Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 212. Lord Lucan - Murder, Madness and a Missing Earl

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212. Lord Lucan - Murder, Madness and a Missing Earl · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: The history podcast that is not your history class. With me,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: your host, Katie Charlewood, history harlot and reader of books. Now,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's just me, but there is,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know, a lack of Halloween-y stuff, like, this year. Now,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying to push massive consumerism or anything but
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: every year I like to pick my kids up a
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: wee spooky themed jumper or a t-shirt they can wear
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: for the month of October and beyond. Right, listen, there
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: is literally no rule to stop you from wearing a
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Bride of Frankenstein t-shirt in July. And for the sake
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: of transparency, I did manage to swipe myself a Bride
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: of Frankenstein t-shirt because I do like to be thematically dressed.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Although I do appear to have misplaced my bag of
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Halloween clothes somewhere. Now, okay. So I have Halloween themed
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: clothes that I wear typically throughout the month of October.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: And I've been doing this for years. I have what
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I like to call my Beetlejuice suit. I've got like
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: a witchy print dress and a few other bits and pieces.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: And I pack them away in a vacuum bag and
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: take it out every year. Now, I couldn't find it
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: last year. and I cannot find it this year, so
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I have to assume it might be in my mother's
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: attic and not in my house at all. But I
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: do try and add, like, a new piece into the rotation, like,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: as time goes on, and I do tend to get
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: most of my stuff secondhand. I managed to pick up
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: a really cute spiderweb jumper from a vintage reproduction brand,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: which no longer exists, misfortune. And the other stuff I
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: got is from, like, a few independent places. I have this, like,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: really cute Halloween sweater from Audrey Kay, which is on
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Magnolia Boulevard in Los Angeles. And I have this really
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: cute spooky tee from The Paper Press, which is based
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: in Donegal. Now, yeah, this is the trimming show. You're
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: naming all the places you get stuff from. Yeah, because
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: support local guys. It's small, independent. Let's do what we can.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: And so... yeah, I like to buy myself something and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the kids something. Now, for the kids, typically, it means
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: that they'll get a few months out of something because
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: they grow so fast. And like, if they're going to
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: grow anyway, why not get them the ridiculous, you know,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Michael Jackson thriller hoodie, which I couldn't get because even
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: though my son is the size of a small man,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: all of the small man sizes were sold out and
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I was like and he has a big love for
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Michael Jackson's Thriller specifically I don't know listen I mean
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: it's cool it's a good video and also the leather
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: jacket that he wears in Thriller I have been dreaming
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: about a version of that jacket for years now obviously
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: the one that he has wouldn't work for me because
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Michael Jackson was a skinny man and I have a
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: bosom and so I really need to get something that's
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: a bit more forgiving for my shape. Now, yeah, but
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: there is a lack of Halloween stuff. Like I have
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: slowly been trying to like, you know, get a few
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: spooky things to decorate the house. Like I have this
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: whole concept that I want to do, like a witch's
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: corner with like potions and poisons and all that kind
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: of stuff. And then I have some of like the
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: whimsy goth stuff, right? And the reason I have like,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: my disco ghosty and things like that is because my
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: daughter is scared of the other things she doesn't like
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the spooky she doesn't like all the other stuff and
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: so I'm trying to gently ease her into Halloween but
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know I don't know what happened this year
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I mean I know that everything has happened this year
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: but like there's so much going on that it's affecting
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: like a lot of the Halloween stuff and there's just
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Christmassy things out already and fuck off fuck all the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: way off, get fucked, fuck all the way over there,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be dealing with that yet, okay,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Halloween shit shouldn't come out till November, I said it, right,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and I'm not dissing, like, the 24-7, you know, Christmas shops, like,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: they're cool, they can stay forever, found a really good
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: one in San Francisco, actually, and I got, like, little
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: gay Christmas decorations, Because when I travel, my mum and
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I have this thing. When we travel somewhere, we bring
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: each other back a Christmas decoration and something useful. But
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: now I travel so much, it's like I have to get...
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I have to be a bit more sensible. So the
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: last thing I brought her back, like sourdough recipe. The
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: yeast or whatever to start the sourdough. Whatever the thing was.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Some kind of sourdough ingredient. Because my mother likes food. Oh,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: also I got... Balsamic pearls for her one time, which
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: I need to try and get more of because they
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: were nice. But I know what you are thinking, everybody.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: You're thinking, Katie, please quit your jibble-jabble and fact me
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: and fact you I will. But first, we've got to
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: get our source on. Our sources are A Different Class
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: of Murder by Laura Thompson Lord Lookin' What Really Happened
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: by James Ruddock The Lookin' Mystery by Norman Lucas. Looking
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: for Lookin' by Roy Ransom and Robert Strange. There's also,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: I listened to a deep dive podcast on Lord Lookin',
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: done and done. And of course, I read so many
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: newspaper articles and yeah, Yes, tabloids as well. So it
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: was like The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail. Like,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: it was everywhere. It was everywhere. And also we have
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: our old friends, of course. Biography.com But, are you sitting comfortably?
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Good.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Then let's begin. I am going to start this tale
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: in the middle. Or, near the end, but before I do,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: a word of warning. History as a general rule tends
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: to be at least a little bit horrible. And this
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: case being no exception. I will be discussing, again, blanket warning.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: This is your trigger warning, content warning. I will be
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: discussing assault, gaslighting, gambling. and murder. And if that is
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: something you think that you might struggle with, I'd suggest
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: you stop off here and exit stage left and I
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: will see you next time. But yes, I am going
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: to start this story in the middle-ish. On Thursday the
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: 7th of November, 1974, a woman heads downstairs to a
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: basement kitchen in a Belgravia townhouse to make a cup
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: of tea. when an attacker leaps out and cracks her
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: skull with a lead pipe covered in surgical tape. In
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the darkness, he stuffs her body into a sack. When
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: he hears a voice call out, a voice he wasn't expecting,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the voice of the woman he had actually intended to
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: kill that night, that of his estranged wife, Lady Lucan.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: He had made a grave mistake, and one that would
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: lead to a manhunt that lasted 50 years, and lead
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: to a question left unanswered for even longer. What happened
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: to Lord Lucan? But to get there, we have to
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: start at the beginning. We have to slip into some context.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Richard John Bingham, known as John typically, was born on
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: the 18th of December 1934 in Marylebone in London, England,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: to George Charles Patrick Bingham, pat to his friends, the
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: 6th Earl of Loughin, and Caitlin Elizabeth Anne Dawson, Countess
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: of Loughin. So, Loughin, if you didn't know, as an
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Anglo-Irish peerage, and I'll say it, a weird one to
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: still hang on to after 1920, But the 6th Earl
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: was a soldier, a second lieutenant in the First World War,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: and he was a Labour politician, which was a bit
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: off for the time being and for where he was,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: because he's a member of the aristocracy, known as Lord
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Bingham or Pat, because he's just that kind of guy.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: John's mother, the Countess, suffered a blood clot in her
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: lung not long after his birth and had to be
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: cured for in a nursing home. So, for his formative years,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: John was largely cared for by the family nursery maid,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Lucy Sellers. Again, they're part of the aristocracy. Having, you know,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: your nannies. your nursery maid all that stuff raise your
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: kid not that surprising but this would be this would
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: be something that people like to bring up and talk
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: about how terrible his upbringing was and how his mother
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: could not care for him because she was, you know,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: trying not to die. And it's like, yeah, I mean,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: maybe the fear of your mother dying is, you know, traumatic,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: but also the being raised by the nanny part is very,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: very typical, very, very usual for the aristocracy. Now, John
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Bingham was the second of the children born to the couple.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: He had an older sister, Jane, Sarah, who was his
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: younger sister, and he had a younger brother, Hugh. John was, well,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: being the first born son, he was the heir. See,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the way promenadure works is, or, well, worked for literally
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: centuries was that a male heir would inherit the title
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: and the lands and the wealth attached to it with
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: allowances built in for the like of the dowager and such. Now,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I know this changed for children born after 2011 for
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: the line of succession within the British monarchy, but I'll
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: be honest with you, I am not too informed on
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: how this affects the rest of the aristocracy and the nobility. Anywho.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Johnny Boy here was due to inherit the earldom. And
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: at three years old, he was packed off to a
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: pre-preparatory school in Tite Street with his elder sister Jane.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Off to pre-prep because, again, very normal for the Toffs.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: But his childhood was about to become considerably less English.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: In 1939, Europe was hurtling towards the Second World War,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: and John and Jane were evacuated to Wales. So, kids
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: were shipped out of London, they had little tags, and
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: were evacuated and sent out to the countryside, which, if
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: you've ever read the story Goodnight Mr Tom, is the
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: core plot of the story, or it is the reason
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: that the wee fella is out with Mr Tom. So, sidebar, sidebar. Now, Goodnight, Mr. Tom,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: because I had read it as a child. Like, this
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: confused me for years because Mr. Tom, although grumpy, was
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: a very kind and considerate man. Like, if you've never
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: read the book, think of Carl from Up, right? So he's, like,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: grumpy and unpleasant and kind of rude and mean and
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: upset and, you know, dealing with his own grief that
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: he's never really got over. And then he slowly becomes
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: like this responsible man for this young boy and grows
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: to care for him. Now, I used to get this
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: mixed up with Uncle Tom because before I'd studied any
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: form of American history because I wasn't brought up in
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: a culture that understood this, I was like, why are
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: people being so weird and mean about Mr.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Tom?
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Like, wasn't he a good guy in the story? Like, yeah,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: I got those two conflated. fucking years and it was
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: only when I actually studied history that I went oh
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: oh I'm the one who's made the mistake here so
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: yeah yeah I was a bit embarrassed when I realized
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: that because I was like oh oh dear but back
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: to the Bingham's There was a worry that even Wales
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: wasn't safe enough for the kiddos and so in 1940
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: they were sent even further from the bombing, travelling with
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: their younger siblings Sally and Hugh to Toronto before eventually
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: settling in Mount Kisco, New York. And for the next
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: five years, the Lucan children lived with the American multi-millionaires
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Marsha Brady Tucker. And this was very different to what
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: they had been living because this was not exactly wartime austerity.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: John was sent to the Harvey School. He spent his
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: summers at camp up in the mountains and lived in
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: considerably more comfort than most British children experienced the war.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: The family wanted for, let's say, very little. They were
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: wined and dined and they lived with opulence, really, because
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Marshal Brady Tucker wasn't about to change the way she lived.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: When the children returned to Britain in February 1945, they
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: had a little bit of a culture shock. The children
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: went from American wealth and relative luxury back to wartime Britain, where...
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Rationing was still in force. Like, even, like... Yeah, it
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: was a few months before the war was ended, and
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: rationing was... Like, everybody had to deal with rationing, regardless
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: of whether you were at the top of society or
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: at the bottom. Their former home had been bombed, right?
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: But they did have a family house at 22 Eaton Square...
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: which had its windows blown out, so, you know, a
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff had gone down. See, even though there
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: was all this aristocratic ancestry, John Bingham's parents weren't exactly
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: interested in maintaining the traditional country house lifestyle. The sixth
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Earl and his wife were agnostics, and they were also.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: They're referred to as socialists quite a lot. I don't
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: agree that they were particularly socialists. I think they were
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: more left-wing than other members of the aristocracy, but I
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: don't think they fell into the socialist sort of area. Now, yeah,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: so they weren't religious. They didn't really do that stuff.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: And they were kind of austere, right? But the interesting
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: thing is, like, when your man John Bingham, when he
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: was a young fella and he was over in the States, like,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: being with Marsha Brady Tucker, there was so much, I'm
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: That American Christianity, which is very, I'm going to say intense,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: for a lot of people. Coming back to like a
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Church of England where everyone's like, oh, let's just mumble
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: a few words together in a very breezy building. And yep, yep,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: we don't need any statues of Mary here. You know
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: what I mean? So the contradiction was... Interesting. So you
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: have this aristocratic family with centuries of inherited privilege living
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: through post-war Britain with socialist principles and considerably less money
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: than the people who would look after their children in America. Now,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: when John gets back from the States, like, he starts
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: having nightmares. He's, I don't know, Now that he doesn't
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: have a golden goose, he just seems to be struggling. Like,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: he actually gets taken to a psychotherapist because he's having nightmares. Now,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: he'd come from this, like, very, again, wealthy, very Christian,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: very opulent sort of being raised this way for so
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: many years. For five years, almost. And then... he's back
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: in Blighty. And next thing you know, he's, you know,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: back in the sort of agnostic family. And as an adult,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: he remained agnostic. But when he had kids, he did
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: send them to Sunday school. He's like, oh, no, you
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: need to, like, you have to do the thing you're
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: supposed to do. Like, I don't know. I just think
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: it's funny that he just, like, looks at his own
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: childhood and is like, yeah, maybe the church can handle this.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: He's just off to Sunday school with you kiddos. By
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: the time he was a teenager, like he was tall
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: for his age and actually a little bit shy, and
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: he didn't quite fit in with the boys at Eton,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: you know, partially because his parents were the odd ducks
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: in the aristocracy, with them being a little bit lefty.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: But he does get in with the crowd because at
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Eton College, which is where all the posh boys go
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: to school, John Bingham developed a habit that would eventually
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: become one of the defining features of his adult life. Gambling. Now, academically,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: things were less impressive, and his mother later described his
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: school record as far from creditable, which is a very
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: hoity-toity way for saying, we paid for eating and this
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: is what we ended up with. Cool. But John's skills
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: were not so academic and they were more in the
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: gambling side of things. So he supplemented his pocket money
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: by working as a bookie, right? Putting his earnings into
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: a secret bank account and would also slip out of
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: school to go to the races. Which... You can get
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: kicked out of Eton for gambling. Like, it's actually against
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the rules. But he manages to do this and things
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: go well for him. Now, other Eton boys are preparing
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: for lives of, like, public service and lucky here because
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: that's the nickname they give him. He was already running
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: an illicit little gambling operation and sneaking off to the races. Now,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: He did become captain of Rose House before leaving Eton
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: in 1953 to undertake national service. He was commissioned as
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: a second lieutenant in his father's regiment, the Coldstream Guards,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: and spent much of his service stationed in Crefield, West Germany. Oh, um, naturally,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: he also played poker. Because apparently military service wasn't exciting enough.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: After leaving the army one whole year later, he is
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: really good at sticking into things, isn't he? Yeah, absolutely. After, again,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: one whole year in the army, Lucky joins the London
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Merchant Bank, William Brandt's Sons and Co. Right, this is
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: like the wheels are greased. This is somebody got him
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: a gig, effectively. And he's got a good salary. Like,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: he's got a... He just needs to show up, do
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: the basics, and... Yeah, that will be him. He doesn't
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: really need to do much. He needs to do the
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: least amount possible. He needs to show up. He has to,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: you know, stamp some papers and just go about his day. But, eh,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: things are not going well. So, he... is doing some
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: gambling on the side.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: So, okay.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: By 1960, he had met Stephen Raphael, who was this
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: wealthy stockbroker and a very good backgammon player. The two
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: become buds and they spend their time doing exactly what
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: you might expect two very rich young men with questionable
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: attitudes towards risk to do. holiday in the Bahamas, water skiing,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: playing golf and gambling. And Lucky becomes a regular at
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: John Aspinall's Claremont Gaming Club in Berkeley Square, one of
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: London's most fashionable gambling establishments. And he was very good.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Lucky had a talent for games requiring skill, including backgammon
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: and bridge. Unfortunately, being good at gambling, is not the
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: same as being sensible at gambling. He could win marvellously,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: he could also lose marvellously. On one occasion, he lost £ 8, 000,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: which is roughly two-thirds of his annual income from various
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: family trusts. And on another, he lost £ 10, 000 in a
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: single night at a casino. Now, his uncle by marriage,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: stockbroker John Bevan, stepped in and paid the debt because...
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and Lucky did eventually repay him back two years later.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Then comes the moment that tells you almost everything you
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: need to know about Lucky's attitude towards his employment. Around
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: about 1960, he won £ 26, 000 playing Chemin de Fer and
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: a colleague at the bank was promoted ahead of him.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: And so, looking, lucky looking, decided to quit because he
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: decided why keep working in a bank when he could
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: make all of his yearly income in one night at
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: a gambling table. And, jeez, if there has not been
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: a more concise summary of a man about to make
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: some really poor financial decisions, I have not heard it.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: He leaves banking and heads for the Americas, where he
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: played golf, raced powerboats and drove his Aston Martin around
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: the West Coast. Now, he did visit his older sister
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Jane and Marsha, Brady Tucker, who had cared for him
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: during the war. He gets about, he gets about. And
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: then he returns to England and up until this point
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: was living in his parents' house, but he did move out.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: and moved into a flat in Park Crescent. He was wealthy, aristocratic,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: socially connected, and increasingly devoted to gambling. The problem was
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: that Lucan was beginning to confuse being able to afford
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the lifestyle with being able to sustain the lifestyle, and
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: those are very different things. Lucky would gamble at the Claremont,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the gambling establishment set up by John Aspinall, who is
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: such a horrible, vile shithead. He has a gambling den
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: for toffs before it's legal to have one, but I digress.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: And the Claremont sect are this big, bougie group with
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: more money than sense a lot of the time and
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: an ancestry that goes back for centuries. Gambling is upstairs
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: and there's a club downstairs but they are two separate
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: entities because Aspinall doesn't like women being in the Claremont
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: because they distract men from gambling and he wants the money.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Partially because he likes making money and partially because he's
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: really into animal conservation. Like he's one of those people
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: that has like gorillas and tigers and all this stuff.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: It's He has a whole thing, which is like the
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: one I'm going to say kind of good thing about him,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: but he is actually an absolute bastard. So, Lucky, as
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: he's known to his friends, is attending a golfing event
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: in 1963 when his buddy, the jockey, Bill or William,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Shand Kid introduces him to his sister-in-law, Veronica Mary Duncan.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Veronica was born in 1937 to Major Charles Morehouse Duncan
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: and his wife Thelma. Her childhood was disrupted when her
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: father died in a car accident when she was two.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: After his death, the family moved to South Africa before
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Veronica's mother remarried and brought the family back to England.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Growing up in a very different set of circumstances to Lucky...
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Her stepfather became the manager of a hotel in Guildford
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: and Veronica and her sister Christina were sent to St
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Swithin's School in Winchester. Veronica had this early talent for
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: art and she went on to study at Art College
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: in Bournemouth and later she and her sister Christina shared
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: a flat in London where Veronica got work as a
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: model and then as a secretary. But the social trajectory
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: is about to change. Christina marries William Shandkid, a very
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: popular and wealthy figure in London society and half-brother of
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Peter Shandkid, who would later become the stepfather of Diana Spencer. Yes,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Lady Di, the future Princess of Wales. So, through Christina,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Veronica was introduced to the Claremont set and, of course,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: London High Society. And this is important, because Veronica Duncan
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: was about to meet a man who was very much
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: of that world. John Bingham, the future seventh Earl of Lucan.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: She was going to marry into an aristocratic family with
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: centuries of history behind. a title, money, and enough accumulated
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: dysfunction to keep several historians employed. Yeah, and that's even
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: before anyone disappears. But I am getting ahead of myself. See,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: these two are chatting at the golf club, and she's, right, okay,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: so she's there, and she is dreadfully bored by the
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: whole affair. But her sister wants her there. Maybe to
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: rub her face in it to show how well she's
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: doing maybe to give her sister a help up whom's
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: to say but they're introduced and they start chatting and
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: right she does the thing that one does not do
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: at one of these functions She's honest, right? She's honest
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: about her childhood. And this is something he's not used
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: to and is taken in by it. She's very real
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: compared to the facade that he's used to. And so
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: they talk about it and say how they really shouldn't
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: have to live up to what everyone expects them to be.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: And he asks her out on a date and then
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: goes on his merry way. Veronica is... Right, she's buzzing
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: at this. And she excitedly regales this to her sister
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: with the news of this handsome man asking her out.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: He's dashing. He's over six foot. He has a glorious moustache. Ah,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: but Christina has some reservations. Firstly, because he's a professional gambler. Like,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: she's aghast that he does that for a living instead
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: of just as a hobby. Like, he doesn't have a
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: real job. He's just gambling. Like, professionally. And secondly, there
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: is a rumour going around that he's not into women. Right?
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: He's not really seen with them that much and assumptions
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: are made. But Veronica's, like, not listening to that. She's excited.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: They start dating. They're having a great time. It's a
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: whirlwind romance and there are fireworks. Like, they are boinking
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: like there's no tomorrow. Right? He even takes her to
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: the Claremont Club and she watches him gamble. Rich is.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: God, some men are like that. They're like, come and
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: watch me fish. Come and watch me bowl. Come and
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: watch me gamble. But you don't get involved in this,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: but watch me do the thing. And it's like, cool.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: That's fun. That's why we invented games on our phones. No, um, Like, yeah,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: support someone when they're doing a thing, obviously, but, like,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: it's just a weird thing. Come and watch me gamble
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: away money.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Like, okay, buddy.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: But he takes her and, like, he ends up winning
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: a bunch when she's there and he tells her that, like,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: she's his lucky charm. Eventually, he decides it's time for
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: her to meet the parents and he brings her round
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: to dinner. Now, he's embarrassed to bring her around because
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: the house is old, its wallpaper is peeling, and his
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: parents aren't really doing the upkeep. Now, they don't really
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: see the point of investing in the ancestral home, like
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: they're not really into it, but they have dinner anyway,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: and the parents start bashing him, right? One thing leads
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: to another, and Veronica basically says to them that they
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: can't really be so progressive because they still have their
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: titles and the big house and the land and everything
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: that goes with it so it's like having their cake
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: and eating it too now this obviously leads to some
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: awkward moments at the dinner table and she thinks she's
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: buggered it up really put her foot in it and
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: excuses herself and his parents are just like Jesus Christ
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: son what are you doing they're like you really stop like,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: pussyfooting around, you need to settle down. And he's like, yeah, yeah,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: maybe I do need to settle down. And it's at
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: this moment he goes, fuck this, we're a game of soldiers,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: I'll marry Veronica. Like, they very much expected him to marry, like,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: someone of the same social class, like, another member of
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: the aristocracy. And I think the fact that he was,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: you know, He's like, I like her. I'll marry her.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Why not? Because, of course, he didn't take that long
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: to consider this decision. Because why would he?
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Anywho, he was never one to follow the rules, per se.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: And so, instead of marrying another one of the Toffs,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: he marries Veronica instead. They get married on the 20th
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: of November at Holy Trinity Church in Brompton. And a
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: royal is at their wedding. This shows you just how, like,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: posh he is. Princess Alice, the Countess of Athlone, also,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: just saying, no need for an Irish, uh, an Irish Countess.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: I'm just, there's no reason for it to be there
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: in the peerage. I'm just, anyway. But yeah, Princess Alice,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: who was, I think, the last surviving granddaughter of Queen Victoria,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken. So, she is the Last one. Now,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: she's there, which just shows you, like, who else is
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: at this wedding, along with all the upper echelons of
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: British society. And, yeah, it's a fancy affair. Now, the
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: newlyweds honeymooned in Europe, travelling first class aboard the Orient
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Express because apparently ordinary rail travel was not sufficiently aristocratic. Now,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: behind the glamour, Lucky here had a fairly immediate financial
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: problem because he was in debt. Fortunately, marrying Veronica came
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: with something of a financial reset. His dad provided him
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: with a marriage settlement intended to fund a larger family
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: home and accommodate the children the couple were expected to have.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Lucky used some of that money to repay creditors and
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: he used... more of the money, to purchase 46 Lower
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Belgrave Street in Belgravia, one of London's... It's a spot
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: where you'd be paying a good chunk on a Monopoly board,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: shall we say. So on paper, things were falling neatly
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: into place. You have an aristocratic husband, a fashionable wife,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: a prestigious wedding, a first-class honeymoon and a substantial London townhouse.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: The reality, however, was that Lucky's relationship with money was
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: more complicated than the lifestyle suggested. He also had a
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: fairly strong gambling addiction. Okay, so they're on their honeymoon, right,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: and she wakes up in the middle of the night, right?
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: They're They're in Europe, they're supposed to be doing all
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: this stuff and she wakes up, right? Her husband is
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: not beside her. She gets up and she sees him, like,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: practising at the table. Like he's playing with cards. And
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: he says he has to keep himself sharp, right? They're
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: on their honeymoon. And because of that, like, she's trying
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: to get her new hobby to come back to bed.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: And he just turns, right? He snaps at her. And
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: she's never seen the side of him before. And so, like,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: this is, like, she recoils. Like, it's not, it's not great, right? Now, after, like,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: a moment, He softens up and confides that he just
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: misses the Claremont and his routine and all of this, which,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: by the way, is a red fucking flag. He's on
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: his honeymoon and he's practising cards because he misses gambling.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: But anyway, Veronica being Veronica is just like, fuck it, yeah,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: let's go home. Cut the honeymoon short and can we
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: fly back? Because she doesn't want to have to waste
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: time in the ghastly train. ghastly train it's the orient
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: express it's the most luxurious train ever like now i
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: want to go on the orient express sometime it's like
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: one of my life goals is to travel on the
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: orient express because oh because listen i'm an agatha christie
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: girley you know that about me and i love old
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: things and i love it so much and sidebar i
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: really want to go and that's something i want to
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: do but anywho i digress veronica's like i can go
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: back and start decorating the house You can go back
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: to your routine. Like, we don't need to have a
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: full honeymoon because we're us. We can just live the
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: life we want to have. We don't have to live
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: by anyone else's rules. Because, like, yeah. And he's so
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: excited and so relieved. And so they go back to
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: bed and the honeymoon proceeds before being cut off short
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: and they fly back home. Now, unfortunately for Lucky, When
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: he's back, right, when he's back in London and he's
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: going through his routine, he hits a losing streak. One
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: that is so bad that his old buddy Aspinall offers
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: him a gig dealing at the tables. He has spent
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: two months struggling. He's in a slump and he is
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: ready to give it all up Like, he doesn't want
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: to deal at the tables. He wants to play at
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the tables. And he's thinking now he can't sustain this.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: He can't continue. He can't do this anymore. He has
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: a wife at home waiting for him. He's going to
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: have to get, you know, a real job. He's going
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: to have to go home. He's going to have to
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: give up gambling. He's going to have to give up
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: one love for another, right? He realises this is the end.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: He knocks back a drink and heads home. When he
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: steps to the front door, he's greeted by Veronica, who
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: is decidedly more sombre than he's ever seen her. She
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: brings him food to the living room, where his mother
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: was sitting. Pat's dead, she utters. And this, as changes everything,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: On the 21st of January 1964, Lucky's father died of
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: a stroke. And suddenly John Bingham wasn't just an aristocrat
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: with a gambling habit and an expensive lifestyle. He was
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: now the 7th Earl of Lichen. And along with the
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: title came an inheritance of about £ 250, 000 as well as
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: a collection of Aristocratic titles that sound like someone actually
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: read around the entire Honours Lust. Errol of Loughin. Baron Loughin. Sorry.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, it's Baron Loughin of Castle Bar. Baron
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Bingham of Milcombe. Baronette Bingham of Castle Bar. Look, there's
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: just all of these, right? He's got all of these,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: one after the other, after the other. And Veronica, meanwhile,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: became Countess of Loughin. So Lucky Lookin' now had the title,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: the inherited wealth, the Belgravia townhouse and access to the
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: social world which nobody was going to be asking too
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: many awkward questions about how much money he was actually spending.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: He had everything an ambitious aristocrat could possibly want. But
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: gambling debts have never been particularly impressed by hereditary titles.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: But now, He didn't have to give up his gambling habit. Lucky?
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: Look him. John and Veronica would go on to have
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: three children. Francis, born in October 1964, George, born in
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: September 1967, and Camilla, born in June 1970. After Francis
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: was born, the couple employed a nanny, Lillian Jenkins, to
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: help care for her. Lucky looking, meanwhile, attempted to introduce
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Veronica to the full aristocratic lifestyle. Gambling, hunting, shooting, fishing,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: and he even bought her golf lessons, but it wasn't
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: for her. Right? And his daily routine was more committed
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: to his preferred pursuits. And he had a very strict
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: routine for someone who was so.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: I'm.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Not going to say whatever the opposite of strict is.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Breakfast at nine, he had coffee, he had letters, newspapers,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: for her to jog in the park with the Doberman.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Then he lunched at the Claremont Club, followed by afternoon backgammon.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: He'd go home, change into black tie and head straight
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: back to the Claremont where he could continue gambling into
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: the early hours and Veronica would sometimes watch him play. Now,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: for other people, this was a jaunty hobby, but for
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: a look at him, This was, well, to him, gambling
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: was a potential career. Now, he wrote about wanting two
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: million in the bank, believing that, you know, kids gambling
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: would provide cars, yachts, holidays and financial security. Now, he
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: was good at gambling. He was also bad at stopping gambling.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: He became skilled enough at backgammon to be ranked among
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: the world's top 10 players. He won at the St.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: James Club tournament and became a champion on the West Coast, right?
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: The thing is, like, his losses routinely outweighed his winnings,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: which is like, the house always wins. The house always wins.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: And his spending was extravagant. He had private planes, take
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: friends to races, he raced powerboats, he drank very expensive
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Russian vodka, and pursued very elaborate hobbies.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: You know, that... that.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: you know, sometimes included fast cars, sometimes thoroughbred horses. Right?
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: In 1968 alone, he paid more in race entry fees
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: than he received in winnings. But from the outside... It
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: all seemed rather glamorous. The tall, mustachioed, and apparently very
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: much the image of a mid-century aristocratic man about town.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Man's man. Not quite a lady's man, but man about town.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: His friends described him as shy, but the fact that
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: he was extravagant, you know, he was socially popular because
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: he was sporty and he did this and Like, at
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: one point, there was this flirtation with acting. Okay, so
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: back in 1966, right? Lucky Lucan screen-tested for the film
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Women Times Seven, right? Which was... It was a failure.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: He was very stiff on screen. And Broccoli offered him
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to screen-test for James Bond and Lucky declined
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: because apparently... he was not interested in pretending to be
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: a wealthy, impeccably dressed man living a life of danger.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: So if he wasn't doing that in real life, like,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: but behind the glamour of all this, right, the marriage
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: was becoming increasingly strained. Veronica continued to have access to
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: accounts at Savile Row, right, so Savile Row was where
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: the fancy tailors are, like, there were shops in Knightsbridge
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: and Despite arguments about money, she was, for the most part,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: unaware of the actual scale of Lucky's gambling losses. And also,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: let's talk about this for a second. After the births
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: of both George and Camilla, Veronica experienced post-natal depression, or
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: postpartum for some of you. And this is where the
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: treatment of Veronica becomes particularly disturbing. Lucan systematically undermined her
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: credibility by portraying her as unstable, while simultaneously positioning himself
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: as the reasonable husband trying to manage her supposed illness.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: When Veronica struggled with depression, Lucky became heavily involved in
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: her psychiatric treatment. She was prescribed a succession of drugs
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: rather than receiving the kind of sustained support she believed
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: she actually needed. He had... Doctors on call. He had
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: all of these doctors reporting back to him because it's
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: the 1960s. They're reporting back to him about all this
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: stuff and she's on this conveyor belt of pills and
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: drugs and... Like, later on, Veronica would confide in one
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: of the nannies about how Lucky would punish her and
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: how he would beat her with a cane wrapped in
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: surgical tape. Now this is something to remember. One day
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: at the races, they left the kids with one of
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: the nannies, and she ends up going down to the
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: club with him, much to his chagrin. So she wanted
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: to be there, she was, you know, she's struggling with postpartum,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: she's desperate for some attention from her husband, something considerate.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: And as he's playing, he... hears her voice raise. She's
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: shouting at another woman at the Claremont for making eyes
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: at her husband. And the postpartum lady looking is relegated
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: to the widow's bench. So it's like sort of down
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: the stairs a little bit, but it's not like fully
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: down the stairs. So that's where all the wives are
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: sent so they don't disturb the gambling. So she's sent
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: down here and she bursts into tears, which Aspinall fucking hated.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: And he did not mince his words. He wanted him
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: to divorce her. And the snivelling, lonely woman was bundled
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: out in a taxi home. Now, the Claremont set, they
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: would describe Veronica as, like, cold and she would say, like,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: weird things. And I'm not surprised if she's doped up
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: to the fucking eyeballs. But she was always kind of
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: reserved anyway. Like, she was never a very... outgoing person,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: but neither was fucking lucky. He just spent a lot
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: of money and did a bunch of sporty things. but
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: she was not part of the set and she was
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: never gonna fit in but their marriage was under enormous
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: strain now a lot of people didn't get on with
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: her but she was she was friendly Now, we don't
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: know the nature of their relationship. She was friendly with Goldsmith. Now,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: her and Goldsmith. Goldsmith, who bankrolled quite a lot of Aspinall's,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: you know, club. Goldsmith and her, they had this like
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: friendship or maybe more.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: But they were spending time together. And basically, Lucky threatens
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: him and demands that he stays away from her. And
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: he does. And so the last person that she has
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: on her side in this society is just not there anymore.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: And this, it just isolated her even more. After a
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: difficult Christmas in 1972, like this is years, years of this,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Lucky moved out of the family home and into a
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: small property on Eaton Row. And it was in January
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: 1973 that Veronica basically says at the beginning of their
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: formal separation like this is where the story stops being
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: like a dodgy aristocratic marriage that goes badly and this
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: is where it turns so fucking dark. Because not only
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: was this marriage about to turn into a bitter custody
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: battle within a year it would lead to one of
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: the most notorious unsolved disappearances in British criminal history. After
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: their separation, the situation would become even more sinister. Lucky
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: was trying to have Veronica declared mentally unfit while seeking
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: custody of the children. Like, It was this vicious circular
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: argument the more distressed Veronica became under the pressure of
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: the marriage, the separation and the custody battle, the easier
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: it was to present that distress as proof that she
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: was unstable. Basically, the woman was struggling. Her husband was
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: telling people she was mentally ill and the fact that
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: she was struggling was then used as evidence that he
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: was right. He gaslights her, right? There's this whole whisper
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: campaign of mad lady looking, right? And she basically is
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: subject to yet another misogynistic version of the classic mad
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: woman treatment, right? At one point, he tries to get
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: the doctor to.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: Actually, he does this on a couple of occasions. He'll
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: try and call the doctors to come and deal with that.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: And instead of his private doctor, another one comes over
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: from the same practice and is like, yeah, I need
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: to examine her before I can do or say anything.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: It still leads to her being on more pills, but
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: she doesn't get locked away like he wants her to.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: But yeah, he would fuck her up, right? He would
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: phone her up and rile her up and record the
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: call to show just how mad she was. Now, He
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: would do all this shit. Now, he moves out and
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: then he moves into this like bigger flat, this apartment
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: on Elizabeth Street. And like initially, Veronica tries to reconcile.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: She's like, maybe we need to be together. Maybe this
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: is it. But Lucky's focus had moved and he just
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: wanted custody of the children. And he was all about
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: craving that Veronica was unfit to have them. He begins
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: watching the family home. Like his car is seen outside
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: the house, like outside, like regularly. And he employed private
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: detectives to monitor Veronica and the children. He even paid
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: the nannies to spy, right? See, this is where things
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: get more messed up because he's doing all of this
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: and he's messing with her and he's screwing her around
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: and he's trying to get the doctors to lock her up.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: But the problem is with the narrative he's constructing, the
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: doctors he consulted did not tell him that Veronica was mad, right?
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: They told him she was suffering from depression and anxiety.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: And also, we didn't really have as much knowledge about
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: like postpartum and postnatal depression back then, we still don't
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: talk about it properly. It fucks you up, okay? There's
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: all this stuff that happens and we're not caring for
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: postpartum people anymore. Like, we're not giving them the right
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: care they need if they ever got it in the
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: first place. A lot of this has to do with
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: the village no longer existing, but that is another story
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: for another day. But... Lucky decided to try... something else
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: he basically uses all of his power to petition the
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: courts to get custody of the children right and he
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: basically just shows up and takes them he just just
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: go grabs them he takes them from the nanny and
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: then he ends up taking like Francis from school like
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: he just he's got a court order and then she
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: ends up like taking him to court for the custody
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: like In this custody battle, it is, everyone's fucking dirty.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: It's like such a thing. And she goes to court
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: to get her kids back. And to defend herself against
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: Lucky's claims about her mental health, she voluntarily admits herself
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: into the Priory. So she gets into the Priory Clinic
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: in Roehampton for four days. Now, doctors acknowledge that she
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: still needed some psychiatric support, but they found no indication
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: that she was mentally ill, which undermined Lucky's case. The
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: custody hearing dragged on for weeks. Like, and... Lucky ultimately
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: concedes on the advice of his lawyers. So, like, Mr
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: Justice Rees awards custody to Veronica, allowing Lucky access to
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: the children every other weekend. Right? And he did not
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: respond by accepting the judgement and moving on. He continued
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: monitoring Veronica, recorded some of her telephone calls on a
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: tape recorder and played extracts to friends. He complained that
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: she was spending money like water, even telling her bank manager. And, meanwhile,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: he was restricting the money available to her. Her food
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: deliveries were being cancelled, payments to the milkman and the
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: childcare agency were delayed. And because the court required Veronica
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: to employ a live-in nanny, the financial pressure was damaging.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: With no independent income, Veronica actually gets a part-time job
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: at a local hospital. Now, he had detectives, like, he
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: continues to have detectives investigating not only Veronica, but the
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: nannies that she had. That being said, that being said, right,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: the detective agency is costing money, money that Lucky doesn't have,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: so he has to stop using them. Now, one of
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: the nannies, Christabel Martin, has to report these strange phone
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: calls to the house, including calls that have heavy breathing
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: and a man asking for people who did not exist. So,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: all this weird shit's happening. Then, in late 1974, Sandra
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Rivett becomes working as the family's nanny. And at this point,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: Lucan's life was coming apart financially as well as domestically.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: The custody battle had cost him around £ 20, 000, his gambling
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: remained completely out of control, even though he was now
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: playing for lower stakes. And between September and October 1974,
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: he had garnered about... £ 50, 000 in debt. All four of
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: his bank accounts were overdrawn. He borrowed £ 4, 000 from his mother.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: He asked Marsha Brady Tucker for £ 100, 000 and.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: He goes to Tucker's son and he basically tries to
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: talk about buying his children back from Veronica and Like,
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: he goes to his friends for loans and he gets, like,
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: a five grand overdraft from James Goldsmith.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: He borrows, like, another 3k from Taki Theodoropoulos. And that's just, like,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: three nights before the murder. So, his finances are collapsing
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: and he is drinking more and chain smoking. Most disturbingly,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: several people later told police that Lucky had spoken about
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: killing Veronica. Greville Howard reported that Lucky had discussed how
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: murdering his wife might save him from bankruptcy and how
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: her body could be disposed of in the Solent and
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: how he would never get caught. This isn't a vague
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: complaint about an unpleasant divorce. This is discussing murder. Then
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: in early November 1974, something changed. Lucky was suddenly more relaxed.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: He was calmer and he seemed less obsessed about getting
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: the children. At the time, nobody thought anything much of it,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: but in hindsight... This was yet another, glaringly, giant, billowing
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: in the wind, red flag. Lucky was back to being
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: his usual charming self. He chatted about politics over dinner
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: with his mother. He met with friends, he went to
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: the Claremont Club and appeared to those around him to
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: be back to normal. And on the 6th of November,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: 21-year-old Charlotte Colquhoun saw him and later said there was
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: nothing to suggest he was... different. Didn't seem worried or depressed.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: And the following morning, Lucky broke his normal routine. Instead
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: of sleeping until lunchtime after another night of gambling, he
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: called his solicitor.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: Early.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: Like, very early for him. He arranged to meet Charlotte
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: for lunch, but he never appeared. He was also supposed
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: to go to lunch at the Claremont, but he didn't
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: go there either. By 4pm, he was in Chemist's on
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: Lower Belgrave Street, which is like the same street that
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: Veronica lives on. So he's at this chemist, and he
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: hands the pharmacist this little capsule and asks him what
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: it is. And the chemist tells him it's Limbitrol, which
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: is a medication used to treat anxiety and depression. Now,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: Lucky had made a few of these visits to the
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: chemist since separating from his wife, but never explained where
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: he got the tablets from. Later that evening, Lucky met
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: literary agent Michael Hicks Beach. And they discussed an article
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: about gambling that he had been asked to write for
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: the Oxford University magazine. Because this is the thing. This group,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: they close ranks. And they help their own. Around 8pm,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Hicks Beach was driven home. But... Lucky here wasn't driving
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: his Mercedes. He was behind the wheel of an old,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: dark Ford. It was blue. A Ford Corsair, right? Which was, like,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: such a common car and he'd borrowed it because he
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: needed something inconspicuous, right? Also, like, he was so down
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: on his luck for money, I forgot to mention this,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: he actually sells the family silver, like, and it would
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: sell after, but he put it up and Christie's puts
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: it up for auction. Anyway. He's driving this Ford Corsair
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: through London. Meanwhile, Veronica and her children were at home. See,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: it's Thursday night. And Thursday night, typically, for Sandra, was
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: her night out. Right, her night off. She had a boyfriend.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: He was an Australian barman. And they were supposed to
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: spend that day together.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: But....
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: She had changed her plans. She had requested a different
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: night and Veronica had agreed. Now, this was information that
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: himself was not privy to. Just before bed, sometime between
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: eight and nine, Veronica would have a cup of tea.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: It was very much just set in her routine. It
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: was something she did. She'd done it for years. And yeah,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: she was supposed to. go downstairs and make her a
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: cup of tea like she always did. However, it wasn't
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: Veronica who entered the kitchen that night. It was Sandra.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: Sandra and Veronica had a similar height and build. And
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: in the darkness of the basement kitchen, it would be
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: very easy to mix the two up. See, Sandra steps
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: down the stairs and she flicks the light or she
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: tries to flick the light in the kitchen but it
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: doesn't go on. She's carrying the tea tray but she's like,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: you know, sometimes the light goes out, it's fine. But
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: as she steps into the kitchen, a man who had
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: been waiting there bludgeons her with a lead pipe covered
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: in surgical tape. The tea tray crashes to the floor
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: and he stuffs her body inside a sack that he
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: brought with him. The kitchen was dark because the light
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: bulb had been removed and it was found sitting on
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: a chair. As he's stuffing her body into this mail sack,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: this American... He hears the voice. The voice he isn't
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: expecting to hear. The voice of his estranged wife, Veronica.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: He runs upstairs and starts choking her. He's hitting her
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: and choking her and shoves his hands down her throat.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: Fighting for her life, she grabs him by the testicles. Right,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: just gets a good grip. He shouts at her and
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: she realises that she knows that voice, that is the
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: voice of her husband. He's in a mask, by the way.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: He's in a mask. So, like, this has come apart.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: She's grabbed him in the nuts. They are tussling and
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: she's like, you know, what about Nanny? What's happening to Nanny?
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: He's like, she's dead. And she goes, Like, very much
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: in the moment goes, well, we're going to have to
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: get rid of her. We're going to have to, like,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: you're going to have to hide out here for a
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: couple of days while I heal because there is blood
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: dripping down her face at this point. And he's like, yes, okay.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: And he's like, do you have any, like, pills? And
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: she's like, yeah, yeah, I've got some in the bathroom. So,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: according to, depending on how it's told, he goes upstairs
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: and checks to make sure the children are upstairs watching
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: television no he then goes into the toilet so he's
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: in the bathroom and he's looking for like the medicine
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: cabinet effectively and this is her chance right he she
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: she legs it she runs downstairs out the door and
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: runs down the street. She is one foot after the other.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: She runs down Liverpool Grave Street and into the plumber's arms.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: She just throws the doors open and everyone stops because
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: there is a woman. She's bleeding. And everyone knows her. Like,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: they know her. They're on her street. These are people
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: from her area. This isn't a regular pub. This is
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: the rich people's pub. And they know her. And she collapses.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: When she comes to, she's, you know, talking about how, like,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: her nanny's been killed and it's her husband and, you know,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: the children are still in the house. And, like, they're
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: calling an ambulance for her. And when the ambulance is coming, they're, like,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: fearing for the children. Like, the police come and they
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: break into the house. They get in there. And the
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: children are safely in bed. They're fine. Sandra Rivett was not.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: Her body was found stuffed into a canvas sack in
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: the basement, alongside a length of lead pipe wrapped in
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: surgical tape. And Lord Lucan was nowhere to be found.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: But his disappearance wasn't quite as mysterious as it first seemed.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: Lucky had tried, unsuccessfully, to contact a nearby friend, Madeline Floorman. Like,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: he had knocked on her door, but it's late at night. It's, like,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: after nine. And she's just like, I'm not answering the
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: door after nine. No. So, after that... he phones his mother.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: He tells her that Veronica had been injured and that
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: she had to come and collect the children. By the
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: time she arrived, the police were already there. Lucky, meanwhile,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: had bought a friend's car and had driven to the
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: Surrey home of Susan Maxwell Scott. who was a friend.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: He tells her that he just so happened to be
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: passing the house when he looked inside and saw Veronica
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: struggling with an unknown man. He said he went in
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: to help, entered the house and slipped in a pool
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: of blood in the basement and the attacker then fled.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: According to Lucky, Veronica became hysterical and accused him of
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: hiring the man to murder her. When she ran away,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: he decided it was best for him to leave. The man.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: Let's just take a second, shall we?
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: Right. This man.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: He repeats the same story in a letter to his brother-in-law,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: you know, William Shand kid. Once again, emphasising Veronica's supposed
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: mental instability and suggesting she was suffering from paranoid delusions. So, yeah,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: he tells the story. Now, let's just consider this for
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: a second. You have entered a house, right? Your ex-wife
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: is being attacked by a strange man. You've slept on
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: blood in the house, right? You've slept on someone's blood
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: in the house. You don't know whose blood that is,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: but there's a lot of blood in the house. Your
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: ex-wife is being attacked by a random man and it
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: did not occur to you to check on the children.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: It did not occur to you to stay and protect
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: the children What if there was another man in the house? Like,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: you're trying to tell me that you legged it? Fuck
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: right off. Anyway, sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. So,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: he speaks to his mother again when he's at, you know,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: his friend's house.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: His mum calls. And the police were at her house
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: and they wanted to speak to him and he said
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: he would contact them the following day. He promised that
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: he would contact them the following day, but.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: He did not. And quarter past one in the morning,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: he left Maxwell Scott's house. And he was never seen again.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: The blue Ford Corsair was finally found abandoned in New Haven.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: With the pipe inside. Well, that pipe. Another length of
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: pipe inside. It's not looking good. You're just... This is
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: not exactly the most difficult game of Cluedo. Lord Luckin...
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: in the kitchen, with a lead pipe. So, the owner
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: of the car also got a letter, like, from Lucky,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: protesting his innocence, describing what happened as a series of
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: unfortunate coincidences. Right? And his priority was protecting his children,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: the ones that he left, in the house, with no
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: adult supervision, after... You know, lots of blood in the
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: basement and his wife was being attacked. No, no, no. Anyhow.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: Investigators searched the house. On the bed, a suit and
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: shirt lay alongside a book on Greek shipping millionaires. Lucky's wallet,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: his car keys, his money, his driving licence, handkerchief and
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: spectacles were on a bedside table. His passport was in
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: a drawer and his blue Mercedes Benz was parked outside.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: Its engine cold and its battery flat. Veronica was taken
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: to hospital. When she woke up, this is the thing.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: So she gives a statement and she is like on
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of meds. She's doped up to the eyeball.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: I don't think she could have lied when she was
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: that heavily medicated. I don't think she would have had
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: it in her. And she talks about how he had
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: attacked her, not having a hitman attack her. Which, if
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: he had hired a hitman to attack her, I feel
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: like that's the thing she would have said. Because even
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: if he had hired a hitman to attack her, that's
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: pretty damning against him, right? But she says, while still,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: you know, just buzzing, that it was all him. Now,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: it also doesn't help that this was the nanny's typical
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: night off. And that the person who should have been
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: in the kitchen that evening was his estranged wife. So
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: he disappears. After he drives away, he's never seen again.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: He just vanishes. Now, it was a stormy night. He
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: could not have gotten his powerboat out. He would not
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: have made it. He definitely wasn't on any of the ferries.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: Most of them were cancelled. And somebody would have recognised
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: the drunk aristocrat on the boat. Now, he could have flown,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: I know you're thinking, without a passport. Well, if one
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: of his friends got him onto a private plane, or
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: they took one of their private boats, you know, especially
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: a bigger one, the private plane is something that could
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: very well be part of the option. Plus, I mean,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: if he shaved his moustache, would you really recognise him?
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: That's just another part of it. But he could have
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: taken a private plane. But the Claremont crew, right, the
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: Claremont set, they close ranks. And they just start fucking
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: with the police, right? You know, they search Aspinall's country home,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: which is not that far from New Haven. And it's
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: got these intricate basements and Aspinall's like, I guess coppers
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: come and search. And so they refuse to say anything.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: They just talk about how much of a dick Veronica was.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: And like there are sightings of lucky looking like in
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: Australia and Belgium and across the continent in Africa. To
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: the point that even his brother Hugh says that, you know,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: he was there, right? Like, oh, he probably escaped to Africa, right?
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: Because he was actually in Johannesburg, right? For a while
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: before moving. And he says, oh, well, he was probably there,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: but he never admitted to him actually being there because
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: then he would have aided and abetted a criminal because...
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: an inquest found Lucky guilty in absentia, right? Which you
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: can't really do anymore. Like the law has changed, but
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: he's found guilty. And what's interesting is that Lucky's kids
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: are like, he couldn't have done this. And it's like, okay.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: Now understand that they weren't close to their mum. She
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: was not a warm person and she had her own
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: issues and she struggled with mental health for the rest
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: of her life like it was her sister christina who
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: ends up taking in the kids and raising them because
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: she just couldn't do it anymore but there were all
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: these theories about where lucky could have been where he
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: was over the world it was like where in the
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: world is carmen san diego and you know there would
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: be like Scotland Yard would have things they would be
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: doing like DNA testing and all this kind of stuff
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: but to this day no one has ever found him
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: and there is this whole thing called like the hundred
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: rule which is basically once someone reaches the age of
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: 100 or they would have been 100 they stop looking
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: for them like that's just it because you know you're
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: either old really old and frail and dead or I
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: don't know a gargoyle but they just stop looking for
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: you Now, no one knows what happened to Lucky Licken.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: There are rumours that he escaped, there is a rumour
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: that he was stressed out about the whole situation and
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: goes out on his boat, ties a cinder block to
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: himself and then leaps into the water. There was a
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: very specific rumour about him being sliced up by the
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: propellers of a boat There was the one where he
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: shot himself and he was fed to Aspinall's tigers. There's
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: the one that he was secretly living in a bunker
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: underneath one of the country houses. That he had made
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: a new life in another country. There are just so many.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: His body has never been discovered. We have no idea
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: what happened to him.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: And the fact....
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: Of how he is, about how determined and obsessive he
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: was as a gambler, right? That kind of risk-taking. Just
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: the kind of person he was and the way that
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: he lived his life, I don't think he would have
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: ended it willingly. I think he would have done something.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: Or an accident befell him. Like, he could have, like...
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: he'd been drinking as well. Like, there's every possibility he
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: accidentally falls in a hole or off a cliff or...
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: You know. There were so many different options. He could
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: have been the victim of a serial killer as he
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: walked the murals. You don't know, right? There were so many...
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: theories and considerations, but so many rumours. Like, they're everywhere.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: He had money, he had connections, and he had a
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: head start. Like, he could have fled abroad using the
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: international network of friends and contacts, or he could have
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: gone hiding somewhere. And again, there are sightings everywhere. Australia, Africa, India,
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: New Zealand, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, America, so on and so forth. Like,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: at one point... Like, there was like, he's joined a
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: cult and they're hiding him, which, again, one of those things.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: But none of it has ever been proven. And Lucky
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: Lucan was declared legally dead in 1999. And it wasn't
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: until 2016 that they finally issued a death certificate. But
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: as I said before, nobody has ever been found. And
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: so the 7th Earl of Lucan remains one of Britain's
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: most notorious missing men. disappearing into history just hours after
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: murdering his children's nanny. And listen, if you're looking for
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: a more suspicious ending than that, you're going to have
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: to write it, because that is wild. And I suppose
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: the question is, what do you think happened to Lucky Lugin?
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: But yes, so ends our story about Lucky Lookin' in
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: this month, which is all about dissing, dissing? No, missing,
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: disappeared and lost. That is what we are all about
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: this month. So if you like this video, I'm so glad.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: Please let me know what you think happened to Lucky Lookin'. And, oh,
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: any news, any news, any more news? Oh, goodness. The, um, words. The, oh,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: I love that. I'm like, it's so dark. And now
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I'm on tour. So get your tickets, everybody. More,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: more is coming out next week. It's next week. It's
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: all being, not all being announced, but a good chunk
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: is being announced. It has been a busy time, lads.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: Very busy. But with that, I suppose it is recommendation time.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: For watching Ted Lasso. Just watch Ted Lasso. We're at
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: that point. Watch Ted Lasso. It's the finale. So let's
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: get with that. For listening. Well, I think you should
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: listen to the V & M podcast. I'm a guest
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: on that this week. I'm a guest on the V &
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: M podcast. So support local. What can I say? And
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: for reading.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: So Anne from Vulgar History, she's been sharing some really
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: good alternative history stuff and fiction and history fiction, which
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not a huge fan of most of the time.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: But I do love stuff like that because there's one
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: that's called Henry Tudor Must Die. And I feel like, yeah,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: let's support that. So with that, I am going to
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: bid you goodbye. Adios. Au revoir. As we do them,
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: my friends.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: Bye-bye.