Scrapes & scandals

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Comparison between Prince Edward (left) and Wyn (right) at 19 years old. The likeness is uncanny.

Stories and memories

A question of legitimacy

When Wyn was born in 1901, Fred and Eve had a son and heir, but how he came to be is shrouded in delicious mystery and potential scandal.

Stepping back a year or so, as the nineteenth century was coming to an end, Fred had been working every waking hour, building a reputation amongst the medics and well-heeled patients of note across Europe. As a result, he and Eve were now on the fringes of Bertie’s court. She’d delivered two healthy daughters who were out of sight and out of mind under Woody’s care, so she decided to kick start her social ambitions, using her beauty as a means to her desired ends. Eve was appointed part time Lady in Waiting.

Bertie was kicking his heels while the Queen was still alive, leading the extravagant lifestyle that satisfied his greatest loves in life, especially womanising. As the petite and mysterious Eve entered Bertie’s orbit, she may have been a temptation impossible to resist and we know his conquests often achieved social success after a tumble or two between his sheets. Perhaps this was the price she was prepared to pay. Even Wyn mused: ‘Edward was after every beautiful woman around, and I suppose he was not someone to refuse.’

Was Wyn in fact one of Bertie’s ‘godchildren’?

Eve must have fallen pregnant in late December 1900 or early January 1901, when Bertie was 59, massively overweight but still very much playing the field just before his mother’s death on 22 January. Wyn says: "My mother was furious when I was conceived because I believe as at that time things were not going well between my parents." Was she furious because she just didn’t want another baby with a man she didn’t love? Or was it because the baby was in all likelihood not fathered by her husband and any hint of a scandal would be her social undoing, something she’d reinvented her life for?

The most tangible item of evidence is a spectacular pendant, hand crafted from gold, royal blue enamel and diamonds and bearing Edward’s insignia which was gifted to Eve. It was only much later in life that the husband of her great granddaughter declared: “You do realise what this is, don’t you? It’s one of Bertie’s jewels he had made for his mistresses and mothers of his bastards. I saw something similar in an auction catalogue once.” It was a momentous revelation: Eve had definitely been under Royal warrant, but was Wyn the regretful result?

The two rogues were similar in character; genes will out after all. Wyn shared all of Bertie’s interests, but on balance this may have just been a sign of the times. Ditto their personalities but then both mothers treated their sons in the same cold manner and considered them ‘grave disappointments’. Perhaps most compelling of all, is how the potential son physically resembles the potential father. It’s easy to look back and compare their features; the similarities are uncanny if you compare them at the age of 19. They are the same height and build, with haughty arched eyebrows, and no other Hewitt family member has that pronounced cupid’s bow mouth.

French trip (take 1)

Wyn: "In the summer of 1919 and before joining the crammer Mother sent me on my first solo trip abroad. I was sent to improve my schoolboy French in the Pays-Basque, southwest France. Another Englishman, Captain Lionel Stopford Sackville, a Great War hero with a DSO and the Croix de Guerre avec Palmes staying there was also bent on learning the lingo, so we spent an amusing summer together. I was temporarily jailed for jumping naked off the bridge over the river on a Sunday afternoon, but this ended well as I switched on my best charm with the local Police Chief and we ended up visiting casinos at Bagnères-de-Bigorre together. I also had my first introduction to a French ‘Maison Tolérée’ at Pau, indulged with armour (condoms) of course! I did learn some French.

In the autumn I began my year at Mildenhall which turned out to be very diverting too. With the biting east wind howling off the North Sea and an unheated dorm house, I lived and slept in one of the fur lined overcoats previously issued to the troops in Russia. My stay was enlivened by many fights between the local boys and about a dozen of us crammers, as well as an affair with the local ironmonger’s daughter, another with the daughter of the local outfitter, and riding down to London on the Norton on Sundays to see a hostess from the Hammersmith Palais de Danse with whom I had formed an attachment.”

French trip (take 2)

Whether it was to get him out of her hair or as a genuine wish to help him improve his French, Eve handed Wyn the money to revisit France for the summer of 1920.

Wyn: “I felt another couple of months in France, although pleasant, would not be nearly as diverting as spending the time holed up in the little love nest I had rented in town for me and my latest squeeze. And all was to be funded by Mother which made the whole notion far more fun. I used some of the money to send a pal over the channel, laden with pre-written letters to be posted back to her at suitable intervals saying how well I was getting on etc. My deceit was almost uncovered a few weeks in when I started suffering acute pain in my side that I soon suspected to be appendicitis. I telegrammed my pen pal in France as a matter of urgency, and he in turn telegrammed Lady Hewitt (signing it from me of course) arranging for ‘my immediate return to London by the next night train’. I practically crawled to the station, sweating profusely and doubled up in pain, and hid behind the luggage trolleys as the boat train pulled into Waterloo. I merged gingerly with the alighting passengers and the driver Mother had sent scooped me up in a waiting wheelchair and rushed me straight to hospital. The appendix had burst but Mother had good medical connections of course, and I was promptly operated on, and my life saved. I woke up in Sister Agnes Hospital for Officers (now the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers). Sister Agnes Keyser was a lovely lady and another longtime mistress of Edward VII – she remained with him right up until his death in 1910. I believe the Bertie connection is how she and Mother originally became friends. Her hospital was actually her private residence in Grosvenor Crescent and housed about a dozen officers. Food and attention was all that could be imagined in the house of a very wealthy woman. Six weeks in that comfort was very agreeable.”

Wyn's first love (unrequited) leads to a rash proposal

Wyn still returned ‘home’ when he was on leave from military life in Aldershot as it was convenient, joining his mother wherever she was living at the time. After Eve moved out of the Regent Palace Hotel for the first time, she lived in a variety of furnished rooms, ending up at 8J Hyde Park Mansions, Westminster in 1921. Then in the summer of 1922, she moved to a lovely house at 12 Montagu Place where she lodged with a widowed friend, Mrs Esther Butler and her daughter Eileen. Following the death of her estate agent and auctioneer husband Edward, Mrs Esther Sydney Vernon Butler became a single parent to their 21-year-old daughter Eileen. Eileen was just three months younger than Wyn who declared her to be ‘young, willing and attractive, and someone whom I desperately wanted to marry.’

This, of course, was fiercely opposed by both parents – Lady Hewitt considered the girl of inadequate standing for her son, and Mrs Butler judged him to be a reckless young buck with no control, maturity or means of earning a living. Eileen, who was somewhat selfish and vain, considered Wyn and both interfering mothers great sport. It was an appealing distraction while she kept an eye open for better prospects to come along, and their affair (a fling for her, a deathless passion for him) ran its course in secret.

Wyn: "I was always driving up to town for some evening amusement with Eileen, sneaking into the house when our mothers were long retired to bed, and then back to Aldershot in time for the morning parade. But things were not progressing well with Eileen, which in my young arrogance, I found unfathomable. I was at a loss at to what to do so spent a lot of time at Murray’s jazz and cabaret club in Beak Street, Soho. Murray’s always lifted my spirits in those bleak days, especially when I met up with a lively young beauty called Hylda Maxwell – Maxie as I came to call her. We were both of the same age and got on tremendously well. I must have been pretty naïve at the time because I believed she had money, but looking back I am pretty sure she was a kept woman. She was worth keeping though, and with Eileen repeatedly refusing to marry me, and the atmosphere in 12 Montagu Place uncomfortably tense, I quit the place and moved into Maxie’s lodgings.

And in a further rash moment, after a matter of months, I proposed!! She agreed and we secretly married at St George’s Hanover Square in October 1923 with a pair of strangers dragged off the street as witnesses. We told no one we were hitched, including my sisters and especially not Mother who was already in a particularly filthy state about her son and heir’s entanglement with an Estate Agent's daughter.

I was tiring of Mother’s constant harping and control, and without her emotional and financial support there was nothing else for it: I was going to have to make my own way in the world. I had heard stories and read of Australia being the land of opportunity, and growing oranges in the sunshine with Maxie by my side, ten thousand miles away from Mother was very appealing. To say that I was about to change my life completely was a gross understatement."

Aussie Eileen (wife no.2)

Wyn: "It was in Newcastle in 1925 that I met my future second wife with the rather unsettling name of Eileen. She had recently been deserted by her husband, a solicitor called Chippindall who had absconded with all his clients’ cash. Eileen was Aussie tall, blonde, fiery and fun, a combustible combination that meant one had to be on one’s toes at all times. I remember one incident with her that nearly ended my life, and this was only for the first time. Although we were more or less a couple, I have to own to straying on occasion. The flat which I was sharing with Dick was a mere 300 yards away from Eileen’s parents’ house, and one evening I was comfortably installed on the sitting room sofa with the local bar maid when Eileen burst in on us unexpectedly. She was always extremely jealous and jumping straight to the correct conclusion, she rushed down the corridor to my bedroom as she knew I kept an automatic in my cupboard. I hared after her, but she got to the gun before me and just as I caught up to her, she turned around and pulled the trigger. I heard the click, but hallelujah, I was still standing! Either it was a misfire, or I’d had the intelligence not to put a round in the barrel. Hence no harm was done except to her jaw which I nearly broke with such a clout. She was out for about 1/4 hour! This didn’t in any case break off relations; it was all part of the thrill.

In Sydney in 1927, Eileen nearly killed me for a second time. I had just taken over a garage and the flat above to share with her, and on entering the bathroom she found a pair of female slips. I can honestly say they were nothing to do with me and had been left by the previous tenants. However, without saying a word, she got hold of a kitchen knife, and while I was standing in front of a fire, came up behind me, ready I suppose to stab me in the back. By the grace of God, I saw her shadow on the wall and had time to avoid the knife. I grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm back hard, so she dropped the blade and I then threw her onto the settee as she screamed bloody murder. Jealous wasn’t the word for it. Once calm, she declared undying love for me, professed herself to be duly sorry and promised nothing of this nature would ever happen again. Then after a pause and with a startlingly direct glare, she qualified this with: “…unless I catch you cheating on me yer pommy bastard.”

WW2 near miss

The only known civilian WW2 casualty in Plaitford was Helen Kemp (aged 62), wife of George Kemp (Wyn's gamekeeper) who lived at Mary’s Cottage, 300 yards up the track behind Manor Farm where Wyn, his manservant Hatt, his girlfriend Coyt, and Nigel lived. It happened on 9 July 1940 (the day before the Battle of Britain) at 0235 hrs when a one-off hit and run single aircraft dropped a 150lb bomb, decimating their cottage. The total devastation revealed the following morning was horrific. Eyewitnesses recall seeing curtains, clothes and other debris hanging from every tree surrounding the crater that had once been their home.

There was good and bad news: the couple had had a row, and Helen had sent George to Coventry (aka the dairy) to sleep with only a blanket for comfort. Both were thrown into the garden by the bomb’s impact and Helen was killed by falling debris, but George survived, being that bit removed from the epicentre. Wrapped in his blanket, he struggled aboard his bike, and wobbled down to Wyn’s front door, looking for sanctuary. Wyn and Hatt supported George between them and walked him up the road in the wee hours to the medics at the ARP HQ. A kindly nurse took him off their hands and suggested he be examined for injury. He dropped his blanket and stood there as naked as the day he was born apart from an intact shirt collar (still buttoned at his neck) and his boots! The bomb had blown every item of clothing clean off his body.

The offending aircraft dropped three bombs that night, most likely as an attempt to destroy Melchet Court which had been requisitioned by the army at the beginning of the month. The incendiaries fell:

On Plaitford Wood, with only timber damage reported.
On the Kemp’s cottage - The Hants Control Incident Chart recorded the incident in the Romsey district at Plaitford: ‘Time of origin 0235 hrs, 1 HE (high explosive). Cottage demolished, one woman killed, and husband taken to hospital.’
In Wyn’s paddock just 30 yards behind his house! This one didn’t go off and was defused by bomb disposal personnel eight days later: ‘Time of origin 1400 hrs. One unexploded bomb reported 300 yds from wrecked cottage. Police have been informed and have reported to military. 16 July 1620 hrs bomb destroyed by military.’

In 1946, George Kemp applied for planning permission to build a bungalow ‘to replace house destroyed by enemy action’.

Maureen - a wartime fling

Wyn: "Towards the end of the war, I rented an additional flat in Hove, convenient for our Brighton factory, which I furnished and made comfortable. One evening having come down by train from London with a new actress girlfriend called Maureen, we took a taxi and gave the driver the flat address. He laughed loudly and asked if we enjoyed camping as it had been bombed just the night before. He was right on the money! We got there to discover all the doors were off and there were no windows, but it was otherwise habitable. With nowhere else to go, we spent the night more or less in the street.

I had another amusing adventure with Maureen. We’d had a good lunch together in town and were rather thinking some homemade dessert somewhere private should be the natural course of things. The only possibility was her father’s flat in Chesterfield House and so that is where we went. The housekeeper was very chummy with Maureen and informed us she would turn a blind eye if we wanted to take to her father’s bed. By some most unusual and unlucky event, he returned soon after we had undressed but fortunately had no reason to go into his bedroom. Warned by the housekeeper, we gathered up our clothes and did a rapid as possible exit via the kitchen, up the fire escape and over the roof to safety. A lucky escape for me as he was a big, tough well-known Australian comic actor called Arthur Riscoe. If he had caught us, I am sure I would have made front page news and been forever part of his act!"

More shenanigans

Wyn: "Through my sister Evelyn, I got to know a girl dirt track rider who was so good she could beat some of the Australian champions. Another paramour was a parachute jumper who did exhibitions. She wasn’t best pleased when we parted and stole the keys of my Packard. That wasn’t funny because all the wiring was inside hardened steel flexible tubes, and one had to wait till a new key arrived. She had also come to know my account number with the Army and Navy Stores, ordering a box of six dozen kippers to be sent to me at my expense. Every flat in Nell Gwynne House had a kind of cupboard next to its entrance door which opened from both sides so parcels could be left. I remember going into the flat one evening which stank to high heaven of fish which I eventually traced to the kippers in the cupboard. I got some revenge later. One day driving in Grosvenor Square I saw her crossing just ahead of me and gave her a good fright with a loud klaxon, making her jump to save being hit. I waved cheerily before speeding away.

Another girl tried to blackmail me. She was one of the Grosvenor House girls (those who hung around the newly opened and fashionable eponymous hotel), well known for their beauty. We walked out a lot and one day she suddenly announced her husband was going to divorce her and name me and another man as co-respondents, but if I would pay all the expenses, he’d only name the other person. I smelled a rat. When I asked how her husband had found out, she said we had been followed down to a hotel in Windsor after we had dined at the end of the Great West Road by-pass. This I knew to be untrue as at that time I had a supercharged Auburn off Clifford which I always drove pretty fast and if any other car had followed me, I should have seen it at night. I knew it was a put-up job, so I went to Scotland Yard and told my tale to an Inspector Smith, a most charming man with whom I became good pals. We organised a meeting with the husband in a pub in Shepherds Market and it was arranged that Smith should over-hear everything said in secret. Smith got enough evidence to be able to prosecute but this needed further involvement from me which I declined to give much to his great annoyance. I was sitting pretty however, as the husband (if he really was the husband), knowing I had all the necessary evidence, quickly shut up."

A ride for a ride

Wyn: “As another ANA side line, we started a flying school using a couple of de Havilland Moths which were very simple and easy to learn on. This kept us all busy and to earn additional income Smithy or Charlie and I flew to country towns which had enough flat land to serve as a makeshift aerodrome where we offered flights of varying length and excitement. Up, once round and down was 5/- if I remember right. The old Australian aviator’s sales pitch of ‘a ride for a ride’ worked well and there were always a few country girls who wanted to save 5/-. In fact, all of us profited from it and the weekends were quite agreeable.”

Wyn and Smithy escaping a tight spot

Wyn recalls one of the many occasions Smithy's flying skills and their engineering nous got them out of a spot of bother: "The first accident we had was down to engine failure during a flight to Brisbane about 700 miles north of Sydney. I don’t recall the exact date or who the pilot was (it wasn’t Smithy) but the plane came down in a forest clearing, wiping off an undercarriage and part of a tail plane. By the grace of God no one was hurt despite the flat bit of open ground being extremely short (in those days our flying speed was 95/100mph and minimum landing speed about 35/40mph).

The crash happened in a pretty inaccessible part of the bush, and it took Smithy and I 24 hours to get everything we needed ready to make the repairs and get the plane out. We had to buy a second-hand Chevrolet truck, load a spare engine and all the necessary gear on board and then we set off as soon as we could. Even though it was an old beaten up truck we reached the site after about 36 hours of driving. On seeing where the plane had landed, I was absolutely amazed it hadn’t crashed and caught fire. The problem was going to be getting it out. By road was out of the question as it would have meant weeks of work clearing and preparing a wide enough track.

After a lot of discussion, Smithy and I decided it might be possible to fly it out. Luckily there was a pretty steep slope on the end of the flat strip, and we decided to clear a path to it and haul the repaired aircraft up to the top to give it a running start. There was about 250 yards beyond the slope before coming to a wall of trees, so we prayed we could build up momentum and achieve enough flying speed to do a split arse turn with a wing tip practically touching the ground and then fly out. We knew there was a good risk of a crash with odds of about 2-1 in our favour.

The aircraft was quickly repaired by our small crew of mechanics who refitted the undercarriage and changed the engine. We then took out everything that wasn’t nailed down including the cabin floors. We even removed two of the three petrol tanks! With reduced weight, we’d have just enough petrol to get us to Brisbane if all went well. When all was ready, we hauled the machine up the slope which we’d cleared, put it in flying position and tied it back with rope. Everything was in place, so Smithy and I took our places. When the engines were up to revs, I gave the signal and someone on the ground cut the rope with an axe and down the slope we went, gaining speed tremendously quickly. We must have been off the ground within 100 yds and at 200 yds had good flying speed. Smithy left it until we were about 50 yds from the wall of trees with our right wing no more than 15ft off the ground and then demonstrated why he was one of the best pilots in the world. We were no more than 10yds from the trees when he flew out. My heart pounded in my chest, and I was elated at our audacious success! I’d had some serious qualms about removing the cabin floors and leaving the cabin open to the four winds as I had no idea how this might affect the aerodynamics. However, all went well, and we had saved the aircraft, not died doing it, and all at moderate cost. The thrill would be one hard to match for the rest of my life."