fairly horrific condition.
Dr Christopher Pease: ‘There was no mention of changes related to smoking or drinking in my autopsy report. There was no sign that he had damaged his body with either habit. In fact, Kenneth was in extremely good health for his age. In particular, he had a totally healthy heart. I have performed over 2,000 autopsies, and Kenneth’s coronary arteries were the most pristine of them all in the same age group, as healthy as a 20-year-old’s, in fact! There was no evidence of liver disease, and all other organs appeared healthy.
‘He did, however, have a very large (35 mm), deeply penetrating posterior (at the back of the stomach) gastric ulcer, and this was adherent to his pancreas. The stomach wall was intensely congested and inflamed. These findings were likely to be a combination of true inflammation of the stomach and barbiturate effect. Undoubtedly this ulcer would have been extremely painful and would have produced intense upper abdominal and back pain. There was no evidence to suggest the ulcer was malignant.’
From this it is distressingly clear that Kenneth had in no way exaggerated the intensity of his bodily sufferings. The pains he’d endured were every bit as severe as he said they were. In the event, the Coroner, Dr John Elliott, clung to the letter of the law, insisting, in the words of the Daily Mail’s report, that ‘there was no evidence to show why he took the lethal dose of sleeping pills’. No suicide note, in other words, or equivalent message of intent. How much weight was attached to Kenneth’s diary entries cannot now be known. Only the last volume, for the early months of 1988, had been examined in any case. So the Coroner cannot have seen the diary entry for 30 August 1987, which reads in part: ‘All that is in my mind now is the way to commit suicide…’, or indeed for 5 October 1987: ‘Counted my capsules of poison and I have got over 30 so there should be enough to kill me.’ On the other hand, the entry for 22 March 1988 (only three weeks or so before the death) was available to be seen and interpreted: ‘Came back to flat & got out the Sodium Amytal & then had cold feet. Took 2.’
Michael Whittaker: ‘I think he did commit suicide. Paul Richardson doesn’t think so, and obviously the Coroner didn’t, so we have to accept the Coroner’s verdict. But he always said he would. The idea of ageing or losing faculties didn’t appeal to him at all.’
One factor that seems to complicate the argument is Kenneth’s will, in which he shocked the world by distributing his goods around a small circle of male friends, leaving nothing to the 87-year-old mother who had been, in one way or another, his companion through life. If he had intended to kill himself, the argument runs, then he would have made some formal provision for Lou. But again, his diary indicates that he had considered the matter less than a month before the fatal night: ‘Thought of making an end of it tonight & then wondered whether things were left in proper order. Should I write a letter to Michael? best of people & best of my friends. Would it be fair to ask him to tell all the others?’ It would seem that the problem of Lou was already settled in his mind, and Michael now confirms that it was so.
Michael Whittaker: ‘He hadn’t left Louie any money because he thought that she would go into a home and the home would take her money. He thought she would never ever live with her daughter, which she subsequently did. He said to me, because I was being left some of his money, “Anyway, if she’s in the home I know you’ll keep your eye on her.” I thought all this was academic anyway, that she’d die before Kenneth. To find that she was living with her daughter, sleeping on her sofa in a one-bedroom flat in Camden, I thought if Kenneth was alive
The infamous last Will and Testament that seemingly left no provision for his beloved 87-year-old mother.
‘It never went off. Some of the papers, usual stuff, they said “Kenneth Williams leaves his mother nothing”, “Poor woman out on the street”, all this drama! That’s why I was going to make a statement but it wasn’t necessary in the end. It was drawn up by my lawyers to say that she hadn’t been completely abandoned and I did, indeed, look after her.’ (Michael Whittaker)
Draft press release to address the questions Kenneth’s will had raised.
now to see his ageing mother like this! So I arranged for her to get an annuity and also to buy the flat upstairs which had two bedrooms and two bathrooms.’
Leaving the welfare of his closest relatives in the hands of Michael Whittaker proved a safe policy, though at first Lou and Pat Williams saw only the slight in it and not the wisdom. When they talked to Woman’s Own, Michael’s arrangements had yet to be made.
Pat Williams: ‘One of Ken’s beneficiaries came round, and he said, “I’ve been left half of Ken’s flat.” I rang the solicitor and said, “At least you might have had the common decency to have advised my mother first.” He said, “Why should I tell you? Neither you nor your mother are mentioned in the will.” I said to him, “I’m not interested for myself but my mother’s very upset,” and he said he’d send us a copy of the will.
‘It wasn’t a shock that I hadn’t been left anything, but the only thing that niggles me is that as Mother devoted so much time and affection on him, the least he could have done was make a proviso when he made out his will. He should have said, “I leave everything to Joe Bloggs, providing he looks after my mother for the rest of her life.”’
Effectively that’s what did happen, once Michael Whittaker had realized that Pat and Lou were living together under cramped and stressful circumstances.
Michael Whittaker: ‘He always thought Louie would go into a home and she would never live with her daughter, because her relationship with Pat had been rocky, to say the least. But she did indeed live with her daughter, and after things were sorted out she lived quite a few more years. She had that great London vitality. She was a real Cockney sparrow. She went dancing at the Irish Club in Camden.
‘Pat found it quite stressful. Fundamentally she liked having Louie there, but it was stressful. One day the doctor said to Pat, “Look, you need a rest. I’ll think up some excuses for Louie to have tests at the hospital, she’ll go in for a few days and give you rest.” Well, Louie went in to University College Hospital, then got a bug and died. Pat felt terrible.’
Even in the later years of his life, Kenneth was torn between putting Lou into a care home and continuing to look after her himself, as he revealed in a letter to Michael Whittaker.
Paul Richardson: ‘He changed his will about two or three years before he died because I was actually with him. After seeing his bank manager, we walked down the road with him tearing up the old will and putting it into each of the bins we passed. “You’re in it!” he said. When he died, his flat was left to myself and his godson along with all the contents of it which included the diaries and letters. Michael Whittaker was left the flats and the bulk of the money, and Michael Anderson was left the royalties.’
Michael Anderson:’ “I’ve been to see my lawyer,” he said, pointing at me. “You can keep the royalties, and I don’t want to hear any more about it!” I’d forgotten all about it, and then his lawyer rang me up and said, “Mr Anderson, Kenneth Williams has left you his royalties.” Then it all came back to me. An unusual
