It all begins so well. In his first ever autobiography, Norman Scott, now 82, writes a charming preface describing his current life on Dartmoor, with his dogs, his horses, his chickens, and his tortoises Rigby and Peller, “dear girls”. He also pays generous tribute to Ben Whishaw, who played him in the brilliant television drama A Very English Scandal, about his affair with Jeremy Thorpe. It was Whishaw who called Scott “a true queer hero and icon” – hence the title: An Accidental Icon.
But when Scott starts recounting his life story, the picture darkens. He was born illegitimate, but given the name of his mother’s second husband, Albert Josiffe. (Later, Thorpe made him change it because he thought it sounded “too Jewish”.) The marriage was short-lived, and Scott claims that his mother abused him. She would hold him face down on her lap in the bathroom and start moaning and sticking her finger in his anus. “Those sessions in the bathroom cast a shadow of fear over my childhood.”
He was useless at school, but got a weekend job mucking out at a local stables and found his métier. He proved to be brilliant with horses; owners told him he had “beautiful hands”. He got a succession of stable jobs then went to work in the Cotswolds for an event rider called Van. Van was good fun, but never paid him. One day, Van said he had a friend coming to stay, who turned out to be Jeremy Thorpe, MP. Van showed him a stash of letters from VIPs, including Thorpe, which he called “my insurance policy”. In the morning, Thorpe came out to the stableyard and chatted to Scott and warned him, “Van’s an odd character. If you ever have a problem with him, I’d like you to get in touch,” and gave him his business card.
At this point, Scott and Van were still good friends, but inevitably they fell out (Scott always fell out with his employers) and Van sacked him. Scott helped himself to the “insurance policy” letters Van had shown him. “He had behaved so badly towards me that I feared for the people who had written the letters, especially Jeremy Thorpe, who’d been so kind when he gave me his card.” Hmm.
He became depressed, got hooked on Largactil and Tuinal, then took an overdose and woke up in hospital having his stomach pumped. He was committed to a psychiatric clinic for six months, but the chief psychiatrist eventually said he could discharge himself provided he had someone caring to support him. What about his mother? Scott said no way. Well, what about this MP, who he said was so kind? And thus he was dispatched into the care of Jeremy Thorpe.
