ANOTHER VOICE
A further insight into the world of people in wigs
AUBERON WAUGH
The Courts of Justice in the Strand have many characteristics of an extremely ex- pensive club. No money has been spared in their decoration or furbishment. Barristers sauntering around the spacious Gothic halls recognise each other under their £350 second-hand wigs and seem to enjoy each other's company, with the suggestion of sharing some immense private joke at the expense of the rest of the world.
After a number of visits in the course of more than 25 years' experience as a work- ing journalist, I think I am beginning to understand the joke — one day I shall write a treatise on the wearing of wigs in court. But I was rather alarmed at the trial of Countess of Dudley versus The Literary Review last Monday to find myself recog- nised and greeted on all sides, like a West Indian cricketer at the MCC clubhouse.
Before my case could start, we had to listen to the settlement of an entirely separate case brought by Pat Booth, the celebrated photographer, former model and writer of steamy thrillers against Nigel Dempster, the world famous Daily Mail diarist and biographer of Princess Mar- garet. Both parties were well known to me and Nigel, of course, is an old friend, although he was absent from court, taking a well-deserved rest in sunnier climes. It is always sad to see old friends fall out, but when I asked Pat's counsel (who also turned out to be an old friend of mine and who had not been required to speak during the ten-minute hearing) how much Nigel had been forced to pay Pat on this occa- sion, he gave me an old-fashioned look. I was not a member of the club, you see.
So Countess of Dudley versus The Liter- ary Review was called, and the jury sworn in. It was a case involving the interpreta- tion of some words in a review written by Mr Alastair Forbes, whose style will be familiar to Spectator readers but might well not be so familiar to a London jury. Three of them had the greatest difficulty in reading the oath, and one could not even begin to do it. After he had made a few wild guesses at what might be written on the jury card, the Clerk had to read it for him, while he repeated it after her. This saddened me as the juror concerned had appeared one of the more stalwart of those on offer and it cannot be any easier to interpret the written word if you have great difficulty in reading, or are unable to read at all.
The background to the case was quickly explained, by Mr Richard Rampton, coun- sel for Lady Dudley. In October 1982 Lady Dudley, better known as the 1950s actress Maureen Swanson, was asked by Princess Michael of Kent to accompany her on a ten-day tour of the United States, paying her own expenses. Shortly afterwards, Lord Dudley was to be heard reciting a humorous but distinctly scurrilous poem he had composed about the trip, and about Princess Michael. It was widely reported at the time that the Palace lawyers had written to him asking him to desist.
In July 1984 Mr Alastair Forbes referred to this incident in the Literary Review in a notice of Anne Somerset's history of ladies-in-waiting from Tudor times to the present, in these words which are taken verbatim, with original lacunae, from the Statement of Claim: Though there are two Dudleys to be found in Lady Anne's. . . index, the name of William Humble Ward, the present Earl of that name, is missing. Yet it was this godson of the Duke of Windsor who spent much of 1983 giving Tennysonian after-dinner read- ings . . . of his most un-Tennysonian tirade against poor Princess Michael of Kent. Her only offence had lain in her proven unwis- dom in inviting Dudley's humbly born but avid Countess to accompany her to the United States as a 'lady-in-waiting', who would be expected to pay her own way. (The energetic Princess, though a considerable 'draw' on the 'Royal circuit, gets nothing from a Civil List on which her husband has never figured). Dudley's scurrilously bad poetasting, coarse and clumsy attempts to clothe criminal libels in Clive Jamesian mode, had the effect in due course of winning considerable sympathy. . . not least from the. . . Queen. . . The unprecedented outcome was that Dudley received a lettre de cachet from the Palace solicitors that has since effectively zipped . . . his wife's . . . lips.
Lady Dudley claimed that the said words 'in their natural and ordinary meaning' meant that she was a 'vulgar and greedy person' who
1) having been invited by Princess Michael of Kent to accompany her on a trip to the United States as a lady-in-waiting on the understanding that she would pay for herself had compelled Princess Michael to pay for her notwithstanding that Princess Michael received no financial assistance from the Civil List; and 2) upon her return from the said trip, supplied her husband with grossly libellous material about Princess Michael and was only silenced when the Queen's solicitors took the unprecedented step of writing a warning letter to her husband.
The hearing took less than a day and ended with an award of £5,000 to the plaintiff, who had wept in the dock while describing how she had six children and feared that this outrageous libel would undermine her authority with them.
The Literary Review's defence on the first point was obvious; the words were not intended to mean and did not mean any such thing, nor could any reasonable per- son (who could read) read any such mean- ing into them. There is no suggestion whatever that Lady Dudley had not paid her expenses. The plaintiff, in the box, did not give the impression of quick apprecia- tion of the English language: this could easily have been a simple misunderstand- ing.
On the second point, Literary Review had the choice of pointing out that no such charge had in fact been made, or of adopting some more comprehensive de- fence along the lines of fair comment or justification. Either would have involved prolong the case for several days, calling witnesses and demanding — if necessary by sub poena — statements from the Queen's solicitors, Lord Dudley and Princess Michael of Kent. This would have meant gambling — and quite possibly losing — anything up to £100,000 on a claim which seemed, prima facie, entirely absurd. The magazine could not possible afford such a gamble, or survive at all if it had lost.
In the event the judge — Mr Justice Drake — said he could give no guidance on the meaning of the words, since that was the point at issue. It remains to be seen whether the magazine can survive the £5,000 damages and £15,000 or so costs. At the time of the alleged libel, its circulation was 2,000. £20,000 represents its entire year's revenue from 2,000 subscriptions. As I have announced elsewhere, I am afraid that next month its annual subscrip- tion must go up from £10 to £15. Any Spectator reader who wishes to take advan- tage of the old rate has exactly 18 days in which to send a cheque for £10 to Literary Review, 51 Beak Street, London W1R 3LF.
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