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Coming in September / Lady Chatterley’s Lover revisited – but is BBC version too steamy or not enough? / Lady Chatterley's Lover: BBC adaptation divides critics as some say it 'borders on porn' and others promise 'no raised eyebrows'

Lady Chatterley’s Lover revisited – but is BBC version too steamy or not enough?

Papers divided over new TV adaptation, with Telegraph regretting absence of ‘sexual language’ and Sun claiming that it ‘borders on porn’

Maev Kennedy

Sunday 16 August 2015 16.15 BST / http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/16/lady-chatterleys-lover-steamy-bbc-adaptation

Almost a century after DH Lawrence wrote it and 55 years after the first Penguin paperback edition was cleared of obscenity, Lady Chatterley’s Lover is set to shock again – either because there is too much sex and bad language in a new BBC adaptation, or not enough.

The 90-minute drama, to be broadcast next month, reputedly contains one instance of the word “cock” and one “John Thomas” – the gamekeeper Mellors’s favoured term for the part with which, in one of the more appallingly unforgettable scenes in the book, he enchants Lady Chatterley by entwining with honeysuckle and forget-me-not flowers. But there are no uses at all of the four-letter words “fuck” or “cunt”, which ensured publication of the full text was barred for decades and landed in court in 1960.

There are just three sex scenes, according to the Telegraph. And with apparent regret, it notes: “The passion will be soft-focus and almost all the book’s sexual language will be absent.”

However, the Sun is already working itself up into a muck sweat, promising that the adaptation is “so steamy it borders on porn”, and quoting the producer Serena Cullen as saying: “I have never seen anyone do the things Mellors, the gamekeeper, does to Lady Chatterley. I’m not sure what more we could have shown unless it was for porn.”

Jed Mercurio, who wrote and directed the new version, thinks that trying to shock modern audiences with the original language would be pointless. “Lawrence chose a certain type of language in his book which was then groundbreaking,” he said. “It did not feel that today we would be breaking new ground if we were to use those words. If you want to use certain words you have to justify them, and it did not seem relevant.”

He added: “The idea was to tell this as a love story, a love triangle – to concentrate on the emotions of the characters.”

The Mirror is among several newspapers quoting unnamed BBC insiders gleefully predicting that the broadcaster will pitch the adaptation directly against ITV’s “prim” Downton Abbey, which starts its final run next month.

Lawrence wrote the book in 1927 while terminally ill with tuberculosis. A version was privately printed in 1928, and a heavily bowdlerised version followed in 1932.

It was the publication by Penguin in 1960 of a full – and cheap – paperback edition that sparked a prosecution under the previous year’s Obscene Publications Act, against which the publisher’s only defence was literary merit. Among those who spoke up for the book were the writers EM Forster, Cecil Day-Lewis, Rebecca West and Richard Hoggart, as well as the bishop of Woolwich, John Robinson.

The prosecution’s case was sunk by an appeal to the jury by the chief prosecutor, Mervyn Griffith-Jones, which became as famous as any passage in the book. “Would you approve of your young sons, young daughters – because girls can read as well as boys – reading this book? Is it a book that you would have lying around in your own house? Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?”

Many saw the verdict as a game-changer that ushered in the swinging 60s. Philip Larkin wrote in his poem Annus Mirabilis: “Sexual intercourse began/ In nineteen sixty-three/(which was rather late for me) /Between the end of the Chatterley ban/ And the Beatles’ first LP.”

In 1962 Penguin published a second edition dedicated to “the twelve jurors, three women and nine men who returned a verdict of ‘not guilty’ and thus made DH Lawrence’s last novel available for the first time to the public in the United Kingdom”.

Lady Chatterley herself and many readers have found Lawrence’s use of dialect more challenging than the sex scenes. “Ah luv thee, thy legs, an’ th’ shape on thee, an’ th’ womanness on thee. Ah luv th’ womanness on thee. Ah luv thee wi’ my balls an’ wi’ my heart. But dunna ax me nowt,” Mellors declares rapturously at one point.

The book has been filmed several times: a 1993 television version had Joely Richardson and Sean Bean cavorting in the woods. The new version stars Richard Madden, best known as Robb Stark in Game of Thrones, as Mellors grappling with Holliday Grainger as Lady Chatterley.

James Norton, last seen as a lovestruck and frequently hungover clergyman detective in Grantchester, spends most of the film confined to a wheelchair in the thankless role of Sir Clifford Chatterley. The character returns from the first world war paralysed from the waist down, and unlike Matthew Crawley’s character in Downton Abbey, there is no miraculous recovery to rampant good health.

At the programme launch, Norton said the role was so taxing that at one point he blacked out, but that, like the trooper he is, he hoped the frames of him struggling for breath survived into the final edit.

Lady Chatterley's Lover: BBC adaptation divides critics as some say it 'borders on porn' and others promise 'no raised eyebrows'

JESS DENHAM Author Biography Monday 17 August 2015 / http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/lady-chatterleys-lover-bbc-adaptation-divides-critics-as-some-say-it-borders-on-porn-and-others-promise-no-raised-eyebrows-10458534.html

Downton Abbey will be getting some hot new Sunday night competition, quite literally, when the BBC's adaptation of Lady Chatterley's Lover hits our living rooms next month.

Critics' reactions to an early screening of the one-off DH Lawrence period drama have been mixed, with some papers promising "sexual gymnastics" that "borders on porn" while others insist there will be no "explicit nude scenes" or "raised eyebrows over supper".

Holliday Grainger takes the lead as Lady Constance Chatterley, with James Norton playing her "war-wounded" impotent husband Sir Clifford Chatterley and former Game of Thrones star Richard Madden as gamekeeper Oliver Mellors.

Written and directed by Bafta nominee Jed Mercurio, the show tells the early 20th century story of Lady Chatterley's passionate love affair with Mellors despite their class differences.

The original 1928 novel was censored in Britain for over 30 years for its obscene language and graphic sex scenes. But while the raunchiness of the three sex scenes is under debate, Lawrence's four-letter words do not feature in the new adaptation as Mercurio did not see them as "groundbreaking" anymore.

"That battle has been won. The idea was to tell this as a love story, a love triangle. Swearing or sex scenes don't excite me because they don't have emotional content," he told reporters at the advance screening.

"I think that putting Lady Chatterley at the centre and making her a much more thinking person, much more decisive, was one of the most important things."

The BBC's 1993 take on Lady Chatterley's Lover, starring Joely Richardson and Sean Bean, attracted viewer complaints for its full frontal nudity, but Madden has also spoken about not feeling the need to shock this time around.

"Come on guys, we've got Google. There's nothing that's going to shock us that we're going to do in Lady Chatterley's Lover is there?" Madden told the Press Association in March.

"All that stigma, all that smut's gone and it's actually it's just about these three people which is the fascinating story of it. There's sex and passion in it but we're not going to shock people like the book did."

There will however be one scene in which Lady Chatterley runs to Mellors in the middle of a storm, wearing only her nightdress. He performs a sex act on her outside his cabin, but both apparently remain fully-clothed.

BBC bosses will be hoping for a repeat of the success of its Poldark remake, watched by around eight million people earlier this year.

Lady Chatterley's Lover is yet to receive an air date but it will be broadcast one Sunday in September as part of a BBC One series of classic literary adaptations, also including The Go Between by LP Hartley, Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee an An Inspector Calls by JB  

Lady Chatterley's Lover: Trailer - BBC One

A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol, presented by Stephen Smith, is on BBC4 on 25 August /Vídeo: Factory Girl Trailer

BBC Four

A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol, presented by Stephen Smith, is on BBC4 on 25 August as part of the series BBC4 Goes Pop.

A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol

Stephen Smith meets with many of Andy Warhol's friends and confidantes to get closer to the man behind the enigmatic public image, experiencing for himself a day in the life of the pop art superstar. From recreating Warhol's intimate early morning chats with Factory star Brigid Polk to visiting the church where Warhol worshipped with his mother, discovering new details about the making of the notorious eight-hour Empire State Building film with assistant Gerard Malanga to spending time with Warhol's lover and collaborator John Giorno, Smith provides an entertaining and fresh new portrait of the legendary artist's life and personality.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b067fw3w

Andy Warhol

'He loved weightlifting and buying jewels': Andy Warhol's friends reveal all

He worked out all the time, loved sex (contrary to popular belief), was a father figure to rejects – and would chat on the phone for hours. The people closest to Andy Warhol uncover his hidden side

Stephen Smith

Friday 14 August 2015 13.00 BST / http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/aug/14/andy-warhol-friends-reveal-all

We all know Andy, the alien in the fright wig with his Marilyns and Elvises, who died at the age of 58 from complications to gall-bladder surgery. Most artists are referred to by their proper but distancing surnames – Constable, Matisse – but he’s one of very few to achieve the ultimate signifier of fame, recognition on first-name terms (we might also allow “Vincent” in deference to Don McLean). Most of us could even manage a thumbnail sketch of the life: pop art, Studio 54, Mick and Bianca. Warhol was the notorious voyeur who shot sex tapes avant la lettre, albeit gussied up as art films, all the while insisting that he himself was a virgin – that’s when you could prise a word out of him beyond a “Gee!” or a “My!” He was the seven-stone weakling who hid from the world behind his platinum toupées and Ray-Bans. He was affectless, amoral, his campy work emerging haphazardly from the druggy haze of his studio, the Factory, where a miscellany of misfits and poor little rich kids crashed and burned while Warhol looked on with what John Updike called his “deadpan rapture”.

That, at least, is the boilerplate biography. But after talking to many survivors of Warhol’s circle in New York, including his relatives as well as an associate who was close to the artist for many years but has never spoken at length before, I discovered a very different version of the man, a long way from the dead-eyed Martian of legend. And I came away with a renewed respect for his uncanny prescience in anticipating our fascination with brands, celebrity, even selfies. Warhol was the painter of modern life.

To start at the top, with Warhol’s crowning glory: it’s true that he was a great one for affecting ever bolder, and more unabashedly synthetic, confections as he grew accustomed to the spotlight. But the first time he wore a wig, it was out of a very human self-consciousness, after a nervous illness in his youth left his body completely hairless. With a flair for publicity which was characteristic and innate, Warhol eventually parlayed his baldness into a plus. According to Victor Bockris, an Englishman from Brighton who worked for Warhol at the Factory in the 1970s, Warhol realised that America didn’t know its artists. The generation who immediately preceded him were the abstract expressionists, scowling introspectives such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. They would only unburden themselves, if at all, to toney art critics, and even then in terms that lay readers might struggle to grasp. But Warhol, the man who turned the everyday of American life into art – dollar bills, soup cans, Brillo-pad boxes – pulled off the same trick in reverse, making an artificial or at least contrived version of “Andy Warhol” part of everyone’s scenery. “What did all Americans immediately get? Cartoons, comic strips,” Bockris said. “So Andy became a cartoon, the Donald Duck of art.” He wore the same things every day – leather jacket, black jeans, sneakers – ensuring that he leapt out of the paparazzi pictures in the New York Post. “And he looked after himself,” Bockris said. “Andy worked out. He went to the gym and lifted weights.”

Andy Warhol worked out?!

John Richardson, the acclaimed biographer of Picasso, compared Warhol to a “holy fool”, a figure associated with the eastern traditions of the remote sliver of land where the Warhol (originally Warhola) family hailed from, Carpathian Ruthenia in the former Austro-Hungarian empire. Warhol’s on-off friend Truman Capote called him “a Sphinx without a secret”. But his reputation for mute inscrutability isn’t altogether justified. Yes, it won him that priceless fascination that we reserve for the silent – Kate Moss, the Queen. Warhol let the praise and abuse heaped on his art and his person go without comment in public, but it was a different matter behind closed doors, according to his nephew, James Warhola. In his childhood, James and his brothers often stayed at their uncle’s townhouse on Lexington Avenue, a cabinet of curiosities, as he remembered it, with “carousel horses and cigar-store Indians”. A lithe and youthful 60, James has inherited something of the dreamy wonder of his famous relative. “When we were all together as a family, my mom would sometimes question Uncle Andy about his art. You know, ‘What’s that meant to be?’, or even ‘Why are you wasting your time on this?’ And he would give as good as he got – not in a hostile way, but saying that this was his work, it had value and importance for him. He had studied art and was very knowledgeable.”

We were sitting in a pew at the Church of St Thomas More, a block or so from Andy’s old home. It was a slightly ersatz copy of an English parish church, the sodium lighting giving the interior an embalmed quality. “My uncle would sometimes bring us here,” James said. It in no way put Warhol off that his fellow worshippers included some of the most distinguished old-money families of Manhattan. But he came to church because he was faithful to the old religion of his mother country, Byzantine Catholicism (the Roman version was the next best thing, and more conveniently situated for Lexington Avenue). James said there were crucifixes in every room of his uncle’s house, including one above his (four-poster) bed. The first time Richardson called on Warhol at home, he was struck by “the gleam, the hush, and the peace of a presbytery”.

The artist never talked about religion, any more than he did about anything else. But it’s often overlooked that he wrote half a dozen books, including a novel and some 1,200 pages of diaries, admittedly with the help of ghostwriters (“he dictated every word of it himself”, Bockris pointed out). In fact, Warhol is perhaps the most quotable artist of all time, with a line on everything from his supposedly non-existent love life to his thoughts on everyday products. “What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking.” Incidentally, it’s hard to read that paean to the downhome American values of apple pie and K-Mart as the ravings of a degenerate fag, as J Edgar Hoover might have put it. (The FBI boss once dispatched two of his men to the San Francisco film festival, to scrutinise Warhol’s allegedly subversive movie, Lonesome Cowboys, made in 1968. “There was no plot to the film and no development of characters,” noted the Feds.)

And what about the films? There’s no doubt about the period shock value of Warhol’s Blow Job (1964), for example. Except the viewer only sees the lucky or otherwise recipient, a man by the name of DeVeren Bookwalter, from the waist up. Warhol liked to provoke, but what he really wanted was to be taken seriously by the big boys in Hollywood, and perhaps even to join them one day; to hear the name of the Factory uttered in the same breath as Universal and Warner Brothers.

At his apartment in Brooklyn, the veteran film-maker Jonas Mekas and I spooled through rushes he shot back in the 70s and had never shown anyone before. On the magic lantern of his ancient Moviola screen, Andy Warhol sprang to life once more – brick-red polo-neck, slacks, wig. He was operating his movie camera on a beach at Cape Cod, filming a couple of boys playing rough and tumble. One of them was John Kennedy Jr, JFK’s son. Warhol is known for his awestruck, fan’s-eye-view silkscreen prints of John Jr’s mother, Jackie, but it’s forgotten now that this “freak” who hung out with junkies and losers was also a habitué of Camelot, JFK’s inner circle.

Mekas, the 92-year-old doyen of New York’s underground film scene, was the first to screen Warhol’s releases, patiently lacing up mile upon mile of Warhol’s unblinking cinematography. He told me: “I don’t know about his art, but he is a genius of film.” Just as an old master picture shows us what paint can do, so Warhol’s fanatically unhurried cinema – Empire (1964) consists of a single shot of the Empire State Building running to eight hours and five minutes – demonstrates to the viewer the penetrating insight of the camera. To those who can stick it out, that is. “At the premiere, I insisted that Andy must watch the film like everyone else. Because he is always so busy, he will go after some minutes.” Mekas produced a length of rope and ran it through his fingers. The still sinewy auteur began looping it around my chair. “So I tied him up – like this! Of course when I looked at Andy later, he had freed himself and he was gone.”

What about Warhol’s relationships with others? According to art world lore, he looked on with a kind of glassy ecstasy at the self-harming antics of the low-lifes and bored heiresses who gravitated to his studio, some of whom met premature deaths.

“Listen, those people would have been dead earlier if it wasn’t for Andy Warhol,” Mekas said. “He was the only one who would take them in. He was the perfect father – he didn’t judge people who had been judged and rejected by everybody else.”

‘Baby’ Jane Holzer is referenced in Roxy Music’s ‘Virginia Plain’

One person who’s in a position to know is “Baby” Jane Holzer, one of Andy’s “superstars” – an actor who appeared in three of his movies and was a denizen of the Factory. The daughter of a real-estate investor, she married the heir to a New York property fortune. She was hymned by Roxy Music in their hit “Virginia Plain” (“Baby Jane’s in Acapulco / We are flying down to Rio”) and immortalised by Tom Wolfe as “The Girl of the Year” in his groundbreaking book of essays, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. Now a formidable art patron, Holzer still trails a hint of mischief behind her, like prom night perfume. We met at Bloomingdale’s, where the management had set an entire floor aside for their valued customer. She first ran into Warhol when she was shopping with David Bailey and Nicky Haslam, and the pair of them hailed Warhol across the street.

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Why did you hang out with him? “It was better than being a bored housewife,” she deadpans. What did he shop for? “Jewels, darling. He adored jewels.”

Holzer was renowned for her sex appeal back in the day. Wasn’t she afraid of being hit on at the Factory? “Actually, I found it restful,” she said. “I would go there to sleep.”

Factory insiders told me that far from being a den of iniquity, it was more like the art faculty at the University of Life. Joseph Freeman first attended aged 13, and was soon exposed to amphetamine-users injecting themselves “in the tush”. But to Little Joey, as he then was, a streetwise kid growing up just after the era of the Sharks and Jets of West Side Story, it was all so much water off a DA haircut. “It was one of the best times of my life.” These days, Freeman is a businessman leasing out kit to TV crews. He has seldom spoken of his days with Warhol. The unlikely pair bonded over a shared interest in hi-fi. “I was a dork and the dorky thing back then was taping. I saw Andy on the cover of my favourite hi-fi magazine and I knew I had to meet him,” Freeman said. It was his job to rouse Warhol and get him to work on time. “He was turning up at the Factory at 6pm. It was too late – people needed to see him, he had to take care of business.”

He loved talking on the phone ... He just seemed to understand what would make teenage boys kill themselves laughing

Fortified by a breakfast of Cheerios, Warhol would hail a taxi, or at least try to. On a Lexington kerbside, Freeman mimed a frail dowager shooing wasps. “That’s why he needed me with him” – the pint-sized Joey would cajole or menace cabbies into pulling over. Freeman told me that he and a pal used to phone Warhol on Sunday mornings. “He was at home then and he loved talking on the phone. He’d talk for hours. We’d say: ‘What are you doing, Andy?’ and he’d say: ‘Oh, I’m sucking cock.’ I mean, we fell about.”

That was hardly an appropriate thing to tell a 13-year-old boy. “I guess not. But he just seemed to understand what would make teenage boys kill themselves laughing.”

Warhol appeared to be obsessed with other people’s sex lives, asking female friends about their dates and how well-endowed they were. But he wasn’t the frustrated virgin of his own myth-making. John Giorno, a poet and artist, was the star of his first film, Sleep (1963): five hours of the male lead catching zeds.

“You’ve been described as Warhol’s ‘close friend’?”

Giorno smiled. “Yes.”

“But you were lovers?”

“Yes.” Tall and distinguished, with a lived-in Roman face and a corona of white hair, Giorno spoke to me at his loft in the Bowery. It was once home to the trigger-happy writer William Burroughs, whose perforated firing-range targets still bared their stigmata on the walls. Giorno told me the most extraordinary and moving thing about Warhol. “You know, he had a beautiful body. He was taking diet pills – basically, speed – and he was working all the time, working with his hands, making the silkscreen prints, which is quite a physical job. So he was slim and he had really good muscle definition. Plus he had no hair, and his origins were in eastern Europe, so he had really pale skin.”

But he always thought of himself as very ugly?

“That’s right, but he was like a Renaissance statue,” said Giorno.

This was Warhol’s greatest secret. The artist whose career ran in parallel with the cold war was a double agent. He was as American as Donald Duck, but true to his eastern ancestry, he was really a Russian doll, and inside the cartoon character was a man with the beauty and grace of a ballet dancer.

• A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol, presented by Stephen Smith, is on BBC4 on 25 August as part of the series BBC4 Goes Pop.

Tweedland offers you an image ensemble/films of the eternal Paris. Greetings from Jeeves.

Paris - La Ville Lumiere, 1936

Paris accueille la reine Elizabeth II (1957)

Paris On The Seine (1950-1955)

Paris en 1955

Paris La Vie Parisienne (1965)

A Royal Night Out - Official UK Trailer - In Cinemas Now!

A Royal Night Out is based on the true story of the night the then princess Elizabeth and her sister, Margaret, were allowed out incognito to celebrate VE day. In this clip the pair attend a dance and meet a couple of veterans. A Royal Night Out, which stars Sarah Gadon and Emily Watson, is released in the UK on 15 May

A Royal Night Out

The British Policeman /1950s British Public Information Films : The British Policeman - 1959 - ...

The Metropolitan Police officers were unarmed to clearly distinguish them from military enforcers, which had been the system of policing seen before the 1820s. Their uniform was also styled in blue, rather than the military red. Despite the service being unarmed, the then Home Secretary, Robert Peel, gave authorisation to the Commissioner to purchase fifty flintlock pistols, for exceptional incidents that required the use of firearms. As time progressed, the obsolete flintlocks were decommissioned from service, being superseded by early revolvers. At the time, burglary (or "house breaking" as it was then called) was a common problem for police, as house breakers were usually armed. Due to the deaths of officers at the hands of armed criminals in the outer districts of the Metropolis, and after much press coverage debating whether Peel's service should be fully armed, the Commissioner applied to the Home Secretary to supply all officers on the outer districts with revolvers. These could only be issued if, in the opinion of the senior officer, the officer could be trusted to use it safely, and with discretion. From that point, officers who felt the need to be armed, could be so. The practice lasted until 1936, although the vast majority of the system was phased out by the end of the 19th century.

From 1829, to 1839, Metropolitan Police officers wore blue swallow tail coats with high collars to counter garroting. This was worn with white trousers in summer, and a cane-reinforced top hat, which could be used as a step to climb or see over walls. The sleeves of the dark blue coats originally had a pattern of white bars, roughly 6 mm wide by 50 mm high, set roughly 6 mm apart. This immediately distinguished them from naval or maritime personnel. In the early years of the Metropolitan Police, equipment was little more than a rattle to call for assistance, and a wooden truncheon. As the years progressed, the rattle was replaced with the whistle, swords were removed from service, and flintlock pistols were removed in favour of revolvers.

In 1863, the Metropolitan Police replaced the tailcoat with a tunic, still high-collared, and the top hat with the custodian helmet, which is based on the Pickelhaube. With a few exceptions (including the City of London Police, West Mercia Police, Hampshire Constabulary and States of Guernsey Police Service), most forces helmet plates carry a Brunswick star. The helmet itself was of cork faced with fabric. The design varied slightly between forces. Some used the style by the Metropolitan Police, topped with a boss, while others had a helmet that incorporated a ridge or crest terminating above the badge, or a short spike, sometimes topped with a ball.

The tunic went through many lengths and styles, with the Metropolitan Police adopting the open-neck style in 1948 (although senior and female officers adopted it before that time). Senior officers used to wear peaked pillbox-style caps until the adoption of the wider peaked cap worn today. The custodian helmet was phased out in Scotland in the early 1950s.

Female officers' uniforms have gone through a great variety of styles, as they have tended to reflect the women's fashions of the time. Tunic style, skirt length and headgear have varied by period and force. By the late 1980s, the female working uniform was virtually identical to male, except for headgear and sometimes neckwear.

Formal uniform comprises an open-necked tunic (with or without an attached belt, depending on the force and rank of the Officer) and trousers or skirt, worn with a white or light blue shirt and black tie (usually clip-on, so it cannot be used to strangle the wearer). Although most forces once wore blue shirts, these have been less used since the 1980s, and most now wear white. Officers of the rank of Inspector and above have always worn white shirts, and in many forces so have female officers. In some forces, female officers wear a black and white checked cravat instead of a tie. Officers of the rank of Sergeant and above wear rank badges on the epaulettes of their shirts, while Constables and Sergeants also wear "collar numbers" on them. Shoulder numbers in the Metropolitan Police are displayed on the shoulder of the tunic (despite the lack of epaulettes on the tunic in junior ranks) as are all rank insignia (except for that of Sergeant, which are displayed in the form of a sewn-on badge on the sleeve). No.1 dress is worn with black, polished shoes or boots. Male Constables and Sergeants in English and Welsh forces wear the Custodian Helmet with this dress, whereas the peaked cap is worn by Inspectors and above. In Scotland, all male officers now wear a peaked cap. Female officers of all forces now wear bowler hats. At more formal occasions, such as funerals and parades, white gloves are worn.

Until 1994 the No.1 Dress was also the everyday working uniform, but today it is rarely seen except on formal occasions. The normal working dress retains the shirt and trousers. In some forces short sleeved shirts may be worn open-necked. Long sleeved shirts must always be worn with a tie or cravat, worn with or without a jersey or fleece. If a jersey, fleece or jacket is worn over a short sleeved shirt, then a tie must be worn. In 2003, Strathclyde Police replaced the white shirts with black wicking T-shirts with stab vest on top, for the majority of officers on duty. Some forces use combat trousers (trousers are of a cargo pocket style i.e. two thigh pockets and two conventional side and rear pockets) and boots. Today, female officers almost never wear a skirt in working dress, and sometimes wear trousers in formal dress as well. Officers also frequently wear reflective waterproof jackets, which have replaced the old greatcoats and cloaks traditionally worn in inclement weather. Most officers now wear stab vests, a type of body armour, when on duty.

Basic headgear is a peaked cap for men, and a round bowler style hat for women. All officers wear a black and white (red and white for the City of London Police) diced band (called Sillitoe Tartan) around the hat, a distinction first used in Scotland and later adopted by all forces in Great Britain. Traffic officers wear white cap covers. On foot duty, male constables and sergeants outside Scotland wear the familiar conical custodian helmet. There are several patterns, with different forces wearing different types. Although some Scottish forces have used helmets in the past, they are no longer worn in Scotland. The only English police force to have abandoned the custodian helmet is the Thames Valley Police.

The Metropolitan Police approved the use of name badges in October 2003, and new recruits started wearing the Velcro badges in September 2004. The badges consist of the wearer's rank, followed by their surname. Senior officers wear these in No.1 Dress, due to the public nature of their role.

Increasingly officers are wearing 'Tactical' uniform to perform everyday roles as the increased level of equipment carried on the police duty belts and operational requirements expand.

Officers of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) wear a uniform which is somewhat different, reflecting the different roots of the force and nature of the role that it carried out for much of its history. The main colour to be found is a dark and light green with the uniform looking very unlike police uniforms over in Great Britain. The RUC officially described this as 'rifle green', that is to say the same colour as used by Irish and rifle regiments of the British Army, such as the Rifles (formerly the Light Infantry and the Royal Green Jackets) and Royal Irish Regiment. This reflects the force's de facto status as more of a paramilitary force, or gendarmerie, than police forces in Great Britain. When the six new versions of the PSNI uniform were introduced, in March 2002, the term 'bottle green' was used for basically the same colour. This was perhaps seen as being a less confrontational description and having less of a military connotation, in keeping with the spirit of the time. RIC uniforms were originally a very dark green almost black colour. The custodian helmet was never worn by either the RUC or the PSNI, although a similar design known as the "night helmet" was worn on night shifts by the RUC until the early 1970s, and previously by the RIC.

The mounted police of the Greater Manchester Police and of the Merseyside Police wear a ceremonial uniform which includes a distinctive cavalry-style helmet, similar to those worn by the Household Cavalry. Mounted police in Cleveland wear a similar uniform, but with a red rather than a white plume.

Police Officers may wear mess dress to formal dinners if appropriate but is most usually worn by officers who have achieved the rank of Superintendent or above. The mess dress of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police is dark blue with light blue facings on the lapels and includes a two-inch oak leaf lace strip on his trousers and a set of aiguillettes.

The Commissioners and other senior-ranked officers of the Metropolitan Police Service and the City of London Police wear a full dress ceremonial uniform on State and special occasions (see External links below); this includes a high-necked tunic with silver or gold trimmings and is worn with a sword and a plumed hat.

The pith helmet / VÍDEO: Adventures In the Making of a Pith Helmet

The pith helmet (also known as the safari helmet, sun helmet, topee, sola topee, salacot or topi ) is a lightweight cloth-covered helmet made of cork or pith, typically pith from the sola, Aeschynomene aspera, an Indian swamp plant, or A. paludosa, or a similar plant. Designed to shade the wearer's head and face from the sun, pith helmets were often worn by people of European origin in the tropics, but have also been used in other contexts

Crude forms of pith helmets had existed as early as the 1840s, but it was around 1870 that the pith helmet became popular with military personnel in Europe's tropical colonies. The Franco-Prussian War had popularized the German Pickelhaube, which may have influenced the distinctive design of the pith helmet. Such developments may have merged with a traditional design from the Philippines, the salakot. The alternative name salacot (also written salakhoff) appears frequently in Spanish and French sources; it comes from the Tagalog word salacsac (or Salaksak). During the Revolution in the Philippine-American War, Emilio Aguinaldo and the Philippine revolutionary military used to wear the pith helmet borrowed from the Spaniards alongside the straw hat and the native salakot.

Originally made of pith with small peaks or "bills" at the front and back, the helmet was covered by white cloth, often with a cloth band (or puggaree) around it, and small holes for ventilation. Military versions often had metal insignia on the front and could be decorated with a brass spike or ball-shaped finial. The chinstrap could be in leather or brass chain, depending on the occasion. The base material later became the more durable cork, although still covered with cloth and frequently still referred to as "pith" helmet.

The earliest appearance of sun helmets made of pith occurred in India during the Anglo-Sikh wars of the 1840s. Adopted more widely during the Indian Mutiny of 1857–59, they were generally worn by British troops serving in the Ashanti War of 1873, the Zulu War of 1878–79 and subsequent campaigns in India, Burma, Egypt and South Africa. This distinctively shaped headwear came to be known as the Foreign Service helmet.

During the Anglo-Zulu War, British troops dyed their white pith helmets with tea, mud or other makeshift means of camouflage. Subsequently khaki-coloured pith helmets became standard issue for active tropical service.

While this form of headgear is particularly associated with both the British and the French empires, all European colonial powers used versions of it during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The French tropical helmet was first authorised for white colonial troops in 1878. The Dutch wore the helmet during the entire Aceh War (1873–1914) and the United States Army adopted it during the 1880s for use by soldiers serving in the intensely sunny climate of the Southwest United States. It was also worn by the North-West Mounted Police in policing North-West Canada, 1873 through 1874 to the North-West Rebellion and even before the Stetson in the Yukon Gold Rush of 1898.

European officers commanding locally recruited indigenous troops, as well as civilian officials in African and Asian colonial territories, used the pith helmet. White troops serving in the tropics usually wore pith helmets; although on active service they sometimes used such alternatives as the wide-brimmed slouch hats, which were worn by US troops in the Philippines and by British Empire forces in the later stages of the Boer War.

At the same time, the military adopted a broadly similar helmet, of dark blue cloth over cork and incorporating a bronze spike, for wear in non-tropical areas. This helmet led to the retirement of the shako headdress. While not considered a true "pith helmet" this headdress did resemble its tropical counterpart and during the 1890s a white version which could be worn in both the United Kingdom and India was experimentally issued to some British regiments. Modeled on the German Pickelhaube, the British Army adopted this headgear (which they called the "Home Service Helmet") in 1878. Most British line infantry, artillery (with ball rather than spike) and engineers wore the helmet until 1902, when khaki Service Dress was introduced. With the general adoption of khaki for field dress in 1903, the helmet became purely a full dress item, being worn as such until 1914.

The Home Service Helmet is still worn by some British Army bands or Corps of Drums on ceremonial occasions today. It is closely related to the custodian helmet worn by a number of police forces in England and Wales.

The US Army wore blue cloth helmets of the same pattern as the British model from 1881 to 1901 as part of their full dress uniform. The version worn by cavalry and mounted artillery included plumes and cords in the colors (yellow or red) of their respective branches of service.

Black helmets of a similar shape were also part of the uniform of the Victoria Police during the late 19th century. It may have been worn by some of the police involved in the shootout with the legendary bushranger Ned Kelly at Glenrowan, although contemporary sketches show kepis being worn.

Pith helmets were widely worn during World War I by British, Belgian, French, Austrian-Hungarian and German troops fighting in the Middle East and Africa.

Helmets of this style (but without true pith construction) were used as late as World War II by Japanese, European and American military personnel in hot climates. Included in this category are the sun helmets worn in Ethiopia by Italian troops, the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army, Union Defence Force, and Germany's Afrika Korps, as well as similar helmets used to a more limited extent by U.S. and Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater.

Pith helmets abandoned by retreating Italian forces during the North African campaign.

During the 1930s the locally recruited forces maintained in the Philippines, (consisting of the army and a gendarmerie), used sun helmets. The Axis Second Philippine Republic's military, known as the Bureau of Constabulary, as well as guerrilla groups in the Philippines also wore this headdress.

The Ethiopian Imperial Guard retained pith helmets as a distinctive part of their uniform until the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie I in 1974. Imperial Guard units serving in the Korean War often wore these helmets when not in actual combat.

The British Army formally abolished the tropical helmet in 1948.

'Please forgive me, I could not resist love': Heartbreaking letter hidden in Austrian bank vault for 90 years is discovered and reveals passion of one of history's greatest affairs

'Please forgive me, I could not resist love': Heartbreaking letter hidden in Austrian bank vault for 90 years is discovered and reveals passion of one of history's greatest affairs

Baroness Mary Vetsera died with her lover Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria

A collection of her farewell letters were discovered in a bank vault in Vienna

Mystery of their deaths in 1889, believed to be murder-suicide, hit headlines

Mary died just two months before 18th birthday, at the prince's hunting lodge

By IMOGEN CALDERWOOD FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 14:18 GMT, 1 August 2015 | UPDATED: 15:12 GMT, 1 August 2015/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3182262/Please-forgive-not-resist-love-Sensational-letter-hidden-bank-vault-90-years-reveals-passion-one-history-s-great-affairs.html

A collection of letters stashed for 90 years inside a bank vault in Vienna could finally solve the mystery of one of the world’s greatest love stories.

Baroness Mary Vetsera, who wrote the letters, famously committed suicide with her lover Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria in 1889.

But the mysterious circumstances of their deaths hit international headlines and sent ripples of curiosity across the world.

Hailed as one of the world’s greatest romances, the affair has inspired numerous films, novels, ballets and plays.

Her farewell letters, addressed to her mother, brother and sister, were discovered in the Vienna bank vault 126 years after her death, by bank employees having a vault clear out.

‘Please forgive me for what I’ve done, I could not resist love’, the Baroness wrote to her mother, Helen Vetsera.

‘In accordance with Him, I want to be buried next to Him in the Cemetery of Alland. I am happier in death than life.’

The Austrian National Library said in a statement: ‘An unknown person deposited a leather-bound folder containing numerous personal documents, letters and photographs of the Vetsera family, including the farewell letters of Mary Vetsera from 1889.’

The bodies of the Baroness and the Crown Prince, then aged 30, were discovered in January 1889 at his hunting lodge in the Viennese woods near the town of Mayerling.

But the exact circumstances of their suicide pact, known generally as the ‘Mayerling incident’, still remain unclear.

The Mayerling Incident

The Mayerling Incident refers to the series of events leading to the apparent murder-suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria and his lover Baroness Mary Vetsera. Prince Rudolf was the only son of Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria, and therefore heir to his father as Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and King of Bohemia. Rudolf's mistress Mary was the daughter of Baron Albin Vetsera, a diplomat at the Austrian court. The couple's bodies were discovered at Mayerling, Rudolf's hunting lodge, in Lower Austria on January 30, 1889
By 1889, many people at the Court, including Rudolf's wife Stephanie and his father Franz Joseph, knew that Rudolf and Mary were having an affair. Rudolf's marriage to Stephanie had resulted in the birth of one daughter, Elisabeth, and was not particularly happy. Rudolf had no male heir.

On the morning of January 30, 1889, Rudolf and Vetsera were found dead at his hunting lodge Mayerling. The death of their only son devastated Franz Joseph I and Elisabeth of Bavaria. As Rudolf had no son, the next male heir was Franz Joseph's brother, Karl Ludwig and his issue.

The initial official explanation for the incident was that Rudolf had suffered heart failure; Vetsera was not mentioned and her body was secretly buried. However, the official story did not hold up well. The court later admitted that Rudolf had committed suicide. Many stories were floated about the pair’s death; the most widely accepted was that the two lovers had carried out a suicide pact after Franz Joseph demanded they separate. Police investigation suggested that Rudolf shot his mistress in the head, then sat by her body for several hours before shooting himself. A special dispensation from the Vatican was obtained to declare Rudolf to have been in a state of “mental imbalance”, so that he could be buried in the sacred Imperial Crypt.

Alternative theories

Mainstream historians generally dismissed the idea that there was more to the Mayerling Incident than a simple murder-suicide. However some[who?] have argued that the official story may be incorrect.

Empress Zita

Notably, it has been rumoured[who?] that Empress Zita, (1892–1989), widow of the last Emperor, Karl (r: 1916-1918) and last surviving Crowned head from The Great War, claimed that the Crown Prince was murdered, and the crime was disguised as a double suicide. In A Heart for Europe (Gracewing, 1990; reprinted 2004), the authors James and Joanna Bogle mention that in a rare public interview with the Empress Zita in 1988, she said that the Mayerling deaths were not suicide but part of a political plot. It is thought the crime was the work of foreign agents who may have been Austrian security officials, in response to the Prince’s suspected pro-Hungarian sympathies. Or, it may have been that French agents were responsible because Rudolf refused to participate in the deposition of his pro-German father: It was known Rudolf opposed his father on certain issues, including liberalising voting and allowing more scope for the activities of national groups within the Empire. This was seen in some quarters in France and elsewhere as an opportunity to weaken the Empire by playing son against father. Since Rudolf refused to agree to any suggestion that he depose and replace his father, the theory has it that he had to be killed to maintain the secrecy of the plot (Bogle & Bogle, p 3, citing Erich Feigl's biography of the Emperor Charles, Vienna, 1988). Although it has been stated that no evidence has been discovered to support either of these theories, differing accounts of the physical evidence (see below) leaves room for conjecture. Although Empress Zita was not yet born at the time of Mayerling, her strong Catholic faith and loyalty to her family would most likely preclude her acceptance of the suicide theory, particularly in the absence of incontestable evidence.

Political conspiracy

The idea that the Prince was killed for political reasons, with Vetsera’s death used to cover up the crime, is one of the more popular theories surrounding Mayerling.
This theory rests in part on the idea that the affair between Vetsera and Prince Rudolf was an open secret in the Imperial Family. Indeed, Rudolf’s wife, Princess Stéphanie, was carrying on her own affair. Thus, the Emperor’s demand that the couple separate was not a serious concern for the two, making a lover’s pact unnecessary.

A resulting re-examination of files about the death of the Crown Prince revealed major discrepancies between the claimed manner of the deaths and the factual evidence. At one point it was claimed that six shots were fired from the weapon, which did not belong to Rudolf. The initial report stated that only one shot was fired, instantly killing the Crown Prince, which raises the question of how the remaining five bullets were fired. This information suggests that Rudolf had engaged in a violent struggle before his death. However, an examination of the Papal Dispensation issued to allow Rudolf’s Christian burial asserts that only one shot was fired.

However, this theory has one major problem. By ruling Rudolf’s death a suicide, the Imperial Family was required to petition the Pope for permission to bury Rudolf in the family crypt. Critics of the conspiracy theory claim that the Imperial Family would have seized on any shred of evidence that might have indicated Rudolf did not kill himself in order to avoid the scandal of petitioning the Pope.

The following is from The Secrets of the Hohenzollerns by Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves, published in 1915 (Graves claims to have been a German spy who reported directly to Kaiser Wilhelm II):

"...Prussian diplomacy had gained such an ascendancy over the House of Habsburg and the affairs of Austria, that Austria has been and is a staunch ally and supported by Germany in all its aims and ambitions. This alliance is developed to such an extent that even an heir apparent to the Austrian empire unless acceptable to and identified with Prusso-Germanic interests finds it impossible to ascend the throne.
"Erherzog Rudolph, the archduke, next in succession, was mysteriously killed at Mayerling, an obscure little hunting lodge in upper Austria. Much has been written and many conjectures made about the cirumstance of this lamentable tragedy. The real reason, so vast in its importance, has of necessity never been divulged.
"On a blustery and cold January night in 1889 His Royal Highness and the Baroness Marie Vetzera (Vetchera) were familiarly seated around a plain but daintily spread supper table in the hunting lodge of Mayerling. They were attended by Max and Otto K----, two brothers much trusted in the archducal household. Supper was nearly finished and the Prince, who was very fond of a certain brand of champagne, had just given the order to Otto for another couple of bottles, when the deep baying of the Prince's favorite deerhound gave notice of the approach of strangers. A dull thud and agonized yelp of the dog made the Prince jump up and stride toward the door, which was guarded by Max. Pushing the servant aside, His Royal Highness pulled the door open. Three men muffled up to their eyes in great coats forced their way into the room. In a trice the leader of the trio pinioned Max to the wall. The Archduke, who had jumped back startled and was reseating himself behind the supper table, demanded the reason for this intrusion, when the smallest of the three, supposedly the brother of the Baroness Vetzer, laid hold of a bottle of champagne and brought the weapon down with terrific force on his unprotected head, completely crushing the skull. The Baroness, who apparently had recognized one of the three intruders, was hysterically screaming and uttering dire threats and vengeance against the perpetrators of this foul deed. As she stood there, gripping the edges of the table, the third, standing at the door, raised his Stutzen (a short hunting gun in great favor in the Austrian Alps), and fired point blank at the unfortunate woman, almost blowing her head to pieces.
"The commotion brought Otto from the wine cellar, and, taking in the situation at a glance, he threw himself fiercely upon the intruders, ably assisted by his brother Max, who also began attacking his captor. They managed to dispose of one of the assailants when again the gun rang out, sending Max to the floor with his chest almost torn to ribbons. The next moment Otto received a Hirsch-fanger (a hunting dagger) between his shoulders. Dragging their wounded conspirator with them, the two assassins disappeared into the night. From that day to this there have never been any arrests made or any one held to account for this dastardly deed.
"Otto, who was left for dead, on regaining sufficient strength decently covered the bodies with table cloths and napkins, and left a short pencil written account of the occurrences pinned on to his brother's clothes. He also disappeared in the night; for he well knew the consequences attached to an even entirely innocent witnessing of such a royal family tragedy. Old, gray and bent, Otto is living to this day the quiet life of a hermit and exile not five hundred miles from New York City. Money would never make Otto talk, but some day the upheaval in Europe may provide an occasion when this old retainer of the House of Habsburg may unseal his lips; and then woe to the guilty.
"Rudolph of Habsburg had to the full the proud instinctive dislike to, and rooted disinclination against, the ever increasing Germanic influence in and over his country. He died. [footnote 1]
" The above account of the tragedy of Mayerling, notwithstanding the 'proof' of the Crown Prince's supposed suicide contained in the letters alleged to have been written by him to his confidant and friend Ambassador Szoegyenyi and to the 'Duke of Braganza,' is the correct one, and will be proved when the venerable head of the House of Habsburg shall have passed away."



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Apart from the straightforward lover’s pact cited in the official report, a lover’s quarrel has also been postulated. It has been said[who?] that Vetsera was murdered by Crown Prince Rudolf, who then killed himself; that they both committed suicide; that they killed or murdered one another, and that she may have been pregnant at the time of her death. One variant[citation needed] states that Mary died during a botched abortion and the grief-stricken Rudolf killed himself.

Examination of the bodies indicated that Mary had likely died several hours before Rudolf, implying that he had killed her (or she had killed herself) and sat next to the body until he finally shot himself.

Rudolf's final letter to Princess Stephanie also supports the suicide hypothesis. In it, Rudolf bids farewell to her and his friends, saying that only death can save his good name. This letter raises at least as many questions as answers, since Rudolf does not give a reason why he must kill himself, nor is there any mention of Mary Vetsera.

During funeral the corpse of the Crown Prince wore gloves and his mother was not allowed to see his hands, since it was said they presented defensive wounds

Given the age of the case, the delicate nature of the Rudolf and Mary’s deaths (both politically and personally), conflicting initial reports[citation needed] and conflicting official versions, the mystery of the Mayerling Incident will likely never be solved. Much of the evidence was destroyed or concealed at the time, for fear of scandal, hampering later inquiries. All the people central to the incident have died, most without publicly commenting on the tragedy.

A major obstacle to all of these theories, alternative and official, is the question of why any of these stories would be suppressed. The apparent suicide of the heir to the throne was at least as damaging as any other story, thus it would be illogical to conceal one painful or damaging truth with another.

Rudolf's death may have brought ruin to his parents' marriage, changed the imperial succession, and perhaps contributed in a small way to the end of the ancient house of Habsburg in 1918. The removal of the liberal Rudolf made Franz Joseph's conservative policies easier to pursue.

The mysterious death of Archduke Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria and Hungary, immediately caused a dynastic crisis. Since Rudolf was the only son of Franz Joseph, Emperor Franz Joseph's brother, Karl Ludwig, became heir-presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian Empire but he renounced his succession rights a few days later in favour of his eldest son Franz Ferdinand.[2] After Franz Ferdinand's assassination in 1914, Franz Ferdinand's nephew, Karl Ludwig's grandson, Karl, became the heir-presumptive. Karl would ultimately succeed his grand-uncle as Emperor Charles I in 1916.




Official engagement photo of Crown Prince Rudolf and Princess Stéphanie of Belgium (1881)

Mayerling lodge as it appeared when the crown prince killed himself there (before 1889)



Baroness Mary Vetsera 3 photographs





Final letter of the Crown Prince, on display at the Mayerling museum.



The last photograph taken of Baroness Mary Vetsera on the right. This is the dress in which she was buried. On the left is Countess Marie Larisch



Grieving emperor and empress at the deathbed



The crown prince lying-in-state. His head had to be bandaged in order to cover the self-inflicted gunshot wounds.


Cemetery in Heiligenkreuz - grave of Mary von Vetsera



Myths of Mayerling
Vienna Review of Books
For many Austrians, the unsolved mystery of the death of the Crown Prince Rudolf carries enduring fascination and romance
Gerda Butkuviene
28/03/2011


Books and dramatic works included in this review

Crime at Mayerling. The Life and Death of Mary Vetsera,Georg Markus (1995)

The Habsburgs’ Tragedy written by Polish author Leo Belmonto

Rudolf, The Mayerling Affair, a musical by directed by David Leveaux (2009)

Mayerling, a film directed by Terence

Every country has its myths. More than 100 years passed since unsolved mystery of the last night of the Crown Prince Rudolf in Mayerling, but for many Austrians, every Mayerling related detail still carriessensational and causes great interest.

In a small village called Mayerling, some 20 km southwest of Vienna, a lovely church greets visitors from the low hill. Here within the walls of the Cloister of Carmelites lies the memory of a 100-year-old tragedy and a great imperial mystery.

The hunting lodge that once stood at Mayerling belonged to the Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, the only son of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth; it was his retreat from the life at court, where he told friends he felt most himself.There, on the Jan. 30, 1889, in the stillness of the Wienerwald, witnesses found the bodies of Rudolf and his mistress, the Baroness Mary Vetsera, daughter of Austrian diplomat, both dead of gunshot wounds.

After the incident, at the request of the Emperor, in the place of the hunting lodge the new church was built, so that nuns could pray daily for the soul of Rudolf. The altar of the church, it is said, stands on the site of the lovers’ bed – today, on display at Vienna’s royal furniture museum, the Hofmobiliendepot. And in the chapel, the Madonna reminds many of the face of the Empress Elisabeth. The small museum inside the church has a small exhibit dedicated to the fatal night with the last letters of the Crown Prince Rudolf, photos and even the coffin of Mary Vetsera, whose grave (with her remains lying in a new coffin) can be found in Heiligenkreuz, not far away.

Many tourists come to Mayerling each year. The rich list of novels, plays, operas, movies’ screen plays or even musicals, whose authors were inspired by the tragic love story of Rudolf and Mary, keep public interest alive.

For it is not just the incident itself – romantic as it is – that continues to fascinate people more than a century later, but more the behavior of imperial family after the shocking event. The Habsburgs not only kept their silent about the incident that night, they tried hard to silence every possible witness. The Prince’s own coachman Josef Bratfisch, for one, was offered a monthly income for life to keep his master’s secrets and to take everything he knew to the grave. And he knew a lot, as he had spent the last evening with Rudolf and Mary, and her last words in a farewell letter to her family were, “Bratfish played the pipes wonderfully.” Also, all the writings of Countess Marie Larisch’s, who used to arrange the meetings between Rudolf and Baroness Vetsera, some of which secretly took place in Viennese inn called Gmoa Keller, Am Heumarkt, still in business to this day, containing the ‘complete truth about Mayerling,’ were purchased by the Emperor, for what reportedly cost him more than the Giant Wheel in the Prater.

Any Viennese newspapers that reported anything other than a heart attack as the reason for the sudden death of the Crown Prince were censored or confiscated. And the name of Mary Vetsera became taboo until after the collapse of the Monarchy.

As a result, theories abound. Maybe Rudolf shot Mary and then shot himself? Maybe the lovers shot each other? Maybe Mary was poisoned or took poison herself? Maybe she died during the abortion? Maybe the lovers became victims of political conspiracy? Or a failed coup d’etat?

In his book Crime at Mayerling, The Life and Death of Mary Vetsera, Georg Markus claims that what happened at Mayerling was never seriously investigated, and the few investigations that were made were falsified – manipulated by the monarchy. The body of Mary Vetsera was buried as soon as possible, without judicial inquiry, and as secretly as possible, not even allowing her mother to attend. It was only later, that the version of the story surfaced in which Rudolf shot Mary and then shot himself.

At the time, Emperor Franz Joseph did everything in his power to get the Church’s blessing for Rudolf to be buried in the Imperial crypt, the Kapuzinergruft, impossible had the Crown Prince been seen committing murder and suicide. Instead a special dispensation was obtained from the Vatican to declare Rudolf ‘in a condition of mental derangement.’

Stories of the tragic ending of the Crown Prince Rudolf and Baroness Mary Vetsera at Mayerling have been a favorite of dramatists and filmmakers. In the musical Rudolf, The Mayerling Affair, directed by David Leveaux at Vienna’s Raimund Theater as well as in the ballet Mayerling at the Vienna State Opera, both staged in the 2009-2010 season, the final scene between the lovers together in bed at the hunting lodge could be observed by spectators only in a total dark or behind the folding screen, just with the clear sounds of two shots.

On the contrary, in the Terence Young’s 1968 movie Mayerling, Omar Sharif as the prince and the young Catherine Deneuve, were constantly on camera until the very end. The film, an English-French co-production, maintains the legend of undeniable love leading to death. At the end, Rudolf shoots Mary Vetsera and moments later, overwhelmed, shoots himself, still keeping her hand in his.

In the novel The Habsburgs’ Tragedy written by Polish author Leo Belmonto (Leopold Blumental) suggests quite uncommon interpretation of the event by creating the portrait of the Baroness as smart, selfish and manipulating feelings of her beloved. In the last pages of the book, facing the growing indifference of the Crown Prince, Mary decides to poison herself at Mayerling, leaving a letter inviting him to follow her, knowing it would be a question of honor for the Emperor’s son. Staying alive he would have to find a public explanation of dead woman’s body in his hunting lodge, the fact which undoubtedly was a real threat of staining his name in society and, more important, in the eyes of imperial family.

Nevertheless some things are common in many pieces of art inspired by tragic life of the Crown Prince Rudolf. These is the troubled relationship between the Emperor and his son and successor, the need for a mother who was constantly away avoiding the duties of the court, the unhappy marriage with Princess Stephanie of Belgium, his frustrated political objectives, and a series of physical symptoms including constant headaches, insomnia and the effects of morphine and alcohol – and what was perhaps a clinical depression. Maybe all of them were led to suicide, maybe none. That’s why Mary powerful line in Rudolf: the Mayerling Affair is so convincing: ‘It is often better to die at once, than to die a little every day’.

But among the romancers of ‘Mayerling fever’, little of the darker sides of the story emerged: That the Crown Prince had sired some 30 illegitimate children (according to his grandson Prince Francis Joseph Windisch-Graetz), or that he carried the gonorrhea that infected his wife and led to her sterility thus burying their hopes for masculine heir; or his affair with Mary’s mother Baroness Helene Vetsera, when Mary was only six, or that Mary was perhaps not his great love after all.

According to the Imperial Police Institute, who sniffed about Rudolf’s private life “for the sake of his security”, even the night before Mayerling Crown Prince spent with his another mistress Mizzi Caspar. And that six months earlier, he had suggested a double suicide to Mizzi, who refused. In Crime at Mayerling, Georg Markus suggests that Rudolf was afraid of being alone, both of living alone and also of dying alone. And it was Mary who agreed to the plan.

Many of the mysteries of Mayerling may never be solved. Many witnesses are dead, much of the evidence destroyed. And the appeal of a story of tragic romance is too strong. It would probably take an exhumation of the prince to put the speculations of this most sensational chapter in the six hundred years history of the Habsburg empire to rest. But so far, writes Marcus, heir to the throne Otto von Habsburg and the Capuchin friars who govern the crypt have refused all requests.

And sometimes the details have proved dangerous. In 1991 Linz furniture dealer Helmut Flatzelsteiner removed the remains of Mary Vetsera and approached a journalist at the Kronen Zeitung to sell the story and the skeleton, which was then reinterred in Heiligenkreuz in 1993. It had been the second time, after the body had been placed in a new coffin in 1959 after the original one was plundered by Soviet soldiers looking for jewelry.

It’s the same mistake all over again, writes Markus: As in 1889 Habsburgs’ silence allows the myth to survive, and forever new, fantastic versions to be imagined.