From Literary Review

Behind Clothes, Hors d'oeuvres

By Jane Ridley

Behind Closed Doors: The Tragic, Untold Story of the Duchess of Windsor
By Hugo Vickers (Hutchinson 462pp £25)

The English love to hate Wallis Simpson. She is vilified as the gold-digging sex goddess who stole our film-star king, Edward VIII. Hugo Vickers has spent a lifetime following Wallis. At the age of twelve, when most children his age were in thrall to the Beatles, Hugo was a fan of the Duchess of Windsor. His researches have convinced him that Wallis has been unfairly treated, and that she was not a villain but a victim. This was true throughout her life, but never more so than at the end.

Wallis, the widowed Duchess of Windsor, spent her last years incarcerated in a living grave in her villa in the Bois de Boulogne. Barely able to speak, mentally confused and paralysed by rheumatism and strokes, she had almost ceased to exist as a person. She lay all day in bed in a vegetative state, fed through a tube in her nose and attached to a life-support machine. Her lawyer, the sinister Maître Suzanne Blum, kept her under close surveillance. Blum could be charming, but (according to Vickers) she was a ruthless, wicked crook. Claiming to act as the Duchess's devoted friend and protector, she fired her respectable English lawyer, sacked the Duchess's loyal servants and banished her old friends, such as Diana Mosley. The royal family was kept away. The big question concerned what was to happen to the Windsor loot. Lord Mountbatten tried to wheedle his way in as an executor, but Blum saw him off. There were tales of bonfires of papers. While the Duchess lay unconscious upstairs, the dishonest butler filched her love letters, which he found stored in a shoebox, and handed them over to Blum (at a price) for safekeeping. Jewels and furniture mysteriously disappeared.

The writer Michael Bloch appeared on the scene, acting as Blum's assistant. It was his job to write the story of the Windsors, using the letters that Blum had removed from the villa. Blum claimed that the Duchess had signed a document giving her authority to publish her papers. This was dated 1975, when the Duchess was still in possession of her mind - but it only appeared ten years later. Vickers is convinced that the document is a fake, and Blum did not own the copyright on the Duchess's letters. Under French law she didn't have power of attorney over Wallis, but no one intervened from England to challenge her iron grip over the Duchess.

Wallis died in 1986, aged eighty-nine. Bloch's edition of Wallis and Edward's letters was serialised in the Daily Mail to coincide with Wallis's funeral, and Bloch and Blum netted a seven-figure sum. Two more books by Bloch followed, each more far-fetched than the last. The final volume claimed that the Duchess was really a man. No one ever saw the Duchess's will. Blum sold her jewels through Sotheby's for a staggering £31 million, which she gave to the Institut Pasteur: a generous gift, but there's no telling whether this was what the Duchess had intended.

Vickers's account of the Duchess's long, horrific death and Blum's machinations is a page-turner, piling on detail after grisly detail. Since he first visited the Windsors at the age of twenty as a researcher for Burke's Peerage, Vickers made it his business to keep a watchful eye on the villa in the Bois de Boulogne, occasionally stopping outside to observe the light burning in the upstairs window; he got to know the Duchess's secretary and the Duke's private secretary, two of the more decent characters in the story. He had the foresight to keep a diary, and this allows him to tell the story in the first person, a device that gives the book a gripping sense of urgency.

The story of her death, which forms the greater part of the book, Wallis's life comes as something of an anticlimax. Vickers insists throughout that Wallis was someone to whom things happened - she was no adventuress, merely a drifter. She was born Bessie Wallis Warfield near Baltimore. It's a surprise to learn that the Warfields were a posh Maryland family descended twice over from Henry III and that Wallis came from a higher stratum of American society than Jackie Kennedy or Princess Grace. But she was a poor relation, and a difficult childhood had left her financially insecure and with a need to dominate. After the collapse of her first, brief marriage to an alcoholic airman, she spent a year in China. Vickers dismisses the theory that it was here that Wallis learned exotic sexual techniques - though he does quote Lady Gladwyn, the wife of the British ambassador to France, who told him that the Duke of Windsor was unable to perform and that the Duchess knew how to cope with the problem. 'There was nothing Chinese about it. It was what they call oral sex,' she said.

Husband No. 2, Ernest Simpson, was an Anglo-American businessman. The couple lived in a flat in Bryanston Court, and she socialised with the American colony in London. Simpson's sister was a friend of the American Thelma Furness, then mistress of the Prince of Wales, which was how the meeting that changed Wallis's life was arranged. Few could explain the attraction Wallis exerted on the Prince. She had a raucous voice and an overlarge chin, and she was uneducated, with no interest in music or art.

It is well attested that Wallis tried to stop Edward from abdicating. She wasn't in love with him, didn't want to be queen and was horrified when she realised how much he was giving up. Although she allowed herself to be persuaded to divorce Simpson, she apparently failed to see what was coming. Vickers argues that Edward alone brought about the abdication, and there was no Establishment plot to get rid of him. Marriage condemned Wallis to a lifetime dedicated to entertaining the spoiled and childlike Duke. By all accounts he remained devoted to her. She dominated him, and she was fortunate that an empty life of socialising, fashion and jet-setting suited her far more than it did him. It was the Duke, not Wallis, who cared that she wasn't styled HRH - this meant that women were not expected to curtsey to her - and who nursed her in-laws' petty slights.

The Queen allegedly once remarked: 'The two people who have caused me most trouble in my life are Wallis Simpson and Hitler.' Hugo Vickers's compelling account makes one feel that Wallis did the Queen a favour. She made a success of a marriage she had never really wanted, and kept the restless Duke of Windsor safely anchored for thirty-five years. She certainly didn't deserve the ghastly death so hauntingly described here.

Jane Ridley's biography of Edward VII will be published by Chatto & Windus next year.

(@philabooks|booksellers carries all books by and about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, or at least endeavours to do so. Unfortunately, this title is not yet in its catalog via http://www.philabooks.webs.com/). 

Day-tripping to
Baltimore's

Torsk in Baltimore Harbor
 [Photo: David Alan Dickens/Writers Clearinghouse News Service

Historical, Artistic Sites, and Museums



By David Alan Dickens
[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

One of a Series
Just a short drive down I-95 from Philadelphia is Baltimore. Known primarily for its sporting venues, this medium-sized city also has a bulging core of historical sites and museums. In lieu of Harbor Place, the National Aquarium and the Maryland Science Center, many of Baltimore’s art centers go unnoticed, quiet gems just waiting to be discovered.

When beginning a journey through this old colonial city (named after Lord Baltimore, aka: Lord Calvert) one is readily reminded of the past, of the city’s historical relevance and its role in building our Nation and Independence. Much as Philadelphia reveres the Liberty Bell and the reminders of our Continental Congress, so too does Baltimore enjoy its Fort McHenry, where Francis Scott Key penned our National Anthem. But scattered throughout this ever-evolving city is an impressive array of quieter, more private symbols of freedom.

Let’s begin this Baltimore-tour at the little–known Shot Tower, just blocks from Little Italy. Here, at Fayette and Front Streets, is a 234-foot Shot Tower. This towering structure of clay-brick and old mortar was the tallest manmade structure in the United States, eventually being surpassed by the Washington Monument, completed after the Civil war. Used for cooling shot (or musket balls) during the Civil War, the importance of this monument is amplified as there were only seven such structures.

The Shot Tower was in operation from 1828 to 1892. Molten lead was dropped from a platform at the top of the tower through a sieve-like device and into a vat of cold water. When hardened, dried and polished, the shot was sorted into 25-pound bags, producing a total of 1,000,000 bags of shot a year--a number that could be doubled.

Known originally as the Phoenix Shot, then the Merchants' Shot Tower and now the old Baltimore Shot Tower, the red brick tower was erected in 1828. Charles Carroll, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, led in its development and construction. This type of building was rare even during the 19th century, and this National Historic Landmark affords an excellent example of the simple elegance that can be achieved in the design of industrial architecture.

Further up the street, at Pratt and Light Streets, is Baltimore’s --- Harbor Place. Standing proudly at the Pratt Street Pavillion is the USS Constellation, a ship of service during the War of 1812. and a flexing of America’s early naval muscle. Majestic and sturdy, the Constellation harkens back to the early days of uncertainty, when the high-seas would prove vital to our Independence.

Baltimore's Constellation was commissioned in 1855, the very last all-sail fighting vessel. Visitors can climb aboard this last-of-its-kind ship and get a firsthand look at what the life of a sailor was like in days past.

A knowledgeable and enthusiastic crew of tour guides is ready to answer questions about the ship's history, including its missions to disrupt the slave trade, and its latter role in delivering famine relief supplies to Ireland.


For hours, dates, admission fees, and a history of the ship, visit the USS Constellation website at: www.constellation.org.

After touring this American naval classic, you’ll notice another vessel of the sea, this one from an entirely different generation. The USS Torsk, a US Navy submarine (long-retired) saw extensive action in the Sea of Japan and help secure the seas for General MacArthur and Admiral Halsey as they continued their Island-Hopping Campaign toward the Japanese home islands (the Torsk got its name from a gadoid fish, allied to the codfish, which is found in the North Atlantic. The name Torsk is Norwegian in origin).

USS Torsk (SS-423) was built at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and placed in commission on 16 December 1944 with Commander Bafford E. Lewellen, U.S. Navy, as its first commanding officer.


After clearing Hawaii, Torsk sailed to Guam for a short stop. Then she went on to the Sea of Japan. On 11 August she rescued seven Japanese seamen whose ship had been sunk by a U.S. plane. On 12 August she had her first combat action when she fired two torpedoes at a small freighter. The ship appeared to be damaged, but postwar investigation failed to show that she sank.

The next day Torsk torpedoed and sank three enemy vessels for a total of 2,473 tons.

After patrolling off Japan for a few days, Torsk headed east on 9 September 1945. She made brief stops in Guam and Hawaii, and on 20 September cleared the Panama Canal en route to New London, Connecticut. where she arrived on 15 October 1945. For the next ten tears Torsk was assigned to the Submarine Squadron 8 at the Submarine School in New London, where she trained officers and enlisted men for submarine duty. This assignment earned her the title of the “divingest” submarine in the U.S. Navy as she made dives several times a day in the course of her training activities.


Torsk was revamped and upgraded in 1951 and, beginning on 19 August 1957, she took part in NATO exercises operating with submarines of the Royal Navy. In 1959 she took part in the ceremonies marking the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway during which time she made an inland cruise through the Great Lakes to Milwaukee, Chicago, and Buffalo. More than 100,000 visitors toured the submarine during the trip.


Torsk was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for operations during the 1960 Lebanon Crisis, operating as a unit of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea. She took part in the 1962 naval blockade of Cuba established by the United States during the Russian missile crisis. During the operation, Torsk sent boarding parties to inspect some Soviet merchant ships. For this action she won the Navy Commendation Medal.

On 4 March 1968,  Torsk , at the ripe old age of 24 and after 11,884 dives, was decommissioned at the Boston Navy Yard. On September 26, 1972 she was transferred to Maryland; on May 1, 1973, she was established as the Maryland Submarine Memorial, and berthed at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor (alongside the Coast Guard Cutter Taney, and the lightship Chesapeake).

These other wonderful sites are also within minutes of Baltimore’s bustling Inner-Harbor. Be on the lookout as each will be featured in forthcoming articles:

The Baltimore Museum of Art Port Discovery Children’s Museum
The Walters Art Gallery The Fire Museum of Maryland
America Visionary Art Museum Great Blacks in Wax Museum
The Edgar Allan Poe House The Poe Burial Site