‍“When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten, and the last stream poisoned, you will realise that you cannot eat money,” American Indian prophecy.

‍WHEN Chief Sitting Bull was asked the names of his three wives, by a reporter, he didn’t know. So, he opened the flap of his tent, stuck his head out and asked the squaw standing on duty outside. Then he answered: “Was Seen By The Nation is the name of the old one. The One That Had Four Robes is the name of the young one. The other one died.”

‍This is just one of many fascinating quotes from the Press interviews with the legendary American Indian chief a few years after he defeated General George Custer at Little Bighorn in 1876.

‍The stories, which appeared in newspapers across America and The Times in London, among others, give a wonderful insight into Sitting Bull the man.

‍One of the first interviews was with reporter Stanley Huntley of the Chicago Daily Tribune in June 1879.

‍Stanley tracked the tribal chief across the border to his tent in the Milk River area of Wood Mountain, in the North-West Territories, under the rule of the British, 60 miles north of the Missouri River and in the heart of buffalo country. The Hunkapapa Sioux Chief fled there refusing to surrender.

‍Victoria was on the throne. He admired Victoria, ‘the White Queen’, calling her mother of the Sioux, although he never met her of course but he wanted to live under the British in Canada, not the Americans, he said. They were liars. Long Hair (Custer) goaded him to fight even though he had only wanted peace. The British treated Indians better and with respect.

‍He was tired of war, tired of blood. Sioux children were hungry. They had to eat. They needed the buffalo. The Great Spirit was on his side and sent him lightning to win the battle of Little Bighorn. It struck down the soldiers in their saddles.

‍Stanley wrote: “He is naturally suspicious of white men. But he agreed to see me. His army here stretches away to the west and is moving — a procession of splendour in a line a mile wide, for three miles, made up of all the colourful paraphernalia that delights the savage.

‍“His eyes are wide, black, and piercing. The upper lids are heavy, and the outer corners hang over the eyes as if his brain had escaped into them. His shoulders and chest are broad and strong, his arms muscular, and his hands awfully dirty. He is dressed in blue leggings, beaded moccasins and a shirt made of the same material. It is scorching hot.”

‍Sitting Bull, sitting in a ring of his chiefs in the teepee, told him: “Your people said they would give us the Black Hills. They said our children should have it and it should be our hunting ground. But as soon as they found the shining dust there, they sent Long Hair!

‍“If more soldiers come, we have old women whom we have thrown aside who live in teepees here; I will place them on horses, and they will whip all the long knives your people can send. Long Hair’s people couldn’t ride a horse or shoot a gun. (There was a fierce grunt of assent all around the ring.) They fired at us from their saddles and missed.”

‍Sitting Bull, who killed his first man at 14 to become a man in his father’s eyes, filled his twisted Sioux stem pipe over two foot long with a plant mixture and Stanley lit a match, leant over and lit it for him as the chief went on to talk about the battle at Little |Bighorn.

‍In other interviews it was clear that Sitting Bull paid close attention to his appearance. One reporter said: “Sitting Bull was squatting on a blanket

‍his feet curled under him. He simply said: ‘How!’

‍“We shook hands. Before him was a small hand mirror; a big one hair-corib (pony tail) and a number of rawhide cords. He began combing his hair, continually stopping to gaze at himself in the glass. His black hair reaches to his waist and he divides it in the middle and braids t on each side very tightly.

‍“After this has been done the rawhide cords were bound tightly about the braids, the ends suspending down each side of the idle warrior’s chest. Only after Sitting Bull finished his toilet were we allowed to speak.”

‍Sitting Bull, who had nine children, wore goggles to protect himself from the sparks of his fires and snow blindness. At a Sun Dance in June 1876, we learn that he ceremonially cut pieces of flesh from his arms and fell into a trance, seeing soldiers falling into his camp “like grasshoppers,” which he interpreted as a sign of an impending victory over Custer.

‍The Indian chief died on December 15, 1890, aged 59, when Indian Agency officials and troops arrived to arrest him on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in South Dakota because they feared he would lead a rebel movement called Ghost Dance.

‍American and British newspapers reported that officers dragged him from his sleep at gunpoint and abused him while trying to dress him. A crowd gathered outside his cabin, awakened by the cries of his two wives.

‍His favourite son, Crow Foot,14, goaded him, saying: ‘They’re making a fool of you!’ So, Sitting Bull defied his captors. “I will not go!” he yelled and then shouted: “Attack! Attack!”

‍Guns went off everywhere and 13 people were killed. Sitting Bull was shot in the chest as Red Tomahawk, working with the authorities, discharged his pistol into his head. He died instantly. His son was bludgeoned to death. It was all over in less than a minute.

‍A touch of the macabre. It was reported that Sitting Bull’s old grey circus horse Rico, interpreted the guns going off as a signal to perform his usual tricks … and went through his act as the killing went on.

‍Contrary to legend, Custer was not scalped. He was disembowelled.

‍

‍PRESS AT WAR ON THE TEDDY BOYS

‍WHO ROCKED BRITAIN’S STREETS

‍THE WEAPONS of choice were bicycle chains, flick knives, cut-throat razors and knuckle dusters. They wore long (drape) jackets with velvet collars, boot-lace ties, skintight jeans (drainpipes) and their shoes were brothel creepers. They were the Teddy Boys (above), and the Daily Express wanted them off our streets.

‍They formed gangs all over London and fights between them were common. The Elephant and Castle mob would fight with Deptford who in turn would fight with Rotherhithe, and they would take on Bermondsey.

‍They were working class lads mostly from the council estates, post war prefabs, and Peabody and Guinness Trust housing who had more disposable income than their fathers and didn’t want to look like them

‍As their clothes were mostly styled on the Edwardian age, the Express was the first newspaper to nickname them Teddy Boys in headlines, Ted being short for Edward.

‍The first ‘Rock ’n’ Roll Riot’ occurred outside the Astoria cinema in the Old Kent Road. The Teds had been to see the film Blackboard Jungle, starring Glenn Ford and Sidney Poitier.

‍Although having nothing to do with the story, the record Rock Around The Clock by Bill Haley and His Comets was played over the credits at the beginning and end of the movie.

‍Inspired by the music, over 100 Teds left the cinema, singing the song and dancing in the Old Kent Road stopping the traffic. Fights broke out with drivers. The Express, The Mirror and The Sketch got hold of the story and the ‘rock ’n’ roll riot’ was born in headlines.

‍Their first Teddy Boy record was The Creep, by Kenny MacIntosh, a sort of creepy number with a back beat of a slow funereal shuffle which they did in their brothel creepers on the dance floor.

‍In 1956, a cheap ‘knock-off’ movie entitled Rock Around Clock featuring Haley and his band; The Platters; Freddy Bell & the Bellboys and others was released, and rock came to the cinema circuit. The Teds became a cult across the country and the battles raged on.

‍Raw in the public mind was the case of Teddy Boy Derek Bentley,18, who had a mental age of eight. He was hanged for shooting a policeman in Croydon, but it was his mate, Christopher Craig who fired the gun. At 16, Craig was too young to hang. Bentley who was wearing a drape suit, was later pardoned posthumously.

‍Tabloids campaigned against the scourge on our streets, and with an election coming, the Tory Government banned flicked knives and appeased their American horror comics like ‘Tales from the Crypt’.

‍As time went on the Teddy Boys faded and mohair suits and winkle picker shoes arrived … soon to be replaced again by the Mod Generation and their scooters. And so, the story goes on …

‍

‍THE NIGHT A DAZZLING STAR

‍STOLE THE HEART OF THE KING

‍THRILLING: Boo Laye

‍The curtain went up. Into the spotlight stepped a devastatingly beautiful 19-year-old girl with a halo of blonde hair and enormous eyes of the deepest sapphire blue.

‍In a voice of thrilling clarity, she sang The Guards’ Brigade. And marching across the footlights, swinging a mace, she led a chorus of real-life Guardsmen onto the stage.

‍These were the words of theatre critic Michael Thornton, leading into his story of the woman who captured the heart of the future King of England.

‍Thornton, a former Sunday Express critic, was writing in his new home the Daily Mail about the flame he believed burned deep in the heart of King George VI, (Bertie) all his life for actress Evelyn ‘Boo’ Laye.

‍In the spring of 1920, Bertie, then Prince of Wales, was in the royal box at the London Palladium watching a performance of the musical comedy The Shop Girl. That night he became bewitched by its golden-haired, golden-voiced star, Boo Laye.

‍In the interval he sent people out on the night streets to find flowers, an almost impossible task. But after the show he appeared at the door of Boo’s dressing room clutching an enormous bouquet. From that moment on their lifelong friendship was sealed, Michael said.

‍The young Prince returned repeatedly to the theatre to see his new idol perform. His mother, Queen Mary, fearing a scandal, was disturbed to learn that he was already addressing Laye as ‘Boo’, the pet name used by her family, friends and fans.

‍Noel Coward, who knew the Prince and Boo Laye over many years, told Michael: “He worshipped her as if she was some sort of goddess. It was very, very peculiar. But you try to get her to talk about him. She won’t.”

‍Did they have an affair? The whole thing seems to have been airbrushed from the history books, said Michael.

‍“Years later, all Boo would say was: ‘the young Prince was an absolute darling, so gentle and sweet’.”

‍Michael added: “In the words of the Dowager Lady Hardinge of Penshurst, widow of Bertie’s private secretary and an intimate friend of the Queen Mother ‘the King was rather more than a little in love with Evelyn Laye’.”

‍Michael also reported that the Queen Mother was aware of her husband’s affection for Boo. She found it rather touching and trusted absolutely in Boo’s discretion.’

‍Boo would not discuss the matter right up until her death in 1996. She forbade any mention of it in her ghostwritten autobiography, Boo, To My Friends, published in 1958, which contained only one reference to the King.

‍Even marriage to Elizabeth Bowes Lyon did not put an end to Bertie’s idolatry of Boo. In their first year of married life, the new Duke and Duchess of York saw Boo in two West End productions, The Merry Widow and Madame Pompadour.

‍Bertie’s wife had ‘an amused acceptance’ of her husband’s worship of the actress. Whenever Boo walked onto a stage, she would tease him by saying: “Bertie, here comes your girlfriend!”

‍It was Boo, seeing how much Bertie dreaded public speaking, who recommended the services of the London-based Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue.

‍And later, in the utmost secrecy, she tried to cure his stammer. She would invite him, incognito, to a West End rehearsal studio where she would give him deep breathing exercises, after which they would both sing his favourite Boo songs, including I’ll See You Again and Love is A Song (But Two Must Sing It).

‍Bertie, King George VI, died peacefully in his sleep on February 6, 1952, aged 56. On the day of the funeral, Boo was appearing in Timaru, on New Zealand’s South Island.

‍She stood at her hotel window as the guns boomed out the two-minute silence being observed throughout the Commonwealth. Her second husband later told Michael: “She broke down and wept as I had never seen her weep before or since.”

‍True love never goes away.

‍Boo died, aged 95, in February 1996.

‍

‍TERRY MANNERS

‍

‍26 May 2025