A member of my group for relatives of victims of involuntary euthanasia has been in contact with the Scottish Covid Inquiry about the murder of his mother in hospital. He’s had a response asking for more details. If you’re related to a victim, whether they were murdered in Scotland or any other part of the UK, please contact the Scottish Covid Inquiry TODAY! I think if we all act immediately - and NOW - it’ll have more of an impact. Here’s the email address: [email protected] Let’s do it, let’s get proactive and let’s get the authorities to HEAR what we have to say. These crimes have been swept under the rug for long enough.

I saw the film Grey Gardens last night in a super-cool independent cinema in Brighton called White Wall. (The cinema shows films from the 60s, 70s and 80s and is well worth visiting.) Grey Gardens, produced in 1975, is a landmark cinéma vérité documentary by Albert and David Maysles (with Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer) about Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (“Big Edie,” 1895–1977) and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale (“Little Edie,” 1917-2002). They were the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and the film portrays their reclusive, eccentric life in the decaying 28-room Grey Gardens mansion in East Hampton, New York. The women lived for decades in increasing isolation and squalor after Big Edie’s marriage to lawyer Phelan Beale ended (he provided limited support). Little Edie returned from New York City pursuits (modelling, aspiring dance/acting) around 1952 to care for her mother. By the early 1970s the house was overrun with cats, raccoons, fleas, and garbage, lacking running water in places. Health department “raids” nearly led to eviction until family members (including Jackie Onassis and Lee Radziwill) funded cleanups and repairs so the pair could stay. The Maysles initially filmed for a project involving Radziwill; they later focused on the Beales and shot extensive footage of their daily life, songs, dances, reminiscences, arguments and co-dependent bond. The result is widely regarded as a masterpiece of the documentary form - intimate, unscripted and influential on later works (including a Broadway musical and a 2009 HBO dramatisation starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore).
Big Edie died of pneumonia on February 5, 1977, at Southampton Hospital (age 81), after a fall and declining health. Her reported last words to her daughter were essentially “There’s nothing more to say. It’s all in the film.” She is buried in the Bouvier family plot in East Hampton. Little Edie remained at the house briefly, performed a short cabaret run in New York (e.g., at Reno Sweeney in 1978), then sold Grey Gardens in 1979 for $220,000 to Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and his wife Sally Quinn (with the condition that the house not be demolished; they restored it). She lived in various places afterward (Manhattan, Montreal, California, and Florida), dealt with some later paranoia, and was found dead in her Bal Harbour, Florida, apartment around January 14, 2002 (age 84), apparently from a heart attack or stroke related to arteriosclerosis after several days. Her grave inscription reads: “I came from God. I belong to God. In the end, I shall return to God.”

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