More information about Rupert - and Roger Senhouse's "diary"

[Nicholas]

I left some information from the letters out of Rupert's biography as what they said did not seem very important at the time. 

There were several mentions of his car - a Belgian Minerva which was a powerful tourer equivalent to a Bentley or Mercedes-Benz. Rupert used to park it wherever he felt like (which was not allowed even in 1921) and one day left it in a space reserved for academic staff. For this he was hauled up in front of some disciplinary committee and given a reprimand.  He despised the college authorities for their pettiness.

Also, the police stopped him one night as he was driving with one of the headlamps broken and gave Rupert a warning, which he ignored.  A little later he was stopped again and this time the police prosecuted him.  The case was pending when Rupert died.
We may take the above as examples of Rupert's reported arrogance and carelessness.

Amongst the collection of correspondence were letters of gratitude from needy people who had received cheques from Rupert.  These were usually for £5 - £10, laughable now but about a week's wages at the time.  If Rupert read in a newspaper that someone was experiencing hardship he found out their address and wrote to them sending the money.
There was also a letter from Rupert's  servant who wrote that every Thursday afternoon (that is: the time of the fatal accident) he paused for a few minutes to pray for "Mr Rupert".

Now to fuel the suicide speculation!
I received information from  an (anonymous) friend of Roger Senhouse who claimed that he had in his possession Senhouse's diary in which he made clear that he thought JMB was an unimportant figure very much at the edge of Michael's life by 1921.  He also claimed that Rupert and Michael were having an affair and that they definitely committed suicide.  Senhouse's source for this claim was one Lionel Gomm  who worked on the Garsington estate which is just east of Sandford Pool.  Lionel G. said he was working by the pool and saw what happened in detail and was convinced the boys killed themselves intentionally.
It must be said that this man's testimony  is not recorded in any of the public statements about the drowning.  Also he was more than just an estate worker: he was also Ottoline Morrell's gigolo (she called him "Tiger") and according to Senhouse he worked as a rent boy servicing the needs of the (male) Oxford students.  He died (in Ottilline's arms) about a year after the drowning from what sounds like a drug overdose.  The NPG has several photos of Gomm and in one he appears to be wearing make up and a lady's frilly top. 
Unfortunately my source claimed to have destroyed the Senhouse diary to avoid "salacious speculation" (but at the same time adding to it)  and  anyway there seems to be at least one other Senhouse diary in existence.  I think the whole business should be treated with great suspicion!

[andrew]

Many thanks for all that info, Nicholas. The letters from Barrie to Rupert's mother that you unearthed a few years ago pretty much confirmed me in my belief that Michael's death was an accident, not suicide. As you say, Roger Senhouse is not a very reliable or unbiased source - his own love for Michael (beautifully hinted at in his long letter to Nico after Peter's suicide in April 1960*) meant that he was inevitably jealous of Rupert, and perhaps wanted to hold him responsible for Michael's death, albeit subconsciously. But given that Michael and Rupert seemed happy to have found each other, given that their friendship had Barrie's genuine blessing (evidenced in his letters to Rupert's mother), given that he had seemed perfectly happy to everyone else in the weeks leading up to the drowning, one is left with the obvious question, what possible motive could he have had for wanting to kill himself? Or are we to imagine that perhaps Rupert wanted to end it all, and was so in love with Michael that he determined to take him along for the ride?

* To read the letter, search for "Roger Senhouse" in the database.   

[Nicholas]

Thanks, Andrew.  We will never know what happened, but I feel (it's only my opinion) that Rupert's instinct would have been to protect Michael, not to kill him - even as an act of love.