the Royal Fusiliers at the Tower of
London, they attempted to leave after only a few minutes. When the corporal in
charge tried to stop them he was seriously injured by Ronnie Kray who punched
him on the jaw. The Krays walked back to their East End home. They were
arrested the next morning by the police and turned over to the army.
In
September while absent without leave again they assaulted a police constable
who tried to arrest them. They became among the last prisoners to be held at
the Tower of London before being transferred to Shepton Mallet military prison
in Somerset for a month to await court-martial. After they were convicted, both
were sent to the Buffs' Home Counties Brigade Depot jail in Canterbury, Kent.
However, when it became clear they were both to be dishonourable discharged
from the army, the Krays' behaviour became violently worse. They dominated the
exercise areas outside their one-man cells, threw tantrums, emptied a latrine
bucket over a sergeant, dumped a canteen full of hot tea on another guard,
handcuffed a guard to their prison bars with a pair of stolen cuffs and set
their bedding on fire. Eventually they were moved to a communal cell where they
assaulted their guard with a vase and escaped. After being quickly recaptured,
they spent their last night in military custody in Canterbury drinking cider,
eating crisps and smoking cigarillos courtesy of the young national servicemen
acting as their guards. The next day the Krays were transferred to a civilian
prison to serve sentences for the crimes they committed while AWOL.
Criminal
careers
Nightclub
owners
Their
criminal records and dishonourable discharges ended their boxing careers, and
the brothers turned to crime full-time. They bought a run-down snooker club in
Mile End where they started several protection rackets. By the end of the
1950s, the Krays were working for Jay Murray from Liverpool and were involved
in hijacking, armed robbery and arson, through which they acquired other clubs
and properties. In 1960, Ronnie Kray was imprisoned for 18 months for running a
protection racket and related threats. While Ronnie was in prison, Peter
Rachman, head of a landlord operation, gave Reggie a nightclub called
Esmeralda's Barn on the Knightsbridge end of Wilton Place next to a bistro
called Joan's Kitchen. The location is where the Berkeley Hotel now stands.
This
increased the Krays' influence in the West End by making them celebrities as
well as criminals. The Kray twins adopted a norm according to which anyone who
failed to show due respect would be severely punished. They were assisted by a
banker named Alan Cooper who wanted protection against the Krays' rivals, the
Richardsons, based in South London.
Celebrity
status
In the
1960s, the Kray brothers were widely seen as prosperous and charming celebrity
nightclub owners and were part of the Swinging London scene. A large part of
their fame was due to their non-criminal activities as popular figures on the
celebrity circuit, being photographed by David Bailey on more than one occasion
and socialising with lords, MPs, socialites and show business characters,
including actors George Raft, Judy Garland, Diana Dors and Barbara Windsor.
They were
the best years of our lives. They called them the swinging sixties. The Beatles
and the Rolling Stones were rulers of pop music, Carnaby Street ruled the
fashion world... and me and my brother ruled London. We were fucking
untouchable...
– Ronnie
Kray, in his autobiography My Story
Lord
Boothby and Tom Driberg
The Krays
also came to public attention in July 1964 when an exposé in the tabloid
newspaper Sunday Mirror insinuated that Ronnie had conceived a sexual
relationship with Lord Boothby, a Conservative politician,[16] at a time when
sex between men was still a criminal offence in the U.K. Although no names were
printed in the piece, the twins threatened the journalists involved, and
Boothby threatened to sue the newspaper with the help of Labour Party leader
Harold Wilson's solicitor Arnold Goodman (Wilson wanted to protect the
reputation of Labour MP Tom Driberg, a relatively open gay man known to associate
with both Boothby and Ronnie Kray, just weeks ahead of a pending General
Election which Labour was hoping to win). In the face of this, the newspaper
backed down, sacking its editor, printing an apology and paying Boothby £40,000
in an out-of-court settlement. Because of this, other newspapers were unwilling
to expose the Krays' connections and criminal activities. Much later, Channel 4
established the truth of the allegations and released a documentary on the
subject called The Gangster and the Pervert Peer (2009).
The police
investigated the Krays on several occasions, but the brothers' reputation for
violence made witnesses afraid to testify. There was also a problem for both
main political parties. The Conservative Party was unwilling to press the
police to end the Krays' power for fear that the Boothby connection would again
be publicised, and the Labour Party, in power from October 1964, but with a
wafer-thin majority in the House of Commons and the prospect of another General
Election needing to be called in the very near future, did not want Driberg's
connections to Ronnie Kray (and his sexual predilections) to get into the
public realm.
George
Cornell
Ronnie Kray
shot and killed George Cornell, a member of the Richardson Gang (a rival South
London gang), at the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel on 9 March 1966. The day
before, there had been a shoot-out at Mr. Smith's, a nightclub in Catford,
involving the Richardson gang and Richard Hart, an associate of the Krays, who
was shot dead. This public shoot-out led to the arrest of nearly all the
Richardson gang. Cornell, by chance, was not present at the club during the
shoot-out and was not arrested. Whilst visiting the hospital to check up on his
friends, he randomly chose to visit the Blind Beggar pub, only a mile away from
where the Krays lived.
Ronnie was
drinking in another pub when he learned of Cornell's whereabouts. He went there
with his driver "Scotch Jack" John Dickson and his assistant Ian
Barrie. Ronnie went into the pub with Barrie, walked straight to Cornell and
shot him in the head in public view. Barrie, confused by what happened, fired
five shots in the air warning the public not to report what had happened to the
police. Just before he was shot, Cornell remarked, "Well, look who's
here." He died at 3:00am in hospital.
Ronnie Kray
was already suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the killing.
According
to some sources, Ronnie killed Cornell because Cornell referred to him as a
"fat poof" (a derogatory term for gay men) during a confrontation
between the Krays and the Richardson gang at the Astor Club on Christmas Day
1965.
Richardson
gang member "Mad" Frankie Fraser was tried for the murder of Richard
Hart at Mr. Smith's, but was found not guilty. Richardson gang member Ray
"the Belgian" Cullinane testified that he saw Cornell kicking Hart.
Witnesses would not co-operate with the police in the murder case due to
intimidation, and the trial ended inconclusively without pointing to any
suspect in particular.
Frank
Mitchell
On 12
December 1966, the Krays helped Frank Mitchell, "the Mad Axeman", to
escape from Dartmoor Prison. Ronnie had befriended Mitchell while they served
time together in Wandsworth Prison. Mitchell felt that the authorities should
review his case for parole, so Ronnie thought that he would be doing him a
favour by getting him out of Dartmoor, highlighting his case in the media and
forcing the authorities to act.
Once
Mitchell was out of Dartmoor, the Krays held him at a friend's flat in Barking
Road, East Ham. He was a large man with a mental disorder, and he was difficult
to control. He disappeared, but the Krays were acquitted of his murder.Freddie
Foreman, a friend of the Krays, claimed in his autobiography Respect that he
shot Mitchell dead as a favour to the twins and disposed of his body at sea.
Jack
"the Hat" McVitie
The Krays'
criminal activities remained hidden behind both their celebrity status and
seemingly legitimate businesses. Reggie was allegedly encouraged by his brother
in October 1967, four months after the suicide of his wife, Frances, to kill
Jack "the Hat" McVitie, a minor member of the Kray gang who had
failed to fulfil a £1000 contract, £500 of which had been paid to him in
advance, to kill their financial advisor, Leslie Payne. McVitie was lured to a
basement flat in Evering Road, Stoke Newington on the pretence of a party. Upon
entering the premises, he saw Ronnie Kray seated in the front room. As Ronnie
approached him, he let loose a barrage of verbal abuse and cut him below his
eye with a piece of broken glass. It is believed that an argument then broke
out between the twins and McVitie. As the argument got more heated, Reggie Kray
pointed a handgun at McVitie's head and pulled the trigger twice, but the gun
failed to discharge.
McVitie was
then held in a bear hug by the twins' cousin, Ronnie Hart, and Reggie Kray was
handed a carving knife. He then stabbed McVitie in the face and stomach,
driving the blade into his neck while twisting the knife, not stopping even as
McVitie lay on the floor dying. Reggie had committed a very public murder,
against someone who many members of the Firm felt did not deserve to die. In an
interview in 2000, shortly after Reggie's death, Freddie Foreman revealed that
McVitie had a reputation for leaving carnage behind him due to his habitual
consumption of drugs and heavy drinking, and his having in the past threatened
to harm the twins and their family.
Tony and
Chris Lambrianou and Ronnie Bender helped clear up the evidence of this crime,
and attempted to assist in the disposal of the body. With McVitie's body being
too big to fit in the boot of the car, the body was wrapped in an eiderdown and
put in the back seat of a car. Tony Lambrianou drove the car with the body and
Chris Lambrianou and Bender followed behind. Crossing the Blackwall tunnel,
Chris lost Tony's car, and spent up to fifteen minutes looking around Rotherhithe
area. They eventually found Tony, outside St Mary's Church, where he had run
out of fuel with McVitie's body still inside the car. With no alternative than
to dump the corpse in the churchyard, and attempt to plant a gang south of the
River Thames, the body was left in the car and the three gangsters returned
home. Bender then went on to phone Charlie Kray informing them that it had been
dealt with. However, upon finding out where they had left McVitie's corpse, the
twins were livid and desperately phoned Foreman, who was then running a pub in
Southwark, to see if he could dispose of the body. With dawn breaking, Foreman
found the car, broke into it and drove the body to Newhaven where, with the
help of a trawlerman, the body was bound with chicken wire and dumped in the
English Channel.
This event
started turning many people against the Krays, and some were prepared to
testify to Scotland Yard as to what had happened, fearing that what happened to
McVitie could easily happen to them.
Arrest and trial
Photograph
of London gangster Reginald Kray (second from left) taken in the months leading
up to his trial in 1968. The evidence from this file and others resulted in him
and his brother Ronald being sentenced to life imprisonment.
Detective
Chief Superintendent Leonard "Nipper" Read of Scotland Yard was
promoted to the Murder Squad and his first assignment was to bring down the
Kray twins. It was not his first involvement with them. During the first half
of 1964, Read had been investigating their activities, but publicity and
official denials of Ron's relationship with Boothby made the evidence that he
collected useless. Read went after the twins with renewed activity in 1967, but
frequently came up against the East End "wall of silence" which
discouraged anyone from providing information to the police.
Nevertheless,
by the end of 1967 Read had built up enough evidence against the Krays. Witness
statements incriminated them, as did other evidence, but none made a convincing
case on any one charge.
Early in
1968, the Krays employed Alan Bruce Cooper who sent Paul Elvey to Glasgow to
buy explosives for a car bomb. Elvey was the radio engineer who put Radio Sutch
on the air in 1964, later renamed Radio City. After police detained him in
Scotland, he confessed to being involved in three murder attempts. The evidence
was weakened by Cooper, who claimed that he was an agent for the US Treasury
Department investigating links between the American Mafia and the Kray gang.
The botched murders[which?] were his attempt to put the blame on the Krays.
Cooper was being employed as a source by one of Read's superior officers, and
Read tried using him as a trap for the Krays, but they avoided him.
Conviction
and imprisonment
Eventually,
Scotland Yard decided to arrest the Krays on the evidence already collected, in
the hope that other witnesses would be forthcoming once the Krays were in
custody. On 8 May 1968, the Krays and 15 other members of the Firm were
arrested. Exceptional circumstances were put in place so as to stop any
possible co-operation between any of the accused. Nipper Read then secretly
interviewed each of the arrested, and offered each member of the Firm a deal if
they testified against the others. Whilst in prison, the Krays had come up with
a plan, which included having Scotch Jack Dickson to confess to the murder of
Cornell, Ronnie Hart to take the McVitie murder and Albert Donoghue to stand
for Mitchell.
Donoghue
told the twins directly that he wasn't prepared to be cajoled into pleading
guilty, to the anger of the twins. He then informed Read via his mother that he
was ready to cooperate. Read set up another secret interview, and Donoghue was
the first to tell the police everything that he knew.
Ronnie Hart
had initially not been arrested, and was not a name initially sought after by
the police. With Donoghue's testimony, Hart was hunted down, found and
arrested. Offering the same terms as the others arrested, Hart then told Read
everything that had happened during McVitie's murder, although he did not know
anything about what happened to the body. This was the first time that the
police knew exactly who was involved, and offered them a solid case to
prosecute the twins for McVitie's murder.
Although
Read knew for certain that Ronnie Kray had murdered George Cornell in the Blind
Beggar pub no one had been prepared to testify against the twins out of fear.
Upon finding out the twins intended to cajole him, 'Scotch Jack' Dickson also
turned in everything he knew about Cornell's murder. Although not a witness to
the actual murder he was an accessory, having driven Ronnie Kray and Ian Barrie
to the pub. The police still needed an actual witness to the murder. They then
managed to track down the barmaid who was working in the pub at the time of the
murder, gave her a secret identity and she testified to seeing Ronnie kill
Cornell.
Frank
Mitchell's escape and disappearance was much harder to obtain evidence for,
since the majority of those arrested were not involved with his planned escape
and disappearance. Read decided to proceed with the case and have a separate
trial for Mitchell once the twins had been convicted.
The twins'
defence under their counsel John Platts-Mills, QC consisted of flat denials of
all charges and discrediting witnesses by pointing out their criminal past.
Justice Melford Stevenson said: "In my view, society has earned a rest
from your activities." It was the longest murder hearing in history of
British criminal justice., during which Justice Melford Stevenson stated of the
sentences "which I recommend should not be less than thirty years."
In March 1969, both were sentenced to life imprisonment, with a non-parole
period of 30 years for the murders of Cornell and McVitie, the longest
sentences ever passed at the Old Bailey (Central Criminal Court, London) for
murder. Their brother Charlie was imprisoned for ten years for his part in the
murders.
Later years
Ronnie and
Reggie Kray were allowed, under heavy police guard, to attend the funeral
service of their mother Violet on 11 August 1982 following her death from
cancer a week earlier. They were not, however, allowed to attend her burial in
the Kray family plot at Chingford Mount Cemetery. The funeral was attended by
celebrities including Diana Dors and underworld figures known to the Krays. To
avoid the publicity that had surrounded their mother's funeral, the twins did
not ask for permission to attend their father's funeral in March 1983.
Ronnie Kray
was a Category A prisoner, denied almost all liberties and not allowed to mix
with other prisoners. He was eventually certified insane, his paranoid
schizophrenia being tempered with constant medication; in 1979 he was committed
and lived the remainder of his life in Broadmoor Hospital in Crowthorne,
Berkshire. Reggie Kray, constantly being refused parole, was locked up in
Maidstone Prison for 8 years (Category B). In 1997, he was transferred to the
Category C Wayland Prison in Norfolk.
In 1985,
officials at Broadmoor Hospital discovered a business card of Ronnie's that led
to evidence that the twins, from separate institutions, were operating
Krayleigh Enterprises (a "lucrative bodyguard and 'protection' business
for Hollywood stars") together with their older brother Charlie Kray and
an accomplice at large. Among their clients was Frank Sinatra, who hired 18
bodyguards from Krayleigh Enterprises on his visit to the 1985 Wimbledon
Championships. Documents released under Freedom of Information laws revealed
that although officials were concerned about this operation, they believed that
there was no legal basis to shut it down.
Monday, 16 September 2019
The Secret Garden / Philosophy in the garden / Top 10 books about gardens / VIDEO:The Secret Garden (1993) - Original Theatrical Trailer
At the turn
of the 20th century, Mary Lennox is a sickly, neglected and unloved 10-year-old
girl, born in India to wealthy British parents who never wanted her and make an
effort to ignore the girl. She is cared for primarily by native servants, who
allow her to become spoiled, aggressive, and self-centered. After a cholera
epidemic kills her parents and the servants, Mary is discovered alive but alone
in the empty house. She briefly lives with an English clergyman and his family
in India before she is sent to Yorkshire, in England, to live with Archibald
Craven, a wealthy, hunchbacked uncle whom she has never met, at his isolated
house, Misselthwaite Manor.
At first,
Mary is as obnoxious and sour as ever. She dislikes her new home, the people
living in it, and most of all, the bleak moor on which it sits. However, a
good-natured maid named Martha Sowerby tells Mary about her aunt, the late
Lilias Craven, who would spend hours in a private walled garden growing roses.
Mrs Craven died after an accident in the garden, and the devastated Mr. Craven
locked the garden and buried the key. Mary becomes interested in finding the
secret garden herself, and her ill manners begin to soften as a result. Soon
she comes to enjoy the company of Martha, the gardener Ben Weatherstaff, and a
friendly robin redbreast. Her health and attitude improve with the bracing
Yorkshire air, and she grows stronger as she explores the moor and plays with a
skipping rope that Mrs Sowerby buys for her. Mary wonders about both the secret
garden and the mysterious cries that echo through the house at night.
As Mary
explores the gardens, her robin draws her attention to an area of disturbed
soil. Here Mary finds the key to the locked garden and eventually the door to
the garden itself. She asks Martha for garden tools, which Martha sends with
Dickon, her 12-year-old brother who spends most of his time out on the moors.
Mary and Dickon take a liking to each other, as Dickon has a kind way with
animals and a good nature. Eager to absorb his gardening knowledge, Mary tells
him about the secret garden.
One night,
Mary hears the cries once more and decides to follow them through the house.
She is startled when she finds a boy her age named Colin, who lives in a hidden
bedroom. She soon discovers that they are cousins, Colin being the son of Mr
and Mrs Craven, and that he suffers from an unspecified spinal problem which
precludes him from walking and causes him to spend most of his time in bed.
Mary visits him every day that week, distracting him from his troubles with
stories of the moor, Dickon and his animals, and the secret garden. Mary
finally confides that she has access to the secret garden, and Colin asks to
see it. Colin is put into his wheelchair and brought outside into the secret
garden. It is the first time he has been outdoors for years.
While in
the garden, the children look up to see Ben Weatherstaff looking over the wall
on a ladder. Startled and angry to find the children in the secret garden, he
admits that he believed Colin to be a cripple. Colin stands up from his chair
and finds that his legs are fine, though weak from long disuse. Colin and Mary
soon spend almost every day in the garden, sometimes with Dickon as company.
The children and Ben conspire to keep Colin's recovering health a secret from
the other staff, so as to surprise his father, who is travelling abroad. As
Colin's health improves, his father sees a coinciding increase in spirits,
culminating in a dream where his late wife calls to him from inside the garden.
When he receives a letter from Mrs Sowerby, he takes the opportunity finally to
return home. He walks the outer garden wall in his wife's memory, but hears
voices inside, finds the door unlocked, and is shocked to see the garden in
full bloom, and his son healthy, having just won a race against the other two
children. The servants watch, stunned, as Mr Craven and Colin walk back to the
manor together.
Why did
Marcel Proust have bonsai beside his bed? What was Jane Austen doing, coveting
an apricot? How was Friedrich Nietzsche inspired by his thought tree'? In
Philosophy in the Garden, Damon Young explores one of literature's most
intimate relationships: authors and their gardens. For some, the garden
provided a retreat from workaday labour; for others, solitude's quiet counsel.
For all, it played a philosophical role: giving their ideas a new life.
Philosophy in the Garden reveals the profound thoughts discovered in parks,
backyards, and pot-plants. It does not provide tips for mowing overgrown couch
grass, or mulching a dry Japanese maple. It is a philosophical companion to the
garden's labours and joys.
REVIEWS
[A] fascinating journey through the lives and
creativity of writers ... It is an intimate, charming book.' * Sensibilities:
The Journal of the Jane Austen Society of Australia * An absolute joy of a book
- I couldn't put it down. Its prose is as careful and lovely as a beautifully
tended garden.' -- Nikki Gemmell, columnist for The Australian and author of
Honestly [E]njoyable and erudite.' * Los Angeles Review of Books * [W]ith his
vivid, critical, and, sometimes loving, attention to detail, he brings to new
life writers and philosophers that anyone with a liberal arts education thought
they already knew ... Young's enthusiasm, compassion, and moments of personal
insight are infectious.' * Island * Young has managed the difficult task of
creating an academically rigorous work while maintaining a light and engaging
tone throughout the book, which is actually a highly intellectual look at the
complex relationship between humanity and nature.' * Voice * [T]houghtful and
highly entertaining.' * Limelight * [T]ake the plunge: the writing is fresh,
the observations discursive, and the garden ... placed front and centre.' *
Australian Garden History * Young helps readers reflect on the value of the
garden beyond a place to hold a backyard barbecue ... [He] writes engagingly,
showing off his skills as a storyteller ... [A]n intriguing little book.' *
Weekly Times * [M]ore my kind of gardening' than the digging type ...
Particularly interesting is his account of Jane Austen's creative relationship
with her Hampshire gardens.' * The Lady * [Philosophy in the Garden] is a
stimulating read where individual truths may well bloom ... [T]his volume is
packed with brilliant literary info.' * The West Australian * Reading this book
is like strolling in a luxuriant garden with an erudite friend, although one of
a literary rather than horticultural bent ... Think of this engaging little
book ... as a philosophical primer, an approachable introduction to ideas about
gardens and the natural world.' * The Age * Young is an engaging writer. His
technique is fluent and stylish and never marred by cliches or cliched
thinking. He is sincere, a great relief from the ocean of irony in which we
live, and intellectually questing, a relief from that other ocean of schmaltzy
platitude.' * The Australian * This beautiful looking book is a wonderfully
refreshing mix of literary gossip, historical exposition and philosophical
reflection, and I never wanted it to end.' -- Walter Mason, author of
Destination Saigon I found it utterly engaging and most illuminating. His style
is very readable and full of wit and personality.' * Kate Forsyth, author of
The Wild Girl * I've been looking forward to Damon Young's [Philosophy in the
Garden] ... all year. Part philosophy lesson, part literary companion, it's a
contemplative stroll through writers' relationships with their gardens.' *
Charlotte Wood, author of Animal People * [T]hought provoking indeed.' * The
Good Book Guide * [T]hought-provoking ... fine book.' * Gardens Illustrated *
Young writes with a delightful combination of humour and insight.' * The
Literary Review * A brilliant philosophical and literary meditation that helps
us rethink our relationship with the natural world - and with ourselves.' *
Roman Krznaric, author of Empathy * A gentle dig for ideas about how to live -
this book will grow your mind and put a glow in your cheeks.' * Deborah Levy,
author of Swimming Home * Like a garden coming into spring ... tremendous
vistas of thought.' * The Daily Telegraph * [S]prightly and stimulating.' * The
Spectator * Erudite, yet witty and accessible, [Philosophy in the Garden] is
intellectual history at its most completely pleasurable.' * Oliver Burkeman,
author of The Antidote * This is a gardening book that takes readers not on a
walk around great estates but on a tour of great minds ... It's a lovely
extension on the notion that gardens make you contemplative and in working with
the soil you see life's big picture.' * The Daily Telegraph 
Top 10
books about gardens
From
theatres of social snobbery to fiery manifestos for rewilding, these volumes
show that gardening can be sexy, scary and sometimes scandalous
Vivian
Swift
Wed 20 Jul
2016 15.28 BSTLast modified on Thu 22 Feb 2018 12.50 GMT
The problem
with most garden books is that they are written by gardeners. Gardeners have a
habit of filling pages and pages with homework-sounding words such as
rhizosphere and loamy and pH, which isn’t even a word. It all sounds as
exciting as algebra.
The other
problem with garden books is that so many of them blabber on about an idea of
nature that came into fashion in the time of hoop skirts and whalebone corsets.
I’m talking about the ideology of the famed 19th-century conservationist John
Muir, who wrote about wilderness as a place “to play in and pray in, where
nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the soul”. I want to read about
this fey “sacred space” concept of nature about as much as I want to slap on a
lace bonnet and ride side-saddle.
Wouldn’t it
be great to read a garden book that didn’t have the personality of a maiden
aunt? Yes, it would! And that’s why I, a dedicated non-gardener, wrote Gardens
of Awe and Folly: to show that gardens aren’t demure! Gardens are sexy, and
scary, sometimes even scandalous, and best of all, gardens are the perfect
settings to serve up ice-cold cocktails and red-hot gossip … and any one of
these books is the equivalent of that kind of garden party.
1.
Rambunctious Garden by Emma Marris
This book
will set your hair on fire if you are the least bit sentimental about the
sanctity of capital-n Nature. Marris, a science journalist and metaphorical
flame-thrower (from Seattle), has taken the gutsy stance that the environmental
purity imagined by John Muir and his ilk vanished about 6,000 years ago with
the planting of the first gardens in Mesopotamia, and can’t be restored.
Happily, she offers a new, improved nature with her stories of radical
rewilding, human-assisted migration of flora and fauna, and – gasp – the ecological
godsend of invasive and exotic species. Oh yes, she goes there.
2. The
Gardener of Versailles: My Life in the World’s Grandest Garden by Alain Baraton
Baraton has
been tending the Grand Parc de Versailles for more than 40 years, beginning as
a ditch-digging gardener’s assistant in 1976 and, since 1982, as its
gardener-in-chief. In this charmingly ardent memoir, Baraton spices things up
with advice on the gardens’ best hidden corners for trysting, lush descriptions
of nightfall in the royal groves, and soulful odes to the mighty fallen (trees,
kings, and previous gardeners-in-chief). Baraton is proof that there is such a
thing as a debonair gardener.
3. Sunlight
on the Lawn by Beverley Nichols
Any of the
dozen garden books written between 1932 and 1968 by England’s most lovable snob
would have been a perfect fit for this list. But Sunlight on the Lawn, from
1956, stands out for having the tastiest horticultural titbits dished up with
the most generous helpings of the well-mannered malice at which the British
gentry excels. Here is the ever-so-genteel Rose, thrusting honey-dipped insults
at Miss Emily for her weeding methods, who parries with awe-inspiring sarcasm.
Behind their backs is Mr Nichols, who lives for such scandals, stirring things
up with his pronouncements on vulgar garden designs and tacky floral trends.
Delicious.
4. The
Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Here is a
garden that is not only scary, but lethal. You probably already know the story
of the orphaned Mary Lennox, “the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen”,
and her rehabilitation of the spooky walled-in garden with the killer tree (the
one the late Mrs Craven fell out of). But you probably did not know that
Hodgson Burnett wrote this iconic English fable in the US, in her home on Long
Island, less than three miles from where I live. This fact inspired me to
believe that great garden writers can come from anywhere, even one’s own dull
suburb.
5. The
Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Another
classic tale from Long Island. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, in exile from his
native France at the outbreak of the second world war, found himself living here,
“a haven for writing, the best place I have ever had anywhere in my life”. And
voila: the tale of the Rose, beloved of the title’s sensitive alien, was born.
Even more heartening to me, as a self-taught watercolourist, is Saint-Exupéry’s
artwork, which is, frankly, terrible, and yet beloved around the world.
6. Second
Nature: A Gardener’s Education by Michael Pollan
Pollan
writes about dirt (dirt!) and is utterly fascinating, even to a reader who has
previously stated that this is the exact subject that she most dreads in garden
books. That’s because dirt, like every other topic Pollan addresses (roses,
weeds, trees, etc), is only the jumping-off point for a flight of fancy that
alights on political history, popular culture and class distinctions, all the
while being both highly entertaining and deeply thought-provoking. Surprise
surprise, there is a whole lot more to a garden than its planting list. When I
wrote Gardens of Awe and Folly this is the kind of value-added storytelling
that I did my best to emulate, because outright plagiarism is wrong.
7. Green
Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden by Eleanor Perenyi
OK, this is
the most boring title ever for a garden book. Which means that you will be all
that more pleased by the verve and eccentricity of its author. As the American
ex-wife of a Romanian baron, Perenyi has gardened in both the old and new
worlds, in war and poverty, peace and affluence, and, lastly, Connecticut. Is
she cultured and crotchety? Digressive and droll? Brainy and brash? Is she
ever. Just read the chapter Onions, and I guarantee you will be as smitten with
the lady as she is with scallions. One of my most treasured possessions is a
photograph of Perenyi seated in her backyard parterre, a highball in one hand
and a cigarette in the other. She lived to be 91, which goes to show how
healthful the gardening lifestyle must be.
8. Our Life
in Gardens by Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd
Nothing
could convince me that I might be missing something by not having a garden of
my own – except maybe this book. This cosy memoir shows the authors to be the
most companionable and down-to-earth of garden world paragons. Gazing at a
portrait of artist Rubens Peale, the authors observe that the subject is
holding one of the most beautiful flowerpots they’ve ever seen. Well, if
puttering about in a herbaceous border would make me half as refined, witty,
and personable, then I’d gladly grab a hoe and have at it.
9. The
Potting-Shed Papers by Charles Elliott
I began my
education as a garden writer by devouring this collection of 31 essays on
gardens, gardeners, and garden history. Elliott roams to wherever his
hyperactive curiosity takes him, from the invention of the lawnmower in England
to the discovery of the blue poppy in China, with stops in the gardening
cultures of Holland and Japan and, oh, almost everywhere else. Read this book
and learn important stuff about the gardening mindset, such as how much
determination it takes to grow a California sequoia in Gloucestershire, and how
nutty and wonderful it is that anyone ever tried to do it in the first place.
10. The New
Sylva: A Discourse of Forest and Orchard Trees for the 21st Century by Gabriel
Hemery, illustrated by Sarah Simblet
Lucky you,
Guardian readers, to have been born at the right time to feast your eyes on this
highly anticipated followup to the illustrious Sylva of 1664! As in the
original, this is an exhortation to Britons to cherish and maintain their
woodlands, with Hemery writing movingly about forests as both artefacts of
civilisation and celebrations of tree-dom in your mystically green and
astoundingly pleasant land.
At the turn
of the 20th century, Mary Lennox is a sickly, neglected and unloved 10-year-old
girl, born in India to wealthy British parents who never wanted her and make an
effort to ignore the girl. She is cared for primarily by native servants, who
allow her to become spoiled, aggressive, and self-centered. After a cholera
epidemic kills her parents and the servants, Mary is discovered alive but alone
in the empty house. She briefly lives with an English clergyman and his family
in India before she is sent to Yorkshire, in England, to live with Archibald
Craven, a wealthy, hunchbacked uncle whom she has never met, at his isolated
house, Misselthwaite Manor.
At first,
Mary is as obnoxious and sour as ever. She dislikes her new home, the people
living in it, and most of all, the bleak moor on which it sits. However, a
good-natured maid named Martha Sowerby tells Mary about her aunt, the late
Lilias Craven, who would spend hours in a private walled garden growing roses.
Mrs Craven died after an accident in the garden, and the devastated Mr. Craven
locked the garden and buried the key. Mary becomes interested in finding the
secret garden herself, and her ill manners begin to soften as a result. Soon
she comes to enjoy the company of Martha, the gardener Ben Weatherstaff, and a
friendly robin redbreast. Her health and attitude improve with the bracing
Yorkshire air, and she grows stronger as she explores the moor and plays with a
skipping rope that Mrs Sowerby buys for her. Mary wonders about both the secret
garden and the mysterious cries that echo through the house at night.
As Mary
explores the gardens, her robin draws her attention to an area of disturbed
soil. Here Mary finds the key to the locked garden and eventually the door to
the garden itself. She asks Martha for garden tools, which Martha sends with
Dickon, her 12-year-old brother who spends most of his time out on the moors.
Mary and Dickon take a liking to each other, as Dickon has a kind way with
animals and a good nature. Eager to absorb his gardening knowledge, Mary tells
him about the secret garden.
One night,
Mary hears the cries once more and decides to follow them through the house.
She is startled when she finds a boy her age named Colin, who lives in a hidden
bedroom. She soon discovers that they are cousins, Colin being the son of Mr
and Mrs Craven, and that he suffers from an unspecified spinal problem which
precludes him from walking and causes him to spend most of his time in bed.
Mary visits him every day that week, distracting him from his troubles with
stories of the moor, Dickon and his animals, and the secret garden. Mary
finally confides that she has access to the secret garden, and Colin asks to
see it. Colin is put into his wheelchair and brought outside into the secret
garden. It is the first time he has been outdoors for years.
While in
the garden, the children look up to see Ben Weatherstaff looking over the wall
on a ladder. Startled and angry to find the children in the secret garden, he
admits that he believed Colin to be a cripple. Colin stands up from his chair
and finds that his legs are fine, though weak from long disuse. Colin and Mary
soon spend almost every day in the garden, sometimes with Dickon as company.
The children and Ben conspire to keep Colin's recovering health a secret from
the other staff, so as to surprise his father, who is travelling abroad. As
Colin's health improves, his father sees a coinciding increase in spirits,
culminating in a dream where his late wife calls to him from inside the garden.
When he receives a letter from Mrs Sowerby, he takes the opportunity finally to
return home. He walks the outer garden wall in his wife's memory, but hears
voices inside, finds the door unlocked, and is shocked to see the garden in
full bloom, and his son healthy, having just won a race against the other two
children. The servants watch, stunned, as Mr Craven and Colin walk back to the
manor together.