A very English scandal

[Cistersaredoingitforthemselves]

Looking forward to seeing this

I have read the book and it was excellent.

I remember this happening and it being one of the earliest political scandals I was aware of ( and actually understood) - Watergate was my first but I was only small and didn't understand

Peter Bessell - the owner of a face like a badly tessellated pavement

Probably the best caption of a photo ever

Tom Mangold sat at a desk and directly addressed the viewer with quite a ot of information. I found it restful. When they did the update, Tom was in a park with a dog to illustrate where he had met the first potential shooter. I hate the way reporters have to stand outside a locked building late at night and say "I'm here at the Home office" etc when there is no point in them being there at all.

I remember my granny being very shocked at the Vaseline and the pain NS described. She maintained that she thought gay men were just nice mammy's boys and held hands and things ... she had no idea they got up to anything like that...

I thought the flashback scenes of JT picking up men offered good context. A reminder of how things were in those days - homosexuality was illegal, shameful and dangerous. Yes it was sordid, but so is anything that has been driven underground.

Yes, I agree. While his treatment of NS is not to be condoned, with this context I can understand a bit more why some men might have behaved in that way and why he found the gentle, easily dominated NS so attractive.

Monica Dolan was superb, as was Adrian Scarborough. The terrible 60s and 70s threads and hair were spot-on. Loved the pub landlady.

On another note, I just have to say: it's Ben WHISHAW not Wishaw! [pedant]

For someone not wanting his sexuality to be discovered, JT seemed very reckless.

Renting & visiting a bedsit, writing letters-even though sensitive ones he had written to Norman Vater had been returned!

Was it a case of just thinking he was untouchable/could just deny a sexual relationship & would be believed?

It just makes me realise how far we've come. When I was born homosexuality was illegal and it was all public school fagging, titter titter, behind closed doors stuff. There were very many tortured men and boys.

As far as JT writing letters, there was no other option, no other way of communicating, it was such a different time. I don't think anyone really thought this sort of stuff would be used against them, even JT!

I guess that Jeremy Thorpe wrote the letters in ' good faith' and that Norman was quite a sensitive soul who wouldn't use them against him.

He probably had little idea of how he really felt about the situation and , having got away with things in the past, just didnt think it would ever be used as blackmail or whatever. a bit silly of him but, as rou said above, different times and he was probably arrogent enough to think that it wouldnt come up at all or haunt him as did, or maybe, that he would be believed as being the innocent party because he was an influential figure and above the law!
Mud sticks though and his reputation was always smeared afterwards despite winning the case.

But he did cast Norman off like an old sock and hell hath no fury like a woman or man scorned!

Bear in mind he'd been attacked, and sailed close to the wind before, you think you'd learn but I imagine he thought he was above that...

@diddl

Re the Terry-Thomas thing - I was googling it last night too . I also found the ‘SIL’s BIL’ thing in the Telegraph, but that was the only one that gave that relationship - everything else said SIL’s DH, & at least one that the cottage where NS & Sue lived for a while around the time the baby was born belonged to T-T (he lent it to them).

Just found this fascinating piece - written from a Blackpool angle

It’s not necessarily 100% accurate as it says Marion was the queen’s cousin, when it was her exH who was the queen’s cousin, but it has a huge amount of detail about Newton & Holmes (& says Newton’s girlfriend was Colleen Rooney )

Anyway right at the end is the Terry-Thomas cottage.

blackpoolcrime.wordpress.com/tag/norman-scott/

It was possible he had a girlfriend called Colleen Rooney, I suppose, but certainly not the one we know, as she wasn't even born then!

"Peter Bessell the serial fraud knew what honest people looked like so that he could portray one. Andrew Newton lacked this skill."

" Andrew Newton drove off. He stayed with another of the conspirators, David Miller, where he made the breathtaking comment that he was working for a bunch of amateurs ."

The panorama program was superb. They clearly thought Thorpe was guilty.

He ay well have been guilty, but I would think that the stumbling block was proving it?

yeah, I still think they'd have a hard job proving this because of Bessell - they needed one of the other principles to talk and label Thorpe.
Definitely from a who benefits/motive pov they had him, but in terms of concrete evidence all they've got is Bessell. Thorpe did have excellent representation - if he'd gone on the stand and denied a homosexual relationship, he would've looked like a liar and that's what he would've done based on the interviews etc so that was wise.

Just found a Secret Lives on youtube that was quite interesting.

Oh I fell over that one the other day too, diddl - haven’t watched it yet - also a R4 programme

Have both saved on my phone, must dedicate some time for them

Very interesting cast on the YouTube one!

m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ck9hZGV59Q

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04wz633

Ben Whishaw acted the part of Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited, I discovered last night when I was browsing the Beeb archives for something to watch

The Tom Mangold (panorama) is also on youtube.

Anyone know what programe was being advertised at the end?