Hepburn’s fascist mum
QUESTION Were Audrey Hepburn’s parents friends with Hitler?
AUDREY HEPBURN was born Audrey Kathleen ruston on May 4, 1929, in Ixelles, a municipality in Brussels, Belgium.
Her father, Joseph Victor Anthony ruston (1889-1980) was British, and her mother, Baroness ella van Heemstra (1900-84), was a dutch aristocrat. They married in September 1926 in Jakarta.
Hepburn’s parents were active members of the British union of Fascists (BUF). ella was friendly with unity Mitford and the Hepburn- rustons were openly involved in the BUF’s fundraising and recruitment.
They were not friends with Hitler, but did meet him. In May 1935, ella and her husband joined a BUF delegation to Germany to observe conditions there. They toured autobahns, factories, schools and housing developments, and met Hitler at the Brown House HQ in Munich.
After the trip, ella wrote a gushing editorial in BUF leader Oswald Mosley’s fascist bulletin, The Blackshirt, extolling the Third reich: ‘At Nuremberg . . . what struck me most forcibly among the million and one impressions I received there were (a) the wonderful fitness of every man and woman one saw, on parades or in the street; and (b) the refreshing atmosphere around one, the absolute freedom from any form of mental pressure or depression.
‘These people certainly live in spiritual comfort . . . From Nuremberg I went to Munich . . . I never heard an angry word . . .They [the German people] are happy . . . Well may Adolf Hitler be proud of the rebirth of this great country .’
Shortly afterwards, ruston walked out on his wife and daughter, Audrey, six. He divided his time between working for the Belgian fascist party, the rexists, and the BUF. But the extent and depth of ella’s fascist involvement in support of her rabidly anti-Communist husband has long been debated. during the war she worked for the German red Cross in Arnhem.
In 1938, ruston was investigated by the House of Commons for receiving money from Germans tied to Joseph Goebbels, in order to start a newspaper. He was interned under defence regulation 18B between June 1940 and April 1945, after which he settled in Ireland.
With the war behind them, ella concentrated her energies on furthering Audrey’s career in becoming a prima ballerina, then a model, followed by a film star.
Eileen Long, Worcester.
QUESTION In the 1927/28 season, Jimmy Smith scored a phenomenal 66 goals for Ayr United. What is known of him?
CENTRE-FORWARD Jimmy Smith was born on March 12, 1902, in Old Kilpatrick, dunbartonshire, Scotland.
He played his early football with dundee Harp Juniors then had spells with Clydebank (from July 1925) and Glasgow rangers (April 1926), but failed to make an impact with either.
In May 1927 he joined Ayr united, spending two seasons there: he netted more than 100 goals, including 72 in 44 games in 1927-28, with a record 66 coming in the League alone, when the ‘Honest men’ won the Scottish Second division championship in style.
After being transferred to Liverpool in September 1929 for £5,500, he remained at Anfield until July 1932, during which time he bagged another 38 goals in 62 appearances, top- scoring for the reds with 23 goals in the 1929-30 campaign.
After his stay on Merseyside, Jimmy played non-League football for Tunbridge Wells rangers and thereafter for Bristol rovers, Newport County, Notts County and dumbarton, serving the latter club, first as a player from 1939, then as manager and eventually as a director, retiring from football in May 1943. In later life, Jimmy emigrated to the u.S. with his family, dying in Bridgepoint, 60 miles from New york, in 1975. Tony MATTHEWS, football historian, statistician and author of The Who’s Who of Liverpool, almeria, spain.
QUESTION Do Germans still pay a church tax?
ALL Germans registered as Catholics, Protestants or Jews pay the religious tax on their annual income tax bill. under German law, anyone who was baptised as a child is automatically obliged to pay the tax, charged as a percentage of their income, regardless of their beliefs.
The tax is rooted in the pre-Christian Germanic custom where the tribal chief was responsible for the maintenance of priests and religious cults. In the reformation, the responsibility was taken over by the princes and on unification in 1871 came under the purview of the state.
German Christians have generally been prepared to pay the extra tax for the benefits it brings them, including access to religious hospitals, church schools, day care facilities and other social services.
Those who do not want to pay the tax may leave the church by making an official declaration that they are renouncing the faith. In recent times, many Germans who object to the tax have done just this, at the rate of around 100,000 a year.
Those who leave cannot be excommunicated, but can legally be denied certain rights, from a religious burial to access to the best state-funded schools.
Catholics who renounce their church membership are barred from confession and communion, and from the anointing of the sick, unless on the point of death.
Ginny simmons, Canterbury, Kent.