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Esmeralda's Barn
Esmeralda's Barn was a nightclub in Wilton Place, Knightsbridge, London, that was owned by the Kray twins from 1960 until its closure in 1963. The Krays used the club as a way of expanding their criminal activities into London's West End. 1950s Esmeralda's Barn was conceived, designed (with murals by Pietro Annigoni) and owned by Mrs. Esme Noel Smith, and opened in February 1955 as a members theatre club. Tragically Mrs. Noel Smith (nee Gullan) died a few weeks later having been overcome by gas at home. Afterwards it became a conventional nightclub run by Stefan de Faye. After the Betting and Gaming Act 1960 legalised gambling in the United Kingdom from 1961, de Faye turned Esmeralda's Barn into a gambling club. According to John Pearson, the Act, which was intended to drive criminals out of gambling, instead proved a boon to them as it enabled them to expand their empires legally. Acquired by the Krays The Kray twins were London gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray. They acquired E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Esmeralda's Barn
Esmeralda's Barn was a nightclub in Wilton Place, Knightsbridge, London, that was owned by the Kray twins from 1960 until its closure in 1963. The Krays used the club as a way of expanding their criminal activities into London's West End. 1950s Esmeralda's Barn was conceived, designed (with murals by Pietro Annigoni) and owned by Mrs. Esme Noel Smith, and opened in February 1955 as a members theatre club. Tragically Mrs. Noel Smith (nee Gullan) died a few weeks later having been overcome by gas at home. Afterwards it became a conventional nightclub run by Stefan de Faye. After the Betting and Gaming Act 1960 legalised gambling in the United Kingdom from 1961, de Faye turned Esmeralda's Barn into a gambling club. According to John Pearson, the Act, which was intended to drive criminals out of gambling, instead proved a boon to them as it enabled them to expand their empires legally. Acquired by the Krays The Kray twins were London gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray. They acquired E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucian Freud
Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewish architect Ernst L. Freud and the grandson of Sigmund Freud. Freud got his first name "Lucian" from his mother in memory of the ancient writer Lucian of Samosata. His family moved to England in 1933, when he was 10 years old, to escape the rise of Nazism. He became a British naturalized citizen in 1939. From 1942 to 1943 he attended Goldsmiths College, London. He served at sea with the British Merchant Navy during the Second World War. His early career as a painter was influenced by surrealism, but by the early 1950s his often stark and alienated paintings tended towards realism. Freud was an intensely private and guarded man, and his paintings, completed over a 60-year career, are mostly of friends and family. They are generally sombre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Ives (businessman)
William Ives (12 October 1943 – 31 August 2017) was a British steel magnate who was a major donor to the British Conservative Party. Ives was a former boxer who once worked as a doorman at Esmeralda's Barn,The Cameron crony and the Kray twins: Tory donor admits working as gangsters' doorman. James Lyons & David Collins, '''', 11 April 2012. Retrieved 2 October 2014. the gambling club owned by the Kray Twins in the early 1960s. In 1973, he founded [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lance Percival
John Lancelot Blades Percival (26 July 1933 – 6 January 2015), known as Lance Percival, was an English actor, comedian and singer, best known for his appearances in satirical comedy television shows of the early 1960s and his ability to improvise comic calypsos about current news stories. He later became successful as an after-dinner speaker. Biography Percival was born in Sevenoaks, Kent, and was educated at Sherborne School in Dorset, where he learnt to play the guitar. He then did national service with the Seaforth Highlanders as a lieutenant and was posted to Egypt. In 1955 he emigrated to Canada where he worked as an advertising copywriter, writing jingles for radio. He also formed a calypso group as "Lord Lance" which toured the US and Canada.Lance Percival Guardian Obituary Retrieved 9 J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noel Harrison
Noel John Christopher Harrison (29 January 1934 – 19 October 2013) was an English actor and singer who had a hit singing "The Windmills of Your Mind" in 1968, and was a member of the British Olympic skiing team in the 1950s. He was the son of the actor Rex Harrison. Early life Harrison was born on 29 January 1934 in Kensington, London. His mother, Ethel Margery Noel Collette-Thomas, was the first of Rex Harrison's six wives; they divorced in 1942. Ethel and her cousin Richard Michael Collette Thomas (later a Lieutenant-Colonel killed in action, 1944, in France) were brought up together by their grandparents, Major John Cyril Collette-Thomas & Jessie Maud Scott-Brown, in Bude, North Cornwall. As a child he attended Sunningdale School, where his father was also a pupil. When he was 15, Ethel took young Noel out of school at Radley to live in the Swiss Alps. Harrison never returned to school and began ski-racing. He joined the Ipswich repertory theatre group and taught himself gu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cy Grant
Cyril Ewart Lionel "Cy" Grant (8 November 1919 – 13 February 2010) was a Guyanese actor, musician, writer, and poet. In the 1950s, he became the first black person to be featured regularly on television in Britain,Kurt Barling '' The Independent'' (London), 27 February 2010. mostly due to his appearances on the BBC current affairs show ''Tonight''. Following service in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, Grant worked as an actor and singer, before establishing the Drum Arts Centre in London in the 1970s. In the 1980s, he was appointed director of Concord Multicultural Festivals. A published poet and author of several books, including his 2007 memoir ''Blackness and the Dreaming Soul'' and other writing that reflected his belief in Taoism and an expansive world view, Grant was made an Honorary Fellow of Roehampton University in 1997, and a member of the Scientific and Medical Network in 2001. In 2008, he was the founder and inspirator of an online archive to tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (founded in 1821) are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'', which do not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have only had common ownership since 1966. In general, the political position of ''The Times'' is considered to be centre-right. ''The Times'' is the first newspaper to have borne that name, lending it to numerous other papers around the world, such as ''The Times of India'', ''The New York Times'', and more recently, digital-first publications such as TheTimesBlog.com (Since 2017). In countries where these other titles are popular, the newspaper is often referred to as , or as , although the newspaper is of nationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kentucky Club
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to the east; Tennessee to the south; and Missouri to the west. Its northern border is defined by the Ohio River. Its capital is Frankfort, and its two largest cities are Louisville and Lexington. Its population was approximately 4.5 million in 2020. Kentucky was admitted into the Union as the 15th state on June 1, 1792, splitting from Virginia in the process. It is known as the "Bluegrass State", a nickname based on Kentucky bluegrass, a species of green grass found in many of its pastures, which has supported the thoroughbred horse industry in the center of the state. Historically, it was known for excellent farming conditions for this reason and the development of large tobacco plantations akin to those in Virginia and North Carolina i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spanish Armada
The Spanish Armada (a.k.a. the Enterprise of England, es, Grande y Felicísima Armada, links=no, lit=Great and Most Fortunate Navy) was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aristocrat without previous naval experience appointed by Philip II of Spain. His orders were to sail up the English Channel, link up with the Duke of Parma in Flanders, and escort an invasion force that would land in England and overthrow Elizabeth I. Its purpose was to reinstate Catholicism in England, end support for the Dutch Republic, and prevent attacks by English and Dutch privateers against Spanish interests in the Americas. The Spanish were opposed by an English fleet based in Plymouth. Faster and more manoeuvrable than the larger Spanish galleons, they were able to attack the Armada as it sailed up the Channel. Several subordinates advised Medina Sidonia to anchor in The Solent and occupy the Isle of Wight, but he refused to devia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Howard, 1st Earl Of Nottingham
Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, 2nd Baron Howard of Effingham, KG (1536 – 14 December 1624), known as Lord Howard of Effingham, was an English statesman and Lord High Admiral under Elizabeth I and James I. He was commander of the English forces during the battles against the Spanish Armada and was chiefly responsible for the victory that saved England from invasion by the Spanish Empire. Early life: 1536–1558 Few details of Charles Howard's early life are known. He was born in 1536, and was the cousin of Queen Elizabeth. He was son of William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham (c. 1510 – 1573) and Margaret Gamage (d. 18 May 1581), daughter of Sir Thomas Gamage.. He was a grandson of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. He was also the cousin of Anne Boleyn (Anne's mother was half-sister to Charles' father), and held several prominent posts during the reign of Anne's daughter, Elizabeth I. It is believed that Charles Howard was taught French and some Latin at t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mowbray Howard, 6th Earl Of Effingham
Mowbray Henry Gordon Howard, 6th Earl of Effingham (29 November 1905 – 22 February 1996), styled Lord Howard from 1927 to 1946, was a British peer. He was born on 29 November 1905 to Gordon Howard, 5th Earl of Effingham, and Rosamond Margaret Hudson. He was educated at Lancing College. In October 1932, Howard was charged with manslaughter after an inquest found that he had knocked down an agricultural labourer in his car. However, the case was dismissed when it came to the magistrates' court at Maidenhead.Leeds Mercury, 2 November 1932, page 7, via British Newspaper Archive He served in the Royal Artillery during the Second World War, succeeding his father as Earl of Effingham on 7 July 1946. His first wife, Hungarian-born Maria Malvina Gertler, was under suspicion by MI5, and in fact was interned for three months in 1941 on the grounds that she was involved in the "preparation of acts prejudicial to the public safety or the defence of the realm" and held in Holloway pris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Pearson (author)
John George Pearson (5 October 1930 – 13 November 2021) was an English novelist and an author of biographies, notably of Ian Fleming (the creator of James Bond), of the Sitwells, and of the Kray twins. Life and career Pearson was born in Epsom, Surrey. He was educated at King's College School, Wimbledon, and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he gained a double first in history. He then worked for ''The Economist'', BBC Television and ''The Sunday Times''. He was Ian Fleming's assistant at the ''Sunday Times'' and went on to write the first biography of Fleming, '' The Life of Ian Fleming'', published in 1966. Pearson was commissioned by Donald Campbell to chronicle his successful attempt on the Land Speed Record in 1964 in Bluebird CN7, resulting in the book ''Bluebird and the Dead Lake''. Pearson had also written "true crime" biographies, such as ''The Profession of Violence'', an account of the rise and fall of the Kray twins, who had hired him to write their biography in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
