THE EARL MOUNTBATTEN OF BURMA 1900-79
ANON 76 16 December 2021
"Barbara Harris often spoke of her knowledge of the kinky antics of L.L. with the boys dressed as girls. She was loyal to him but hated the brandy and lemonade used by L.L. on the boys during sex sessions. She also couldn't understand why L.L. didn't have sex with adult males if that was his kink." This passage explains well why the new model of "homosexuality" cannot be applied to pederastic relationships.
P. Hill 17 December 2021
Knew a chap who had a kink for late Victorian Samuri Satsuma vases. Dunno why he didn’t just get a bucket.
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Sam Hall 17 December 2021
Village reports a source saying that “he had heard disturbing rumours about Mountbatten sexual activities before he was killed.”
So can we infer that Lord Louie straightened up his act after death? I think we can infer any old thing we like from all this. Most of it has the suspiciously bland, safe, sugar-hit consistency of modern processed junk news. These sorts of heartily dispensed buckets of tabloid burley – sure, they stir up a fine feeding frenzy, but only to leave the banqueters feeling rather queasy and unsatisfied and looking round with hollow-eyed hunger for the next nothing burger.
After his meticulously murky account, Norman Nield tells us, “But in retrospect I assess L.L. in a very different way today. Now I only have disgust for him.”
Which must surely prompt in us a newfound respect for this fading outposter’s relevance and virtue. Bit hard to square with his apparent unconcern at the time, not to mention the following forty-odd years, but, like murder, virtue will out.
Finding the truth here is a bit like trying to locate land in a JM Turner painting.
Edmund Marlowe, 17 December 2021
I should imagine a generous cheque from the magazine Truth helped Mr. Nield's virtue to assert itself.
I would be fascinated to read anyone else’s thoughts on which, if any, of these claims are likely to be true.
Having thought about it, my guess (and one can only guess) is that the vague claims of Decies, Chetcuti and Daly that Mountbatten liked boys are probably true, while the various claims made by Irish republicans concerning Kincora Boys’ Home are pure fabrication. They sound propagandist and mendacious and Mountbatten was anyway a very old man by then.
I would guess the claims by Norman Nield are in between – an intentional tabloid distortion of something more ordinary. We know that in most or all big cities everywhere more than forty years ago there were boys on the game, mostly teenage boys looking for excitement and pocket money, but including a few slightly younger boys, and we know that a huge proportion of men in Mountbatten’s day sometimes availed themselves of prostitution of one kind or another for fun and relief. So, if Mountbatten liked boys, it would be unsurprising that at times when he could not find more romantic alternatives, he resorted to boys who were offering themselves for rent. The Horse and Groom in Southampton was particularly known as a rendez-vous for homosexuals (a fact carefully omitted by the ironically named Truth magazine), so presumably such boys hung out around there. As a distinguished admiral, Mountbatten could hardly go there himself – he might be recognised by one of his sailors - so he got Barbara Harris to make his assignations for him. Most early teen boys appreciate being offered alcohol, so Mountbatten as their host offered it. As for dressing up as girls, if it sometimes happened, it was just erotic fun, enabling the boys to flaunt their sexiness in a culturally familiar manner.
We have claims ranging from Mountbatten’s preference for 8yo boys dressed as baby girls through to his renowned preference for handsome young men in military uniform. Which might suggest he was simply prepared to meet an individual boy on his own terms and preferences. It’s hard to get an unobstructed view with that tureen of brandy and lemonade always hoving into view.
It’s also interesting how, to create an appropriately depraved atmosphere, there’s a reliance on Mountbatten’s purported populous romping with female prostitutes. With the boys all we get is one glimpse of a half-naked lad sitting on his lap. It's hell, Jim, but not as we know it.
The tabloid approach used here is exactly the same one used on gay men in the fifties. Or, for that matter, used on boys who masturbated over the preceding century or two. Paint a picture of a diseased shadowy underworld where sad sickos pursue their deviant compulsions. As the emergence into humdrum boringness of today’s gay community shows, it’s a luridly exaggerated description of a necessarily secretive milieu wholly created by salivating bigots.
Given the chance to bring on his favourites at court, in the more usual civilized fashion, with all the attendant advantages that accrue to such boys, who knows what positive Greek love heights Lord Louie might have achieved. One relevant and rock solid fact: Princes Philip and Charles had the opportunity to enjoy a close boyhood relationship with Mountbatten, and couldn’t speak highly enough of his character.