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The Courier
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Courier
23 photos of Dundee firefighters include heroes fighting city's biggest blazes
These archive images show Dundee firefighters in the 1980s and 1990s. They show crews battling some of the city's most memorable blazes. These included the 1980 Palais dance hall fire and the £6.4m blaze that reduced the Ashton Works jute mill to a smouldering shell in 1983. The faces of those who fight the flames are also shown. There are pictures of the crew in full uniform and raising money for charity. Enjoy having another browse back through the ages courtesy of The Dundonian, which appears in the Evening Telegraph every Wednesday. Some of these images have not been seen for years. Will they awaken any memories for you? The Palais in South Tay Street opened in 1928 and hosted acts over the decades such as Louis Armstrong, David Bowie and the Bee Gees. It ceased to be the Palais in October 1976 and became Samantha's disco. The blaze on February 20 1980 was known as the day the music died and the iconic entrance of the former ballroom is now all that's left of the old Palais. A mass meeting at Blackness Road Fire Station in November 1980. Over 270 members of the Tayside branch of the Fire Brigade Union attended and overwhelmingly supported industrial action in a national dispute over pay. The fire service workers voted to handle emergency calls only. Flames and thick smoke trapped 15 tenants as 30 firefighters battled to contain a blaze at the multi-storey block at Butterburn Court in March 1983. Some were hanging from the top windows, calling for help and waving blankets. Firefighters fought for more than an hour to bring the blaze under control. Firefighters at work on the roof of a lab in the University of Dundee after a fire. The incident happened in April 1983. Ashton Works was destroyed following a devastating fire in September 1983 that caused the equivalent of £6.4m of damage in today's money. More than 60 firefighters battled for more than three hours to contain the blaze. A German-registered coaster, the Sabine, collided with the Tay Road Bridge in heavy rain and fog in October 1984. Firefighters were at Dundee docks after the vessel returned to the harbour. The Fountain Disco in Brown Street offered Dundee clubbers cheap drinks, pounding chart music and the best light show in Scotland. Tragedy struck on June 25 1985 when fire ripped through the upper floor and completely destroyed the roof. It reopened in April 1986 following repairs and improvements. Two firefighters wearing breathing apparatus during an exercise in July 1985. Sets are carried on all frontline fire engines. Firefighters attending a tanker fuel leak on the Kingsway in August 1995. A firefighter does more than put out fires. A firefighter also helps with hazardous materials and road traffic accidents. A firefighter being sprayed with water to decontaminate following a disaster simulation exercise at Dundee Airport in October 1989. The full-scale emergency response was scrambled following a mock crash between two light aircraft that left nine people 'killed' and 17 with 'serious injuries'. Exercises of this sort became an annual event. A mock fire exercise at the Wellgate Centre in November 1989. Dummies were used and the aim of the simulation was to test the ability of firefighters wearing breathing apparatus to penetrate deep into the burning area Ian Johnston and Morris Anderson undertaking a training drill with a hose in February 1991 at the Macalpine Road Fire Station. The station opened in November 1990. The new building replaced the Northern Fire Station at Strathmore Avenue. Long service awards recipients at Blackness Road Station in February 1991. The Long Service and Good Conduct Medal is awarded under Royal Warrant to full time, retained and volunteer staff who have completed 20 years' service. A simulated rail crash between a passenger train and chemical-carrying tanker was staged at the northern approach to the Tay Rail Bridge in September 1991. A ScotRail carriage was derailed to add realism. The simulated crash resulted in 10 fatalities, which were all dummies. Blue Iris was the first large-scale civil emergency exercise to be carried out in Tayside since town and village were lumped together under regionalisation in 1975. Part of the exercise involved the simulated evacuation of 160 nearby residents whose homes were affected by toxic fumes from the rail tanker. National Fire Safety Week arrived in the Murraygate in October 1991. Firefighters were spreading the message outside a portable fire safety awareness unit. Senior officers getting in some practise at Macalpine Road Fire Station in August 1993. They were getting ready to pull a 10-ton fire engine 100 metres in as short a time as possible to raise money for the Ninewells Cancer Research Appeal. Station Officer Jim Pearson retired from MacAlpine Road in May 1994. He received a crystal figurine from Divisional Officer Alexander MacPherson. Remember the Zapp Zone at the Megabowl in Lochee? Firefighters were showing off how a thermal imaging camera works in June 1994. A new helmet was introduced in Tayside featuring a visor. Bruce Henderson and Fraser Cochrane were comparing the old and new helmet at Blackness Road Fire Station in September 1995. Bruce, at the back, was modelling the new version. Forty firefighters with eight appliances were involved in Exercise Grandstand at Dundee United's Tannadice Park home ground in August 1996. The mock test was to keep them up to scratch on dealing with incidents at stadia. A new Comet store opened at the Milton of Craigie retail park in November 1999. The previous store suffered £200,000 of damage in an extensive fire in February with 35 firefighters involved in the emergency operation. The new store was opened by Fireman Sam and his Dundee colleagues. It's the final image in our gallery of Dundee firefighters. Did you recognise anyone? Let us know.
The Age
28-05-2025
- The Age
Twenty things that will surprise first-time visitors to Bangkok
The west bank of the river was home to the first European settlers in Siam (as Thailand was then known), 16th-century Portuguese traders, missionaries and mercenaries. Kudichin, also known as Kudijeen, consists of narrow lanes (or soi) and old teak houses, including the ancestral Baan Kudichin Museum. The domed 1770 Santa Cruz Church and nearby Wat Prayurawongsawat ('Turtle Mountain Temple') with its hollow, 60-metre stupa are open to visitors. And look for the small family bakeries that sell the European-inspired tart called khanom farang ('foreigner cake'). See There are cannabis shops everywhere In 2022 Thailand surprised the world, and itself, by radically loosening its previously strict marijuana laws. Cannabis-based products, supposedly for 'medical use only', were soon on sale across the kingdom in glitzy shops, kerbside vans and street stalls. A new conservative government now hopes, belatedly, to legislate the billion-dollar genie back into its bottle. Whatever the outcome and your herbal inclinations, don't even think about exporting anything. It's home to the world's largest outdoor shopping mall Chatuchak Weekend Market is the world's largest, busiest, noisiest and allegedly best-bargain marketplace of all. Catch the SkyTrain north to Mo Chit to find this Mecca for impulse purchasers. With more than 15,000 stalls covering 14 hectares and selling everything from jewels, curios and pets to amulets and electronics, you'll need extra bags to lug home the loot. It's always a long weekend at Chatuchak, which trades full-tilt from Wednesday to Sunday. See History lives in the side streets The dowager Atlanta Hotel sits amid its considerable memories down Soi 2 Sukhumvit Road. The classic Bauhaus-deco lobby is unchanged from the 1950s, when this was the place to dine in Bangkok. A 1962 photograph shows the young King Rama IX playing saxophone there with Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. The menu in the hotel's original LA-style diner declares: 'Typically, the Atlanta is not moving with the times.' See Hotel California isn't played here Forget the chrome pole clubs or beer bars still playing The Eagles, Bangkok has plenty of cool musical watering holes. The Saxophone Jazz and Blues Pub at the Victory Monument has delivered live Thai-Latino-whatever jazz, good drinks and great atmosphere with no cover charge or go-go dancers since 1987 ( Meanwhile, upmarket and down by the river, the Mandarin Oriental's elegant Bamboo Bar stirs smoky jazz into your late-night cocktail musings ( Something similar happens high above the river at the Millennium Hilton's ThreeSixty Bar. See A street corner named devotion Erawan Shrine in front of the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel is renowned as Bangkok's most wish-fulfilling shrine. Day and night, Thais from all walks of life make offerings before its centrepiece, a four-faced golden Brahma statue. They pray for wealth, health, education or business success, or give thanks for prayers answered. Traditional dancers often perform here. Visitors welcome, respectful photography appreciated. See The world's most beautiful boatshed The National Museum of Royal Barges, the most beautiful boatshed in the world, houses the Crown's fleet of gilded, ceremonial vessels. These works of art with swan-necked prows and mythological figureheads glide out on rare occasions for the extraordinary Royal Barge Procession, when they parade, rowed by chanting sailors, past the Grand Palace and its dreaming spires. The barge museum, on the west bank in Bangkok Noi, displays these intricate vessels. Watch as artisans maintain them. See It's still a backpacker mecca Khao San Road, unofficial world backpacker HQ, gained fame last century with Alex Garland's novel (and subsequent Hollywood movie) The Beach. 'The main function for the street was as a decompression chamber … a halfway house between East and West,' he wrote. It still is. KSR endures, with the dreads-and-tatts crew sharing space with flashpackers and selfie-obsessives. By night the street is closed to traffic and becomes a free-range party zone. Explore it for music in clubs like Brick Bar. Above all, decompress. See The nicknames are delightful Don't be surprise to meet, for instance, a woman called Pla (meaning Fish) or another named Porn. Because formal Thai names can seem as long as a stretch limo, many Thais adopt a short, convenient nickname. Foreigners will be surprised to meet someone called Poo (Crab), Meaw (Cat), Moo (Pig) or Gai (Chicken). As for Porn, forget any preconceptions; it's an auspicious name, meaning blessing or grace. Thais sometimes translate their nicknames into English and you might find yourself chatting with Glass (Kaew), Smile (Yim) or Snack (Khanom), or perhaps plain Pop (as in music). It's easy to get high, literally The Great City of Angels lets you brush wings with its namesake celestial spirits via its rooftop bars. From up there you can muse, cocktail in hand, on the glittering street circuitry below or the looping calligraphy of the river as it signs off on its long run to the sea. In this city without hills, vertigo is a rare sensation, except at the MahaNakhon skyscraper. As Thailand's tallest building it trumps the skybars with its 78th-floor skywalk, the city's highest public point. Defy your survival instincts by stepping out onto its glass deck and then looking 310 vertiginous metres down to the toy town cars below. See Tuk-tuks are for tourists (and more expensive than taxis) Probably, yes. The iconic tuk-tuk (proper name samlor, 'three-wheel') functions today mostly as a tourist rattle-trap. They're unmetered, wind-in-your-hair fun, for sure. A first-time hoot. Until the end of the trip when, if you didn't first agree on the fare, the driver is charging you whatever he likes. For farang (foreigners), they're usually more expensive than a metered taxi. Go local, live like a Thai, catch the SkyTrain, Metro or ferry – all faster and cheaper than a tuk-tuk, even if less Insta fun. Thailand didn't invent massage, but perfected it Skip the fluffy rub-downs and five-orchid spa sessions. Try the real thing, where many Thai therapists learn their basics, at Wat Pho temple's 70-year-old Thai Traditional Massage School. Massage as developed here is included on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list. For $20, a skilled trainee will turn your shoulder knots to noodles during an hour of pummelling, prodding and stretching. While you're at Wat Pho, visit its famous, 46-metre long, gold-plated Reclining Buddha. It has the world's wettest new year celebration Songkran, the world's wettest new year. Thailand's traditional new year falls in mid-April. Once the first jet of water hits your neck, things can descend into days of being drenched anytime you set foot outside. As a farang, you are an affectionate 'mark', so don't hit the streets wearing or carrying anything you can't afford to have soaked. You've stepped into the middle of the world's biggest water fight. Should you become a target, don't bother to plead: you're painting an even bigger bull's eye on yourself. Often the most indiscriminate water-bombers are inebriated, newbie tourists trying to 'go local'. The river commute is a fast and furious ride Khlong Saen Saep, built between 1837 and 1840, snakes its way through the city. Hop aboard a rocket and see how some Bangkokians get to the office. The skinny, 15-metre-long, 50-seat canal ferries rip along the muddy waters, making Formula One-speed pit stops at the khlong's 18 wharves. Leap – almost literally – on and off whenever you dare. A conductor collects fares as the projectile travels the 18-kilometre route. Blasting past temples and shacks, mansions and malls, it's your cheap-as-chips tour of the real Bangkok's backdoors. See The Risky Market is called 'risky' for good reason Talat Rhom Hoop – literally 'Closing Umbrella Market' – sounds curious enough, but its English name is more ominous – The Risky Market. You look up to see why: a locomotive is bearing down on you amid the market stalls. Their trackside awnings suddenly retract. You press yourself against a wall, flat as a Peking duck, with the train rumbling by, inches away. The fishing port of Samut Songkhram, also known as Mae Khlong, 80 kilometres south-west of Bangkok, is home to this death-defying shopping excursion and its 33-kilometre Mae Khlong-Mahachai railway, the shortest line in Thailand. See One of the world's longest roads runs through it Loading Hail a taxi on Sukhumvit and say: 'To the end of the road, please.' Four hundred and ninety kilometres later you'll be at Cambodia. Thanon Sukhumvit, Bangkok's boulevard of dreams and schemes, is not only the country's longest thoroughfare but one of the world's longest main roads. Until the mid-1960s, rice paddies and aristocratic estates bordered it. Novelist and composer S.P. Somtow recalled his family enclave there as 'our remote little island kingdom on Sukhumvit Road'. The rip-roaring progress monster that ate old Bangkok soon consumed the agriculture and enchantment alike. It's home to the world's narrowest Chinatown alley Bangkok is said to be home to the largest diaspora Chinatown in the world. Which might make Soi Itsara Nuphap, between Yaowarat and Charoen Krung roads, the skinniest Chinatown alley of almost anywhere. Inch your way along as it pinches down to a two-metre-wide crush of food stalls, handcarts, shoppers, monks, motorbike delivery drivers, grandmothers, schoolkids and bargain hunters. Ten minutes later you pop out at the other end, having sampled a parallel Thai-Chinese universe at very close quarters. Celebrate with a pickled egg. Watch your wallet. See
Sydney Morning Herald
28-05-2025
- Sydney Morning Herald
Twenty things that will surprise first-time visitors to Bangkok
The west bank of the river was home to the first European settlers in Siam (as Thailand was then known), 16th-century Portuguese traders, missionaries and mercenaries. Kudichin, also known as Kudijeen, consists of narrow lanes (or soi) and old teak houses, including the ancestral Baan Kudichin Museum. The domed 1770 Santa Cruz Church and nearby Wat Prayurawongsawat ('Turtle Mountain Temple') with its hollow, 60-metre stupa are open to visitors. And look for the small family bakeries that sell the European-inspired tart called khanom farang ('foreigner cake'). See There are cannabis shops everywhere In 2022 Thailand surprised the world, and itself, by radically loosening its previously strict marijuana laws. Cannabis-based products, supposedly for 'medical use only', were soon on sale across the kingdom in glitzy shops, kerbside vans and street stalls. A new conservative government now hopes, belatedly, to legislate the billion-dollar genie back into its bottle. Whatever the outcome and your herbal inclinations, don't even think about exporting anything. It's home to the world's largest outdoor shopping mall Chatuchak Weekend Market is the world's largest, busiest, noisiest and allegedly best-bargain marketplace of all. Catch the SkyTrain north to Mo Chit to find this Mecca for impulse purchasers. With more than 15,000 stalls covering 14 hectares and selling everything from jewels, curios and pets to amulets and electronics, you'll need extra bags to lug home the loot. It's always a long weekend at Chatuchak, which trades full-tilt from Wednesday to Sunday. See History lives in the side streets The dowager Atlanta Hotel sits amid its considerable memories down Soi 2 Sukhumvit Road. The classic Bauhaus-deco lobby is unchanged from the 1950s, when this was the place to dine in Bangkok. A 1962 photograph shows the young King Rama IX playing saxophone there with Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. The menu in the hotel's original LA-style diner declares: 'Typically, the Atlanta is not moving with the times.' See Hotel California isn't played here Forget the chrome pole clubs or beer bars still playing The Eagles, Bangkok has plenty of cool musical watering holes. The Saxophone Jazz and Blues Pub at the Victory Monument has delivered live Thai-Latino-whatever jazz, good drinks and great atmosphere with no cover charge or go-go dancers since 1987 ( Meanwhile, upmarket and down by the river, the Mandarin Oriental's elegant Bamboo Bar stirs smoky jazz into your late-night cocktail musings ( Something similar happens high above the river at the Millennium Hilton's ThreeSixty Bar. See A street corner named devotion Erawan Shrine in front of the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel is renowned as Bangkok's most wish-fulfilling shrine. Day and night, Thais from all walks of life make offerings before its centrepiece, a four-faced golden Brahma statue. They pray for wealth, health, education or business success, or give thanks for prayers answered. Traditional dancers often perform here. Visitors welcome, respectful photography appreciated. See The world's most beautiful boatshed The National Museum of Royal Barges, the most beautiful boatshed in the world, houses the Crown's fleet of gilded, ceremonial vessels. These works of art with swan-necked prows and mythological figureheads glide out on rare occasions for the extraordinary Royal Barge Procession, when they parade, rowed by chanting sailors, past the Grand Palace and its dreaming spires. The barge museum, on the west bank in Bangkok Noi, displays these intricate vessels. Watch as artisans maintain them. See It's still a backpacker mecca Khao San Road, unofficial world backpacker HQ, gained fame last century with Alex Garland's novel (and subsequent Hollywood movie) The Beach. 'The main function for the street was as a decompression chamber … a halfway house between East and West,' he wrote. It still is. KSR endures, with the dreads-and-tatts crew sharing space with flashpackers and selfie-obsessives. By night the street is closed to traffic and becomes a free-range party zone. Explore it for music in clubs like Brick Bar. Above all, decompress. See The nicknames are delightful Don't be surprise to meet, for instance, a woman called Pla (meaning Fish) or another named Porn. Because formal Thai names can seem as long as a stretch limo, many Thais adopt a short, convenient nickname. Foreigners will be surprised to meet someone called Poo (Crab), Meaw (Cat), Moo (Pig) or Gai (Chicken). As for Porn, forget any preconceptions; it's an auspicious name, meaning blessing or grace. Thais sometimes translate their nicknames into English and you might find yourself chatting with Glass (Kaew), Smile (Yim) or Snack (Khanom), or perhaps plain Pop (as in music). It's easy to get high, literally The Great City of Angels lets you brush wings with its namesake celestial spirits via its rooftop bars. From up there you can muse, cocktail in hand, on the glittering street circuitry below or the looping calligraphy of the river as it signs off on its long run to the sea. In this city without hills, vertigo is a rare sensation, except at the MahaNakhon skyscraper. As Thailand's tallest building it trumps the skybars with its 78th-floor skywalk, the city's highest public point. Defy your survival instincts by stepping out onto its glass deck and then looking 310 vertiginous metres down to the toy town cars below. See Tuk-tuks are for tourists (and more expensive than taxis) Probably, yes. The iconic tuk-tuk (proper name samlor, 'three-wheel') functions today mostly as a tourist rattle-trap. They're unmetered, wind-in-your-hair fun, for sure. A first-time hoot. Until the end of the trip when, if you didn't first agree on the fare, the driver is charging you whatever he likes. For farang (foreigners), they're usually more expensive than a metered taxi. Go local, live like a Thai, catch the SkyTrain, Metro or ferry – all faster and cheaper than a tuk-tuk, even if less Insta fun. Thailand didn't invent massage, but perfected it Skip the fluffy rub-downs and five-orchid spa sessions. Try the real thing, where many Thai therapists learn their basics, at Wat Pho temple's 70-year-old Thai Traditional Massage School. Massage as developed here is included on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list. For $20, a skilled trainee will turn your shoulder knots to noodles during an hour of pummelling, prodding and stretching. While you're at Wat Pho, visit its famous, 46-metre long, gold-plated Reclining Buddha. It has the world's wettest new year celebration Songkran, the world's wettest new year. Thailand's traditional new year falls in mid-April. Once the first jet of water hits your neck, things can descend into days of being drenched anytime you set foot outside. As a farang, you are an affectionate 'mark', so don't hit the streets wearing or carrying anything you can't afford to have soaked. You've stepped into the middle of the world's biggest water fight. Should you become a target, don't bother to plead: you're painting an even bigger bull's eye on yourself. Often the most indiscriminate water-bombers are inebriated, newbie tourists trying to 'go local'. The river commute is a fast and furious ride Khlong Saen Saep, built between 1837 and 1840, snakes its way through the city. Hop aboard a rocket and see how some Bangkokians get to the office. The skinny, 15-metre-long, 50-seat canal ferries rip along the muddy waters, making Formula One-speed pit stops at the khlong's 18 wharves. Leap – almost literally – on and off whenever you dare. A conductor collects fares as the projectile travels the 18-kilometre route. Blasting past temples and shacks, mansions and malls, it's your cheap-as-chips tour of the real Bangkok's backdoors. See The Risky Market is called 'risky' for good reason Talat Rhom Hoop – literally 'Closing Umbrella Market' – sounds curious enough, but its English name is more ominous – The Risky Market. You look up to see why: a locomotive is bearing down on you amid the market stalls. Their trackside awnings suddenly retract. You press yourself against a wall, flat as a Peking duck, with the train rumbling by, inches away. The fishing port of Samut Songkhram, also known as Mae Khlong, 80 kilometres south-west of Bangkok, is home to this death-defying shopping excursion and its 33-kilometre Mae Khlong-Mahachai railway, the shortest line in Thailand. See One of the world's longest roads runs through it Loading Hail a taxi on Sukhumvit and say: 'To the end of the road, please.' Four hundred and ninety kilometres later you'll be at Cambodia. Thanon Sukhumvit, Bangkok's boulevard of dreams and schemes, is not only the country's longest thoroughfare but one of the world's longest main roads. Until the mid-1960s, rice paddies and aristocratic estates bordered it. Novelist and composer S.P. Somtow recalled his family enclave there as 'our remote little island kingdom on Sukhumvit Road'. The rip-roaring progress monster that ate old Bangkok soon consumed the agriculture and enchantment alike. It's home to the world's narrowest Chinatown alley Bangkok is said to be home to the largest diaspora Chinatown in the world. Which might make Soi Itsara Nuphap, between Yaowarat and Charoen Krung roads, the skinniest Chinatown alley of almost anywhere. Inch your way along as it pinches down to a two-metre-wide crush of food stalls, handcarts, shoppers, monks, motorbike delivery drivers, grandmothers, schoolkids and bargain hunters. Ten minutes later you pop out at the other end, having sampled a parallel Thai-Chinese universe at very close quarters. Celebrate with a pickled egg. Watch your wallet. See
Daily Mail
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Iris Mountbatten broke all the rules and called herself 'the black sheep of the royal family' writes CHRISTOPHER WILSON
Once 13th in line to the throne, Iris Mountbatten broke all the rules. She called herself 'the black sheep of the Royal Family ' – and no wonder. She married a Catholic and was booted out of the line of succession. She quit Britain for a new life in America, but got deported for bouncing a cheque. She wheedled her way back into the States but high society turned its back and she married a jazz musician. She became close to all the great jazz artists of the day, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Count Basie - so close, in fact, that people claimed she preferred black men in her bed. And so, despite being born the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and growing up in Kensington Palace, Iris Mountbatten ended up scraping a living in New York and California as a film publicist, sales girl, dancer, model, and briefly TV host. She had the looks, the personality – but she couldn't stick at anything. 'A problem child,' was how one family friend described Iris. But then Iris barely ever saw her parents – she was ushered in by her nanny at teatime to be inspected, then taken away again. So by the time she was a teenager, she'd 'gone to the dogs and [was] completely hopeless', according to the friend. 'She wanted to be royal, but at the same time mix with ordinary folk,' explained another friend. Nobody within the tight-knit royal circle could understand that. Iris's father, known as Prince Alexander of Battenberg until the First World War forced him to ditch his German title and call himself the Marquess of Carisbrooke, was an 'irritating, nervous' man who preferred the company of men and was besotted with a promiscuous man called Simon Fleet. Her mother, the former Irene Denison, daughter of the Earl of Londesborough, was no better – she ignored Iris, despite the girl being her only child. However, Iris initially remained part of the tight royal circle, and at the age of 14 she was bridesmaid to Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark at her wedding to Prince George, the Duke of Kent. Three years later, at the 1937 Coronation, she was one of six train-bearers to Queen Elizabeth, wife of King George VI. She went on to be a famous and much-photographed debutante – and hoped to find in marriage the family life she'd so sadly lacked at home. In 1941, at the age of 21, she married Hamilton Keyes O'Malley, an Irish Guards officer. It was a disastrous mistake. First, O'Malley was a Roman Catholic – which meant that, though Iris had been in line to the throne, she was removed from the order of succession under the terms of the 1772 Royal Marriages Act. Later, she stated she did not mind this loss of prestige, adding: 'A plague would have had to hit the f***ing Palace before I'd become Queen!' But early on in her marriage, she discovered her husband was a bully and a wife-beater. 'It was a total disaster, a nightmare,' she recalled later. 'I could never tell a divorce court all the horrible, ugly things that happened – things I still refuse to tell.' And so, instead of Iris bringing a court action to end the marriage, her husband divorced her. It was a scandalous thing to happen to such a high-born woman, since the custom of the day in their elevated circle was that the husband would always take the blame. That scandal – and the huge fuss created when Iris renounced her right to the throne – made her a marked woman, no longer acceptable in high society. Because of her divorce, she was banned from attending her grandmother Princess Beatrice's funeral. She fled to the United States. Newly arrived and not understanding how US banks worked, she wrote a cheque which bounced – and was arrested. She was then ignominiously ordered to leave the country – and her title of 'royal black sheep' was born. With no place to call home in Britain – her parents had washed their hands of her – Iris managed to get herself back into the US as a tourist. Tossing aside her privileged background she went to work, doing anything to earn a dollar. She became an actress and model, appeared as a hostess for a live TV children's programme Versatile Varieties: Junior Edition, and also featured in TV ads endorsing Pond's Creams and Warren's Mint Cocktail Gum. For a time it looked as though she'd made a success of her escape from the royal circle. She married a jazz guitarist, Mike Bryan, who'd played with Benny Goodman's band - but the marriage lasted just months. Drawn into this world, she came to know many of the jazz greats of the 1940s and 1950s – Duke Ellington, in his last concert appearance, dedicated one of his songs to 'Iris Mountbatten, that satin doll'. But the quirky good looks and cheeky glamour for which she was so famed as a debutante started to fade early on, and Iris took to the bottle. 'Sex with jazz players? These are my buddies, buddies, BUDDIES,' she blurted out to one journalist. 'There are always these insinuations that I keep hopping in and out of bed with them. Why do people think, because I love them, it has to mean sex?' 'Not quite like the home life of our own dear Queen,' commented the columnist sourly. She moved to Toronto, and started a new life with actor and announcer William Kemp – but, again, it didn't last. As a thrice-divorced royal, she waited in vain for an invitation to Charles and Diana's 1981 wedding. And when the Queen Mother paid a visit to Canada, her suggestion that they should meet was cold-shouldered by courtiers. The black sheep had become an outcast. Low on cash and happier in the company of those who drank a great deal, Iris Mountbatten died a sad death at the age of 62 from a brain tumour. Her ashes were brought home to the Isle of Wight for interment in the Battenberg Chapel, in St Mildred's Church at Whippingham. The Royal Family sent no representative to visit her resting place.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sacha Jenkins Dies: Journalist Behind Wu-Tang Clan, 50 Cent & Louis Armstrong Docs Was 53
Sacha Jenkins, a hip-hop journalist and documentarian known for Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men (2019) and Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues (2022), has died. He was 53. Deadline can confirm the Emmy nominee's death after his wife Raquel Cepeda asked fans to 'please respect our family's privacy during this difficult moment' as they prepare an official statement. More from Deadline 'Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues' Uses Never-Before-Heard Audio Tapes To Reveal Complicated Man Behind Affable Public Persona Maverick TV To Adapt Howard Bryant's Book 'The Heritage' As Docuseries With Sacha Jenkins Executive Producing Mara Corday Dies: 'Tarantula' Cult Film Star & 'Playboy' Playmate Was 95 Born August 22, 1971 in Philadelphia, Jenkins launched the graffiti zine Graphic Scenes & Xplicit Language in 1989, and the groundbreaking hip-hop newspaper Beat Down shortly after. He co-founded the hip-hop magazine Ego Trip in 1994, which also launched the VH1 reality series The (White) Rapper Show in 2007. As a documentary filmmaker, Jenkins spoke to Deadline when he made his directorial debut at Sundance Film Festival with the 2015 urban fashion exploration Fresh Dressed. 'It's so amazing how there's so much love and respect for storytelling,' he said of the Park City, Utah film festival. 'Before I did this, I was a journalist, so storytelling is extremely important. And to see the dedication and respect that storytellers get, for me it's almost overwhelming how much love and support I'm getting. I'm like, 'Woah, it's not even about me. It's about the story, but thank you!'' Jenkins also served as a writer and producer on such docs as Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men (2019), Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James (2021), Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues (2022) and All Up in the Biz (2023). Jenkins is survived by wife Raquel, son Marceau and stepdaughter Djali Brown-Cepeda. Best of Deadline 'Poker Face' Season 2 Guest Stars: From Katie Holmes To Simon Hellberg Everything We Know About Amazon's 'Verity' Movie So Far Everything We Know About 'The Testaments,' Sequel Series To 'The Handmaid's Tale' So Far
