1655 Princess Margaret and the violent Gangster John Bindon

Beware the Ides of March(15th) Julius Caesar was warned but the first couple of days suggests the omens are good for the middle of the month this year when I shall reach my three score years and ten. It was to be a day with a strong hint of Spring and three outstanding Television Programmes, two with extraordinary revelations.

Yesterday morning rising at seven full of sleep to put out the wheelie bin after going to bed at 3am again struck by the newness and originality of my recent experience of waking dreams.

I returned to bed and sleep so it was 9.30 before rising finally and getting myself ready to go out in the sunshine just before 10.30, for the free Metro News paper, buying two bags of grapes, some bananas and mushrooms for £3.50 and then making my way to the Ship and Royal, when I did not have to ask for the coffee and Bacon roll as the assistant recognised me.

On return was time for a quick check of emails and the news before paying my credit card off for the month and then going into the yard and spending an enjoyable hour clearing the plants of dead flowers and other dead growth and being surprised how much had survived and was in fact thriving, including some pots which appear to have become devoid of water. I also found that although kept in a tin with the lid only slightly ajar the spare daff bulbs had sprouted. I therefore quickly found containers and the earth to plants these. I also cleaned the flagstones and tidied the stone chippings. There is more work to do but this was saved until the morrow. While out it clouded over and then rained a little and remained overcast for the rest of the afternoon.

The sense of Spring emerging was added to as my membership book arrived for Durham County Cricket season. The problem with at 10.45 brunch is that by mid afternoon I was peckish and a light snack of cereal with milk did not suffice, nor did a plate of four dry crackers topped with spiced chutney and two hot cross buns were added. This would have been bad enough had the combination of the bacon and the activity created a thirst which a cup of tea on returning home did not quench of I drank a pint of Foster‘s lager. In the evening I made an excellent stir fry of Chinese vegetables, the rest of the pork, some Thyme flavour Basmati rice and a Thai sauces and wolfed the lot, its all in the textures and the flavours. The meal ended with half a sweet melon and coffee. Yum tum.

I also listened to Damien Rice while I thought and wrote, having commenced with some games against the computer . I have his CD of 0. Some of his work is the most intimate and tender of love songs I can remember and his voice echoes pain and loss of love ended or unrequited. I came across Damien’s work only two years ago when at Croydon I caught a sessions BBC broadcast from a converted church and was impressed with The Blower’s Daughter and Aime, and bought the 0 CD 0 before going home listening on the coach with my CD player. Later I listened to the Bach cello sonatas and some Christ Barber and Monty Sunshine separate compilations.

These were all preliminaries for three programmes each of which will stay in the front room of my memory for sometime. The first of these concerned the relationship between Princess Margaret and the violent gangster John Bindon. I will tread carefully because there are two contrasting versions of the relationship between the two and I have reservations about the value of such programmes even after decades have elapsed since the events. The programmes are in my view an indication of further moves to a more egalitarian democracy away from a representative one in which those with wealth and power rode out whatever the Parliamentarians decided. The death of Princess Diana was the first watershed and second will seen to be the so called credit crunch which is the collapse of capitalism as we have come to know it, because of the greed of the powerful in a global economy

The question posed in the programme was did Princess Margaret have a sexual relationship with a violent gangster or did she just enjoy the company of a villain who told dirty jokes and had a big dick which he showed off. Two versions of the relationship were presented throughout the programme. Before describing these, a short introductory note on the lives of the two extraordinary individuals is appropriate.
Princess Margaret’s life was blighted by four events. The first was that after being brought up as the niece of the King, because he put his love of a forceful and evidently miscalculating woman before his duty to his role as head of state, she found herself second in line to the throne after the abdication. Having been thrust into the limelight as a daughter of the King, she then, along with the children and adolescents of my generation, lost what should have been in general a carefree youthful experience because of the War and the Blitz of London; thirdly because of the death of her father at an early age, she then found herself thrust even more into the limelight as the sister of the Queen and where she was expected to play a defined role in public regardless of her nature and implications. Finally when she found a way of being herself through a loving relationship, the government led by Winston Churchill, supported by Commonwealth Prime Ministers, and the Church of England stepped in and told her she could not marry a divorced man. I have no doubt she was also counselled that there was nothing to stop her having an affair as long as it was done in private and kept out of the public eye, advice no doubt given to her sister’s son, a generation later when he continued have a relationship with the love of his life, then married, but subsequently a divorce, who he married, after his relationship with Princess Diana ended, and he too became a divorcee. So half a century after Princess Margaret’s life was ruined by the powerful who were themselves often leading double lives and religious hypocrites, we have the prospect of two adulterers and divorcee’s becoming the King and Queen.

The impact on Princess Margaret was to follow the advice and lead a public life in support of the Queen, and enjoy herself in every way she could in semi privacy protected by the media Barons, the Aristocracy and extreme Right Wing politicians. It is known that she smoked and drank excessively, had lovers during her marriage and subsequently and associated with drug takers, at the public expense, although in these respect she was part of a scene in the sixties and seventies in which many public figures, politicians and the aristocracy all participated and which there is evidence many still do.
Similar to Prince Charles Princess Margaret appears to have been counselled to marry someone reliable for social functions, children, and appearance sake. What she did was to marry a swinging Bohemian photographer, Anthony Armstrong Jones. On her honeymoon is called in on the island owned by her former boyfriend, Colin Tennant, now Baron Glenconner who had acquired Mustique in the Grenadines, three miles by one, slightly larger than Gibraltar, the homeland of my parents He like her is stated to have was a great party person as well as traveller and his wife had been a Lady in Waiting to the Princess.
As a wedding present he gave the Queen’s sister, land on which to build a holiday home and the island became a Winter retreat playground, in days when it was possible to control who came to the Island and ensure there was no unplanned media interest.

It would be unfair to Baron Glenconner to suggest that his interest in the island was just as a holiday home as he built a new village for the inhabitants and developed the local economy of vegetables, fruit and fishing, investing heavily. Later he is described as living in exile on the island in St Lucia and England. He and his wife are alive and did not participate in the programme.

Throughout her marriage of eighteen years to Anthony Armstrong Jones, made Lord Snowdon, Princess Margaret was alleged to have been promiscuous with a wide range of men of varying ages and backgrounds and he likewise was said to have been a match for her in many respects and he too survives not to tell the tale, having had an internationally recognised career, remarried and given a separate life peerage and Baron Armstrong Jones so he could continue to sit in the House of Lords. This second marriage also ended in divorce when it was established he had a son by a third party.

John Bindon was born in Fulham London, the second in a working class family of three children. As an adolescent he was given the nickname Biffo because his explosive temper led to violence. He went to Borstal for possessing live ammunition and he worked at various things from manual to antiques and where he became friend with a man who had helped out at his father’s junk shop and became a knocker, someone who called at the homes of those thought to possess valuables and seek to purchase at a profit, This individual and his brother became wealthy and powerful international antique dealers but only recently has the revelations of a former employee suggested that many of the works were well constructed fakes. This has been denied and is another story to be unfolded. At some point Mr Bindon decided he wanted to be an actor and approached Ken Loach the Director who evidently recognised his potential for portraying authentic villains.

He appeared a wife beating husband in 1967 in Poor Cow and he then appeared with Mick Jagger, the international Rock Star, in the film Performance, in the role of a violent mobster. He appeared as a drug dealer in the film Quadrophenia and in Get Carter. He appeared in 13 films over 12 years and a number of TV programmes

In between the film performances he was indeed a violent gangster with extortion being his main crime, in an era when he was said to have covered different territory from the Kray twins and the Richardson’s who also attracted personalities such as Peter Sellers, the international film star. He is said to have a relationship with Christine Keeler of the Profumo Affair. He is alleged to have been sent to prison for grievous bodily harm, living on immoral earnings( running prostitutes and attempted murder.

In 1968 he met Vicki Hodge a baronet’s daughter who had become an actress and model. That same year he was awarded the Queen’s award for Bravery on the recommendation of the Police, although Bindon subsequently disclosed that he had thrown the man into the river Thames before the rescue act.

We now come to 1973. In 1973 Princess Margaret who was 43 commenced a relationship with Roddy Llewellyn who was then 25 years and this relationship was used for the divorce in 1978 and where the relationship is reported to have continued for a couple of years after. (Mr Llewellyn subsequently married and became a successful gardener, writer and broadcaster. He also issued one long play record). Among others known to have had relationships of varying lengths with the Princess is a nephew of former Prime Minister, an international rock star, still performing, an international actor still not alive and an international cricketer. In 1974 the pressures of having a relationship with an older woman, and sister to the Queen built up on Mr Llewellyn and he took off without telling the Princess, back packing in Turkey She was very upset and is known to have unintentionally taken an overdose of sleeping pills. The Princess was left to Winter in Mustique on her own. This posed a challenge for her Island host who is reputed to have always ensured that there was hospitality and entertainment to satisfy the Princess. Fortunately by an amazing coincidence John Bindon had also arrived on the island. He was on the run from the police having been involved with a criminal assault in London. He arrived only with Beach wear clothing and little else as the guest of Dana Gillespie. According to some reports he was taken to the island by his mistress Vickie Hodge but this is not so, although they visited the island together subsequently and met up with the Princess.

Dana is the daughter of an Austrian Baron and grew up in England and Italy who became a folk singer and was known as a one time girl friend of Bob Dylan and a friend of the wife of David Bowie, She has appeared on the London Stage, in films and recorded some forty Albums, several associated with her over Winter Performances in Mustique where one of her guests in 2005 was Mick Jagger. Gillespie and Bindon were invited to a Beach Party with the Princess, extraordinary given his criminal reputation and that he was on the run from the police. The reason for the invite was fully revealed in he programme and confirmed by Dana, his long terms mistress Vicki and a number of other former friends. John was exceptionally well endowed. This led to him seeking two or three sex partners a day and it is said he had no trouble in finding them. He was also well known for doing a party trick which involved exposing himself and performing tricks which included revolving like a helicopter and balancing a number of half pint beer mugs. At the beach picnic he was invited to show off his pride and joy to the Princess and a Lady in waiting is said to have commented to Dana that she had seen bigger!

Apparently the Princess, and many women were, as very taken with John because he could be the life and soul of the party with a fund of jokes, often crude, and as many people testified, it was necessary for then to plead him to stop such was the impact of the laughter. It was this personality which led to Vicki to remain loyal despite the fact that he would slap her hard, tried to throttle her and that she has several minor knife wounds from him on her body. She is a witness to accompanying him to drinking clubs in the afternoon where he met up with London crime racketeers and where he would beat anyone up anyone who made a pass at Vickie while he was talking business.

Dana Gillespie convinced as a very reliable witness whereas Vicki has a reputation for kiss and tell stories about her relationships, including Prince Andrew, The Duke of York, writing her version of the relationship in the News of the World. Vickie is reported as having become something of a femme fatal herself and is said to have had relationships with Ringo Starr and Elliot Gould.

The film goes on to reveal that on returning to London, John continued to see the Princess, being invited to Kensington Palace beings seen at a restaurant in which John got into a fight and stopping to talk to her as her official car passed. Regardless of the nature of her relationship the evidence is conclusive of an ongoing and inappropriate relationship. The film then disclosed that John had revealed to his friends that he been stopped by an official car containing members of the secret service and driven around London during which time he was warned that if he spoke about his relationship with the Princess or revealed photographs he would be killed. No independent confirmation of this allegation was produced.

It is not clear for how long there was direct contact with Princess Margaret, but the relationship with Roddy Llewellyn was established and this led to the publication in the News of the World in 1976 of a Mustique photo of her with Roddy in swimwear. This destroyed the fiction of their marriage.

There is evidence that rather like Reggie Kray there was a period when John must have considered himself to be otherwise untouchable. In 1977 Bindon was hired by the Tour management of a Led Zepplin as Security Coordinator, a job he had previously provided for actors Ryan and Tatum O’Neal. As a result of an off stage fight four men including Bindon and the Tour Manager Richard Cole were charged and found guilty and given suspended sentences. A year later Bindon killed John Darke another violent gangster by sticking a bayonet into him nine times. Bindon left the scene for Ireland immediately and is said to have had a meeting with the British police in which he offered to return on the understanding that he would not be convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of legitimate self defence in a fight started by Darke. At the trial the prosecution alleged that the killing was a contact over drugs. The programme revealed that John had a corrupt source who provided him and his defence legal team with the information on how the case was to be prosecuted. What shocked one senior police officer, speaking on camera is that John was not only acquitted of murder and manslaughter but of also an affray. The actor Bob Hoskins gave character evidence at the trial on behalf of John, The programme makes the allegation that the trial was fixed on behalf of the Princess. However the following day the Daily Mirror published a photo of John Bindon with the Princess on the Island of Mustique with John wearing a T shirt promoting cocaine.

John became a heroin addict and is said to have become a recluse dying of AIDS in 1993. Vickie Hodge finally left him for new pastures in 1981. Princess Margaret also commenced to withdraw from public life, developed bronchial problems from heavy smoking and had to strokes. She died in 2002 and her body was cremated, which some may think odd.

In 2005 Wensley Clarkson published a biography of Bindon called Bindon: Fighter Gangster, Actor, Lover, The True Story of John Bindon. I have not read this book but have attempted to confirm what is said in documentary which is still available to see from Chanel Four on Demand. There have been various documentaries, dramas and books about the life of Princess Margaret since her death.

So after a programme reviewing the relationship of Lord Boothby and others with the Kray criminals and murderers and that between the sister of the Queen, a killer, wife beater, thug and all round criminal I viewed the story of John Aspinal and the London‘s Crime King Billy Hill, in the same series on Channel Four. That will do for tomorrow along with a charming programme in the series Do you know who you are featuring Kevin Whately. The programme showed the wildness and irresponsibility of leading aristocratic families, land owners, leading financiers and politicians , including cabinet ministers, including men who wanted to overthrow Harold Wilson and the Labour with a violent coup to replace with a Franco style Fascist government. This is the subject for tomorrow.