I’ve just finished watching this 3-part dramatisation of the Thorpe affair that’s been shown on the BBC over the past three weeks … I caught it on iplayer: A Very Englsih Scandal (2018) Episode 1 BBC iplayer  from which you can then go to the second and third episodes, though they're only available to view for a couple more weeks. (Although I’m in France it worked for me though you do need to register with the BBC and you might, like I did, need to give an English postcode and tick "yes" when it asks if you have a TV licence).


Anyhow, I thought it was a brilliant portrayal of this bit of recent history and a very timely retelling of it all too. Simply as entertainment I thought all the performances were excellent: Hugh Grant in particular had Jeremy Thorpe off to a 't' and perfectly portrayed him as the charismatic yet manipulative person I seem to remember him as - although I generally shared his political views I nevertheless recall even then thinking that he had something of a calculating cold-blooded reptile about him. For what was in essence a high political drama Russell Davies’ writing gave a fast-paced, at times cheekily comedic touch, and though I wouldn’t have thought that something with such deep themes would have worked as a comedy, it did. But then I remember at the time the whole affair, once it had started to come out in court, was a source of great prurient interest, gossip, sniggers and crude humour. And it was almost farce: quite frankly if you didn’t know the details - as salaciously reported in the daily press at the time - you’d have thought this dramatisation was implausible or made up. Yet, being reminded of it again after all that time, I remember it to be just as portrayed.
 
I also recall, with some shame now, that despite being a closeted homosexual myself, I then personally dismissed Norman Scott as an untrustworthy, spiteful, attention-seeking liar, … whilst naively at the same time I was unable to believe that a senior politician could have lied, cheated and stooped to discussing murder. Yet here we are nearly forty years later and I find there are many parallels between the Thorpe case and many of today’s MPs. Then Britain was a rather sexist, homophobic, hypocritical, class-riven society, where the establishment and old-boys’ network reigned supreme and were largely untouchable … sadly in 2018 it seems very little has changed.
 
Anyway did anyone else see ‘A Very English Scandal’ and what did you think of it, and of the whole Thorpe/Scott saga?

I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m not normally a fan of Russell T Davies’ work but this was exceptional.

The attention to detail was exquisite. For example the February 1974 General Election was captioned on screen as being ‘March 1974’. Polling day was indeed Thursday 28th February but the declaration of the result took place in the small hours of Friday 1st March and that was the scene which was featured.

Similarly (and staying with general election results) having the Devon North constituency returning officer in 1979 announcing the candidature of Auberon Waugh (standing for the Dog Lovers’ Party) was a piece of comic trivia which the series really couldn’t have left out.

As for the actual significance of the historical events, then my father was a big fan of the Liberals in the 1960s and 70s including Jo Grimond and Jeremy Thorpe. He briefly entertained the idea that Norman Scott had been but up to the case by political opponents of Thorpe. No evidence, however, has emerged to substantiate this. And let’s no forget also that Thorpe was acquitted by a jury. All in all a puzzling affair.

This seems to be a subject dear to the British heart - on three of the four quite different boards I go to regularly it has been mentioned.  

One poster said:

The series writer, Russell T. Davies, has been criticised by some by depicting the events as a black comedy but some of the details are so bizarre that any adaptation would appear farcical; the hitman searched for Scott in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, before realising that Scott was living in Barnstaple, Devon. The gunman was so incompetent that he introduced himself to Scott under an alias but later forgot his alias and used his real name." 


And I replied:

I don't remember this scandal but then it probably made fewer waves in NZ, though the Profumo affair certainly was big news here when I was in my teens. Maybe in those days homosexual acts weren't thought to be a suitable subject for news items, much as suicide is not mentioned now as a cause of death in NZ cases. Euphemisms are used in case of copycat results (which do seem to happen), though 13 Reasons Why is shown here and discussed in the media.


My husband thought the scandal rang a slight bell for him.  


Neither of us recognised Hugh Grant from the picture!

and to make it even more interesting:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44336859

Dirk

Vizzer wrote:

And let’s not forget also that Thorpe was acquitted by a jury. All in all a puzzling affair.

Ah but Thorpe was only acquitted of the crimes of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Moreover his lawyer, George Carman, never called on him to speak in his own defence, and so he never had to explain himself under cross-examination in court. The whole case was manoevered to rely solely on the prosecution witnesses - Scott and Bessell - whose credibility had already been thoroughly damaged by Thorpe's defending lawyer.
 
But apparently the jury were far from happy with the result.

Immediately after the acquittal one of the jury members approached The Guardian newspaper to say that all 12 were agreed that there had been a conspiracy to intimidate Scott because of his earlier homosexual relationship with Thorpe (that they had had a long sexual relationship, and that Scott had been abducted and his dog shot in front of him, were never really in doubt). The jury were angry that they could not convict because the crime of intimidation had not been charged. Whether it was a conspiracy to murder depended on the evidence of Thorpe’s parliamentary colleague, Peter Bessell, and the judge had told them they could not rely on his evidence because of a deal he’d struck with the Sunday Telegraph, whereby he would be paid double by the newspaper if Thorpe was found guilty. The jury were annoyed because they felt they had been obliged to acquit guilty men; they wanted to expose the incompetence of the director of public prosecutions and demand that parliament outlaw deals with witnesses of the kind the newspaper had struck with Bessell.
 
It was a scoop but the Guardian declined to publish believing it might lay them open to legal action. However the New Statesman newspaper had no such qualms, deciding that the public interest in what the jury really thought was overwhelming, and publish they did. Almost immediately after the New Statesman article "Thorpe’s Trial: How the Jury Saw It", appeared, Margaret Thatcher’s attorney general prosecuted the paper for contempt of court. This was an ill-defined judge-made law by which the legal establishment could punish actions that tended to pervert justice – although the only action that had perverted justice in the Thorpe trial was that of the Sunday Telegraph’s contract with Bessell. The New Statesman was acquitted.

At the time, the decision appeared a great victory for freedom of speech. But Margaret Thatcher's government rushed through a new criminal law – section 8 of the 1981 Contempt of Court Act – which threatens jurors and journalists with up to two years’ imprisonment should they disclose "any particulars of statements made, opinions expressed, arguments advanced or votes cast" in the course of jury deliberations. The government feared that the jury system would not survive if subject to rational investigation.
 
Section 8 is still on the statute book and in the years since has probably prevented exposure of quite a few miscarriages of justice. Britain, it seems, as if for fear of letting daylight into a system that may or may not be working, jails those who dare to blow the whistle.

Vizzer wrote:

... my father was a big fan of the Liberals in the 1960s and 70s including Jo Grimond and Jeremy Thorpe. He briefly entertained the idea that Norman Scott had been but up to the case by political opponents of Thorpe. No evidence, however, has emerged to substantiate this.

And yet just yesterday Jack Straw disclosed that when in 1976 he was a special advisor to Barbara Castle, the social security minister in Harold Wilson's Labour government, he received a request from No 10 to find out why Scott had been prosecuted by the DHSS, as Thorpe claimed he was completely innocent of any wrongdoing and thought that Scott’s prosecution for social security fraud (for a mere £14.60) had somehow been an attempt to gather evidence of Thorpe’s homosexuality that could then be used to undermine him as the Liberal leader. According to Straw's comments, when the file was investigated, what should have been prosaic records of National Insurance details, were anything but:

"There were all sorts of pockets marked ‘secret’. We opened these pockets and there were statements made very many years before 1976, going into all sorts of details about the contact between Scott and Thorpe which went well beyond their use of social security numbers ... They included graphic details ... and when and where they had had sexual encounters. ... The documents seemed to back up Scott’s claims that Thorpe had withheld his national insurance cards."  Straw said the social security files also suggested that Scott had been in contact with the South African security services, BOSS, which had taken an interest in Thorpe, possibly in an attempt to undermine him as he was then very active in the anti-apartheid movement. (Jack Straw quoted in yesterday's Guardian online, 4/6/2018).

Curiouser and curiouser...

Vizzer wrote:

Similarly (and staying with general election results) having the Devon North constituency returning officer in 1979 announcing the candidature of Auberon Waugh (standing for the Dog Lovers’ Party) was a piece of comic trivia which the series really couldn’t have left out.

Yes indeed, and as a Meles meles fan I was also pleased to see included in the first episode the quirky details about Arthur Gore, the Earl of Arran, who did indeed live in a house along with numerous wild badgers and a dotty speedboat-racing wife. The Earl had been the sponsor in the House of Lords for Leo Abse's 1976 Sexual Offences Act which finally decriminalised homosexuality, as well as sponsoring a bill for the protection of badgers, which wasn't passed. Once asked why this effort had failed, whereas decriminalising homosexuality had succeeded, Arran is reported to have replied: "There are not many badgers in the House of Lords."

Well quite.

Of course I'm old enough to have lived through the time of the above-mentioned scandal.  Am I alone in feeling sorry for the poor dog who was shot?  I can recall a Question Time programme where the subject was touched on where a young Dianne Abbott and the late Cyril Smith were two members of the panel.  Cyril Smith without going into detail said that Jeremy Thorpe ought to resign - but now considering the things about CS that have come into public knowledge I think "What a hypocrite".

Some things have changed since the 1960s.  I had a friend who died a few years ago and I never knew until after her death that besides the children of her marriage she had had a child in her teens who had been adopted away (they re-established contact when the child became an adult) - nowadays having a child outside marriage does not carry the same social stigma.  

Nobody can help the stratum of society into which they are born and being born into a well-off family does not automatically make someone a bad person but there does seem something unfair where a person can wield influence because an ancestor came over with Bill the Conqueror.  A revelation that someone is gay would probably not be so detrimental to a person's career in 2018 as it was in the 1970s (though there were some "out" gay people back then).  A Government can pass laws against hate but they can't remove the hate in a person's heart though.  I remember there was a case in the early 1960s where a civil servant had been blackmailed into spying for the Russians (this was of course in the Cold War and around the time of the "Cuban Missile Crisis") because he was gay and after his (the civil servant's) trial was imprisoned.  The article I've linked was from 1996 which was already more than 30 years after the event.  https://www.independent.co.uk/.../the-spy-who-rocked-a-world-of-privilege-1313565...  

A bit off topic but it seems that Jeremy Thorpe's son by his first wife (the one who was killed in a car crash) has grown up to be a successful photographer.  www.rupertthorpe.com/

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Am I alone in feeling sorry for the poor dog who was shot?  

You certainly wouldn't have been alone at the time ... the shooting of Norman Scott's dog, Rinka, was precisely the reason why Auberon Waugh, standing for the 'Dog Lovers Party', contested Jeremy Thorpe's North Devon constituency in the 1979 General Election. This simple action obviously struck home as intended because Thorpe sought, and managed to obtain, a legal injunction against all of Waugh's election literature. But Waugh, as a very popular journalist and especially as the columnist of the weekly 'Political Diary' in the satirical magazine 'Private Eye', inevitably managed to get his point across. In the election Waugh polled just 79 votes and lost his deposit, but the damage had been done and Thorpe lost his seat (to the Conservative Party candidate), never to be re-elected.

Meles meles wrote:

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Am I alone in feeling sorry for the poor dog who was shot?  

You certainly wouldn't have been alone at the time ... the shooting of Norman Scott's dog, Rinka, was precisely the reason why Auberon Waugh, standing for the 'Dog Lovers Party', contested Jeremy Thorpe's North Devon constituency in the 1979 General Election. This simple action obviously struck home as intended because Thorpe sought, and managed to obtain, a legal injunction against all of Waugh's election literature. But Waugh, as a very popular journalist and especially as the columnist of the weekly 'Political Diary' in the satirical magazine 'Private Eye', inevitably managed to get his point across. In the election Waugh polled just 79 votes and lost his deposit, but the damage had been done and Thorpe lost his seat (to the Conservative Party candidate), never to be re-elected.

Thank you for a very prompt reply, MM.  I had quite forgotten about "The Dog Lovers' Party".  A very long time ago I read Auberon Waugh's The Foxglove Saga but can't remember it well now.  Oh yes, Richard Ingrams who was editor of Private Eye at the time of the events in question hasn't been afraid over the years to stick his head above the parapets and risk law suits.  (I think it's pretty well known by now that when he was editor of The Oldie he gave a platform to the journalist who exposed the antics of one J Savile Esq deceased).  At the time of the incidents related in the recent TV programme I actually felt quite sorry for Mr Thorpe; the fact that his first wife had been killed in an accident when his child was still an infant may have coloured how I felt.

Of course there have been a number of small political parties over the years - I guess Screaming Lord Sutch's "Raving Monster Loony Party" is the one that sticks in my mind.

Meles meles wrote:

Straw said the social security files also suggested that Scott had been in contact with the South African security services, BOSS, which had taken an interest in Thorpe, possibly in an attempt to undermine him as he was then very active in the anti-apartheid movement.

The beauty of history. Just when one thinks a story is done – new evidence emerges.

Meles meles wrote:

I was also pleased to see included in the first episode the quirky details about Arthur Gore, the Earl of Arran, who did indeed live in a house along with numerous wild badgers and a dotty speedboat-racing wife. The Earl had been the sponsor in the House of Lords for Leo Abse's 1976 Sexual Offences Act which finally decriminalised homosexuality, as well as sponsoring a bill for the protection of badgers, which wasn't passed. Once asked why this effort had failed, whereas decriminalising homosexuality had succeeded, Arran is reported to have replied: "There are not many badgers in the House of Lords."

That’s priceless!

I wonder how they filmed the scenes with the ‘speedboat cete’. I’d like to think that they weren’t computer-generated but rather that there are indeed still some eccentrics today who also share their homes with badgers and were only too happy to accommodate the film-makers.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

 At the time of the incidents related in the recent TV programme I actually felt quite sorry for Mr Thorpe; the fact that his first wife had been killed in an accident when his child was still an infant may have coloured how I felt.

One could also perhaps feel sorry for him as the affair completely destroyed his political career ... and all originally over the stigma of love/lust for a good-looking younger man which started when Thorpe was still unmarried. Had the relationship been with a younger single woman, the whole affair would never have needed to be kept hidden and neither would it have developed into the dangerous situation that it did.

Although the stigma is nowhere near as great these days and society is more tolerant of politicians' sexual foibles, underlying attitudes like that still persist. For example as recently as 1998 the Welsh Secretary, Ron Davies, was forced to resign from the Cabinet after he had been mugged following his self-confessed "moment of madness" when he met up with a stranger at a well-known gay meeting place on Clapham Common. The incident didn't completely destroy his political career but it certainly set it back. It took a similar incident in 2003 - at a well-known 'cruising' lay-by off the M4 where, unfortunately for him, as he left the bushes to return to his car he was photographed by a reporter from 'The Sun' - to completely end his parliamentary career ... and then, I think, it was as much because he was married with a young child, than the (presumed) act itself.

On that occasion, perhaps evoking the memory of the Earl of Arran, he claimed in his defence: "I have been watching badgers".

There must be a lot of hypocrisy in some aspects of public life I feel.  I remember the Harvey Proctor affair in the 1980s but he later got back into local politics if not Westminster.  I think someone mentioned on another that there had been something of a scandal concerning a gay 'escort' ring in Washington .at the time of (I think) the Ronald Reagan administration.  I heard something about it on a podcast - the "madam" (who denied using anybody underage or unwilling) wrote a book a few years ago because he felt he had been vilified and made to carry the can for the whole thing when he believed he was not the main villain. https://www.advocate.com/.../books/.../excerpt-exposing-gay-secrets-confessions-dc-m...

There was something almost farcical about how the matter came to light.  The "madam's" day job was working in a funeral parlour (undertaker's though I'm sure you all know that) but he ran the cheques he was being paid for his night job through the funeral parlour accounts - the clients were putting their payments on expenses (and seems a number of them worked for the government) and when those expenses were being checked somebody wondered why the heck Messrs X, Y or Z were having to pay for so many funerals in consecutive months.

The RD case had slipped my mind but I remember I was working full-time then.  Round about the time one of the actors playing a Teletubby had been sacked for some daft reason like he was too wimpy to be Tinky-Winky; I don't remember the whole thing, considering the Teletubbies wore what was virtually a track suit only with their heads/faces covered.  Anyway, one of the papers at the time - can't remember which, had a cartoon of a Teletubby walking along Clapham Common.  (Seeing it was a lot funnier than me trying to describe it).

Meles meles wrote:

Although the stigma is nowhere near as great these days and society is more tolerant of politicians' sexual foibles, underlying attitudes like that still persist.

Yes – it’s often difficult to unknow the present just as it can be equally difficult to unlearn the past. Hindsight is particularly problematic with regard to contemporary history. The prevailing climate and public attitudes can change markedly in a relatively short space of time but equally sometimes seem not to have changed at all. For example in the drama there is a scene of Thorpe arriving at court with some protesters in the background holding a large banner with the words ‘Brixton Gays’ written on it in big letters. This is based on real-life footage. There are also smaller placards held by the protesters saying ‘We are proud to be gay’ and ‘Homosexuality is not a defect’. Evidence of how, even 12 years after decriminalisation, public attitudes had seemingly barely shifted.

As well as the drama, the BBC has also aired a documentary 39 years after it was first due to be broadcast:

The Jeremy Thorpe Scandal

This was fascinating in itself. Not just with regard to revelations about the Thorpe case but also as a snapshot of the era. There was Panorama reporter Tom Mangold looking remarkably like himself and giving an overview of the case (in 1979) which really wouldn’t have been out of place today. Also intriguing was how the 1960s were represented to the viewing public in 1979 - i.e. as ‘way back then’. There were grainy black-and-white images of people involved in the Profumo affair, there were the opening credits and theme song from That Was The Week That Was and there was a Pathé News film on the 1964 general election. Tom Mangold even had to remind the 1979 viewers that “in the early Sixties homosexuality of any kind was a criminal offence in this country and it carried severe penalties and equally considerable moral opprobrium.” And yet the events in question had taken place barely 15 to 17 years earlier.

The drama was brilliant - the BBC at its best. Wonderful tragi-comic script and superb acting from Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw.

I've just finished the book by John Preston and it is, although very funny in places, much darker and more disturbing than the programme. I had no idea that Thorpe was such a villain. I know several people down here in North Devon who remember him very well: he was liked and respected, considered to be a true gentleman and a real "toff", a man who worked hard for his constituents. But, as Priscilla commented many years ago, we are all like decahedrons: we all have many different "faces". Thorpe certainly did.

Some of the funniest - but most disturbing - comments come from Preston's Chapter 7 - "This Filthy Subject" in which he quotes various absolutely outrageous comments made by the non-badgers (or repressed badgers?) in the House of Lords. Lord Montgomery of Alamein, for example, who, after telling a packed House that he regarded "the act of homosexuality in any form as the most abominable bestiality that any human being can take part in and which reduces him almost to the status of an animal...", was reminded that France and many other European countries took a more relaxed attitude towards homosexuality. Montgomery, spluttering with rage, retorted: "We are not French; we are not other nationals. We are British, thank God." He went on to propose one of the most bizarre amendments in British parliamentary history: if there was to be a change in the law, he said, let the age of homosexual consent be set at eighty. That way "at least one has the old-age pension to pay for any blackmail which may come along."

Preston notes that even the normally unshockable Abse was left speechless at this. "What demons lurked in Montgomery's psyche, he wondered - a question echoed thirty years later by Montgomery's biographer, Nigel Hamilton, who suggested that Montgomery spent his life furiously trying to repress his sexual attraction to young boys."

The TV drama had most of us laughing at times - some scenes did have a Round-the-Horne-ish quality to them. All very funny maybe, but not, of course if you were a gay man living through those times.

I do wonder, though, what Jules' and Sandy's reaction to the "consent at eighty" amendment would have been.

I've just listened to this Jules and Sandy sketch from 1968 - it's brilliantly funny. The pair have formed their own political party, and are telling Mr Horne all about it. Is it a coincidence that they talk of betrayal by their "Liberal member" who "went and got married"? Jeremy Thorpe married his first wife in 1968.

Very funny and very 'bold' for 1968, and as you say I'm sure the reference to the Liberal leader's marriage was a deliberate dig at Jeremy Thorpe, who it now seems was well-known, at least amongst close confidents, to have been for many years, 'batting for both sides', as it were.

Another very apposite and comedic comment on the conclusion of the whole business, the trial, was of course Peter Cook's brilliant portrayal of the biased judge, which was first broadcast only a few months after Thorpe's acquital as part of the charity performance, 'The Secret Policeman's Ball', staged in late 1979. True to its vintage it includes some quite crude, homophobic references (although still rather clever and funny), but it is primarily a scathing attack on the Thorpe trial judge, Sir Joseph Cantley, .... and it was very clearly understood to be such at the time.



... "Members of the jury, you are now to retire - as indeed should I - to consider your verdict of 'not guilty' ..."

Temperance wrote:

The drama was brilliant - the BBC at its best. Wonderful tragi-comic script and superb acting from Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw.

I've just finished the book by John Preston and it is, although very funny in places, much darker and more disturbing than the programme. I had no idea that Thorpe was such a villain. I know several people down here in North Devon who remember him very well: he was liked and respected, considered to be a true gentleman and a real "toff", a man who worked hard for his constituents. But, as Priscilla commented many years ago, we are all like decahedrons: we all have many different "faces". Thorpe certainly did.

Some of the funniest - but most disturbing - comments come from Preston's Chapter 7 - "This Filthy Subject" in which he quotes various absolutely outrageous comments made by the non-badgers (or repressed badgers?) in the House of Lords. Lord Montgomery of Alamein, for example, who, after telling a packed House that he regarded "the act of homosexuality in any form as the most abominable bestiality that any human being can take part in and which reduces him almost to the status of an animal...", was reminded that France and many other European countries took a more relaxed attitude towards homosexuality. Montgomery, spluttering with rage, retorted: "We are not French; we are not other nationals. We are British, thank God." He went on to propose one of the most bizarre amendments in British parliamentary history: if there was to be a change in the law, he said, let the age of homosexual consent be set at eighty. That way "at least one has the old-age pension to pay for any blackmail which may come along."

Preston notes that even the normally unshockable Abse was left speechless at this. "What demons lurked in Montgomery's psyche, he wondered - a question echoed thirty years later by Montgomery's biographer, Nigel Hamilton, who suggested that Montgomery spent his life furiously trying to repress his sexual attraction to young boys."

The TV drama had most of us laughing at times - some scenes did have a Round-the-Horne-ish quality to them. All very funny maybe, but not, of course if you were a gay man living through those times.

I do wonder, though, what Jules' and Sandy's reaction to the "consent at eighty" amendment  would have been.

Temperance,

is that the Montgomery that I know? As there is the adding of "Alamein" I suppose it is. Yes as you said one person many faces...

Kind regards from Paul.

Yup, Paul, that is indeed 'the' Montgomery of Alamein, who, for all his well-known anti-gay rants was probably homosexual himself but unable to admit that to even himself. He was a charismatic, intelligent bloke  ... but seriously f*cked up.

And for what it's worth the French Republic decriminalised homosexuality, even in the army and navy, in 1798, ... yet somehow, despite that, they still managed to maintain discipline and function as major a military power thoughout the whole of the 19th century.

Meles meles wrote:

Yup, Paul, that is indeed 'the' Montgomery of Alamein, who, for all his well-known anti-gay rants was probably homosexual himself but unable to admit that to even himself. He was a charismatic, intelligent bloke  ... but seriously f*cked up.

And for what it's worth the French Republic decriminalised homosexuality, even in the army and navy, in 1798, ... yet somehow, despite that, they still managed to maintain discipline and function as major a military power thoughout the whole of the 19th century.

Meles meles,

yes it is unbelievable how fast the attitudes changed in the last sixty years. And I was a witness of it. As I mentioned to LiR about the Roman-Catholics in Belgium...and about homosexuality...it is only in the Western world...don't go to Eastern Europe or the Muslim countries...recently in a West -African country some bloke condemned to death, because..only consideradions from Europe prevented...
As I said to LiR I hope that the Muslims "evoluate?" (see now that it is perhaps "evolve"?) that much in the coming sixty years as the Roman-Catholics did in Belgium. But the pope said now that homosexuals can't marry...And I have now my cousin's son married to a man...and they have an adopted child...

Kind regards from Paul.

My mother reckoned that Monty cared about the welfare of the men fighting under him - i.e. not just a death or glory boy.  Not that she was in the 8th army.  I think in some of the middle east country what may be condemned is practised though.  I saw a documentary (and I know they sometimes have to be taken with a grain of salt) about one of the eastern countries where men are segregated from women and that has caused the rise of "bacha bazi" - feminised dancing boys who do more than just dance. There are also "bacha posh" - girls dressed up as boys until they reach puberty to do the work that would be done by boys but this is in families where there are no sons.

A few years ago there was a daytime TV drama series on BBC which was actually (I thought) quite good called WPC56.  One of the subplots featured a secretly gay police officer (in the 1950s).  I read that Oscar Wilde's wife was turned away from a hotel in Switzerland after the scandal about OW broke.  I know she changed her surname or went back to her maiden name and changed that of her children.
The late John Gielgud was fined for some gay activity and there was a member of the aristocracy who went to prison, though he denied the charge, the 3rd Baron of Beaulieu.  There were rumours about a matinee idol, now dead, though I don't know for certain about him so won't mention any names though he did spend much of his time abroad from England which would make sense if he was gay.  It's said that Hollywood looks after its own though as was mentioned upthread being gay does not carry the same stigma as in former times.