The third in the Channel four series on Hons and Crims that I have watched involved John Aspinall the alleged criminal gambling master and corruptor of police and Billy Hill of London’s worst crime bosses in the 20th century. My interest was not in fact that John did a deal with a criminal to cheat Aristocrats and others with too much money and no sense out of their fortunes, businesses and land holdings, but the lives of his closest friends who became known as the Clermont set and the Mayfair set and their plot to bring down the democratic elected government by force and impose a Franco style fascist dictatorship if the Left and the trade unions appeared to be gaining too strong a hold. What was the evidence for this and how far did they go in the organising and planning?
I have no personal knowledge, nor have a I spoken with anyone who has, and the amount of time researching the information held by others is limited by wanting and needing to limit the time allocated to one period of 24 hours, using those hours for the normal business of everyday living, for consideration and reflection on other things, for experiences the new as well remembering the old.
Perhaps one or two individuals who I do not know directly and one or two with whom I have corresponded will read what I say and that will be that but I always try and write on the basis that it is accurate as practical and fair based on the information available and my experience of life and knowledge, in so far as it extends, to matters being considered. If the person is no longer alive, I ask myself he question, how if you were that person, you would feel is this or that was written about you, even if what is written is accurate? And even greater question is how would my parents, my former partner, my children react if that was said about me as the first test in considering how the parents, the partners and the children of those mentioned now feel in general about what is said about their child, partner or parent. It is not just good enough to say that the matter and the individual is already in the public eye through other media interest or their previous self promotion using the media, in all its forms, or even that a major part of their lies was funded by me as a national and local tax payer, to they held power, or took decision which affected my life and the lives of those I cared and care about, or that I do not get financial or other significant benefit from my writing and project work. I need have to justify what I say irrespective of the potential response of anyone else.
John Aspinall was born in India to May Grace Horn who had married Robert Aspinal a respected Army Doctor. The Independent Obituary states that Robert was “officially” his father and Wikipedia makes no mention of his father. It is the New York Time which revealed the apparent truth and his named father revealed to him that his father was a soldier George Bruce who has sex with his mother under a Tamarind tree at a regimental ball. That it was Mr Aspinall who revealed the truth is interesting because his whole life is said to have been inflexed by a Rider Haggard story which involved Zulus, their land and someone who was illegitimate. It is my understanding that he was an adult when his discovered that his named father was not his birth father, where as a child when I learnt that my care mother was not my birth mother and close on sixty when I learnt the who my birth father was said to be, although without confirmation from DNA or a recorded verifiable statement that he admitted this was, the uncertainty remains.
A major factor in why John developed as he did is the fact that he was sent away by his mother and father to England to a residential school when he was six, and that did not return to India even for Holidays, staying with his grandparents and that that he was much influenced in what became his love of animals and the countryside by a local farmer. I do not know what age his mother commenced to play a greater part in his life but even when she divorced and married Sir George Osborne, a man of greater wealth than her first husband John was sent to Rugby school and where it is said he was an uninhibited exhibitionist at Rugby school and with a complete disregard for rules, prepared to accept punishment which had no effect on how he subsequently behaved. Looking back on my own childhood I was always a shy, reclusive child wanting to be an uninhibited exhibitionist and who developed my own internal sense of right and wrong and which only transcended the rules of others after I overcame the difficult of challenging the authority of the Catholic Church and questioned how adults appeared to me to be putting their faith in practice, or not putting their faith into practice which seemed to be more often the situation. I always then and since accepted that if one broke the rules of others with some legitimate vested authority for rule making then one should accept punishment and not attempt to evade it, even if emotionally it was natural to do so, I also tried not to let the punishment affect my future actions. However I developed a greater personal sense of injustice when for example I was physically beaten with a strap on my hand because a lay teacher of French when nuts and fortunately because of the parental pressure from others disappeared from the school the following day. I hated every second of my first experience of a prison environment, a weekend in isolation on remand from other demonstrators who had a great time held in the prison Library and during the three or four days held in Brixton for refusing to pay a fine but it did not prevent me from repeating the demonstration two weeks later refusing to accept the non custodial alternative to six months or deciding to take the anytime option to leave when I found the experience unbearable and my life was significantly threatened. It was also the prospect of losing the opportunity Ruskin College provided which governed my decision to accept the same recognisance less than two years later rather than fear of a return to the prison experience. However as my life progressed being true to myself and what I believed became more important that the potential negative consequence for me of what I was doing. In this respect I understand and have sympathy with what appears to have happened in the life of Mr Aspinal and the others to be covered in this writing. The difference, and an important difference is that he and the others appears to have had little or regarded for the impact of their behaviour on others, including some of those closest to them.
John left Rugby school at 17 and it is not clear if obtained any examination certificates. He had joined the school military cadet force designed to prepare its young men to become officers in the regular army or during their required period of national service. He Joined the marines for three years, not as officer but as a regular soldier and from their it appears he used his connection to get a place at Oxford University where his interest was Brideshead than academic as he boasted that he never attend one lecture, although this was never an important aspect of Oxford University life with its emphasis on tutorials, private reading and essay assignments. People still refer to going to Oxford to read History, the Classics, English Literature or Philosophy than to pass a degree in that or that. He is said to have attended Royal Ascot in preference to sitting his examinations.
He then set up home with his new wife, Jane Hastings, a Scottish Model, in one of the most fashionable and expensive residential streets in London, to-day, Eaton Place. A three bedroom flat is available for £3 million and a similar ground floor and basement flat can be rented for £100000 a year. At Eaton Place he had built a glorified garden shed to house a baby tiger, a monkey and two Himalayan bears without regard to the impact of the animals upon neighbours. Soon after opening his Gambling Club he had two tigers in cages at one special events which he then let lose to roam among the tables. Because he lacked the throw away money of many of his contemporaries when he learnt to play cards for money he learnt in order to win and he learnt enough to know that running gambling was more profitable than actual gambling. From the outset he was not interested in acquiring wealth to acquire more wealth or power but to what use the money could be put and in particular his interest in wild animals and the preservation of endangered species. In fact he was open about his dislike for people in general and his preference for animals when it came to friends those he chose he was loyal regardless of any consequences.
I am unsure when and how he came to work out that there was a way round the then law which made any form of gambling for money an offence in all but limited and controlled situations such as at race meetings the day at the courses, although at school, the son of a bookmaker used to make books on major races and it would be surprising if this was not known to the school authorities. There was the general sense that the law was out of touch, much like prohibition had been earlier in the USA and gambling on cards was widespread even though the stakes were often quite small. In John’s instance aimed for the highest level big time possible, hiring quality premises, chefs and bar staff and creating an atmosphere appropriate for members of the Aristocracy used to the Gentleman’s club and high life living. Although h was confident that they were technically not breaking the law they attempted appropriate insurance by brining the Metropolitan Police where corruption was widespread and involved some very senior officers. One officer with the nickname pony because charged £25 just for a meeting, which is between £500 and £1500 today depending on the basis of the calculation. This was paid before any decision or sum to ensure the police did not apply the law.
This worked for several years until in 1958 his mother failed to make a payment and the establishment where the games were being held was raised and Aspinall charged. Rather than pleading guilty and paying the fine, and ensuring the police were better paid, Aspinall decided to contest the action and won and this led the government to realise, no doubt under pressure from those who used his facilities and those who wished to that the time had come to change the law. With the first piece of legislation which created the licensed Casino, the high street betting shop and to day the TV betting channel and the wide range of online gambling opportunities.
Mr Aspinall made his money by taking percentage of the money gambled on each game. It is my understanding that there was only one game played which was Baccarat Chemin de fer, the James Bond favoured game in Casino Royale. The game requires awareness and nerve and luck in which one of the participants puts up money to begin as the banker(banco) and the other players individually or in concert must offer more money to engage in the first game. There are six packs of shuffled new cards placed in a shoe and the object is to make 9 or 8 points with aces counting 1 and J.Q. and K value 0 and if two card total 10 this become 0 an two card adding to 15 become 5. The cards are only used once and played in a contained which is visible to the players. The maximum stake of the bank can be fixed or unlimited and as a consequence vast fortunes and estates of land could pass hands in a matter of minutes. The programme talked in terms of single losses in a night of £50000 which is in the range of £375K to £3 million and of taking overall bets of £.25 million in a night from £4 to £16 million a night and which resulted in an income to Aspinall of half a million. These may have been exceptional such as when a Lord lost several million and kept smiling or a young man from Yorkshire lost his family estate which was one the eldest the oldest in the UK on his first or early visit.
I do not know what is like to possess great wealth, businesses or lands but I do not what it is like to be faced with the choice of doing something and knowing it could mean the loess of everything and the what the effect was likely to be on other members of a family. This is no different when to day as it has always been, the family provider suddenly losses their livelihood and their established home. They are alive and usually in good health but the impact will be devastating, yet these men did this from choice on the turn of a card. It is immoral and irresponsible unless they are single individuals with no dependents and dependents is not just the staff of estates or businesses or estate tenants as well as subsidiary customers, and services. I make no distinction between the gamblers of cards and the gamblers on the stock, share, currency and other such like markets and those who take such risks with the livelihoods of other for their personal profit do not merit any respect or sympathy when if hey fall. This appears to have been the attitude of Mr Aspinall towards the very people on which his wealth and interests depended. There is a parallel to my mind with the slave trade which was regarded as acceptable within British society. We have made progress in realising the evil of those who grow and manufacture tobacco which is a worse and horrific killer than heroin and other illegal drugs for example.
My understanding is that far from helping Mr Aspinall, the post 1962 licensed casino posed considerable problems for Mr Aspinall. He opened a plush exclusive Casino in Berkeley Square Mayfair in 1962 called the Claremont Club with a restricted membership of 600 and which included 5 Dukes, 5 Marquises and 20 Earls. The club was lavishly decorated and provided fine wines and food. He made available the basement to a friend for a dining, dancing and drinking nightclub Annabel’s which was London’s first Member only night club and the only one Queen Elizabeth visited and which was a haunt of Prince Charles and for international film stars, members aristocracy and some of the wealthiest and most influential men in the UK.(In 1959, three years before I had trained for a month as a salesman for British Olivetti in Berkeley Square heading the list of students after sitting four weekly examinations).
The club was a great success and attracting many who could not be seen when the activity was not legally recognised but it meant the previous way of profit making ended. In addition to the setting up and on going running costs, including staffing there were taxes and accountants. As with any enterprise here will have been quiet nights and overall it became difficult to achieve the kind of profit required to fund what was in fact his main interest the rescuing, protecting and the breeding of endangered species and one and then a second wildlife park which he opened.
He was then approached with a solution beneficial to both solution by London’s crime boss of the day Billy Hill, the man who the young Krays went to for advice. He had started as a house burglar in the later 1920’s, born 1911. He turned to smash and grab raids of jewellers and furs in the 1930’s and to the black-market during World War II. He supplied forged documents for deserting servicemen. He fled to South Africa in the 1940’s but was extradited and imprisoned. Remarkably although he organised a postal van robbery of a quarter of million in 1952 worth between £5 and £20 million today, and Bullion robbery 1954 where no one was convicted which suggests a high level of police corruption as well as incompetence. He also smuggled drugs from Morocco. He was a violent man who marked his victims with a V for victory but professed to avoiding cutting of arteries which meant murder which regarded as for mugs, a lesson which the Krays and others did not learn.
He suggested the way he and John could makes major fortunes from the irresponsible and immoral aristocracy and the other members of what became known as the Claremont set. John provided him the unopened sets of playing cards which were then marked in ways which trained players could detect. The cards were then repacked to look unopened. John then arranged for selected individuals, some actors, to be trained to read the cards, to become members with fictitious backgrounds and to play games winning consistently but never individually sufficient to draw major attention to themselves, by having several operating in every game
he and Bill shared millions of profit which then went into secret accounts abroad and not through any accounting books. Mr Aspinall therefore became a thief although we may have no sympathy for the money he stole from and consider that his crimes pale into significance with honourable bankers and Hedge funds dealers who lost bullions, endangered the financial system, wrecked good businesses and have put millions of individuals out of work and led to thousands possibly tens of thousands losing ownership of their homes.
He divorced in 1962, remarried and divorced again in 1972 marrying for a third time Lady Sarah Courage, the widow of racing driver Piers Courage. He died of cancer in June aged 75 years 2000 survived by his three children and two step children who manage the Foundation he established to run his two individualists animal parks designed to protect and breed rare and endangered species with over 1000 animals and 80 different species. The way he ran the park caused some concern with some twenty deaths of employees from their close association with the animals. Sources generally agree that he was not interested in making money for the sake of making money but what he could do with it. In addition for his passion for his children and step children and for animals and his true friends he had one other interest which was political.
His passion for his friends led to him admitting that he would have help his friend Lord Lucan to escape the law after he is officially considered to have murdered the family nanny in the mistaken belief he was killing his wife. What happened to Lord Lucan has never been established. He was also personal friends with some of the most wealthy and powerful men of their day and some who also plotted to overthrow the elected British government violently and replace with a fascist state, the details of which I remain to establish.
Known as the Clermont or Mayfair sets, the two groups group contained some remarkable people. The first was Sir Archibold David Stirling DSO OBE who founded the S.A.S after joining the officer Training Corps at Ampleforth College, joining the Scots Guards in 1937. In 1940 he volunteered the No 8 Commando. His experience convinced that a small specially trained force could cause greater damage than the traditional structure of the army force and his approach can be seen to this very day with the ambush in Pakistan of the visiting Cricket Team and the ability of the gunmen to disappear after killing six policemen and their driver and shooting into the team coach, an operation similar to that in Mumbai except those involved planned to stay and go to their deaths
Stirling then found his way into the military headquarters and persuaded the Deputy Commander of the Middle East, General Ritchie to allow him to set up a unit to pursue his idea. His first efforts were disastrous but the approach began to have success but in 1943 he was captured and although he escaped several time he was eventually sent to Colditz Castle
After the War he established independent, arms and fighting men businesses at a high level, mainly to Middle East and Gulf states such Saudi Arabia and he is reputed to have been involved in a failed attempt to overthrow Colonel Gaddafi of Libya in 1970/71. He was a man of many parts and his television interests brought Seasame Street, the Muppets to the UK and the company he devoted later created Thomas the Tank Engine and Thomas The Tank Engine and Bob the builder.
He was a founder of a society in 1949 to free Africa from racial discrimination but was also in favour of elitist voting franchise. In 1975 he set up an organisation GB 75 designed to combat the power of the Trade unions and provide an alternative workforce in the event of prolonged or general strike. It was called into action with the miner’s strike in the mid1980’s He died in 1990 aged 74,
The second figure was James Goldsmith, a very different kind of man, with French and British parents and citizenship. He dropped out of Eton and joined the British Army after his father paid off his gambling debts. The family made their fortune as German bankers and like the Queen with a German family history changed the family name to Windsor, the Goldschmidts changed to Goldsmiths. When his grandfather came to London in 1895 he was already a multi millionaire banker. The family are relatives of the Rothschild’s. During the 50’s and the 60’s his gambling brought him close to bankruptcy several times. However he was also successful in business winning the British franchise of Alka Seltzer and introducing low cost generic drugs to the UK. He then made a name for himself by acquiring companies and asset stripping and when these activities were questioned in the media he worked through private companies registered in he UK and offshore. Much of his activities were financed by Jim Slater, and when his empire collapsed and had to be rescued by he Bank of England it was Goldsmith who was asked to sort out the mess through his companies. He was knighted by Labour Leader Harold Wilson in 1976.
His business success continued especially when he found out that American firms with timber holdings which were often accounted as a nominal 1 dollar value for taxation and other accounting purposes often had an actual market value worth more than he was paying for the whole company. In 1987 he went to Mexico having liquidated his assets having predicted the market crash that year. He then used his wealth to change direction establishing the forerunner of the investment funds of today, developing interests world wide in Russia, and India and the Far East.
He also had strong right wing views and used his resources to try and break individuals and organisations which he saw as threats to what he believed in. One of the most public actions was to issue 60 Libel actions against Private Eye Magazine because of their attacks on his Referendum Party. He conducted vendettas against other who questioned his approach and methods.
Goldsmith along with John Aspinall and Lord Lucan became concerned at the extent to which Communist workers had commenced to have power in the trade unions, in the Labour party and the Media. For him and others there was no distinction made between state capitalists which the soviets had become, authoriser and anti individualism, socialists, including Christian based socialists, and the Enterists who joined organisations, occupations and political parties hiding their real beliefs and intentions and who were organised and part of well funded and organised groups, often quite small operating as cells. When he stood for Putney at the General Election he cheered when David Mellor was defeated by the Labour candidate, although Goldsmith lost his deposit and his party failed as had his attempt to publish the weekly News magazine Now. Such was his power and influence that when he died Margaret Thatcher described him as a great man, larger than life and Prime Minister Tony Blair said he was amazing interesting and fascinating which can be taken to mean what you want it to mean.
In addition to his gambling he had several wives and other relationships and eight children. He liked to use the phrase when you marry your mistress you create a vacancy. He was officially married three times, at 20 to a 18 year old Bolivian Heiress with relation with the Spanish Royal Family. When he proposed the marriage to her father he was told we are not in the habit of marrying Jews to which he replied I am not in the habit of marrying Indians. With the parents insisting their daughter separate despite her pregnancy, they eloped. Sadly she died as a result of the pregnancy and birth. His daughter survived. He had a son and a daughter by his second marriage. He married for the third time in 1978, the daughter of the Marques of Londonderry, who had been married to his friend of twenty years who he had offered the basement of the Berkeley Square premises for use as a nightclub and which bar her name to this day, which bears her name to this day. She has said she took up with Jimmy because her husband was a serial seducer of woman. She is alive to day knowing that through her marriage her children and grandchildren are or will become exceptionally wealthy with her one stated regret that she had not been a one woman wife , to have had someone to grow old with. Although in fact her two husbands died comparatively young for these times. The couple had three children, one of whom was disfigured by being allowed to get too close to a pregnant tigress as a child,. One of these children married into the Rothschild’s and Guiness Brewery families.
Goldsmith had an affair with an aristocratic Frenchwoman with whom he had two children treated her as his wife in public and they had two children. A total of eight children by these relationships. There are allegation of other relationships and of other children some extraordinary, including one circulating in Australia. He died of a heart attack brought by cancer at the age of 64.
The third member of the set, said to have had extreme right wing views was Lord Lucan, presumed dead in law in 1992 and declared dead in 1999. He went to Eton and served in the Coldstream Guards. He is described as having been a compulsive gambler. Understandably media attention has concentrated on the fact that his wife suffering from head wounds managed to get to a local Inn announcing that her estranged husband had tried to kill and when investigating the police found a blood trail from the basement where they found the killed nanny.
What is known is that Lord Lucan first attempted to visit and then contacted a friend by phone but hung up and the police found blood stains on her doorstep. He then telephoned his mother explained that eh had passed the house with its lights on and see what appeared to be a fight inside, his wife had been injured and that there was something awful in the basement, asking her to go and look after the children. He then drove to see friends where the wife was only present and her gave an expanded version of what he had told his mother, saying that he had slipped on a pool of blood and the assailant of his wife had escaped. He claimed that his former wife had accused him of hiring the assailant. He contacted his mother from this address to assure that the children were safe and he agreed to contact the police following morning rather than talk to the officer who was present at her home. He then tried to phone his brother in law, who in turn was the half brother of the step father of Princess Diana, but getting no reply he wrote two letters for his friend to post. There has been no officially confirmed sighting of him since. The car was found at Newhaven on the south coast town. His friends led my John Aspinall believing that he was innocent launched a search for him before that of the police who had warrant for his arrest. At the inquest for the nanny the two written letters were read in which he further said he had not attacked the nanny or his wife but believed she would try and blame him. He also advised about raising money to clear his debts. The inquest jury took just half an hour to make Lord Lucan as he murderer of the nanny. Police subsequently accused the Clermont set of obstruction. They only learnt of his visit to his friend by tracing the post marks on the two letters.. In 2004 police used the latest technology to review the case and officer leading the enquiry expressed the vie that Lord Lucan had been helped by friends to escape and begin a new life outside the UK. There were several alleged sightings shown to be false. John Aspinall said before his death that he had believed his friend had killed the nanny by mistake, committed suicide by scuttling a boat he had kept at the port, If this was the case I do not understand why he did not leave a note of confession and what he was doing for the sake of his children. Given who these men were and what they did they would have no qualms of conscience about helping me to leave the UK and commence a new life elsewhere with their financial support and which the Nazis were able to do with great effect after World War II.
Dominic Elwes was a close friend of Lord Lucan and a portrait painter. He was the son of an established and known portrait painter. At the age of 26 he married a 19 year old in Cuba escaping a Court order against their marriage and spending 14 days in jail on return for contempt. His three children went into art, acting and film. He committed suicide in 175 aged 44.
One other member of set is said to be Jim Slater originally an accountant who also worked in financial journalism and with the Tory MP Peter Walker set up a bank investment company, involved in corporate raids with his friend James Goldsmith. 15 charges against Mr Slater for the misuse of £4m of company funds were made after the Bank of England was called in to save the bank but the case was dismissed. Mr Slater survived, repaid his debts, He financially sponsored the 1972 World Chess Championships between Fischer and Spassky being a chess enthusiast and lives in retirement, shortly to celebrate his 80th birthday having written investment and children’s books.
Two other members of the set were not British. Gianni Agnelli was the Italian head of Fiat regarded as the major figures in the Italian economy for men years and who was significantly involved in the Bilderberg conferences along with friend Henry Kissinger an David Rockefeller, whose bank the Chase Manhattan he was on its committee for 30 years. He remained married to one woman although there is recorded reference to affairs and other potentially scandalous matters but I have found no other references to membership let alone involvement with the Clermont set, so far.
Kerry Packer was the Australian publishing, media and gaming tycoon and was the richest and most influential man in Australia holding g huge tracks of land and properties.
He attempted to revolutionise World Cricket after founding the World Series which led to confrontation with the cricket authorities. Thirty years later we have the development with the Indian development and the recent Stanford series and subsequent scandals
He was also a great gambler reported to have lost 28 Australian dollars in London in one three week spell although he regularly also won millions on his trips to London and it is said won thirty three million Australian dollars at a Casino in Las Vegas. He suffered various heart attacks and was once declared clinically dead for six minutes after which he is alleged to have said, the good news folks is that there is no devils, the bad news is that there is no Hell. He died at the age of 64 from Kidney failure
Dominic Elwes was a close friend of Lord Lucan and a portrait painter. He was the son of an established and known portrait painter. At the age of 26 he married a 19 year old in Cuba escaping a Court order against their marriage and spending 14 days in jail on return for contempt. His three children went into art, acting and film. He committed suicide in 175 aged 44.
James Goldsmith, David Stirling and Jim Slater featured in a series of programmes on the Mayfair set. James featured in a programme about the decline of the buccaneer in business and personal wealth creation, named along with Tiny Roland and Mohammed Al Fayed as the last three to survive by the 1980’s. Then of course came the Russians and the international banking and investment fraternity and the survival of the rest of us is now in question.
And the conspiracy? That remains to be established.
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