The Dirty Duchess | The Original Tabloid Queen | 4

The Duchess of Argyll was shameless, in all the right ways. That’s what drew historian, Lyndsy Spence, to write a book about her. She joins Matt and Alice to discuss why Margaret Campbell was the precursor to the female celebrities of today who are scrutinised by the tabloids. Plus, remember the headless man in the photograph at the heart of our scandal? Lyndsy knows who he is… Do you have a suggestion for a scandal you would like us to cover? Or perhaps you have a question you would like to ask our hosts? Email us at [email protected] See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alice Levine?

  Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of British Scandal ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.

• 0:15Alice Levine?

  From Wondery, I'm Alice Levine.

• 0:17Matt Forde?

  And I'm Matt Forde.

• 0:18Alice Levine?

  And this is British Scandal.

• 0:33Alice Levine?

  Right, Margaret Campbell, the Duchess of Argyle. Fair to call her the dirty Duchess, do we think, Matt?

• 0:39Matt Forde?

  Well, I mean, in those days, for there to be explicit photos of you entertaining a gentleman caller and really entertaining him, it doesn't necessarily scream Duchess. But she obviously didn't expect her husband to break into her home, steal her private property and share that with the world.

• 0:57Alice Levine?

  Yeah, dirty Duke more like, am I right, ladies? So this whole story for me comes back to an intersection we know all too well in British Scandal, the crossroads of misogyny and class hypocrisy.

• 1:09Matt Forde?

  Two of my favourite topics. As a nation, we're obsessed with the aristocracy, we're obsessed with their sex lives, and of course, we have held men and women to different sexual standards throughout history and in the present day, which partly explains why the press went so wild for all the salacious gossip in Margaret's divorce case.

• 1:27Alice Levine?

  Yes, exactly. And our next guest is an expert in bold aristocratic women throughout history. In fact, she is a returning guest. As you'll remember, Matt, she spoke to us once before about the Mitford sisters in our series Hitler's Angel. Lindsay Spence is the author of The Grit in the Pearl, The Scandalous Life of Margaret, Duchess of Argyle, and she's spoken directly to many of Margaret's close friends and family. And she even discovered the true identity of the headless man. Lindsay joins us next.

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• 3:27Alice Levine?

  Lindsay, it's so nice to have you back on the show. What first got you interested in the Duchess of Argyle?

• 3:34Speaker 04

  I think it was a natural progression from the naughty Mitford girls. I'd always heard of Margaret as just this tabloid, bad woman. And I thought, hmm, I quite like the sound of her. And I started to research her and discovered that, actually, this isn't right. This is quite bad, the way she was treated. And perhaps I wasn't part of the norm, but I decided I don't really like that narrative. That we're hearing and reading and seeing about Margaret, I'm sure there's something more to it. And that was really the start of my interest in her. I think I wanted to try and redeem her.

• 4:11Matt Forde?

  So when she started digging deeper, what about her character really stood out?

• 4:17Speaker 04

  I think her strength and her courage and one thing I love about Margaret is even at the height of the so-called scandal and when she was being vilified and her reputation was destroyed, she kept saying, you know, so what? It's none of your business. I can do whatever I want. I'm not hurting anybody. And I just really loved the way she was so unapologetic. And having grown up in the era of Britney and Christina where it was the norm to pull young women apart, I'd really pick on them and shame them and do all kinds of horrible things to them. I thought, well, Margaret came before them. And she was really somebody that I I looked up to and still today, um, take a lot of strength from.

• 4:57Alice Levine?

  It's so interesting you say that because she seemed to me to be a very modern character, that that kind of so what? I refuse to wear that heavy cloak of shame attitude kind of felt anachronistic to me.

• 5:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I think when we look at women in the 40s, 50s, and the 60s, even 70s, and so forth, even right up until recent days, you know, they're expected to hang their head in shame and be apologetic. And I just love that Margaret wasn't ready for them to sort of take her identity from her. She says, well, that's the few you have at me. I'm actually somebody very different, but you don't deserve to know the real me because you're out there vilifying me.

• 5:41Matt Forde?

  You spoke to Margaret's great granddaughter, Vila, and to her son, who's sadly since passed. But what did the people close to her think of her?

• 5:50Speaker 04

  It was a tricky situation with Brian. He was very charming and nice and receptive. But when he read my manuscript, he did get a bit cross at me. Um, not because of anything I've done to his mother, who he absolutely adored and didn't have a bad thing to say in regards to that. He thought I had, um, vilified his grandfather, which is quite interesting for me. Um.

• 6:14Speaker 04

  Violet was very, very supportive and you can tell from her social media that she, she loves her, her great grandmother. So both were positive in their own way, but it was also hard to break through that barrier because as a family, they're very guarded in terms of Margaret and I can understand that because Frances, Margaret's daughter was alive at the time. And even though she was silent and never spoke about her mother, I think there was, there was a lot of hurt and ill feelings just surrounding the whole image.

• 6:47Alice Levine?

  I'm hoping you can help us imagine what a young Margaret was like, Lindsay. You've described her childhood as rich and splendid but empty. What do you mean by that?

• 6:58Speaker 04

  I think she was the typical, her little rich girl. She was born in the suburbs of Glasgow, but she grew up on Park Avenue in New York. Um, she was an early child. Her mother and father didn't really get along. Today, I think we would perhaps have more empathy towards her mother. We might think that she had, you know, she suffered from depression. Margaret would speak of those dark moods where her mother would isolate herself. But Margaret always felt like her mother had rejected her and I think that was quite hard for her to come to terms with as a young child. Margaret had a stammer and her mother couldn't really accept this or cope with this. She said, as you know, Margaret, it doesn't matter how beautiful you are. Or how many lovely things we give you. If you're stammer in life, you will always fail.

• 7:44Speaker 04

  And Margaret really carried that with her, but she was a total daddy's girl, but her dad was largely absent. He was off doing business deals and having affairs. So I think Margaret was always very lonely and always looking for love or just looking to be accepted. And her best friend as a little girl was actually Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress. And she was quite a tragic little girl as well. So it's quite, quite sad to imagine these two, two little kids that have no real sense of family and are looking to be loved. And they're just there with all of their privileges and riches being cared for by nanny.

• 8:25Matt Forde?

  Do you think that childhood impacted Margaret's relationship with men?

• 8:30Speaker 04

  I think it did with her first husband, Charles Sweeney. She was very traditional and she was a good wife. She was always looking to be supportive and build somebody up and give somebody love. And I think she was looking, even for a traditional family in a way where she could be supported. And I guess just have that love that she felt was lacking at home at the time.

• 8:56Alice Levine?

  Am I right in thinking that she grew up very fast?

• 9:00Speaker 04

  Yes, you could say that. Reading her memoirs is absolutely wild. She says, you know, she got her first perm when she was like three. And she was going to the theatre with her mum when she was a little kid and going to dress fittings and travelling the world. So when Margaret was fifteen, she met David Niven on a holiday. And he would later go on to become a famous Hollywood actor. And when she was fifteen, she became pregnant to him. And she was forced to get an abortion. And after that, she was sent off to finishing school in Paris to try and minimalise the scandal that might have come from that. But I think she was certainly always

• 9:40Speaker 04

  this child that was propelled into the adult world and into a world that I don't think any child can really navigate.

• 9:48Alice Levine?

  And it feels like always the focus of male attention.

• 9:52Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And I think she was conditioned to be, you know, something to be gazed at, a lot like Diana Mitford in a way that the beauty almost becomes a secondary character in their life story. She was always perfectly manicured and polished and debutante of the year. And her father had hired a publicist to get Margaret's picture into the newspapers. And that's all anybody really spoke of in those early days was, you know, beautiful Margaret Wiggum. I think she enjoyed that because of the criticism she received from her mother, when her mother was always correcting her or finding faults. I think Margaret enjoyed all of these strangers adoring her in a way.

• 10:37Matt Forde?

  Margaret's divorce case in 1963 was a huge scandal. Obviously, the Polaroids of her with the mystery man are something that we've featured in the series. What was the reaction when those photos came out?

• 10:50Speaker 04

  It was the most scandalous thing, if you can imagine 1963. So what happened in between the decency case regarding Lady Chatterley and the perfumo affair. And you have Margaret, who was in her 40s at the time, a grandmother. Her daughter was also a Duchess. And it was almost as if she had disgraced the establishment. Well, she did, in people's eyes, disgrace the establishment and shine a light on the aristocracy and what went on behind closed doors. It was absolutely terrible what she had done in the eyes of the public and her peers.

• 11:29Alice Levine?

  I think you've compared it to, and we also discussed the sort of parallel with sex tapes being released in the modern day, that kind of felt like the closest analogy we could come up with.

• 11:40Speaker 04

  Yes, absolutely. It was Pamela Anderson's tape in the 90s, Kim Kardashian. And even, I think, there are elements of celebrity hacking involved. Obviously, it wasn't computers back then, but to have your private property stolen and exhibit it. I mean, I can't imagine the humiliation she felt.

• 11:58Matt Forde?

  And public opinion at the time, would that have been sympathetic to her at all? Would there have been any sense that actually these are private property? Or would people have seen even the existence of them as a scandalous thing?

• 12:11Speaker 04

  No, people thought she was disgusting and depraved and a sex maniac.

• 12:16Speaker 04

  She was really portrayed as a freak in a way, just somebody that shouldn't be functioning in polite society. One of the tabloids actually ran a photograph of the Duchess of Argyle ferry and wrote, "Q here for the Duchess of Argyle." That kind of gives you a sense in 1963, what was going on in the tabloids at the time.

• 12:37Alice Levine?

  And obviously, Margaret wasn't the only person in those Polaroids. How did you find out who the mystery headless man was?

• 12:45Speaker 04

  Margaret herself always denied that it was Duncan Fann and Douglas Fairbanks and all of the big, the big names, the big chiefs in government that were named. And I always felt Margaret was, a lot of people thought she was a bit of a fantasist and a liar, but I always felt that she was totally honest. Because if she wanted to get away with it, she could have just said, yeah, that was such and such. And played, I guess, the victim card and the helpless woman card. But I decided to go through all of her, in a way, her romantic history. And in her memoirs, she really dwells on one guy that she was absolutely besotted with. And she was engaged to after the war and he was called Joe Thomas.

• 13:27Speaker 04

  And he was a self-made millionaire from Texas who lived in New York. And Margaret was absolutely crazy about American men, she said to herself. And I discovered that his son, Michael, was alive and was quite a well-known author in his own right. And I contacted him just to say, look, I'm doing a book on the Duchess of Argyle. Your dad features in Margaret's memoirs. Could I chat to you? And he wrote back, without even me prompting him, he told me the whole saga of the Polaroids. And how whenever he was a young boy, he was rummaging in his dad's, you know, those big travelling trunks people used to keep. And he was looking for something and he came across a manila envelope and he opened it and he was like, what is this?

• 14:11Speaker 04

  Um, it was a series of Polaroids of like a woman completely nude and his dad and they were being a bit silly around Margaret's home and on the balcony and so forth. And he thought, oh, that must be my new stepmother because his father had said, you know, I'm going to bring your new stepmom back from Europe. So he thought, right, okay. And he said when his father came back, it wasn't with this beautiful brunette from the photographs. It was with a blonde woman called Poppy, who Margaret also references in her memoirs. Joe Thomas had left her for an old fling called Poppy. And I thought that was so interesting that somebody else had a copy of these so-called scandalous photographs. And Margaret obviously kept the other set of Polaroids because of course, the Duke of Argyle discovered them in a manila envelope.

• 14:57Speaker 04

  And it just made sense.

• 14:59Matt Forde?

  So why didn't she reveal his identity?

• 15:02Speaker 04

  In my opinion, I think Margaret didn't reveal his identity because I think it gave her a sense of control to keep that private, to decide, well, you've already invaded my privacy by looking at the photographs and making them public knowledge. I'm not going to tell you anything about them or reveal who the person was.

• 15:21Matt Forde?

  Because there must have been part of her that thought, well, there are two people in this photograph.

• 15:24Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 15:25Matt Forde?

  I'm getting all the heat. Why, why shouldn't the man have some of the attention as well?

• 15:30Speaker 04

  Margaret could be very stubborn and pigheaded. And I think that plays into her, her philosophy that nobody's business.

• 15:39Alice Levine?

  I'm sure you have lots to say on this question, Lindsay, but in what ways do you think that Margaret was treated unfairly in her divorce?

• 15:50Speaker 04

  Oh, gosh, there's so many things. I think she was treated unfairly because first of all, the dynamics were off. Margaret and her husband had been estranged. They had an understanding that, you know, they wouldn't divorce, but they would have an open marriage. He stayed in Scotland and she went to London and did her own thing. She was a trust fund baby. Her father was absolutely loaded in money. She had an income from her father. And of course, her husband benefited from that income. But her father discovered, in his words, he was throwing good money after bad. He refused to finance the Duke of Argyle any further. They had already renovated in Verary Castle and paid off his debts and it still wasn't good enough. Her father felt like he wasn't applying himself.

• 16:35Speaker 04

  He would just sort of lay around on the sofa getting drunk all day. And the money was cut off. And like all of the Duke of Argyle's wives, he married rich women or he courted rich women for their money. And Margaret wasn't giving him any money anymore. And he decided to divorce her because he already had somebody else waiting in the wings, ready to finance his life in exchange for a title. And instead of being the one to be divorced this time. The Duke of Margyle decided he would do the divorcing. And that's when he decided to build his case around Margaret. So I think that was something that wasn't fair. And he used every mean imaginable, you know, he was stealing her diaries.

• 17:20Speaker 04

  He was reading her letters. He had set detectives on her. And all of her comings and goings, they were being photographed and reported as evidence of adultery. But Margaret had many gay friends and back in the sixties, it was a crime. To be openly gay. So she would never divulge that, well, actually, I'm not really sleeping with him because he's gay. She would just say, all right, yeah, okay. I'm up the all sorts with all of these guys. And leave it at that. So I think that was part of one of the first things I thought, well, it's not really playing fair, is it? And in his bid to get all this evidence of adultery, he really set out to destroy her and the Polaroids play into that.

• 18:01Alice Levine?

  That's so interesting about the gay friends and also about not revealing the headless man. It feels like not only was she not willing to be shamed herself, but she wasn't willing to be part of the process of shaming other people.

• 18:12Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 18:13Matt Forde?

  And the judge, the way he talked to and about her was incredible.

• 18:19Speaker 04

  Yes, Lord Wheatley, so he was a very theatrical man. He was part of Clan Campbell on his mother's side, so he was distantly related to the Duke of Margyle. He was a very staunch Catholic. He was known for being very severe when it came to so-called sex crimes, which is what he classed Margaret's. Um, indiscretions as. And he really filified her in his, um. You know, at the end of the divorce case, he really said, you know, this is a salacious woman. She's disgusting. She can't be satisfied with normal sexual relations. Um, but what I love about Margaret is she didn't go to the, you know, the final day of the hearing. She went to Paris with her boyfriend.

• 19:03Speaker 04

  And when the verdict was read to her over the phone, she says, well, God knows he was an old bastard and she left it at that. And she thought that she could move on with her life, but unfortunately, there was another devil waiting in the wings, the legal fees, which financially destroyed her.

• 19:18Alice Levine?

  How did other women react to the sex scandal?

• 19:21Speaker 04

  Margaret, in her memoirs, wrote that some women went to the public gallery at the court of session in Edinburgh, and they wrote to her afterwards, saying, "You were so composed and so courageous, and it's not right what is happening." I personally never discovered any evidence of that, but I could imagine it was very divisive. I'm sure a lot of women who were perhaps trapped in loveless marriages, or just trapped in other ways, I'm sure they felt empathy for her, but largely, people thought she was disgusting and disgraceful. There's no other way to describe it. I suppose, in a way, if you look at the 60s and giving that she's as well to do a middle-aged woman with children and grandchildren, I'm sure the shock was immense.

• 20:02Alice Levine?

  We had to keep reminding ourselves that this was happening in the 60s, because we often associate that decade with sexual revolution and liberation. So there was a lot of hypocrisy going on, I presume, and I guess certain people had the licence to behave a certain way and others didn't. Is that fair?

• 20:22Speaker 04

  I think in a way, yes, but in the early 60s, people still were very conservative in their behaviour. It's much later in the decade that all of the so-called free love and drugs, you know, sex drugs and rock and roll came into play. In the early 60s, people were still very much in that post-war mindset of family values and traditional gender roles, and the class system was still very much at play in the early 1960s. So in a way, the case is very much a product of its time and the way it was handled.

• 20:54Alice Levine?

  Although it feels like men were having extramarital affairs.

• 20:57Speaker 04

  Oh, but that always happens, doesn't it, throughout history? They can go off and do whatever they want. And it's like, well, good for you. And that's the thing, if it had have been the Duke of Argyle, having really pornographic photographs being passed around his club, they would have patted him on the back, kind of scenario. So there's always that. Hypocrisy isn't there.

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• 23:12Matt Forde?

  So what about the class element in this? Were the aristocracy more likely to be having scandalous sexual relations than the working classes?

• 23:22Speaker 04

  Yes, absolutely. I mean, whenever I researched all the aristocrats throughout the different eras of history, they can live more freely because, you know, they're in control, they're the ruling classes, they have the money to do so. And also the authority that sort of the lower classes aren't going to question anything that they do. So that that was very, very common. You know, it was very common for a husband and wife to go off in their separate ways, but not divorce as soon as a son was born. Because they had secured the bloodline. So it was very, very normal what Margaret and Ian were doing. Prior to him wanting a divorce for his own financial means. There was nothing unusual about a husband and wife going off and then having their own separate romantic partners and perhaps

• 24:08Speaker 04

  living that way until the end of time.

• 24:12Alice Levine?

  And there's a story about Margaret Thatcher, isn't there?

• 24:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, so Margaret in the nineteen sixties or perhaps the late sixties, early seventies, she wanted to adopt some underprivileged children. She felt like she had a lot of love to give and could give them a nice life. And she discovered two boys, the gardener boys.

• 24:35Speaker 04

  And although she didn't formally adopt them because she had been rejected as a single divorcee. She had quite an informal arrangement with their family. And she put them through school and took them to London and really spoilt them. And Margaret Thatcher, who was, I believe, the education minister at the time, but she was in government anyway. She tried to veto what Margaret wanted to do because she just felt like Margaret was an absolute demon. She shouldn't be let loose around impressionable children. And she tried to stop Margaret's bid to look after those boys. But of course she failed. Margaret got her own way and the boys really loved her. They referred to her as Aunt Margaret.

• 25:19Speaker 04

  They had nothing but good things to say about her.

• 25:23Matt Forde?

  It's incredible that a secretary of state would be intervening in individual adoption cases.

• 25:29Speaker 04

  Well, Margaret, that was a bit weird the way she did it. She went to a school and kind of eyed up all of these kids. I thought which boys looked like they need the most help. So it was a bit strange the way she did it. But I think her heart was in the right place.

• 25:43Matt Forde?

  And of course, we know that at one point she was going to adopt a Polish baby. So this was a an instinct she'd had for a while.

• 25:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, she was playing, playing dirty the way the Duke of Argyle was. So when he was throwing things at her, she in her own childlike way was thinking, what can I do to destroy my husband? And she was eyeing up a a scheme in Poland where she would go to Venice, had her stomach, come back secretly give birth to, you know, the Duke's son and it would be a Polish child and he would be the legitimate heir of the Duke of Argyle and everything would be fine. Of course, I mean, it sounds so bizarre when I say it, but in Margaret's head, it all made sense.

• 26:24Matt Forde?

  So that was a genuine plan of hers?

• 26:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:29Alice Levine?

  What could go wrong?

• 26:30Speaker 04

  Very eastEnders, isn't it?

• 26:31Alice Levine?

  Yeah, it's, it's sort of so ridiculous that you think it's a work of fiction. Yeah.

• 26:37Matt Forde?

  What happened to Margaret after the divorce and how did she feel about the way she was treated?

• 26:43Speaker 04

  She always felt like she had done nothing wrong. And what I love about Margaret is she was always ready just to build herself back up again and, you know, just try and keep living. But her father had died, her stepmother had actually joined the Duke of Argyle to sue Margaret for all kinds of slanderous things. And Margaret was hemorrhaging money because not only did she pay her legal fees, she had to pay her husband's legal fees because he wasn't particularly well off. And with her father dead and the trust fund dwindling away, she was running out of money and she opened her home for people to come, you know, look around. And that couldn't save her.

• 27:22Speaker 04

  And she ended up losing her home, losing her money and living in a series of hotel rooms until she finally ended up in a nursing home.

• 27:30Alice Levine?

  Do you feel like Margaret's life and the case and also all of the behaviour that surrounded it has changed anything long term?

• 27:41Speaker 04

  I think it's certainly shone a light on. You know what today we would call is, you know, celebrity hacking and invasions of privacy. Actually, I think it was in nineteen sixty seven, out of sixty five of nineteen sixty seven. The Duke of Argyle wanted to release his memoirs in the newspapers. And he was going to release confidential information regarding Margaret's health because she had a head injury during the war. And the Duke always says, well, that left her a bit impaired, you know, he said she was insane after it and a nymphomaniac, which absolutely wasn't true. But he was going to publish these in the newspaper and Margaret fought him through the courts and prevented him from revealing that. So in a way she had her own small victory that she could

• 28:27Speaker 04

  use privacy laws to her benefit. And I think today we have evolved from those privacy laws because whenever things are leaked about celebrities or anybody in the public eye, or just anybody in particular, you know, there's laws regarding revenge porn and privacy that we can act on. And I think Margaret was certainly setting the tone for that to happen, those ways in which we can protect people today. But back then, she probably felt like, you know, it was a free for all, it was a feeding frenzy.

• 28:59Alice Levine?

  And to be clear, it was, it was straight out of the classic playbook of the abusive husband. He, he essentially said she was insane and, and should be institutionalized.

• 29:07Speaker 04

  Yes. But Margaret is so, so interesting because her husband was addicted to Purple Hearts. He was dealing with a lot of trauma after being taken prisoner of war during World War Two. He had a lot of demons and Margaret knew this and thought she could help him and build him up. But she also became his victim because like his first wife, Janet Aitken, who was the daughter of Lord Beaufort. He was so violent and physically and emotionally abusive. And she just really felt trapped with him, but she was also very. She had a lot of pride and she felt like she couldn't tell anybody what was happening because a lot of people had pre-warned her not to marry him. So she thought she could make the best of it and she tried to like turn her home into his club.

• 29:52Speaker 04

  So he wouldn't go out to it, he would stay at home and get drunk and she could control it. And she actually said, I don't think it's really him. I think it's because he's a Gemini. He has a split personality. So as funny as that seems, she was always looking for ways to justify the situation that she had found herself in. And I think that's quite sad as well that she felt like. And a lot of women felt that way in the sixties even before. There was nobody that would listen to her because in a way she had made her bed, she could lie in it.

• 30:23Matt Forde?

  Do you think Margaret would have been treated differently if her story happened today?

• 30:28Speaker 04

  I think the law would have been on her side, but in terms of the media, I don't think so at all. I think it would have been another thing that all of the tabloids would have focused on and humiliation would have been um just the same, probably worse because of the internet.

• 30:44Alice Levine?

  As a historian and a and a writer and somebody who relishes stories. This must have felt like such a kind of juicy biography when it first came across your desk.

• 30:59Speaker 04

  It really did, but I felt like

• 31:02Speaker 04

  all of the interest is perhaps in the unexpected things about Margaret. So although she's, she's very self-assured in her sexuality and does whatever she wants. Um and rightly so, she wasn't hurting anybody. There's another side to her that she's really wasn't doing anything that nobody else wasn't doing, but they weren't taking photographs of it. And I think that's where people thought that was the blurred line, that she was being an exhibitionist in a way and she deserved that treatment. But yeah, I mean. I thought she was just the most wonderful subject to explore. And I'm happy I did so because I think when you look past all of the scandal and the tabloid rumours,

• 31:46Speaker 04

  you find somebody that's actually very, very forward-thinking and almost like a modern day feminist in the way she carried herself.

• 31:55Matt Forde?

  And do you think there have been any changes since 1963 in how the media treat women when it comes to covering the divorce of celebrities, royals or aristocracy?

• 32:03Speaker 04

  No, I don't think so at all. I actually think it's worse, like I said, because of the internet. There's an anecdote that would be published and the anecdote lasts forever because of the internet.

• 32:13Alice Levine?

  If you could leave us with one detail that's come up in all of your research that feels really unexpected about Margaret, what would that be?

• 32:22Speaker 04

  Well, for me, I would just love that she was an advocate for animals. It just seemed so strange, but also made a lot of sense. She was victimized and treated in a really inhumane way as a woman. And she became an ambassador for abused animals and neglected animals. And she funded an animal sanctuary and really raised awareness for animal rights. And I just, I loved that about her because I love animals too. And I thought it shows that she really did have a kind heart. And she was a good woman because I mean, anybody that loves animals has to be good.

• 32:57Alice Levine?

  Lindsay, it is always such a pleasure to chat to you. That was so fantastic. Always a brilliant conversation when Lindsay Spence is on. Thank you to her for sharing her amazing knowledge on The Dirty Duchess. As I mentioned earlier, if you enjoyed this, you should also go back to our Hitler's Angels series about aristocratic beauty and fascist Diana Mitford, in which Lindsay unpacked how the Mitfords became Britain's most scandalous sisters. Right, Matt, looking forward, what have we got next?

• 33:27Matt Forde?

  Well, speaking of Hitler, if I said, Germany calling, Germany calling, does that mean anything to you?

• 33:34Alice Levine?

  Other than the fact that Germany's calling? No.

• 33:37Matt Forde?

  Well, I'm talking about a gripping tale of betrayal, propaganda and national identity set against the backdrop of World War II. It involves volatile tempers, extreme politics, and a charismatic Irish-American fascist called William Joyce, who joined the Nazi party. And not only did he join the party, he became the voice of the party, literally. Join us next time for a thrilling exploration of one of World War II's most infamous voices, Lord Horhor.

• 34:05Alice Levine?

  From Wondery and Sammerson Audio, this is our fourth and final episode in our series, The Dirty Duchess.

• 34:20Speaker 07

  A whole lot of wonderfully whimsical fun. What happens when you switch bodies with your best friend? Discover a caveman frozen in ice? Or make an alien so angry he threatens to destroy the planet? Find out in season two of the Cat in the Hat podcast. The cat and fish are traveling the world in the great catastrophic cacophony cruiser, meeting genies, clown professors, cave trolls, and extraordinary characters along the way. With clever wordplay, imaginative rhymes, original songs, and stories celebrating curiosity, empathy, and creative problem solving, every adventure brings something new to discover. It's a world of wonderful words, big imaginations, and plenty of heart for the whole family.

• 35:05Speaker 07

  Listen to the Cat in the Hat podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all 20 episodes early and ad-free right now. By 1779, Benedict Arnold had sacrificed more for the revolution than almost any other man in America. One of George Washington's most effective commanders, he had nearly lost a leg in the Second Battle of Saratoga. But in return, Arnold believed he had been humiliated by Congress and cheated of his glory by lesser men, so he decided to make them pay. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of the podcast American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history: presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud.

• 35:48Speaker 07

  In our latest series, Benedict Arnold turns his back on his comrades in the Continental Army and secretly defects to the British. With the help of his wife, he plots to hand over the most important colonial fortress to the enemy and doom the revolution he once served. Follow American Scandal wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of American Scandal early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

• 36:20Alice Levine?

  British Scandal is hosted by me, Alice Levine.

• 36:23Matt Forde?

  And me, Matt Ford.

• 36:24Alice Levine?

  Our engineer is Jai Williams. For Samusdat, our producer is Redzi Bernard. Our assistant producer is Louise Mason. Our senior producers are Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitzina. For Wondry, our senior producer is Theodora Leludis, and our senior managing producer is Rachel Sibley. Executive producers for Wondry are Estelle Doyle, Chris Bourne, and Marshall Louis.

• 36:59Speaker 05

  There are books that change how you see the world, and there are books that change how you see yourself. In a new podcast series, A Great Book with Barack Obama, President Obama sits down with a series of surprising and sharp guests to explore six books that have shaped his life and perspective on the world. From Song of Solomon and the Fire Next Time, to All the Pretty Horses and Gilead, the president is joined by guests like Tom Hanks and Ta-Nehisi Coates to reflect on how these timeless stories shaped his thinking on everything from fatherhood to leadership, and discover together what they tell us about the world we live in and the world we want to create.

• 37:42Speaker 05

  Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of A Great Book with Barack Obama ad-free right now, plus access each audiobook discussed in the series. Download the Audible app today.

• 37:58Alice Levine?

  Ghosts aren't real. At least, that's what journalist Tristan Redmond always believed. Sure, odd things happen in his childhood bedroom, but ultimately, he shrugged them off. Until he discovered that he wasn't alone, that everyone who lived there after him also had bizarre experiences they couldn't explain. And it gets even weirder. It just so happens that his wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door. Is this ghost somehow connected to her murder? He decides to go where no son-in-law should, digging up a cold case and asking questions that nobody wants answered. Like, could his wife's great-grandfather have gotten away with the perfect crime? This is a podcast about family secrets, overwhelming coincidence, and the things that come back to haunt us.

• 38:44Alice Levine?

  For the best bingeable series like Ghost Story, listen to the Audible True Crime Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can get all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.