Celebrity Interview - Lord Lucan - Comments

Lord Lucan

Poster: Sir Dai Llewellyn 01/11/2005

In this exclusive interview with Annabel Milnes-Smith, Sir Dai Llewellyn reveals his historical past with the legendary vanishing peer Lord Lucan. Sir Dai's insight into, and unique knowledge of, those tragic days are borne out by the prominence given to him in recently released non-fiction best-seller The Gamblers. In fact, the entire first chapter is titled on, and hinges on, his quote "Gone with the wind".

There have been very few news headlines that have captivated the world for so long since Lord "Lucky" Lucan supposedly vanished into thin air following the murder of his children's nanny, Sandra Rivett.
Now, on the 31st anniversary of his disappearance, Sir Dai Llewellyn feels ready to tell a side of the story never heard before. Between 1973 and 1975, Sir Dai was Social Secretary at Mayfair casino the Clermont Club, frequented by Lucky. At the time, it was the world's centre of international backgammon and London's smartest casino. It is now probably one of the most famous worldwide because of the great "cause celebre" of Lord Lucan. The case almost ranks as legendary as Jack the Ripper and, like the Ripper, Lord Lucan was never found after the event.
As Sir Dai explains, "My connection with Lord Lucan and the fact that I was interviewed by the police was not only because of my connection with the Clermont Club but the fact that I had lunch with him two days before. He was on his own and I was with Viscount Hambledon. He joined our table. He appeared his normal self. He was never one to express himself in a flamboyant way. He was usually impassive. I was not really able to help the police much at the time.

"Nevertheless the most interesting thing was on the day that the London newspaper the Evening Standard announced that Lord Lucan's nanny had been murdered, and that Lord Lucan was being sought, I was on a horse out hunting with The Quorn Hunt in Leicestershire. At the end of the hunt, I got off my horse, drove the three hours back to London, and in my muddy hunting boots hoped to cut a dash saying hello to everybody in the bar, before taking a shower and changing into my suit for the night. However, when I arrived early evening at the bar, there was not a soul there. "This rather proved the point that the police always made later, that the club was a closed society shop. Somehow or other, throughout London, every single member of the Clermont Club made the decision not to appear that night. The police could barely get any evidence at all, because society closed ranks. There was that sort of feeling that Lord Lucan was being protected. Nobody, but nobody, opened their mouth. There was only one person who was vaguely indiscreet and that was a man who was part of the Lord Lucan set. His name was Dominic Elwes.

"He was a very gifted painter and was commissioned by The Sunday Times to paint a cover of what the Lucan set having lunch at the Clermont Club looked like. The set included the aforementioned Dominic Elwes, Nicholas Soames, Dan Meinertzhagen, the Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire, and the late Charles Benson. Victor Lownes, owner of the Playboy Club, had then proceeded to buy the more fashionable Clermont Club and employed me to ensure "the gent crowd" continued to frequent the club. Indeed, in his autobiography, Playboy Extraordinary, he did say that there were various horrors expressed by the head office of Playboy in Chicago that the fine wines in the cellar were running low due to consumption by myself. However, how could I be a good Social Secretary unless I set the style! "After Dominic Elwes completed his commission, he was excluded from the group; he was absolutely miserable and was denied access to all of his friends, and six months later in the south of France he killed himself. This was due to being ostracised by the so-called Lucan set. He had, by their book, broken the rules. Later on, however, they all gave various coded versions of events, especially the late Charles Benson.

"At that time, I was asked to give my version of events, but I was not so mad as to do so because I too would have been cold-shouldered. In those days, the early seventies, the old aristocracy really did stick together. There was very little input from outside. Nowadays I don't think anybody cares so much. Indeed, following the 30th anniversary his son Lord Bingham finally broke his silence in a Channel 4 documentary called 'The Hunt for Lord Lucan.'.

"My own personal belief is that he did get away. He borrowed £2,000, which is the equivalent of £20,000 today. That is hardly the act of someone who is going to kill himself. Rope does not cost £20,000. Nobody knows where that money went. I think it got him over the Channel and then he was whisked away, and I think he ended up in Africa, where many of society holidayed, probably Zambia.

"Of course, the origins of the murder are such that Lord Lucan was absolutely miserable because his wife, who society closed ranks on, was quite mentally unbalanced and was not regarded as a suitable wife for him. She was on heavy medication and when he had allegedly attacked the nanny with this lead piping wrapped in elastoplast in a dark basement, it was assumed he had attacked the nanny mistaking her for his wife, who he is accused of later attacking and bashing about a bit. Lady Lucan then ran out of the house to the local pub screaming "murder, murder, murder", and it was on the basis of that, and only on that evidence - she was in hospital afterwards - that the police based their case.

"They have actually never looked for another suspect. The normal forensic evidence that should have been taken at the scene, such as blood samples and fingerprints, was not done, and a lot of it was cleaned up, with the police seeing it as an open and shut case with Lord Lucan being the only suspect.

"It has since been put over by his son George that his father was capable of having a go at the women, because he was driven mad by being denied access to his children, who he was mad about. It drove him absolutely crazy. It also didn't help at the time that his nickname was 'Lucky' because at one time he had a few big wins, one of which was £28,000. However, at the time of the murder, he was owing money to the banks and also to friends, and was losing money heavily through his gambling. His financial situation was not a good one. All these could have been contributory factors towards his disappearance."

So what is Sir Dai's overall theory about the disappearance of Lord Lucan? "I think he actually died five or six years ago, because the tone of his close friends changed. From them saying that he had gone, and nobody really knew what had happened, suddenly they were saying words to the effect of, 'Oh, poor old Lucky, I'm afraid he is dead.' This is very different from what they all said in unison. They originally said, yes, he went away and killed himself."
When I asked Sir Dai if he thought Lucky murdered the nanny, he replied, "Well, I cannot really think of who else it could be and, after all, the murder weapon was found in the boot of his car, with the blood on it. That says quite clearly that he did." And what was his personal opinion of Lord Lucan?
"You must remember that I was a good 10 years younger, so I was not a childhood friend of his; nevertheless I saw him every day, and we often had little chats. We had a simple relationship but were not bosom buddies. He was a very elegant looking man with a distinguished moustache. He would languidly sit at the Clermont, with a cigarette in one hand, a handful of cards in the other. He exuded a rather romantic feeling to the Clermont Club."
So what would be his final words to Lord Lucky Lucan?
"If you are alive, I think it must be rather nice to be you because you must know how incredibly loved you are by so many people, and despite having the murder charge hanging over your head, it must be nice to know that nobody shopped you; they really did keep rank and kept their mouths shut. How many people could have guaranteed on a whole host of friends not saying a word. Not many, if any at all, I would have thought. It was typically the British aristocracy closing ranks.
"On a final note, always remember... the British aristocracy are there for a reason, despite the House of Lords losing some of its power. It is down to the simple fact they are very, very tough."

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