Famous Pipe Smokers: 11/11/22

11 November, 2022

Vernon Grant

Vernon Simeon Plemion Grant was an American illustrator known for his whimsical gnome characters and fairy tale drawings. Over seven decades, Grant created hundreds of illustrations for advertising (General Electric, Gillette, Hershey's. Kellogg's) and major magazines, including Judge and Ladies' Home Journal. He is best known as creator of Kellogg's Rice Krispies cereal characters Snap! Crackle! and Pop!

Grant was born on April 26, 1902, in Coleridge, Nebraska, to Oliver Simeon Grant and Chloe Barkley Grant. When Grant was six years old, his family moved to South Dakota where they homesteaded. His experiences living on the prairies served as the inspiration for many of the artworks he would create throughout his career. While there he also learned illustration techniques from his beloved school teacher cousin Nellie Grant. As a teen, Grant moved with his family to California. He studied business law and public speaking at the University of Southern California and, at age 21, enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago. To help pay for his education, Grant developed his chalk talks, which became a popular act on the vaudeville circuit.

In 1932, a Grant Santa Claus illustration was used for the cover of Ladies' Home Journal. The next year, a radio commercial for Kellogg's Rice Krispies inspired the gnome-like mascots Snap! Crackle! and Pop! He soon became the lead illustrator for Kellogg's products, becoming so popular that in 1935 the company sent him on a world tour to promote their cereals.

In the 1930s and 1940s Grant became one of the country's most popular and prolific illustrator of children's fairy tales, creating at least ten booklets and 25 individual prints. He did covers for Judge, Collier's and other magazines. In 1938, Life magazine ranked Grant as "America's favorite children's artist."

Grant worked with the USO during World War II, entertaining troops with sketches and fast-paced chalk talks. After the war, he moved to South Carolina while still working for New York clients.

In 1936, Grant met and married Elizabeth Fewell, a native of Rock Hill, South Carolina. They had two children, son Chip and daughter Kay. In 1947, Grant and his family established a 670-acre (2.7 km2) farm outside Rock Hill, raising Angus cattle and Concord grapes. Grant became active in farming organizations, and his farming practices were recognized with awards from state agricultural associations.

In the late 1950s, Grant led the Rock Hill Chamber of Commerce, promoting changes in city planning and public housing. He served as the city's first director of public housing from 1965 to 1971.

Grant continued making art until, in 1985, he felt he could no longer work to his own expectations and was forced to retire. He died in 1990 at age 88

Paul Rotha

Paul Rotha was a British documentary film-maker, film historian and critic.

He was born Paul Thompson in London, and educated at Highgate School and at the Slade School of Fine Art.

Rotha was a close collaborator of John Grierson, and Wolfgang Suschitzky was one of his cinematographers. He directed and produced dozens of documentaries including Contact (1933), Air Outpost (1937) The Face of Britain (1935), World of Plenty (1943), Land of Promise (1947), A City Speaks (1947) and many others. The World Is Rich (1947) and Cradle of Genius (1961), both of which were nominated for an Academy Award, and feature films including the BAFTA-nominated No Resting Place. Rotha was Head of BBC TV's Documentaries Department between May 1953 and May 1955.

Rotha shared with Otto Neurath an interest in the techniques of visual communication, and the two men worked together on several films, where Neurath's ISOTYPE pictorial statistics were animated as an important component of the films' arguments. He was a major opponent of sound in movies.

Rotha wrote, produced and directed the 1958 crime drama Cat & Mouse, based on a novel by John Creasey and starring Lee Patterson and Ann Sears.

Rotha married Irish actress Constance Smith in 1974. Smith had twice (1961 and 1968) been charged with attacking Rotha and stabbing him.

Rotha died on 7 March 1984 in Wallingford, Oxfordshire.

Alan Abel

Alan Irwin Abel was an American hoaxer, writer, and mockumentary filmmaker famous for several hoaxes that became media circuses.

Born on August 2, 1924, in Zanesville, Ohio, Abel graduated from the Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Science in education. One of Abel's earliest pranks took place in the late 1950s; he posed as a golf professional who taught Westinghouse executives how to use ballet positions to improve their games.

Abel died on September 14, 2018, at his home in Southbury, Connecticut, from complications of cancer and heart failure.

Ernst Von Salomon

Ernst von Salomon (25 September 1902 – 9 August 1972) was a German novelist and screenwriter. He was a Weimar-era national-revolutionary activist and right-wing Freikorps member.

He was born in Kiel, in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein,[1] the son of a criminal investigation officer. Salomon attended the Musterschule gymnasium in Frankfurt.

From 1913 Salomon was raised as a cadet in Karlsruhe and in Lichterfelde near Berlin; during the German Revolution of 1918–19, he joined the paramilitary Freikorps ("Free-Corps") unit under Georg Ludwig Rudolf Maercker suppressing the Spartacist Uprising. Later in 1919, he fought in the Baltic against the Bolsheviks and the Estonian and Latvian armies. With his unit he took part in the Kapp-Putsch in March 1920. He also fought against Polish insurgents in what the Poles call the Silesian Uprisings of 1921.[2]

After the Freikorps units had been officially dissolved in 1920, Salomon joined the Organisation Consul and received a five-year prison sentence in 1922 for his part in the assassination of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau – he provided a car for the assassins. In 1927, he received another prison sentence for an attempted Feme murder (paramilitary "self-justice"), and was pardoned by Reich President Paul von Hindenburg after a few months – he had not killed the severely wounded victim, Wagner, when he pleaded for his life, which was noted by the court.[citation needed]

After his release from prison, Salomon committed himself to the support of Feme murder convicts and began to publish feuilleton articles in the national conservative Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, which earned him the attention of Conservative Revolutionary and National Bolshevist circles around Friedrich Hielscher and Arnolt Bronnen.[citation needed]

In 1929, he backed his elder brother Bruno in his struggle for the Schleswig-Holstein Rural People's Movement by simulating a bomb attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin. He had to spend three months in investigative custody, during which time he finished writing his first novel The Outlaws (Die Geächteten), published by Ernst Rowohlt.

Unlike many other German writers and poets, he did not sign the Gelöbnis treuester Gefolgschaft proclamation of loyalty to Adolf Hitler. He had been arrested after the Nazi Machtergreifung, together with Hans Fallada, but was released after a few days. Suspiciously eyed by the authorities, who suspected him to be an adherent of Otto Strasser's "Third Position", he earned his living by writing film scripts for the German film company UFA.[3] Salomon wrote the screenplay for the 1941 anti-British propaganda film Carl Peters.

He supported Ernst Rowohlt after he had received a publishing ban for employing Jewish personnel and temporarily corresponded with conservative resistance circles around Arvid Harnack and Harro Schulze-Boysen. His lover, Ille Gotthelft, was Jewish but he was able to protect her from persecution by passing her off as his spouse. In his autobiographical The Answers he described how both were arrested and seriously mistreated in 1945 by American soldiers when they were arrested, and called "Nazi swine!" and "despicable creatures".[4] Salomon was interned by the American Military Authorities until September 1946.

In 1951 he published the book The Questionnaire (Der Fragebogen), in which he gave his ironic and sarcastic "Answers" to the 131 point questionnaire concerning people's activities between 1933-1945 which the Western Allied Military Governments in Germany issued by the tens of thousands at the end of the war. A famous public discussion of the book took place in the main train station of Cologne, organised by bookseller Gerhard Ludwig.[citation needed] Although Liberals and the Left condemned it violently, the book was a sensation in Germany and between its publication in 1951 and 1954 by which time it had sold over 250,000 copies.[5]

Ernst von Salomon died of heart failure at his home near Hamburg on 9 August 1972. He was 69 years of age.[6]

"Short Biography". imdb.com. Retrieved 3 December 2017.
Rees, Goronwy, in his "Preface" to The Answers by Ernst von Salomon, translated by Constantin FitzGibbon, London, 1954, p.ix.
Rees, Goronwy, in his "Preface" to The Answers by Ernst von Salomon, translated by Constantin FitzGibbon, London, 1954, p.x.
Salomon, Ernst von, The Answers, translated by Constantin FitzGibbon, London, 1954, p.433.
Rees, Goronwy, in his "Preface" to The Answers by Ernst von Salomon, translated by Constantin FitzGibbon, London, 1954, p.vii.
"Ernst von Salomon Dead; West German Author, 69". The New York Times. Bonn. 10 August 1972. Retrieved 18 November 2021.

Sir Edgar Theophilus Britten

Sir Edgar Theophilus Britten was a Cunard Line Captain remembered primarily for being the first captain of the ocean liner RMS Queen Mary in 1936.

Born in Bradford, England he began his career as a cabin boy. He had started with Cunard in 1901 and over the years rose in rank and eventually commanded well known company vessels such as Laconia, Mauretania, Aquitania and RMS Berengaria. In New York on the Queen Mary's maiden voyage, Britten was interviewed by the newsreels and for posterity he was recorded on sound film giving his opinion on the details of the ship.

In October 1936, Britten died in hospital in Southampton after being found unconscious in his cabin onboard the RMS Queen Mary earlier in the day, prior to the ship's departure to New York. He was later buried at sea.

Jack Schaefer

Jack Warner Schaefer was an American writer known for his Westerns. His best-known works are the 1949 novel Shane, voted the greatest western novel,[1] and the 1964 children's book Stubby Pringle's Christmas.

Early life

Jack Warren Schaefer was born in Cleveland, Ohio to Carl and Minnie Schaefer. Carl was a German American attorney. Both his parents were avid readers, and his father was good friends with poet/author Carl Sandburg. Scheafer read voraciously as a child; early favorites were Edgar Rice Burroughs and Alexandre Dumas, before moving onto Charles Dickens, Zane Grey, amongst others. He was to describe himself as a “literary nut.”[2]

Education

In 1929 Schaefer graduated from Oberlin College with a major in English.[3] From 1929-1930 he attended graduate school at Columbia University, but left without completing his Master of Arts degree when the faculty there denied him permission to prepare a master’s thesis on the development of motion pictures.[4] Schaefer’s education included multiple courses on Greek and Roman mythology, which is thought to have served him well in creating the archetypal heroes that populated his Westerns.[5]

Journalism and other career work

Following his departure from Columbia University, Schaefer went to work for the United Press. In his long career as a journalist, he worked as a reporter for the United Press news agency, as editorial page editor for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., and The Baltimore Sun, and as editor of The New Haven Journal-Courier.[6]

In his career as a journalist, Schaefer wrote innumerable news stories, feature articles, and opinion columns and thousands of book/film/play reviews and editorials.[7]

In the 1930s Schaefer worked as the education director of the Connecticut State Reformatory, and following his stint at the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot (1944 to 1948), he worked in advertising and was a freelance writer before devoting himself to fiction.[8]

Westerns

As a child Schaefer was an avid reader of Zane Grey and was fascinated with the old west. He later studied American history which formed the basis of many of his westerns.[9] In 1945 he began writing fiction after hours as a way of calming down. That year the story Rider from Nowhere was published in serial form the magazine Argosy. It formed the basis of Schaefer’s first novel, Shane, set in Wyoming, which was published four years later, and which was a great success.[10]

When he wrote Shane, Schaefer had never traveled farther west than Cleveland. The Albuquerque Journal writer Ollie Reed Jr. wrote, “That Schaefer could turn out such a Western before he ever saw the West is a tribute to his dogged research, devotion to facts, and storytelling ability, all honed by his newspaper work.”[11]

Schaefer's other westerns included First Blood (1953), The Canyon (1953), Company of Cowards (1957), The Kean Land and Other Stories (1959), Monte Walsh (1963), Heroes Without Glory: Some Goodmen of the Old West (1965), and The Collected Stories of Jack Schaefer (1966).[12]

Schaefer’s personal favorites were Monte Walsh and The Canyon.[13]

Adaptations

Schaefer's novel Shane was adapted into the classic 1953 film of the same name starring Alan Ladd, and a short-lived 1966 television series starring David Carradine. When he was asked his thoughts on the movie version of Shane, Schaefer referred to Alan Ladd's height, saying, “Yeah, I did, all except for that runt!” At a 1989 ceremony to receive an honorary doctorate from Oberlin, he said Shane was supposed to be "a dark, deadly, person."[14] He had hoped the movie version would be played by the actor George Raft, instead of Alan Ladd.[15]

But he was apparently dismayed by the TV series, saying, “Please take my name off that piece-of-crap show”.[16]

In addition to Shane, seven of his other stories were made into films.[17] Among those, First Blood, was made into the 1953 film The Silver Whip, starring Robert Wagner. Other films included Tribute to a Bad Man with James Cagney, 1956, based on the short story Hanging’s for the Lucky; Trooper Hook, 1957, featuring Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck and adapted from the story Sergeant Houck; and 1964’s Advance to the Rear, taken from the 1957 novel Company of Cowards.[18]

Monte Walsh was loosely adapted into the 1970 film of the same name starring Lee Marvin, Jeanne Moreau, and Jack Palance,[19] and again as a 2003 television film starring Tom Selleck. Stubby Pringle's Christmas was also adapted into a television film in 1978.

Conservationism

Toward the end of his life, Schaeffer became increasingly concerned by human impact on the environment. By 1967, after writing “Mavericks,” his last western, Schaeffer became a conservationist. He wrote three essays in the form of conversations with animals. They were published in book form titled Conversations with a Pocket Gopher. His last book, American Bestiary, was published in 1975.[20]

Personal life

Schaefer was married to Eugenia Ives in 1931, and the couple had three sons and a daughter. They divorced in 1948, and a year later Schaefer married Louise Deans.[21]

In 1955, after taking a train trip West on an assignment from Holiday magazine to do some research on old western cow towns Schaefer sold his farm near Waterbury, Connecticut,[22] and moved to a 300-acre ranch[23] near Cerrillos, about 20 miles southwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico called the Turquoise Six.[24] They resided in an old adobe home at 905 Camino Ranchitos, just off of Canyon Rd.

Schaefer died of heart failure in Santa Fe in 1991.[25] At the author’s graveside service Schaefer’s friend Archie West (the inspiration for the character Monte Walsh) read aloud from the last two pages of Monte Walsh, which describe the title character’s cowboy burial.[26]

Awards and legacy

In 1975 Schaefer received the Western Literature Association's Distinguished Achievement award.[27]

Shane has been translated into 35 languages since it was published in 1949, and was honored by the Western Writers of America as the finest Western novel.[28] Fifty years after its publication, Shane had sold over 12 million copies and been translated into thirty foreign languages.[29]

Schaefer’s 1960 book, Old Ramon, won a Newbery Honor award.[30] It also won the Ohioana Book Award in 1961, and was chosen as an American Library Association Notable book.[31]

A 1967 New York Times review of Schaefer's collected novels noted that "Jack Schaefer is not a writer of conventional westerns," instead, they were, "tautly told and tightly constructed," had "additional ingredients that make for complex storytelling."[32]

Books

Shane (1949)

First Blood (1953)

The Big Range (1953) (short stories)

The Canyon (1953)

The Piors (1984) (short stories)

Out West: An Anthology of Stories (1955) (Editor)

Company of Cowards (1957)

The Kean Land and Other Stories (1959)

Old Ramon (1960)

Tales from the West (1961)

Incident on the Trail (1962)

The Plainsmen (1963) (children's book)

Monte Walsh (1963)

The Great Endurance Horse Race: 600 Miles on a Single Mount, 1908, from Evanston, Wyoming, to Denver (1963)

Shane and other stories (1963) (publ. Andre Deutsch, London)

Stubby Pringle's Christmas (1964) (children's book)

Heroes without Glory: Some Goodmen of the Old West (1965)

Collected Stories (1966)

Adolphe Francis Alphonse Bandelier (1966)

New Mexico (1967)

The Short Novels of Jack Schaefer (1967)

Mavericks (1967) (children's book)

Hal West: Western Gallery (1971)

An American Bestiary (1973)

Conversations with a Pocket Gopher and Other Outspoken Neighbors (1978)

Jack Schaefer and the American West: Eight Stories (1978) (edited by C.E.J. Smith)

The Collected Stories of Jack Schaefer (1985)

Uchida Roan

Uchida Roan was a Japanese writer, critic and translator of the Meiji period.

Uchida was born in Edo (Taitō Ward , Tokyo). He attended the Rikkyo School (Rikkyo University) and the Tokyo Technical School (Waseda University) to learn English, but without making any degree. He left school and did rough translations for his uncle Inoue Tsutomu, who worked as a translator in the editorial board of the Ministry of Culture (Mombu-shō). He made his literary debut with a lengthy critique of Yamada Byō's Natsukodachi, which he published in Iwamoto Yoshiharu 's journal Jogaku Zasshi in 1888. A year later his first novel was published Fuji no ippon as a serial novel in Miyako no hana magazine. He was on friendly terms with Futabatei Shimei and Tsubouchi Shōyō and read the English translation of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment in the same year. Uchida presented the Japanese translation three years later in 1892 as a translation debut. A multitude of works by the writers Voltaire, Anderson, Dickens, Dumas, Zola, Sienkiewicz, Wilde followed . His translation of Tolstoy's "resurrection.”

In his own novels, he satirically criticized social ills, such as corruption, the sexual excesses of the upper class, etc., making him a leading writer of the "social novel" (社会小説, shakai shōsetsu) advanced. In 1901, Uchida began working as a consultant for the Maruzen bookstore chain, which a year later began stocking the Encyclopædia Britannica, which was then affiliated with the Times. In addition, Uchida published the PR magazine Gakutō for Maruzen. The translation of Tolstoy's "Ivan the Fool and His Brothers" was also published here in 1908.

His late work Omoidasu hitobito, published in 1925, is valued as a historical source and contemporary document of the literary world of the Meiji period, from the political novel (政治小説, seiji shōsetsu) to the death of Futabatei Shimei.

In February 1929, while writing, Uchida suffered a cerebral hemorrhage that led to aphasia and his death in June.

Gusty Spence

Augustus Andrew Spence was a leader of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and a leading loyalist politician in Northern Ireland. One of the first UVF members to be convicted of murder, Spence was a senior figure in the organisation for over a decade.

During his time in prison Spence renounced violence and helped to convince a number of fellow inmates that the future of the UVF lay in a more political approach. Spence joined the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), becoming a leading figure in the group. As a PUP representative he took a principal role in delivering the loyalist ceasefires of 1994.

Early years

Spence was born in the Shankill Road, Belfast, area, Northern Ireland, the son of William Edward Spence, who was born in Whitehaven, England and raised in the Tiger's Bay area of north Belfast before moving to the Shankill.[3] Spence Snr was a member of the Ulster Volunteers and had fought in the First World War.[4] He married Isabella "Bella" Hayes, Gusty Spence's mother, in 1919.[3] Spence was the sixth of seven children, their birth order being Billy, Cassie, Jim, Bobby, Ned junior, Gusty and Lily.[5] The family home was 66 Joseph Street in an area of the lower Shankill known colloquially as "the Hammer".[5] He was educated at the Riddel School on Malvern Street and the Hemsworth Square school, finishing his education aged fourteen.[6] He was also a member of the Church Lads' Brigade, a Church of Ireland group and the Junior Orange Order.[7] His family had a long tradition of Orange Order membership.[8]

Spence took various manual jobs in the area until joining the British Army in 1957 as a member of the Royal Ulster Rifles.[2] He rose to the rank of Provost Sergeant (battalion police).[9] Spence served until 1961 when ill-health forced him to leave.[2] He had been stationed in Cyprus and saw action fighting against the forces of Colonel Georgios Grivas.[10] Spence then found employment at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, where he worked as a stager (builder of the scaffolding in which the ships are constructed), a skilled job that commanded respect amongst working class Protestants and ensured for Spence a higher status within the Shankill.[8]

From an early age Spence was a member of the Prince Albert Temperance Loyal Orange Lodge, where fellow members included John McQuade.[11] He was also a member of the Royal Black Institution and the Apprentice Boys of Derry.[12] Due to his later involvement in a murder, Spence was expelled from the Orange Order and the Royal Black Institution. The Reverend Martin Smyth was influential in Spence' being thrown out the Orange Order.[13]

Involvement with loyalism

His older brother Billy Spence was a founding member of Ulster Protestant Action (UPA) in 1956[14] and Gusty Spence himself was also a member of the group.[8] He was frequently involved in street fights with republicans and garnered a reputation as a "hard man".[9] He was also associated loosely with prominent loyalists such as Ian Paisley and Desmond Boal and was advised by both men in 1959 when he launched a protest against Gerry Fitt at Belfast City Hall after Fitt had described Spence's regiment as "murderers" over allegations that they had killed civilians in Cyprus.[1] Spence, along with other Shankill Road loyalists, broke from Paisley in 1965 when they sided with Jim Kilfedder in a row that followed the latter's campaigns in Belfast West. Paisley had intimated that Kilfedder, a rival for the leadership of dissident unionism, was close to Fine Gael after learning that he had attended party meetings while a student at Trinity College Dublin. The Shankill loyalists supported Kilfedder and following his election as MP sent a letter to Paisley accusing him of treachery during the entire affair.[15]

Ulster Volunteer Force

Spence claimed that he was approached in 1965 by two men, one of whom was an Ulster Unionist Party MP, who told him that the Ulster Volunteer Force was to be re-established and that he was to have responsibility for the Shankill. He was sworn in soon afterwards in a ceremony held in secret near Pomeroy, County Tyrone.[16] Because of his military experience, Spence was chosen as the military commander and public face of the UVF when the group was established. However, RUC Special Branch believed that his brother Billy, who kept a much lower public profile, was the real leader of the group.[10] Whatever the truth of this intelligence, Gusty Spence's Shankill UVF team was made up of only around 12 men on its formation.[16] Their base of operations was the Standard Bar, a pub on the Shankill Road frequented by Spence and his allies (it was normal practice for UVF "teams" to be based at a single pub that its members used socially).[17]

On 7 May 1966, a group of UVF men led by Spence petrol bombed a Catholic-owned pub on the Shankill Road. Fire also engulfed the house next door, killing the elderly Protestant widow, Matilda Gould (77), who lived there.[18] On 27 May, Spence ordered four UVF men to kill an Irish Republican Army (IRA) member, Leo Martin, who lived on the Falls Road. Unable to find their target, the men drove around in search of any Catholic instead. They shot dead John Scullion (28), a Catholic civilian, as he walked home.[19] Spence later wrote "at the time, the attitude was that if you couldn't get an IRA man you should shoot a Taig, he's your last resort".[19] On 26 June, the same gang shot dead Catholic civilian Peter Ward (18) and wounded two others as they left a pub on Malvern Street in the lower Shankill.[18] Two days later, the government of Northern Ireland used the Special Powers Act to declare the UVF illegal.[18] Shortly after, Spence and three others were arrested.[20]

In October 1966, Spence was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Ward, although Spence has always claimed he was innocent.[2] He was sent to Crumlin Road Prison. During its 12 July 1967 march, the Orange lodge to which he belonged stopped outside the prison in tribute to him.[21] This occurred despite Spence having been officially expelled from the Orange Order following his conviction.[22] Spence's involvement in the killings gave him legendary status among many young loyalists and he was claimed as an inspiration by the likes of Michael Stone.[23] Tim Pat Coogan has described Spence as a "loyalist folk hero".[24] The murder of Ward was, however, repudiated by Paisley and condemned in his Protestant Telegraph, sealing the split between the two.[25]

Prison

Spence appealed against his conviction and was the subject of a release petition organised by the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee, although nothing came of either initiative.[26] Despite the fact that control of the UVF lay (nominally at least) with Spence's closest ally Samuel "Bo" McClelland, from prison Spence was often at odds with the group's leadership, in particular with regards to the 1971 McGurk's Bar bombing. Spence now argued that UVF members were soldiers and soldiers should not kill civilians, as had been the case at McGurk's Bar.[27][28] Spence respected some Irish republican paramilitaries, who he felt also lived as soldiers, and to this end he wrote a sympathetic letter to the widow of Official IRA leader Joe McCann after he was killed in 1972.[29]

Fugitive

Spence was granted two days leave around in early July 1972 to attend the wedding of his daughter Elizabeth to Winston Churchill "Winkie" Rea. The latter had formally asked Spence for his daughter's hand in marriage during a prison visit.[30] Met by two members of the Red Hand Commando upon his release, Spence was informed of the need for a restructuring within the UVF and told not to return to prison. He initially refused and went on to attend his daughter's wedding. Afterwards a plot was concocted where his nephew Frankie Curry, also a UVF member, would drive Spence back to jail but the car would be stopped and Spence "kidnapped".[30] As arranged, the car in which Spence was a passenger was stopped in Springmartin and Spence was taken away by UVF members.[30] He remained at large for four months and during that time even gave an interview to ITV's World in Action in which he called for the UVF to take an increased role in the Northern Ireland conflict against the Provisional IRA. At the same time, he distanced himself from any policy of random murders of Catholics.[31] Spence also took on responsibility for the restructuring, returning the UVF to the same command structure and organisational base that Edward Carson had utilised for the original UVF, with brigades, battalions, companies, platoons and sections. He also directed a significant restocking of the group's arsenal, with guns mostly taken from the security forces.[32] Spence gave his permission for UVF brigadier Billy Hanna to establish the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade in Lurgan.[33] His fugitive status earned him the short-lived nickname the "Orange Pimpernel".[34] Spence was arrested along with around thirty other men at a UVF drinking club in Brennan Street; but after giving a false name, he was released.[35]

Spence's time on the outside came to an end on 4 November when he was captured by Colonel Derek Wilford of the Parachute Regiment, who identified Spence by tattoos on his hands.[32] He was returned to Crumlin Road gaol soon afterwards, where he shared a cell with William "Plum" Smith, one of the Red Hand Commandos whom he had met upon his initial release and who had since been jailed for attempted murder.[36]

Move to politics

Spence soon became the UVF commander within the Maze Prison.[2] He ran his part of the Maze along military lines, drilling inmates and training them in weapons use while also expecting a maintenance of discipline.[37] As the loyalist Maze commander, Spence initially also had jurisdiction over the imprisoned members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), although this came to an end in 1973 when, following a deterioration in relations between the two groups outside the prison walls, James Craig became the UDA's Maze commander.[38] By this time Spence polarised opinion within the UVF, with some members fiercely loyal to a man they saw as a folk hero and others resenting his draconian leadership and increasing emphasis on politics, with one anonymous member even labelling him "a cunt in a cravat".[39]

Spence began to move towards a position of using political means to advance one's aims, and he persuaded the UVF leadership to declare a temporary ceasefire in 1973.[40] Following Merlyn Rees' decision to legalise the UVF in 1974, Spence encouraged them to enter politics and supported the establishment of the Volunteer Political Party.[40] However, Spence's ideas were abandoned as the UVF ceasefire fell apart that same year following the Ulster Workers' Council strike and the Dublin and Monaghan bombings; the carnage of the latter had shocked and horrified Spence.[41] Furthermore, the VPP suffered a heavy defeat in West Belfast in the October 1974 general election, when the DUP candidate John McQuade captured six times as many votes as the VPP's Ken Gibson.[42]

Spence was increasingly disillusioned with the UVF and he imparted these views to fellow inmates at Long Kesh. According to Billy Mitchell, Spence quizzed him and others sent to the Maze about why they were there, seeking an ideological answer to his question. When the prisoner was unable to provide one, Spence would then seek to convince them of the wisdom of his more politicised path, something that he accomplished with Mitchell.[43] David Ervine and Billy Hutchinson were among the other UVF men imprisoned in the mid-1970s to become disciples of Spence.[44] In 1977, he publicly condemned the use of violence for political gain, on the grounds that it was counter-productive.[2] In 1978, Spence left the UVF altogether.[2] His brother Bobby, also a UVF member, died in October 1980 inside the Maze, a few months after the death of their brother Billy.[45]

PUP activity

Released from prison in 1984, Spence soon became a leading member of the UVF-linked Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) and a central figure in the Northern Ireland peace process.[2] He initially worked solely for the PUP but after a spell also set up the Shankill Activity Centre, a government-supported scheme to provide training and leisure opportunities for unemployed youths.[17]

He was entrusted by the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) to read out their 13 October 1994 statement that announced the loyalist ceasefire. Flanked by his PUP colleagues Jim McDonald and William Plum Smith, as well as Ulster Democratic Party members Gary McMichael, John White and Davy Adams, Spence read out the statement from Fernhill a former Cunningham family home on their former Glencairn estate in Belfast's Glencairn area. This building had been an important training centre for members of Edward Carson's original UVF.[46] A few days after the announcement, Spence made a trip to the United States along with the PUP's David Ervine and Billy Hutchinson and the UDP's McMichael, Adams and Joe English. Among their engagements was one as guests of honour of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy.[47] Spence went on to become a leading advocate for the Good Friday Agreement.[2]

In August 2000, Spence was caught up in moves by Johnny Adair's "C" Company of the UDA to take control of the Shankill by forcing out the UVF and other opponents. Adair's men forced their way into Spence's Shankill home but found it empty, as Spence tended to spend much of the summer at a caravan he owned in Groomsport. None the less, they ransacked the house and stole Spence's army medals, while the Spence family were forced to stay off the Shankill for the entirety of the loyalist feud.[48] When Spence's wife died three years later, he said that C Company had been responsible for her death, such was the toll that the events had taken on her health.[49]

On 3 May 2007, Spence read out the statement by the UVF announcing that it would keep its weapons but put them beyond the reach of ordinary members. The statement also included a warning that activities could "provoke another generation of loyalists toward armed resistance". He did not specify what activities or what was being resisted.[50]

Personal life

Spence married Louie Donaldson, a native of the city's Grosvenor Road, on 20 June 1953 at Wellwood Street Mission, Sandy Row.[51] The couple had three daughters, Elizabeth (born 1954), Sandra (1956) and Catherine (1960).[52] Louie died in 2003.[53] Spence, a talented footballer in his youth with Old Lodge F.C., was a lifelong supporter of Linfield F.C.[54]

Death

Spence died on 25 September 2011, aged 78, in a Belfast hospital;[53] he had been suffering from a long-term illness and was admitted to hospital 12 days prior to his death. Spence was praised by, among others, PUP leader Brian Ervine, who stated that "his contribution to the peace is incalculable". Sinn Féin's Gerry Kelly claimed that while Spence had been central to the development of loyalist paramilitarism, "he will also be remembered as a major influence in drawing loyalism away from sectarian strife".[55]

However, a granddaughter of Matilda Gould, a 74-year-old Protestant widow who had died from burns sustained in the UVF's attempted bombing of a Catholic bar next door to her home, objected to Spence being called a "peacemaker" and described him as a "bad evil man". The unnamed woman stated, "When you go out and throw a petrol bomb through a widow's window, you're no peacemaker."[56]

His funeral service was held in St Michael's Church of Ireland on the Shankill Road. Notable mourners included Unionist politicians Dawn Purvis, Mike Nesbitt, Michael McGimpsey, Hugh Smyth and Brian Ervine, UVF chief John "Bunter" Graham and UDA South Belfast brigadier Jackie McDonald. In accordance with Spence's wishes, there were no paramilitary trappings at the funeral or reference to his time in the UVF. Instead, his coffin was adorned with the beret and regimental flag of the Royal Ulster Rifles, his former regiment. He was buried in Bangor.[57][58]

References

1. Ed Moloney, Paisley: From Demagogue to Democrat?, Dublin: Poolbeg, 2008, p. 132

2. Biographies of people prominent during 'the Troubles': S Archived 14 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN). Retrieved 5 April 2011.

3. Garland, Gusty Spence, p. 6

4. Thomas Hennessey, Northern Ireland: The Origin of the Troubles, Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2005, p. 54

5. Roy Garland, Gusty Spence, Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 2001, p. 5

6. Garland, Gusty Spence, pp. 11–12

7. Garland, Gusty Spence, p. 12

8. Steve Bruce, The Red Hand, Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 15

9. Jim Cusack & Henry McDonald, UVF, Dublin: Poolbeg, 1997, p. 20

10. Moloney, Paisley, p. 130

11. Moloney, Paisley, pp. 130–131

12. Susan McKay, Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People, Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 2005, p. 139

13. Brian Kennaway The Orange Order-A Tradition Betrayed, p. 47

14. Moloney, Paisley, pp. 74–75

15. Moloney, Paisley, p. 133

16. Hennessey, Northern Ireland, p. 55

17. Bruce, The Red Hand, p. 147

18. "CAIN: Background: Chronology of Key Events 1800 to 1967". cain.ulster.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 22 July 2019. Retrieved 7 October 2019.

19. Dillon, Martin. The Shankill butchers: the real story of cold-blooded mass murder. Routledge, 1999. Pages 20–23

20. Taylor, Peter (1999). Loyalists. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 44. ISBN 0-7475-4519-7.

21. McKay, Susan. "Portadown: Bitter Harvest" Archived 7 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine. Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People. Blackstaff Press, 2000.

22. Garland, Gusty Spence, p. 77

23. Martin Dillon, Stone Cold, London: Arrow Books, 1993, pp. 23–24

24. Tim Pat Coogan, The Troubles, London: Hutchinson, 1995, p. 380

25. Peter Taylor, Loyalists, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2000, p. 43

26. Taylor, Loyalists, p. 44

27. Taylor, Loyalists, p. 109

28. Cusack & McDonald, UVF, p. 21

29. Taylor, Loyalists, p. 109–110

30. Taylor. Loyalists. pp.110–111

31. Taylor. Loyalists. pp. 111–112

32. Taylor, Loyalists, p. 112

33. "Sunningdale pushed hard-liners into fatal outrages in 1974". Irish Independent. Joe Tiernan. 16 May 1999 Archived 9 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 10 October 2011

34. Michael Burleigh, Blood and rage: a cultural history of terrorism Archived 9 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine

35. Bruce, The Red Hand, p. 111

36. Taylor, Loyalists, pp. 112–113

37. Dillon, Stone Cold, p. 39

38. Henry McDonald & Jim Cusack, UDA, Dublin: Penguin Ireland, 2004, p. 110

39. Bruce, The Red Hand, p. 118

40. Taylor, Loyalists, p. 138

41. Taylor, Loyalists, p.139

42. Taylor, pp. 139–140

43. McKay, Northern Protestants, p. 55

44. Taylor, Loyalists, pp. 141–142

45. Garland, Roy. Gusty Spence. p. 242

46. McDonald & Cusack, UDA, pp. 274–275

47. McDonald & Cusack, UDA, p. 275

48. McDonald & Cusack, UDA, pp. 326–327

49. McDonald & Cusack, UDA, p. 327

50. "UVF calls end to terror campaign". BBC News. 3 May 2007. Archived from the original on 7 October 2019. Retrieved 7 October 2019.

51. Garland, R. Gusty Spence, p. 28

52. Garland, Gusty Spence, p. 29

53. "Gusty Spence". 25 September 2011. Archived from the original on 21 May 2018. Retrieved 2 April 2018 – via www.telegraph.co.uk.

54. Garland, Gusty Spence, p. 14

55. "Former UVF leader Spence is dead". BBC. 25 September 2011. Archived from the original on 21 July 2019. Retrieved 7 October 2019.

56. "Granddaughter of victim says Gusty Spence was not a peacemaker" Archived 16 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine, BBC News

57. "Shankill shuts to pay its respects to UVF chief Gusty Spence" Archived 29 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Belfast Telegraph

"Ex UVF chief laid to rest" Archived 13 September 2012 at archive.today, Newsletter