Gavin Newsom brings hope to America and we expect him to great things as 40th Governor of California; we also urge him to do what he can to free the victims of parental abuse, the Menendez brothers
Gavin Newsom, as the 42nd Mayor of San Francisco, achieved much. This spirited businessman brought in same-sex marriage in violation of the then state law, implemented a programme that provided permanent housing with support for 7,000 homeless people and did much to support workers’ rights.
Awarded the title of “America’s Most Social Mayor” based on his prominence on social media in 2010, here is a politician who has thrived because he does things differently. Charismatic and forward thinking, Newsom’s first book, Citizenville, explored how technology can transform democracy and in 2014, by then the 49th Lieutenant Governor of California, he became the only statewide politician to endorse the legalisation of cannabis.
More importantly, illustrating his thoroughly decent personality, in 2012, Newsom supported a sadly failed measure that sought to end the death penalty in California. He cited that California had spent $5 billion since 1978 to execute just 13 people and also stated that the death penalty was “immoral” and “did not deter crime.”
Yesterday, Newsom – a possible future President we’d go as far to say – was sworn in as the 40th Governor of California. Walking in the shoes of Arnold Schwarzenegger will undoubtedly be a new challenge for him and presiding over the most populous and prosperous state in the United States will certainly bring with it great challenges. With 39.6 million residents and a $2.9 trillion economy that is larger than that of the United Kingdom, he plans to work to reform healthcare, has already stood up to Donald Trump over his ridiculous wall and described it as a “monument of stupidity” and boldy taken on the NRA and stated: “We need comprehensive gun reform. NOW.”
All at The Steeple Times today salute ‘The Gavinator’ – as he once joked he would be known – but today, on his second day in office, we make a more heartfelt plea to him. Given the increasing amount of support and increasing amount of information about their case finally now being in the public domain, we urge the 40th Governor to take up the mantle of the permanently incarcerated victims of the most abhorrent of parental abuse, Erik and Lyle Menenendez. These boys received the most harsh of sentences simply because of who they were and have been locked up in Californian jails for 27 years without any chance of release ever. It is, we’d argue, now damn well time they were let out and it would be a fine thing if Gavin Newsom could do what he can to ensure the day when these brothers again walk free comes sooner rather than later.
As Pimlico Plumbers’ founder sticks up a ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ sign on his headquarters and Gina Miller launches ‘End The Chaos!’, The Steeple Times predicts Brexit will NOT actually happen
Charlie Mullins, founder of Pimlico Plumbers, is well-known for having supported Gina Miller’s successful Article 50 case at The Supreme Court.
Now, in a brilliantly bold move, this multi-millionaire businessman has stuck a huge sign on his company’s headquarters in Waterloo that reads: “Bollocks to Brexit, It’s not a done deal.”
Shared on Facebook by a Facebook group named ‘Pants to Brexit,’ an image of this gigantic yellow and black announcement comes just as Miller herself launched a new campaign called ‘End the Chaos!’ It also accompanied revelations of Tony Blair, Nick Clegg and Sir John Major holding “secret meetings” to establish how Britain could actually remain in the EU.
We join Mr Mullins in saying: “BOLLOCKS TO BREXIT” and look forward to the imminent collapse of the mess that she who’s been too busy wandering in the wheatfields presides over.
Please join those backing ‘End the Chaos’ – Let the people decide by clicking here.
Bizarrely largely overlooked by the mainstream media, the son of the ousted ex-MP for Kensington Lady ‘Call Me Victoria’ Borwick is an extremely well connected man who keeps himself under the radar on social media. The 31-year old has just 500 followers on Twitter – a surprisingly low number given he has been described as a “computer specialist” – and was put in a position of huge power as Vote Leave’s chief technology officer from August 2015 to July 2016.
Educated at the University of Richmond, Virginia from 2006 to 2010, with a period studying law courses at Cambridge briefly during 2008, Borwick subsequently worked in IT for the financial services company Killik & Co in 2012 and simultaneously “developed music technology for interactive lessons.”
More interestingly, this youngster’s move into political data profiling came also in 2012 when he founded a company named Kanto Systems with an aim of “bring[ing] UK Campaigning into the 21st century.” Here, Borwick developed a “mobile canvassing app” and came into contact with Cambridge Analytica in order to provide them with “digital services,” according to The Huffington Post. In turn, he sold an app to Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL, and now, in March this year, his firm was brought in by Ireland’s Save The 8th anti-abortion campaign group as part of their efforts “to persuade Irish voters to keep the country’s strict anti-abortion laws.”
“Hiring Thomas Borwick to create and manage a website is like employing the SAS to run security at a school hop or bringing in Einstein to tot up your shopping bill,” comments journalist Fintan O’Toole in The Irish Times, and in further revelations in the Evening Standard late March, Borwick himself admitted to also having worked with the equally controversial Canadian data firm Aggregate IQ – an operation that earned £3.5 million working for Vote Leave during the 2016 referendum campaign.
The public and press need to wake up and smell the coffee. The manipulation of politics in America, Britain, Ireland and elsewhere runs far deeper than even the most avid viewer of the Daily Politics could imagine. Figures like Thomas Borwick may well operate in the backrooms but it is increasingly becoming apparent that with doorstep canvassing all but irrelevant, such people are worryingly our new political powerhouses.
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Neglected Georgian mansion that has been home to Sir Dirk Bogarde, Basil Dearden, Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, Matt Aitken and Robert Kilroy-Silk for sale for 39% less than it sold for in 2014
A dilapidated Grade II* listed country house whose extensive roster of owners numbers aristocrats, rock and film stars and politicians is on sale for £3.95 million or 39% less from the £6.5 million sum it sold for in 2014.
Built for the Duke of Buckingham in the 1600s and extending to 10,743 square foot, Beel House in Little Chalfont, near Amersham in Buckinghamshire stands in 13.5 acres of land. It comprises of a 7 reception room, 8 bedroom, 6 bathroom main house and also comes with an indoor swimming pool complex, a tennis court and garaging for 5 cars.
Home to The Hon. Lady Caroline Cavendish in the 1830s and Colonel Abram ‘Arthur’ Lyle of the Tate & Lyle dynasty from 1909 to 1920, Beel House was bought by the actor Sir Dirk Bogarde in a “dilapidated state” in 1954. Of discovering it, Bogarde, who had been renting a cottage in the close vicinity on the Bendrose Estate, stated:
“[The actress Kay Kendall and I] walked across muddy fields from my rented home to look at Beel House. It was a horror. Bleak and empty, few of its twenty-six rooms caught the sun, and the garden surrounding it was a tangle of overgrown rosebeds. Inside it seemed a labyrinth of corridors and stone passages. It was painted throughout in dejected yellow and brown and each room had a rusty gas fire in it.”
Bogarde made significant changes to the building and pulled down a wing of 11 rooms. In their place, he built a swimming pool and a 30-foot long conservatory in the grounds – which Kay Kendall later described as looking like “an out patients’ department” – and it seems he spent several happy years there. He moved to another property nearby named Drummer’s Yard in 1960 and sold Beel House to Basil Dearden, the director of The Assassination Bureau, Khartoum and The Man Who Haunted Himself.
An aerial photo of Beel House, Little Chalfont, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, HP7 9QP, United KingdomImages of the exterior of Beel House in the 1950sActor Anthony Forwood, Sir Dirk Bogarde’s eventual “life partner,” at Beel House with his dogs Sinuhe and Bogie; Sir Dirk Bogarde in his study at the houseSir Dirk Bogarde outside Beel House with one of many Rolls-Royces he owned and inside on the house’s main staircaseFilm director Basil Dearden, owner of Beel House between 1960 and 1966, worked with Sir Dirk Bogarde on the controversial film ‘Victim’ in 1961; it was the first English language film to use the word “homosexual” and of it one Italian critic remarked: “At last the British have stopped being hypocrites”
Dearden sold up in 1966 and the next famous owners were Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne in the early 1980s. It was whilst here that Mr Osbourne “decided to murder his wife” and of the ensuing incident on 3rd September 1989, the Amersham Museum’s website reports:
“Ozzy Osbourne put the house up for sale after he had been arrested for the attempted murder of his wife whilst living at Beel House. After taking a cocktail of drugs and drinking heavily during a family meal at the Chinese restaurant at Nightingales Corner he attacked his wife and was subsequently arrested. He had no memory of the attack but the conditions of his bail were that he entered a rehab centre, did not contact his wife and did not return to Beel House.”
Marketed for £1.75 million in 1991, unsurprisingly Sharon Osbourne, herself, did not have much positive to say about her time at Beel House either. In her 2006 autobiography, Extreme, she remarked:
“I decided I wanted to go back to England. By this time we had already sold Beel House. I had enough bad memories not to be too sorry to see it go. Also it had reached what the builder called the domino point: mending one thing only triggered something else that needed to be done.”
Ozzy Osbourne, photographed by Conrad Rickenbacker, sitting on his four poster bed at Beel House in the 1980sImages of Beel House during the ownership of Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne (photographs by Conrad Rickenbacker)Robert Kilroy-Silk at Beel House prior to his appearance on ‘I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here’ in November 2008The house as furnished by Robert Kilroy-Silk and his wife Jan Beech, circa 2014
Matt Aitken, the composer of chart toppers for Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Rick Astley and Bananarama, supposedly lived at Beel House for a period subsequently and in the 1990s, the property was sold to the “exotically handsome man, with a very un-English facial glow and ice blue eyes” Robert Kilroy-Silk and his wife, Jan Beech.
Controversial television personality Mr Kilroy-Silk, an MP from 1974 to 1986 and an MEP from 2004 to 2009, brought with him a herd of fallow deer as well as Vietnamese pheasants and bantams to Beel House. He lived between there and his home in Spain and then sold up for the staggering sum of £6.5 million in 2014 to an “international buyer” who, according to Country Life’s Penny Churchill, immediately found “it ‘surplus to requirements’ and put it straight back on the market” through Savills.
Of the estate, which by then had been for sale for three years, in October 2017, then selling agent Hugh Maconochie told the Bucks Free Press:
“In many respects Beel House is the archetypal country residence: a Grade II* listed home in the heart of the Chilterns, beautiful grounds and easy access to London by both rail and road. Yet, while it was completely refurbished in the 1980s – new garaging, games block and swimming pool complex included – its current state necessitates a complete restoration project.”
“For those seeking a country residence to move straight into, Beel House is not the home for them. Instead it would appeal to a buyer looking to restore and revive a Georgian gem. A reduction in price over the years reflects the refurbishment that’s required.”
Empty and plainly somewhat neglected, Edward Welton of Knight Frank’s Baker Street office is now marketing the property. His firm describes Beel House as: “An exciting opportunity for a full restoration project, giving someone the chance to create their own style on a private estate, so close to London.”
Beel House – The Names and Numbers
November 2017 – Further reduced to just £3.95 million ($5.29 million, €4.47 million or درهم19.44 million) through Knight Frank.
January 2017 – Reduced to £4.95 million ($6.63 million, €5.61 million or درهم24.37 million) through Savills.
November 2015 – For sale again for £6.5 million ($8.7 million, €7.4 million or درهم32 million) through Savills.
2014 – Sold to “an international buyer” by Robert Kilroy-Silk for “close to” the £6.5 million ($8.7 million, €7.4 million or درهم32 million) asking price.
June 1991 – For sale for £1.75 million (the equivalent of £3.45 million, $4.62 million, €3.91 million or درهم16.98 million today).
October 1989 – Placed for sale by media personalities Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne.
1966 – Placed on the market by Basil Dearden for £66,000 (the equivalent of £1.1 million, $1.5 million, €1.2 million or درهم5.4 million today).
Circa 1960 – Sold to film director Basil Dearden (1911 – 1971).
January 1954 – Sold to actor Sir Dirk Bogarde (1921 – 1999) for £4,000 (the equivalent of £101,000, $135,000, €114,000 or درهم497,000 today).
1836 to 1954 – Part of the estate of the Lowndes family, largescale landowners in the Chesham, Buckinghamshire area. During this time tenants included The Hon. Lady Caroline Cavendish and from 1909 to 1920 by Colonel Abram Lyle (of the Tate & Lyle dynasty).
1730 – Valued at £500 (the equivalent of £99,000, $133,000, €112,000 or درهم487,000 today) by Sun Insurance whilst home to Thomas White of Middle Temple.
1672 to 1682 – Home to Mary Pennington, the mother-in-law of the Quaker founder of the State of Pennsylvania, William Penn.
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Off-the-wall 24-carat gold 1958 Austin Healey that would appeal to Liberace to be sold at auction in New York with an estimate of £420,000
A truly bonkers one-off 1958 Austin-Healey 100-Six that was given the monikers ‘Goldie’ and ‘The Golden Child’ is to be sold at auction in December.
For sale for 165% less than it was offered for in 2013 but 781% more than it was valued at in 1958, ‘Goldie’ is capable of speeds of upto 120 miles per hour but what makes her unique is that all brightwork – including the trimming washers and screws, wire wheels, disc brakes, bumpers and instruments – are plated in 24-carat gold.
The car’s interior is trimmed in champagne Connolly kid leather and champagne diadem mink by London furrier Lorna Doon Snow adorn the inserts and back squabs of the bucket seats and the key ring comes complete with a solid-gold scale replica of the car itself.
The brainchild of Donald Healey’s then PR manager, Ken Gregory, in association with the Daily Express’s then motoring correspondent, Basil Cardew, ‘Goldie’ was the show-stopping car exhibited at the entrance to the 1958 London Motor Show at Earl’s Court. She reportedly wowed audiences and no doubt would have been dubbed a ‘dream machine’ by the motoring world’s most extravagant doyenne, Lady Docker.
Sold immediately to the paper the Daily Express dedicated a page to the promotion of a reader competition to win ‘Goldie’ on 22nd October 1958. Of her, they remarked:
“[This is] the world’s most flirtatious car… The Daily Express has bought it… You can win it. She’s elegant… she wears mink… and she adores champagne. No, not the girl… the car!”
“The real stuff… The most sumptuous… A vintage squirt… The biggest sensation of the [Motor Show at Earl’s Court]… Yes, you could call it the car that was born with a golden spoon in its mouth!”
“In the whole of the land there isn’t anything to match it.”
Surprisingly, the winner of the competition decided to sell the vehicle immediately. She was first road-registered in February 1959 and then passed through various owners until being completely restored by Bruce and Inan Phillips of Healey Surgeons of Washington, D.C. between 1983 and 1986.
Speaking of what the current marketing catalogue entry describes as “the most spectacular Austin Healey ever produced,” Inan Phillips is said to have remarked: “[‘Goldie’ was] one fantastic running and driving car… The smoothest driving Austin Healey we’ve ever owned.”
In time sold to a wealthy businessman and Jeep restorer named Dennis Collins from Wylie, Texas, ‘Goldie’ was offered for sale first on eBay and then at auction in Houston, Texas for £758,000 in 2013 and 2014. It appears no sale went through and now an estimate of £265,000 to £417,000 has been set for this striking creation.
RM Sotheby’s will sell ‘Goldie’ at their annual New York ‘Icons’ sale on 6th December. They list the vehicle as being “without reserve.” If only Liberace were still around to put in a bid.
‘Goldie’ – The Numbers
December 2017 – Offered for sale at auction with no reserve and an estimate of £265,000 to £417,000 ($350,000 to $550,000, €300,000 to €471,000 or درهم1.3 million to درهم2 million) in New York.
January 2014 – Offered for sale with a ‘buy-it-now’ price of £758,000 ($1 million, €857,000 or درهم3.7 million) on eBay.
March 2013 – Offered for sale for £758,000 ($1 million, €857,000 or درهم3.7 million) in Houston, Texas by Collins Brothers Jeep owner Dennis Collins.
October 1958 – Valued at £4,000 (the equivalent of £86,000, $113,000, €97,000 or درهم417,000 today) prior to being sold to the Daily Express and offered in a reader competition in London.
“One of Britain’s finest 20th-century country houses” has been placed for sale for £20 million; it comes with 530 acres and was built by the late businessman Sebastian de Ferranti in the 1980s
One could imagine being in the early 18th century or in Italy even on first taking a look at the Palladian style Henbury Hall, near Macclesfield in Cheshire. However, as Moliere said: “One is easily fooled by that one loves” and in reality this 12,496 square foot beauty was actually constructed between 1980 and 1986.
The vision of the buccaneer businessman and patron of the arts Sebastian de Ferranti (1927 – 2015) and based upon Palladio’s Villa Rotunda at Vizenza, the 6-bedroomed main residence stands on the site of an earlier mansion demolished in the 1950s. It was designed by the architect Julian Bicknell in conjunction with Felix Kelly and David Mlinaric, was constructed by Tarmac Construction and is faced with warm-toned limestone from north east France. The estate also includes a Grade II listed dower house, five further houses and cottages, a Grade II listed and stable block and courtyard.
The late Sebastian de FerrantiHenbury Hall during constructionA depiction of the original Henbury Hall in 1707The front elevation of the current Henbury Hall with parkland beyond
Aside from 12 acres of immaculate gardens with a series of lakes, there is a 200 year old landscaped park, woodland, agricultural land, a beautifully designed swimming pool, a tennis court and a polo field.
Selling agents Savills offer the Henbury Hall Estate as a whole for a guide price of £20 million – a world away from the £9,000 sum the estate sold for in 1872 (the equivalent of £934,000 today).
‘Sir Shifty’ filmed in debauched incident in Mykonos; he would do better to sip rather than spray his beverages
Sir Philip Green will forever be remembered as a man whose former company, BHS, collapsed with the loss of 11,000 jobs. At that time, in The Steeple Times, the actor and producer Steven Berkoff compared him to both Shylock and Al Capone, but now ‘Badly Behaved Boozy Brit Abroad’ can add be added to this slug-like individual’s roster after he was spotted dousing fellow diners with champagne in Greece.
Filmed by someone named Sarah Nazari and shared on her Instagram page, the minute long clip shows Sir Philip at a beach bar-restaurant named Nammos Mykonos. Alongside other revelers, the business tycoon was pictured hosing other guests down with £109 ($141, €120 or درهم517) per bottle “spraying champagne.” He didn’t look like he had a care in the world and perhaps, just maybe, his daughter’s new jailbird boyfriend, Jeremy Meeks, had provided him with inspiration to behave like a reprobate.
Of antics more befitting of a 20-year old than a 65-year old, an unnamed source told The Times: “You couldn’t be in this club if you aren’t rich, so he wasn’t impressing anyone. He just looked like a sad old man trying to play with the pretty people.” Spot on: ‘Sir Shifty’, at his age, would do well to sip rather than spray.
One-off 1971 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI cabriolet to be auctioned; originally commissioned by a British playboy turned jailbird with connections to Princess Margaret but only actually completed in 1993
Offered with an estimate of £308,000 to £462,000 ($400,000 to $600,000, €340,000 to €511,000 or درهم1.5 million to درهم2.2 million), this truly unique, one-of-one design was amazingly the final Rolls-Royce Phantom VI completed in spite of the model remaining in production until 1991. This mammoth beast of a car, surprisingly, however, has just 72 miles on its clock and is thus described as “as brand new.”
The car’s first owner, Robert ‘Bobby’ Buchanan-Michaelson, was a bit of a playboy but sadly he never got to actually drive or be driven in it. A “member of Princess Margaret’s inner circle of friends,” this Cambridge graduate was a member of the “Mayfair mammas’ lists of the season’s most eligible bachelors” until “exchanging his Edwardian hacking jacket for prison grey” in 1954 after being jailed for 12 months for an import/export fraud according to a report in Sydney’s World’s News in August that year.
Some years after being freed, ex-con Buchanan-Michaelson took part in the 10,000 mile 1968 London to Sydney Marathon in a Mercedes-Benz 280SE. In a book about the adventure he was described as both a “successful and wealthy businessman, employing a cook, a butler, a maid and a chauffeur” and as an “accomplished sportsman.” Also listed as a lavish spender, Buchannan-Michaelson was later bankrupted in November 1977 – though at the time he lived in grandeur at both at Churchbury Manor at Fairford, Gloucestershire and 26 The Vale, in Chelsea, London, SW3.
In 1970, in the period between the international car race and his bankruptcy, Buchanan-Michaelson commissioned Rolls-Royce to build him a Phantom VI. After delivery to Jack Barclay Ltd. In June 1971, the vehicle’s chassis was sent to Frua of Torino, Italy to have bodywork fitted but for some reason work stopped and it was not until 1977 – and by now with a new American owner, James Leake, and new drawings of its eventual form – that the project continued.
With Pietro Frua (1913 – 1983) retiring soon thereafter and Mr Leake’s death in 1983, the chassis passed to new ownership and it was only eventually completed as a finished motor vehicle in 1993.
That year, the four-door ‘state cabriolet’ was displayed at the Geneva Motor Show and its boxy look must have surely either have wowed or horrified visitors. It is described as having “an elaborate multi-position convertible top allows the car to be configured as a sedanca de ville, landaulet or fully open convertible.” The interior is trimmed in burled walnut with sterling silver inlays and amongst other luxuries are front and rear heating, air-conditioning, fresh-air ventilation systems, a television, a video player, a radio and a cocktail cabinet. Underneath the seats is a portable Davidoff cigar humidor and even a matching silk-lined ladies’ vanity case. What more could anyone ever need?
RM Sotheby’s will sell the Frua Phantom VI at their Monterey sale in California on 19th August and term it: “The last word in modern opulence.”
Small country house in Derbyshire that has been in the same family since it was built for sale for £2.5 million
Owned by the same family since it was built in 1840 and occupied by them since the 1930s, Nether Hall at Hathersage in Derbyshire is to be sold for the first time ever with a guide price of £2.5 million ($3.2 million, €2.8 million or درهم11.9 million) through agents Savills.
The 9,301 square foot “small country house” on offer has been Grade II listed since 1985 and comes with 54.99 acres of land. It is currently home to businessman Michael Shuttleworth and his artist wife Lizzie and is built of coursed gritstone with ashlar dressings, coped gables and a slate roof. It includes 5 reception rooms, 7 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms as presently configured and comes with a gate lodge let on a protected tenancy and a 2-bedroom barn conversion.
Aside from additional outbuildings, the estate also includes 605 metres of fishing rights on Hood Brook, a walled kitchen garden, a grass tennis court and let farmland. A clause is being applied on the uplift in value in the event of any planning permission being granted within 25 years of the date of the completion of any sale.
1964 Mini Cooper S hatchback designed to carry the golf clubs of the much-loathed Postmaster General, Minister of Transport and alleged tax fraudster Ernest Marples for sale
Twice married and born in Levenshulme, Manchester, Ernest Marples – later Lord Marples – makes the very worst of modern politicians look like relative babes in arms. He can, however, be credited with commissioning a rare thing – the first ever Mini hatchback. Two were made in total and one, which was eventually transferred to the ownership of the politician in 1968, is to be auctioned in July.
Pictured left: (Alfred) Ernest Marples (1907 – 1978) with his secretary turned second wife, Ruth Dobson. They married in 1956 and he became The Rt. Hon. The Lord Marples, PC in 1974. Pictured right: Lord Marples in his ‘Marples Mini’ (date unknown).
Marples, whose upbringing was within the Labour Party and whose love of eccentric orange-brown shoes and blue suits was well known, worked as a miner, postman, chef and accountant before a stint in the Royal Artillery between 1941 and 1944. He then joined the Conservative Party, was elected Member of Parliament for Wallasey in 1945 and took his first ministerial post in 1951. Promoted by Churchill, Macmillan and Douglas-Home, he rose to become Postmaster General and Minister of Transport and introduced the STD telephone code, the Premium Bond scheme, the first postcodes, the MOT test, roadside single yellow and double yellow lines and possibly, in his most unpopular move of all, traffic wardens.
Aside from his public appointments, controversially, Marples became a director of various companies in the 1940s. Without considering any potential conflicts of interest, he involved himself in firms that built the first motorways and several power stations also and attracted much attention after protestors spray painted a motorway bridge near Luton that his firm, Marples Ridgway and Partners, constructed with the caption: “Marples Must Go!”
Subsequently, Marples brought the government into disrepute through his part in a prostitution scandal and after this was covered up in 1963, he later “cut and run” to Monaco in 1975 to avoid “a substantial tax bill” after being discovered having parked most of his assets in Monaco and Liechtenstein. He spent his final years on his 45-acre vineyard estate in Fleurie, France and died in a Monte Carlo hospital in 1978.
The ex-Ernest Marples 1964 Austin Mini Cooper S 1071 will be sold by H&H Classics at their Imperial War Museum Duxford sale in Cambridgeshire on the 26th July. It has an estimate of £70,000 to £80,000 ($89,500 to $102,300, €79,100 to €90,400 or درهم328,800 to درهم375,900) – a sum that would no doubt, if he were still alive, have money obsessed Marples smiling with glee.
Of the almond green car, which supposedly the hatchback boot was fitted to on the orders of Marples on the basis he wanted to be easily able to fill it with cases of wine and golf clubs, Damian Jones of H&H Classics commented:
“This is not just another Mini. It is history on four wheels. Its former owner, Transport Minister Ernest Marples changed the face of Britain with housing, bridges, motorways. He was a very ‘colourful character’ to say the least. It is fascinating that he chose to buy and use this relatively modest car when going golfing or going to France on holiday. If this car could speak what tales might it tell? It is truly one of a kind.”
