Handsome Brute: The True Story of a Ladykiller

by O'Connor, Sean

  Heath was placed in police detention and this time refused bail, pending arrangements for his deportation from South Africa as an undesirable alien. Even his departure caused a minor diplomatic spat. Given that he was an illegal immigrant, the Department of External Affairs in Pretoria suggested to the Office of the High Commissioner for the United Kingdom that they should make arrangements for Heath’s removal at their own expense. This was met with disdain from the British High Commission in Cape Town.

  It seems to us a bit hard that we should be expected to arrange and pay for the deportation of this man when the Union Defence Authorities deliberately kept him on in spite of knowing his previous history.35

  It is not recorded who eventually footed the bill.

  Heath sailed from Cape Town on the SS Sumaria on 17 January 1946, returning to England a changed man, sadder if not necessarily wiser. One night on the passage home, he found himself wandering around the boat deck of the Sumaria in his dressing gown, with no idea how he came to be there. He had lost his wife and forfeited his relationship with his son. He had no home, no job, no income and no prospects. The war was over. There was nothing to fight for. Endless civilian days lay ahead. Heath was just one of millions of men returning home in this period, trading a life of risk and adventure for a future of staid sobriety. Many would struggle to make the change, missing the camaraderie, excitement and danger of war. The New Statesman worried specifically about men – just like Heath – returning from the RAF:

  What are all these young airmen, with their highly specialized training, their terrific sense of adventure and their complete lack of earning power, going to do in postwar England?36

  His only option was to return to Wimbledon – shame-faced and exhausted – a man of nearly thirty living with his mother.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Thursday 20 June 1946

  [He] walked home from Moorgate Station across the ruins. Pausing at the bastion of the Wall near St Giles’s, he looked across at the horrid waste, for horrid he felt it to be; he hated mess and smashed things; the squalor of ruin sickened him; like Flaubert, he was aware of an irremediable barbarism coming up out of the earth, and of filth flung against the ivory tower. It was a symbol of loathsome things, war, destruction, savagery . . .

  Rose Macaulay, The World My Wilderness, 1950

  To British servicemen returning home from the war, London in 1946 presented a much-changed face; half familiar, yet wrecked, ravaged and ruined.

  Throughout hostilities, the city had experienced 1,224 bomb alerts – about one every thirty-six hours. It had been raided 354 times by piloted aircraft and from 1944 was targeted day and night by nearly 3,000 pilotless bombs, the deadly V1 and V2s. A total of 28,890 Londoners had been killed and another 50,000 injured. Many shops, businesses and domestic dwellings were eradicated – 100,000 houses had to be demolished. An estimated 1,650,000 sustained some sort of damage.1

  The worst losses had been in the City of London. Out of the total of 460 acres of built-up land, 164 acres had been destroyed. Eighteen churches were beyond repair, including fourteen designed by Christopher Wren.2 Ten had been razed to the ground in a single night. Austin Friars, the Dutch church that dated from 1253, had been a light Gothic building and was now little more than ‘a rubbish heap’. St Giles Cripplegate, which Rose Macaulay wrote of – where Cromwell married and Milton was buried – was now a ruin. The statue of Milton outside the church had been completely blown off its pedestal. St Clement Danes in the Strand had been decimated. St Mary-le-Bow was reduced to a shell, her font destroyed and her famous bells irreparably cracked.

  [The churches of London] had suffered a disgusting change, a metamorphosis at first stupefying. How could these dear interiors, panelled, symmetrically murky, personal, redolent of the eighteenth century, filled with ornaments and busts, urns, tablets, organ cases, carved swags, pulpits and galleries, pews, hassocks, and hymn books, have been turned into dead bonfires, enclosed by windowless and roofless lengths of wall, with pillars like rotten teeth thrusting up from heaps of ash?3

  Even the colour of the city had changed, whether it was Victorian granite, modern concrete or even the ‘tweed-textured’ walls of earlier buildings; all had been scorched umber.

  Seventeen of the city’s Company Halls – including the medieval Merchant Tailors’ Hall – were flattened; six others were badly damaged.4 The Inns of Court had suffered several times including the Middle Temple Hall, which had hosted the first production of Twelfth Night, Shakespeare’s bitter-sweet comedy of love and loss. The Guildhall, once the setting for major trials such as that of Lady Jane Grey and Thomas Cranmer, had been burned to the ground in 1940, just as it had been in the Great Fire of 1666. Though still operational, the Old Bailey had been hit twice and the Royal Courts of Justice several times. Hundreds of London’s historic buildings had come under attack and now lay half-wounded or annihilated. The Tower of London, St Thomas’ Hospital, County Hall, Lambeth Palace, Holland House, Buckingham Palace, the offices of The Times and the Tate Gallery had all been damaged in the Blitz. The British Museum had lost ten of its galleries and 150,000 books. Madame Tussaud’s suffered a direct hit on the night of 9–10 September 1940 resulting in the loss of 295 male heads and 57 female heads. Only two occupants of the museum survived completely unscathed; Paul, the museum’s white cat, was found safe after the bombing clinging to the figure of Dr Crippen, the only waxwork not to suffer any damage at all. Directly the war had finished, the figure of Hitler was moved from the gallery of contemporary politicians and placed in the Chamber of Horrors.5

  Whitehall, the centre of government, had been frequently bombed. Montague House, the offices of the Ministry of Labour, had been hit on fourteen occasions, the Ministry of Health was hit thirteen times and the Foreign Office, ten. The Palace of Westminster itself had also been shattered. It had taken at least twelve hits in one night in May 1941 when an incendiary bomb had set the House of Commons on fire whilst another hit the roof of Westminster Hall – steeped in British history, having stood since 1097. As firefighters could not save both, all efforts had been focused on saving the more ancient building. The Commons Chamber was left to burn and was not rebuilt until 1950. The clock tower that housed Big Ben also suffered. The glass from the south dial of the clock face was blown out, but its mechanism was not affected and it continued to keep accurate time.

  There was complete devastation around St Paul’s Cathedral and a wide area extending north from the river towards Cripplegate and what is now the Barbican. Despite several attacks and severe damage, St Paul’s miraculously survived:

  The Cathedral had become in these later years more than ever a symbol of the unconquerable spirit that has sustained the fight . . . None who saw will ever forget their emotions on the night when London was burning and the dome seemed to ride the sea of fire like a great ship lifting above smoke and flame the inviolable ensign of the golden cross.6

  Pawson and Leaf ’s opposite the cathedral, where Heath had spent his only successful tenure in civilian employment, was still standing, but had also been damaged by bombing. Further west in Oxford Street, the John Lewis store where he had worked for less than a fortnight in 1938 was completely obliterated. Bombs had also reached the suburbs, including Pinner and Kenton in north London and Wimbledon in the south-west of the city. Number 21 Merton Hall Road, though never directly hit, had been ‘badly shaken by bombs’. Bramham Gardens in Earls Court had three houses which were beyond repair, one on the corner where the gardens met Bolton Gardens, the others to the right of number 24 where Margery Gardner rented a flat.7

  Once cleared, the bombsites had been quickly utilized as car parks or colonized as playgrounds by children newly returned from evacuation in the country. These gaps, open spaces and derelict sites were soon taken over by several types of opportunistic weeds and wild flowers that started to sprout up across the city, enlivening the ruins and rubble. Some 126 different species flourished in the freshly created nooks and crannies; grou
ndsel, coltsfoot, Oxford ragwort and the rosebay willow herb. London rocket had flourished in the ruins of the Great Fire after 1666 and had only made a reappearance when the new city wildernesses first started to appear in 1940.8

  In the centre of town, Trafalgar Square, a memorial to a more ancient war, suffered little, though one of Landseer’s lions was damaged. A paw had to be replaced and in 1946, there was still a gaping wound in its stomach.9

  On 12 February 1946, a week after arriving back in England, Heath checked into the Strand Palace Hotel. It is at this point that he contacted Zita Williams again, the girl that he had jilted and rejected the year before, suggesting they meet at the hotel, with Heath presumably hoping for a casual sexual reunion. Zita didn’t respond to Heath’s telegram and left it to her father to tell him to stop bothering her.

  Eleven days later, Heath was asked to leave the same hotel after the incident with Pauline Brees.10

  Later that month, the South African authorities notified Wimbledon CID that Heath had – incredibly, given his record – applied for various decorations that he had been specifically refused by the SAAF. He had applied for the 1939–45 Star, the European Air Crew Star, the Italy Star, the France and Germany Medal and the British Defence Medal.11

  His application for these awards alerted Wimbledon police to his return and his various previous convictions involving fraud and false pretences. On the evening of 20 March, he was drinking at the Alexandra on Wimbledon Hill, kitted out in the uniform of a lieutenant colonel in the SAAF. He was noted by a local police officer, Detective Bilyard, who approached him and asked his name. Heath replied that his name was ‘Armstong’. At 9.15 p.m. Bilyard arrested Heath for wearing a uniform that he was not entitled to, as well as wearing decorations that he had not been awarded, including the DFC.12 He appeared at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court on 5 April and the case made the local paper: ‘Masquerade of Ex-Public School Boy’. Heath pleaded guilty to both charges, but claimed that he had not been wearing the uniform or the medals in order for financial gain, but to help him get a job. Once again, the magistrates treated him leniently, fining him£5 for both charges, saying, ‘We are ignoring anything that happened before you went into the South African Air Force because we want to try and help you.’

  Heath then seems to have made a determined effort to plan his future. Throughout April and May he wrote to several air companies enquiring about work as a commerical pilot and his address book contained a long list of the various air companies he had applied to.13

  On 12 April Heath wrote to the London School of Air Navigation asking for details of a ‘B’ licence flying course. This qualified a pilot to fly passenger and commercial cargo planes, as distinct from an ‘A’ licence which only qualified a pilot to fly solo or with a military crew, so he was certainly imagining a future as a commerical pilot. If he couldn’t fly with the RAF, at least he could put the flying experience he had accumulated over the past ten years to some fruitful use. His father agreed to finance him until he passed his examinations and had become established as a civil pilot. Between February and June of that year, Mr Heath gave his son nearly £200, a substantial amount of money at the time, £42 of which he paid in fees for the flying course. At the same time Heath was ‘liberally supplied with money, so that he should not have any worries whilst he was studying for his examinations’. Originally given £2 a week spending money by his father, more often than not he was given £6.

  Twenty-eight-year-old Ralph Fisher had left the RAF in November and, like Heath, was keen to work as a commercial pilot. He and Heath met as pupils at the London School of Air Navigation on 24 April when they registered for the five-week course. They both joined the Luton Flying Club and would each hire planes at £3 10s. an hour as they had to complete a certain number of hours’ flying in order to qualify for their ‘B’ licences. At the same time they socialized together at weekends, with Fisher finding Heath a likeable, clubbable character, though he was ‘inclined to brag and [Fisher] didn’t believe all he said’. Fisher also noted that Heath drank ‘freely’ and that he didn’t associate with one particular woman. He was to continue to remain on friendly terms with Heath throughout his trial and beyond.14

  On Friday 26 April, Bessie Heath had a visit from a young woman she had never met before. The woman, about thirty years old, asked if Mr Armstrong was at home? Mrs Heath said that she didn’t know of anyone by that name and then realized that the woman must mean her son, Neville. ‘Oh, yes, his name is not Armstrong, it is Heath, but he is known as Armstrong in the RAF,’ she said. Mrs Heath invited the young woman into the house. The woman introduced herself as Muriel Silvester, the widow of Flight Lieutenant Freddie Silvester. Freddie had been stationed in Belgium towards the end of 1944. When he had come home on survivor’s leave in November 1944, her husband had told her that his plane had been gunned down over Venlo. He had struggled to get his parachute on and the pilot, Jimmy Armstrong, had raced down the burning plane to help him. Later, Freddie returned to Belgium to join a fresh crew, but, sadly, in February 1945 he had been killed. Muriel was very anxious to meet some of her husband’s friends in the RAF and Armstrong in particular.

  Mrs Heath invited Muriel to stay for tea; she was sure that Neville would be home soon. The two women talked about their experiences during the war, Mrs Heath telling her that even in Wimbledon their house had been affected by the bombing. Time wore on, Mrs Heath explaining that her son must be studying late at the Air School or flying at Luton as he was studying for his civilian pilot’s licence. At 6 p.m., Muriel left Merton Hall Road disappointed not to have met Heath. She had so wanted to thank him personally for saving her husband’s life.15

  It is while he was flying at Luton that Heath met a young woman called Jill Harris. She was twenty years old and worked as a shorthand typist at Skefco, the ball-bearing works in the town, living just round the corner from the factory with her parents. She and Heath first met at the Royal Hotel in Luton on Saturday 11 May. He was standing at the bar with Ralph Fisher and two other girls, one of whom Jill knew by sight. Whilst she was waiting to be served, Heath asked if he could buy her a drink. She refused as she was with friends and was buying a round. During the chatter at the bar she overheard Heath say that he was going back to London the following day. That night, she saw Heath again at a fairground. He smiled and waved at her.

  The next day, Jill was meeting a girlfriend at the Royal Hotel and was surprised to find Heath still there, accompanied by Ralph Fisher again. Heath said, ‘Now I can get you a drink?’ So he bought one for her and her friend. Heath and Fisher invited the two girls to the Luton Flying Club that afternoon. How would they like a spin in the air? Heath took Jill up in a plane for about an hour and Fisher did the same with Jill’s friend. They stayed at the club until about 10 p.m. Afterwards, Heath took Jill home and said goodnight on the doorstep. ‘Beyond kissing [her] goodnight nothing happened. Heath behaved like a gentleman.’16

  On Monday morning, Jill received a phone call from Heath at her office, saying that he had left his gloves with her. Later that day she met him at the main entrance of the factory to return them. She was delighted when he greeted her with some flowers. He said he was going back to London but would be back in Luton the following weekend. Though she was looking forward to seeing him he didn’t arrive that weekend and only returned to Luton the following week.

  On Tuesday 14 May, Heath and Fisher both took the Air Ministry flying test for their ‘B’ licence. But at the end of the third week of the course, Heath suddenly wrote saying he was ill in bed with flu and asked for some instruction books to be sent to him. The books were posted, but Heath never returned to the school. When he next saw Fisher, he said that he had taken his ‘B’ licence test on 5 June and had passed it.

  According to his mother, Heath took more examinations between 7 and 11 June and this weekend was clearly a period of great anxiety and pressure for him. All his efforts and energy were focused on passing these examinations. At the same time, the who
le country was gearing up for the celebrations for ‘V’ Day. This was going to be the party to end all parties.

  Heath phoned Jill at her office in Luton on Friday 7 June and arranged to send a car to her home at lunchtime to take her to the Royal Hotel. Jill was in a celebratory mood as all employees at the ball-bearing factory had been given a share of a £10,000 ‘V’ Day bonus in that week’s pay packet. It’s unclear from her later statement to the police whether she had sex with Heath that lunchtime, or simply had lunch with him. She met him again that evening and gleaned that he had been married before. He even showed her a photograph of Elizabeth. She assumed that since his divorce he had been dating a number of girlfriends.

  The next day, Saturday 8 June, was ‘V’ Day itself. Heath called at Jill’s home impressively dressed in the uniform of a major in the SAAF. They had lunch with her parents and then he took her to the Flying Club again. That evening they called at several pubs and after 10 p.m. they went back to the Red Lion where Heath was staying. After the manageress called ‘time’, Heath continued to try and order more drinks for himself and Jill. But the wily manageress thought that Heath’s intention was to get Jill drunk and then take her up to his room. She saw to it that this didn’t happen.17 Heath was annoyed, so they left the hotel and went to a local park, Pope’s Meadow, where despite Luton’s austerity ‘V’ Day plans there was a £500 firework display. After watching the fireworks, they walked further into the park.

  That night an incident took place between Heath and Jill. One paragraph of her statement remains classified18 but seems to indicate either an attempted rape or some sort of sexual assault. After the incident, Heath walked Jill home in silence and left her outside her parents’ house. She phoned him the next day, but didn’t actually see him. She saw him at a dance on Monday 10 June, but he didn’t speak to her. She was disappointed as he struck her as a ‘very charming type of person until that evening in the park’.