Chapter 11 - Ward's girls

I’ve done my best against all odds for little result so far; loads of info garnered yet no evidence that will stand up in court. But I live in hope in my twilight years. 32 years I’ve been at it, trying to recall memories, sort them, understand them, ignoring people calling me nuts, old ‘friends’ ignoring me.

Or dying on me and leaving no detailed accounts of our halcyon days in the sun.

Here are a few girls I knew who ‘knew things’:

Chrissie

Mandy

Ronna

Mariella

Dusty

Alma

I must assume most of the others have gone, too. Not to mention the men involved.

Chrissie and I might be the only ones left.

I don’t expect to see the results for I’m not for this mortal coil much longer myself, but, I had the balls and drive to research it and write it down (by the way, more than one copy exists, I’ve never been stupid). Hopefully, sometime, eventually, someone will jerk-too in front of their monitor and exclaim, ‘What-the-fuck he wasn’t nuts after all!’

So, hopefully, you’re beginning to see there was a lot more behind the malicious things Ward was accused of. Some of it was true, yes, but a lot of it was distorted and abused. In my eyes Ward was a good guy who deserved a medal, not a bottle of pills poured down his throat. Ward was rich, he’d amassed one million pounds during the time I knew him, kept it in a bank safety-deposit box, not the bank as such (to avoid paying taxes). Why kill himself? He was only looking at a year or two in jail on the charges he was found guilty of. How do I know about the money? He and Peter Rachman had a bet on as to who would earn a million first, and Rachman won that bet - just - early in ‘62, an angry Ward handing over the money as I looked on.

The question is: how did Ward earn the dough? It’s a long story, but I think he was selling porn-photos of the Royals to the Reds, the USA and the Israeli’s as part of his scheming. No proof, just a hunch. That and the double ceiling in ‘the orgy room’ (not when I was there, unfortunately) with the 4-5 cameras in-between, all pointed at the bed. I helped him change the film once. Ward hated the Reds and the Royals too.

I did indeed get into porn, though I’ve perhaps exaggerated my involvement a tad - it happened but I was never a pro as such - certainly not for money, barely got my train-fare. I met a lot of horny models and dancers etc., of whom quite a few were into the sex-scene to pay the bills as showbiz paid badly, and seemed to like me, preferring me to the gay wrestler/boxers they normally had to suffer, who often gave them the clap. I felt sorry for them.

I was also deliberately pushed into it by Ward and his friends (must’ve met a dozen porn producers at Ward’s). Sometimes this was for pure fun, though sometimes Ward had darker reasons to use me; I became his eyes and ears in places he couldn’t really explore. I was being used, yes, but I bet you’d love to swap places! I was well-looked after, never abused and I’d do it again; though not at my age now, I prefer an early night!

So I’ve pushed the porn angle sometimes as I know there are pictures and films out there that could be of interest. All the so-called Stripper victims will be out there on some old bit of celluloid or Super-8. I couldn’t care less about the sex (well, maybe a little bit!), I was there, but I’m more interested in the location, the background, other people, which might be of help. And then, of course, it would prove I’m genuine. So far I’ve found three pictures but all with my clothes on! Trouble is you can’t see it’s me. I can, and do, remember the incidents. But apart from finding pictures of girls I used to know there’s nothing out there. It’s very frustrating.

The elite deliberately breed ‘spares’; the guys are expected to sleep around and they keep an eye on the result. This is why all the orgies took place, to get them to bonk whoever they are ordered to, to marry who they are ordered to, the elite did/do it all the time inside their circles; Ward showed me photos. Sometimes he took them in secret (and used it to blackmail people for info/favours) but there were times it was obvious he was ‘snapping’ but nobody reacted to it, so they knew stuff like this exists; they just thought it was erotic. It seems as though if they all have shit on one another then it creates ‘loyalty’ in the ranks.

I think Ward was planning to train me to join the team in shagging the wives and daughters; the guys I suspect were doing this were getting too old for the stress, and possibly Ward was preparing me to join in the orgies if needs be.

I would have been just fifteen. Like everything else, it sort of happened, I seemed to fall into it. My work with the doctors had toughened me, trained my mind. I might have been a schoolboy but I was quiet advanced, mature, by this time.

Roger Hollis, who was Director General of MI5, supplied the film for Ward. I think we still only had about 60ASA on the market at the time. I recall David Bailey going bonkers at being given a box-load of Ilford 125ASA monochrome to test, he and Lewis Morley ripping-off several reels there and then to test it, me still being naked at the time - they preferred ‘life-shots’ by the way, though they also did shots with clothes on, clothes absorb a lot of light, you see. I think Mandy had gone home, Rachman’s birthday or something. I also recall the films were always kept in a small fridge when being stored, the guys were very fussy about this, they only kept those few rolls, the rest went into Ward’s fridge. But this film Ward was now using was military and around 3,000ASA and very fine-grain indeed. Photo-recon stuff from the Air force.

Ward’s photos were so bright and clear you wouldn’t think they were taken in such poor light. The grain was so fine the enlargements showed Ward reflected in a mirror; indeed it was so good you could tell he had recently shaved!

However, I digress. The elite can build entire family dynasties from these ‘spares’. So they know who the ‘spares’ are, and chose the best ones to push. There must be detailed records of this but today they can use DNA if they’re not certain. This means they have people everywhere who help in various ways (losing evidence, witness reports etc. and generally spying on people).

Thanks to a contact I’m now aware that I’ve been watched for years, so they know I’m out there. As long as I didn’t rock the boat they’ve left me alone.

I’m sure they would have offed me in the ‘60s if it wasn’t for the fact we had documented evidence of something. Dusty Springfield was keeping it in a bank in the USA.

I met her at Alma Cogan’s, they were good friends and Dusty knew Alma needed help, not minding me trying. Alma was severely gang-raped as a teen, just after the war. She wasn’t lesbian, but was frightened by men and had no choice but to use girls instead. Then something we hadn’t reckoned on happened and the shit hit the fan at full rpm.

Alma died in 1966 from stomach cancer after having taken some highly experimental weight loss injections. I’m sure she died because of what she knew.

Nowadays? I’m not sure they’ve been keeping tabs lately. It’s a new generation out there now, grandchildren of long-dead people who actually knew me. Fifty years is a long time, nobody close to me as before so they’ve probably gotten sloppy, I’m an OAP now.

Officially nothing can be revealed until 2046 but a copy of the Ward Files is kept in a safe in the cabinet-office and my guess is I’m in it. Have to be, actually. But they cannot be released until the children of a certain person are dead.

In this regard perhaps it isn’t such a good idea to go public like this; perhaps I’ve got too keen but hopefully it may drag things into the light. Never mind, I’m dead soon, anyway.

Why did Ward get crucified? All in good time my friends, all in good time.

Ronna (aka Ronni) Ricardo was an Irish girl who was raped and abused as a child and ran away from home and was also a prostitute, but not willingly, and was saving her money to eventually get herself a life. 

Ronna Ricardo

Ronna, who I was close to for several years (she was lesbian but liked a cuddle now and again), told me a few things about the ritual Masonic abuse of children involving many top people.

She was involved in supplying young girls to ‘the man in the mask’ but drew the line at supplying girls under 15-16, he preferring 12 and under. Others found those girls for him. She was involved with Ward in trying to get a camera in to take photos of the abuses, but ‘the masks’ security was too good and the cameras too bulky. She told stories of having seen obvious signs of torture on her girls, the landed-nobility were obviously into ritual sex-rites, so she refused to supply girls to those people again but they just kept offering more money. She knew a guy in the IRA and was toying with the idea of getting a bomb into place but these people were very security-conscious, checking such things.

She knew of one 10 year-old girl who disappeared after being taken to hospital by the police. She just vanished. There were rumours of an orphanage in Ireland where men she named for me filmed children being abused by people specially chosen for blackmail - as they were being slowly strangled to death by Anthony Blunt. Asphyxiated, like the Stripper killer victims, for snuff-movies. We’re talking politicians, businessmen, bankers, those types of people. 

People with power, people with influence, people with a lot to lose.

So believe all this stuff you see on the TV; the orphanages, the kidnappings etc. There is still an extensive worldwide network into supplying kids for these people.

Ward knew many people in the intel-services, I’ve met a few, not only Brits but also from the USA, including the infamous Clay Shaw of JFK fame, David Ferrie too. We even met JFK himself, in 1960, I think, just before he announced his candidacy (he was a quiet man when himself, not at all ego-tripped but gentle and charming. I must say I liked JFK). Ward was great friends with W. Averell Harriman, the US senator, I met him.

“Once one, always one” was Ward’s oft repeated phrase in regard to his work in intelligence, and I suspect Ward was still on the books in case he could be used again. He NEVER worked for the Reds; he hated the Reds with (almost) the same passion as Mariella Novotny.

I was at Ward’s one day (sometimes he would look after me if the Harley Street doctors were suddenly busy and wanted me to stay in town in case there was time to do some teaching later on) and chatting to Mariella Novotny, when Bear Ivanov walked in (nice man, he and Ward were genuine friends – “Yes, I AM KGB, we all are, even the cleaning-lady at the embassy!” - but he wasn’t hard-headed enough to be a real spy. Actually Ivanov wasn’t KGB but a GRU man, but I guess he knew I wouldn’t have heard of the GRU back then). Ivanov stopped dead in his tracks on seeing Marie, and went white as a sheet. ‘Ah,’ I thought, ‘they’ve met before.’ Then he turned and ran out, saying over his shoulder he’d be “back another time, Stephen!” Mariella was halfway out the kitchen with a huge kitchen-knife in her hands, ready to cut his throat with! No, Mariella did not like Russians!

But Ward was not beneath kissing up to the Reds if Intel asked him too; and paid him too. I’m sure he ran a spy-team in the early ‘50s (that got bust, he barely surviving) and the girls he had now were part of the new one. Ward was related to the MI5 boss, Roger Hollis and I’m certain he was investigating the moles in British intelligence. The public were finding out there were a lot of them, all from top families, many had jobs in the intelligence services!

Ward’s girls; I knew all of them.

Vickie Barrett

Vickie Barrett was a genuine pro, in the game for some quick money after a divorce. She lived in Welwyn Garden City in a nice house (I was there) and deliberately wore heavy makeup and a wig to hide her identity as part of an escape plan (“The shit will hit the fan sometime, and the people we are involved with aren’t nice, they are the type to kill us. So I’m ready for it”). I was surprised she was hauled into court; they must have grabbed her at work.

Ludovic Kennedy, in The Trial of Stephen Ward said:

“She came into the witness-box, a little whey-faced blonde, wearing a sort of green raincoat with a white scarf round her neck; and when she turned to face the court and while she was giving the oath, one’s impression was one of shock; shock that Ward, whom one had believed to be a man of some fastidiousness in his tastes, had sunk so low. For of all the whores the prosecution had paraded or were still to parade before us this one was the bottom of the barrel.”

Which was a little harsh, perhaps, but Ward knew he had to cater for all tastes and wanted to recruit a wide variety of specimens to his female troupe of Baker Street irregulars.

Under oath Barrett had claimed that Ward had picked her up in Oxford Street – just like Vicki Martin - and had invited her home to fuck his friends but, unsurprisingly, she was then unable to name any of these men. She said that Ward had been paid by these men for her services and that he kept the money.

She was lying though; the Old Bill had put the squeeze on her. She carried out her escape plan plot and to the best of my knowledge has not been seen since her arrest for soliciting in September 1963.

Barrett would often walk the streets of vice in partnership with Margaret McGowan, who we met earlier, who bravely gave evidence on behalf of Ward before she too became another notch on the Stripper Killer’s bedpost.

Chapter 12

Chapter 12 - Gay Ellen

As I said above I knew Mariella Novotny, I dated her for a short while, telling her I’d be there any time she wanted kids. She told me the identity of the ‘man in the mask’; she used to regularly whip him, handcuffs an’ all!

Stephen Ward once famously said:

“It would be humbug if I did not confess that I looked forward to the sex orgies. I have been to every type of that party — those specialising in certain perversions and those given in an elaborate setting where all the formalities were observed. Many of the people who attend are rich and famous — many faces that are seen in public life and on television. If their public could only see them like this.”

Mariella always called the ‘man in the mask’ party the feast of peacocks after what had been served for dinner.  This was in December 1961 and the party would only later become famous when Mandy revealed that when she arrived the door had been opened by Ward wearing just a pair of socks!

Mariella spent most her time that night in bed wearing a corset, a whip and six men! The rest of the guest list - actors, MP’s and judges – was pure A-list and they were all naked except for a man wearing a mask and a Masonic apron who was tied between two pillars – appropriately - and who was whipped by everybody upon entrance. Numerous names have been bandied about as to the identity of this man and Mariella knew the real story.

Beauty and the Beast – Mariella and Hod

I think her ‘little black book’ got her killed. In 1978 she announced that she had started writing her memoirs and that these would include details of her work for MI5. Later she claimed that her book would include accounts of her time in the US and revelations concerning JFK. The book never appeared. Mariella Novotny was found dead in her bed in February 1983 after, yet another, drug overdose. Shortly after death her home was ‘burgled’ and any and all incriminating evidence disappeared.

Mariella had been married to a guy called Horace ‘Hod’ Dibben who was some 36 years older than she was. Horace was an antiques dealer (as was Mariella; on their wedding day this antique gave her a mansion and a flat in Eaton Place in Belgravia!) and a nightclub owner.

Horrible Horace was the former owner of Esmeralda’s Barn in Knightsbridge; a venue which has already played a minor role in our story but which deserves greater consideration.

Popular legend has it that the Kray’s acquired the Barn from Peter Rachman but Esmeralda’s was, in fact, owned by a guy called Stefan de Faye, though Rachman may well have been a shareholder.

More likely is a tale that word had spread east that Rachman had a good thing going on in the Notting Hill slums and that the twins were itching for a slice of the action. Rachman, who already had a steady supply of comedy henchmen, knew that if he started paying protection money he would never stop, so he, and Billy Hill, tipped off the Krays about Esmeralda’s and its success.

For Rachman this may have also helped to clear a debt. There is a story that Rachman had acquired a gambling debt at Esmeralda’s and that Ronnie Kray chased him for it. Rachman gave Ronnie some cash towards it and a cheque for the rest, which bounced. Bad idea.

It then appears that the club, as well as being a casino, became a venue for gay sex and a criminal information network run by David Litvinoff.

Litvinoff, whose legend was built around his plastic gangster status, was another who had accumulated gambling debts at Esmeralda’s; three grand in Litvinoff’s case, and Ronnie Kray used this debt as leverage to acquire the lease on a flat in Ashburn Gardens in Kensington that Litvinoff owned; provided Litvinoff threw in his live-in lover Bobby Buckley as well. This extremely un-holy trinity then apparently occupied the flat in the smart west London neighbourhood for the next 18 months.

Litvinoff would become the link between the criminal fraternity and the society movers and shakers and seems to have been a player in the emerging CIA controlled LSD market.

However, it is back to horrible Horace that we must first return. Hod was a fetishist and did not care in the slightest who knew what about his peccadillos. He had been a regular on the freak scene since the thirties and had helped to establish London’s private orgy circuit.

He was also, like Stephen Ward, a procurer of popsies and it was in this function that he supplied girls for the parties that the actress Diana Dors and her husband Dennis Hamilton would host at their house in Maidenhead. These proceedings would then be filmed, via a two-way mirror installed in the ceiling in a similar manner to the OSS installed system at Ward’s house. These ‘home-movies’ would then be sold by Hamilton to his cronies on the sicko scene in rather the same fashion as Roman Polanski was rumoured to be doing on the sixties Hollywood circuit.

When Diana tired of this licentiousness and split with Hamilton the ever generous Rachman would purchase the two way mirror for installation in one of his own properties, presumably to continue the illicit film-making programme and to broaden the burgeoning blackmail portfolio.

Whilst the Profumo affair was unsurprisingly headline news in the UK, toppling a Tory government no less, the level of attention and scrutiny the case received over the pond was a matter of great concern.

You might think that the Americans would have been relatively unconcerned about the sexual deviancies of their British colleagues, but this was far from the case, and with good reason.

It is one of life’s true coincidences that on the very day that Fleet Street should be devouring the circumstances of the death of Michael Holliday; an earlier vignette along our time-travelling explorations, that it should also feature a front-page picture of ‘Gay’ Ellen Rometsch.

Now there’s a name with which to conjure.

It is testament to the great many changes of the past half century that ‘Gay Ellen’ did not mean that Ellen was gay: no, that would really have caused some conservative American consternation. ‘Gay Ellen’ then, meant that Ellen was gay; i.e. she liked a gay time; or, in other words that she was a whore, only they couldn’t say she was a whore due to the nature of her whoring which involved being balled by a Kennedy. Oh, and she was East German; which nowadays means that you are just another citizen of the fourth Reich, sorry, European Union, but back then that made you a communist, in American eyes anyway, and, therefore, a spy.

So, in the public perception, not only was ‘Gay Ellen’ a foreign, red, slag but she was also receiving pillow-talk from the President himself.

J. Edgar Hoover must have been shitting his pants!

Worse yet, ‘Gay Ellen’ was not the only foreign, red, slag that was receiving special Presidential attention; a girl called Suzy Chang was also being mentioned in dispatches as was my friend Mariella Novotny! Happy birthday Mr President indeed!

Oh, and Bobby Kennedy was knobbing them both as well; but then he was well used to sloppy seconds!

And therein lay the root of the great American fear; had Ward’s girls penetrated defences on both sides of the Atlantic? Did their legs spread so wide that they could consume an engorged ocean?

Certainly Ward’s girls were operating the same tricks for him as they were for Bobby Baker and his harlot’s harem of quim at the Quorum Club on Capitol Hill (Gosh, that’s a mouthful said the actress to the Bishop!).

The Quorum Club was another place that was used to acquire information about politicians that could later be used for blackmail, as was the house that Baker bought, ostensibly for his secretary, but from where he ran sex parties. This was a particularly useful asset for Lyndon B. Johnson who found it fairly easy to get politicians to do whatever he wanted should they have previously attended one of Baker’s pervy parties.

Bobby Baker was asked if he would arrange a meeting between Ellen Rometsch and John F. Kennedy. Baker later said that:

“He (Kennedy) sent back word it was the best time he ever had in his life. That was not the only time. She saw him on other occasions. It went on for a while.”

Baker then told LBJ and Hoover about Kennedy’s relationship with Ellen Rometsch. In July 1963 Federal Bureau of Investigation agents questioned Romesch about her past. They came to the conclusion that she was probably a Soviet spy.

Chapter 13