Upon his return from the USA in 1945, the future 7th Earl suffered from emotional problems which caused his parents to seek professional help from a leading psychiatrist of the day — a Dr. Winnicott. As a result of the consultations the eleven year old had with him, a dog called Deirdre was given to him in the hope that it might help him overcome these problems.

The 7th Earl of Lucan’s emotional problems were never fully resolved and he continued to suffer frequent headaches, nightmares and insomnia throughout our life together.

Prior to our marriage, he explained to me the difference between the games of skill (poker, backgammon and bridge) at which he intended to make a living as opposed to the games of chance (roulette, blackjack, chemin de fer and baccarat) which were he said for mug punters and not professional gamblers. His gambling mentor was Stephen Raphael - a London stockbroker.

At the time of our marriage on November 28th 1963 (we had met the previous March) my 6’ 2” future husband was playing in a poker school at the Hamilton Club just off Park Lane, most evenings. I barely knew of the existence of the Clermont Club or John Aspinall.

I had no idea that within a year or so of our marriage, the Clermont Club was to feature so large in our lives and that although he would be playing the highly skilled game of backgammon in the afternoons and early evenings, he was to break his dictum and play the games of chance later on into the early hours, usually chemin de fer, sometimes blackjack.

I sat away from my late husband when he played so that I might come and go without this being obvious to him and so that he would never associate me with either winning or losing. I always sat in the same gaming room with him and I have never known of a so-called ‘widows’ bench’.

There were only three other wives apart from myself who came to the Clermont Club and they came fairly seldom. They were Stephen Raphael’s wife and Joe Dwek’s wife who were both American and Mrs Susan Maxwell-Scott. The other women were either unmarried, separated or divorced.

The 7th Earl’s fellow members were mainly rather dissolute and rarely patrician. He used to say of the Clermont Club that he added ‘tone’ to what would have been a very vulgar proceeding without him.

I do not think my late husband really believed I had a mental illness. He pretended this merely to give more grist to his mill in the fight to enable him to gain custody of our children after I had caused a solicitor to write to him.

In 1973, it was more difficult than it is today for a father to gain custody of his children and it would seem that my late husband was ill advised to embark upon such an uncertain and expensive undertaking as a custody battle. His petition was not helped by members of his family who wrote affidavits giving their opinion of me and my capabilities as a mother.

The 7th Earl was never a house player although he sometimes played with half his own money and half someone else’s hence he was also known by the soubriquet ‘Blue Lucan’.

On the night of 7th November 1974, I was wearing a green dress, brown polo necked sweater and flat shoes. Mrs Rivett was fully clothed and wearing high heels. She was solely my employee.

On entering the Plumbers Arms, I cried out, “Help me, help me, help me, I’ve just escaped being murdered. He’s in the house. He’s murdered my nanny”.

He could not possibly have heard me shouting “Murder, Murder” in the street as he was still upstairs at the time I left the house and I did not waste any breath calling anything but saved it all for the run to the Plumber’s Arms. He told this to Mrs Maxwell-Scott in order to explain his hasty exit from the house and departure from London.

He had already confessed to me that he had killed Mrs Rivett when I questioned him. I had offered to help him conceal her body.

My late husband did not cry on my shoulder or break down and weep during our conversation sitting on the stairs following the murder of Mrs Rivett. Later, he hustled me upstairs to my bedroom on the second floor.

Together we looked at my injuries in the ensuite bathroom mirror. I then lay down on the bed in the bedroom whilst he went back to the bathroom to get a cloth to clean up my face. I heard the noise of a tap running and realised that he would not be able to hear properly and so seized my opportunity to escape.

As I entered the Plumber’s Arms, I could not have shouted as my throat was far too sore as he had thrust three gloved fingers down my throat after I had screamed following his attack on me. This single scream was heard by my daughter Frances who thought a cat had scratched me.

He told his mother on the telephone about ‘blood and mess’ and had also advised me not to look. By so saying, he admitted seeing the state of the basement, probably by switching on the light above the breakfast room table. At the same time, he must have discovered that he had murdered the wrong woman. The light above the breakfast room table would have illuminated the horrific scene previously in darkness.

Greville Howard, one of his few patrician friends to whom he had lent the mews cottage in Eaton Row, went to police shortly after the murder of Mrs Rivett and told them of a conversation he had with my late husband during which he discussed killing me and dropping my body in the Solent in order to solve his financial problems and avoid bankruptcy.

The 7th Earl is also said to have discussed killing me with John Aspinall’s mother, Lady Osborne.

The timelag from leaving Mrs Maxwell-Scott’s house in Uckfield at approximately 1.15 am and arriving before 8 am at Norman Road, Newhaven could be explained as he had taken four valium tablets which Mrs Maxwell-Scott had given him. He would have parked the car, he knew the area well and had a nap. When he woke up, his resolve must have hardened and he wrote his last letter to Michael Stoop.

He described himself in the past tense as “destroyed”. “The fact that a crooked solicitor and a rotten psychiatrist destroyed me between them will be of no importance to the children”. He also wrote “when you come across my children which I hope you will please tell them that you knew me and that all I cared about was them”. This would appear to be rather final - he did not anticipate seeing his children or Michael Stoop again.

By the 8th November 1974, the 7th Earl of Lucan was a dead loss. He faced a certain prison sentence, long term unemployment and social disgrace. However, the gods decided to smile on him at long last and the luck that so eluded him in life came to him in death.

Click here for a view of personal photographs of Lord and Lady Lucan