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An Accidental Icon: How I dodged a bullet, spoke truth to power and lived to tell the tale
'Compelling' The Daily Mail
'So many gripping moments... a real cracker' The Evening Standard
The jaw-dropping and inspiring story of accidental queer icon Norman Scott (the hero of TV drama A Very English Scandal) and the part he played in one of the greatest political scandals of the 20th century.
In October 1975 an assassin tried to murder Norman Scott on Exmoor but the trigger failed and he only succeeded in shooting Scott's beloved dog, Rinka. Scott subsequently found himself at the centre of a major political scandal and became an unlikely queer icon. But this was never his intention...
He was born in 1940 into a poor, dysfunctional and abusive family. Aged sixteen he began an equestrian career, animals having been the one source of comfort in his childhood. By the age of twenty he had run into debts and had suffered a nervous breakdown.
In 1960 Scott began a sexual affair with Jeremy Thorpe. By the time of the attempted assassination of Scott, Thorpe was married, leader of the Liberal Party and a figure at the heart of the establishment. He was embarrassed by their former relationship and wanted to cover it up. But he failed. The assassination attempt culminated in a sensational trial in 1979, where Thorpe was tried for conspiracy to murder. The press labelled Scott a madman and the establishment protected Thorpe, who was acquitted. Only recently has Scott's version of events been vindicated.
An Accidental Icon tells a story that is inspiring and jaw droppingly it is the tale of the courage and survival of one man who took on the establishment
'So many gripping moments... a real cracker' The Evening Standard
The jaw-dropping and inspiring story of accidental queer icon Norman Scott (the hero of TV drama A Very English Scandal) and the part he played in one of the greatest political scandals of the 20th century.
In October 1975 an assassin tried to murder Norman Scott on Exmoor but the trigger failed and he only succeeded in shooting Scott's beloved dog, Rinka. Scott subsequently found himself at the centre of a major political scandal and became an unlikely queer icon. But this was never his intention...
He was born in 1940 into a poor, dysfunctional and abusive family. Aged sixteen he began an equestrian career, animals having been the one source of comfort in his childhood. By the age of twenty he had run into debts and had suffered a nervous breakdown.
In 1960 Scott began a sexual affair with Jeremy Thorpe. By the time of the attempted assassination of Scott, Thorpe was married, leader of the Liberal Party and a figure at the heart of the establishment. He was embarrassed by their former relationship and wanted to cover it up. But he failed. The assassination attempt culminated in a sensational trial in 1979, where Thorpe was tried for conspiracy to murder. The press labelled Scott a madman and the establishment protected Thorpe, who was acquitted. Only recently has Scott's version of events been vindicated.
An Accidental Icon tells a story that is inspiring and jaw droppingly it is the tale of the courage and survival of one man who took on the establishment
320 pages, Paperback
Published August 13, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 3, 2022
When Norman Scott's story was broadcast on TV, he expressed a dislike of the programme, stating that it made him into a "poor, mincing, little gay person." Later, A Very English Scandal was hailed as a critical triumph and achieved seven notable awards, including a Golden Globe. At the award ceremony, Ben Whishaw paid tribute to Norman Scott. At the opening of "An Accidental Icon," Scott does a complete about turn and applauds the programme. A bit of celebrity and the wind changes!
And the wind changes continuously in An Accidenal Icon . Scott starts by denying his homosexuality. He was a straight man preyed upon by Thorpe's unnatural desires. Then, Scott has a homosexual affair with Billy. The closet door revolves endlessly and finally spins at great speed as Scott falls from a homosexual affair into marriage, then destroys his marriage by returning to his male lover. The autobiography lurches unfortunately from one state to another and lacks reflection and introspection: an ability to make sense of it all. Things happen. People are "devastated" (as they invariably are in the media these days). People find themselves in "low spirits" and events happen to "lift people's spirits." Without psychological depth, the book becomes two dimensional and ignoble rather than heroic. Nabokov once remarked that pornography was the "copulation of cliches." And there is rather a lot of borderline porn in Scott's book -- such as the number of times that Thorpe penetrated him.
There are moments when Scott looks beyond the Thorpe Affair and here there are honest, sensitive, finely written episodes. His appreciation of the animal world is vividly related. More would have allowed Scott to become Scott rather than the victim of a political scandal -- a story that Preston's book, A Very English Scandal, tells much better!
This should have been a tragedy with a tragic flaw: the central character allows affection to run into sex without control and constantly destroys the good that he has created. As it is, An Accidental Icon is a melodrama shaped by regrettable decisions, which is in no way iconic. The chosen title suggests that Scott has become an "icon" of gay liberation. Really?
And the wind changes continuously in An Accidenal Icon . Scott starts by denying his homosexuality. He was a straight man preyed upon by Thorpe's unnatural desires. Then, Scott has a homosexual affair with Billy. The closet door revolves endlessly and finally spins at great speed as Scott falls from a homosexual affair into marriage, then destroys his marriage by returning to his male lover. The autobiography lurches unfortunately from one state to another and lacks reflection and introspection: an ability to make sense of it all. Things happen. People are "devastated" (as they invariably are in the media these days). People find themselves in "low spirits" and events happen to "lift people's spirits." Without psychological depth, the book becomes two dimensional and ignoble rather than heroic. Nabokov once remarked that pornography was the "copulation of cliches." And there is rather a lot of borderline porn in Scott's book -- such as the number of times that Thorpe penetrated him.
There are moments when Scott looks beyond the Thorpe Affair and here there are honest, sensitive, finely written episodes. His appreciation of the animal world is vividly related. More would have allowed Scott to become Scott rather than the victim of a political scandal -- a story that Preston's book, A Very English Scandal, tells much better!
This should have been a tragedy with a tragic flaw: the central character allows affection to run into sex without control and constantly destroys the good that he has created. As it is, An Accidental Icon is a melodrama shaped by regrettable decisions, which is in no way iconic. The chosen title suggests that Scott has become an "icon" of gay liberation. Really?
April 8, 2022
This is the book they didn’t want you to read. A book so dangerous that, to ensure it would never be written, its author was supposed to be shot, stabbed, dropped down a mineshaft, thrown from a helicopter to the alligators, or given a concrete overcoat. Just as a precaution, you understand.
That the author survived to write the book at all is little short of a miracle.
Norman Scott could so easily have been a character invented by Thomas Hardy – a Tess-like innocent destroyed by the malevolence of others – or even an Anna Sewell hero in the Black Beauty mould, passed from pillar to post by one uncaring person after another, humiliations and indignities heaped upon him as he clung to what passed for a life.
But instead he became, for a time, an equally fictional character invented jointly by the tabloid press, a Machiavellian bunch of conspirators, and an Old Bailey judge who should have known better.
Norman Scott, we were led to believe, was a liar, a sponger, a hypocrite and a blackmailer – and as if all that wasn’t bad enough, he was also gay, and unashamedly so.
That last fact alone was enough to disgust the vast majority of the British public who, seeing and hearing the man being vilified and pilloried on television, on radio and in the newspapers, afforded him a pariah-like status enjoyed by the likes of Hindley and Brady and, later, Osama Bin Laden.
But Norman Scott hadn’t murdered and tortured children, or planned the single most horrific act of terrorism in history.
The worst thing he’d ever done was drop his beloved pet tortoise, breaking its shell and injuring it fatally. Oh, and having a homosexual affair with Jeremy Thorpe.
And while all but the stoniest-hearted would forgive him for the former, the media and the world at large had no intention of forgiving him for the latter.
Jeremy Thorpe was the charismatic Member of Parliament for North Devon, a man tipped by many to be a future Prime Minister – a family man whose first wife had died in a car crash and whose second beamed beside him at all the right photo-ops.
What his adoring public didn’t know – and didn’t wish to know – was that Jeremy Thorpe was gay at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England.
While no-one would bat an eyelid at the thought of a gay MP or Prime Minister today, Jeremy Thorpe would have been utterly finished, politically and socially, if his secret had leaked out.
So he remained in the closet, flirting with danger and, seemingly, enjoying the thrill of seeing how far he could go without being discovered.
There was nothing wrong with that. It’s what most gay people in public life had to do, living a double life, never being sure who they could trust, and leaving themselves wide open to blackmail.
But any sympathy we might be tempted to give him retrospectively is outweighed by the fact that he was s sexual predator who seemed to view rape as a form of foreplay.
Norman Scott can vouch for that.
Young, naïve, and vulnerable, he was brutally raped by Jeremy Thorpe while the politician’s mother lay sleeping in the bedroom next door.
As shocked and traumatised as any rape victim would be, the excruciating pain he was left in would prove to be as nothing compared with the horrors ahead.
Norman had turned to the MP for help because an employer had refused to return his National Insurance cards – paperwork without which he couldn’t get a job, and couldn’t get benefits either.
Jeremy Thorpe, like any other constituency MP, could have solved Norman’s problem with a single letter or phone call, a task made even easier as he was a friend of the employer in question.
Instead, he led Norman to believe he was working behind the scenes to get his cards back while all the time using the ever-lengthening delay as an excuse to keep seeing Norman, a dashing young male model who epitomised the glamour of the Swinging Sixties.
He certainly kept his puppet on a string, aware that he was, literally, holding all the cards.
And when Norman turned in desperation to another Liberal MP, Jeremy Thorpe paid him a secret stipend equivalent to the benefits he was missing out on in the hope it would continue to buy his silence.
That sealed Norman Scott’s fate.
All he wanted was his National Insurance cards back so he could get a job and get on with his life, but he found himself being kept like Jeremy Thorpe’s mistress, picked up and dropped whenever it suited the politician.
Eventually, in utter frustration, Norman decided to play the only card he held: to out Jeremy Thorpe as the sexual predator and rapist that he was in the hope he’d finally get his cards back and be released from his permanent poverty-trap.
It didn’t go well.
His local police beat him up for being gay, and confiscated the love letters he’d kept from Jeremy Thorpe which were the only real proof of his allegations.
The stakes were upped when Jeremy Thorpe rose to become Leader of the Liberal Party and was, for a time, in with a serious chance of a seat in Cabinet or, with a favourable wind, becoming Prime Minister.
The only thing that could stop him, it seemed, was Norman Scott.
Those love letters had passed from police hands to the security services and hung in the background like a Sword of Damocles, while the revelation that he’d been secretly paying a gay lover would have left him in the gutter after a traditional outing by The News Of The World and the rest of the gutter press.
That’s when things started happening to Norman.
The brake-pipes were cut on his car. A helicopter landed in the field next to his home, two men jumped out, and began hammering on his door.
He was invited to a hotel interview by someone pretending to be a journalist, but sensibly chose not to go. And he began receiving death-threats, not just to himself but to his young son.
Events reached their dramatic peak when a fake journalist who claimed to be protecting Norman from a contract killer drove him to a lonely spot on Exmoor and stopped the car.
To Norman’s utter horror, the man shot Rinka, his beloved Great Dane, right in front of him. And even before the cold-blooded murder of his pet could begin to sink in, the man turned the gun on Norman and pulled the trigger.
The gun jammed, repeatedly, and the hitman, cursing, drove away leaving Norman sobbing over the body of his dog.
Nobody took him seriously. The police, still living in the Life On Mars era, even accused Norman of shooting Rinka himself to publicise what was eventually to become this book.
Then, in a flash of inspiration, Norman allowed himself to be prosecuted for a minor benefits fraud. He hadn’t committed it, but it gave him the chance to stand up in court and in public and say that Jeremy Thorpe was his secret lover.
For the first time in his life, Norman was in a position of power. And this time the media couldn’t get enough of it.
The hitman got a paltry two years for possessing a gun with intent to endanger life but, after his release, confessed to the press that he had indeed been hired to kill Norman.
The various murder methods the conspirators had discussed included concealing a chisel in a bunch of flowers and stabbing Norman if he’d gone to the ambush interview at the hotel; throwing him from a helicopter over the alligator-infested Everglades; dropping him down a disused mineshaft in Cornwall; and burying him at a cement works.
Meanwhile, Norman was being ostracised by his fellow villagers for being gay and speaking out against that nice Mr Thorpe.
He suffered homophobic abuse from Prosecution lawyers at the hitman’s trial, and pictures from his modelling days were doctored to make his eyes look evil.
The hitman’s revelations went round the world, and Jeremy Thorpe resigned as party leader, later to lose his Parliamentary seat, too.
He and three co-defendants were charged with conspiracy to murder and he was further charged with incitement to murder in what was billed, not unreasonably, as The Trial Of The Century.
Just before Norman was due to give evidence at the pre-trial committal hearing, his pet cats were poisoned and placed carefully on his doorstep as he was about to leave for court.
And when he finally gave evidence at the Old Bailey trial, Norman suffered the indignity of having to describe, in detail, how Jeremy Thorpe raped him – testimony he had to deliver in front of the world’s media, a packed courtroom, and his own mother.
Oh, how they laughed.
Rape victims, especially gay ones, had it even worse then than they do now, and roars of laughter and ribald comments echoed round the courtroom as every painful detail of the rape unfolded.
The courage it must have taken to relive those sordid moments under the glare of publicity and the real-time, disapproving glares of so many in that unsympathetic courtroom is almost incalculable.
And by the time the judge had delivered a summing-up so damning of Norman Scott that no-one n their right mind would have dared convict the defendants, he emerged, blinking, from the Old Bailey into an even more hostile world that seemed to have turned the vilification of Norman Scott into a national sport.
No-one today would have blamed him if he’d tottered to the pavement and thrown himself under the nearest London bus – and if he had, a number of people present would have openly celebrated.
So what was Norman to do?
After a Dickensian childhood of neglect, indifference and active hostility – his mother had actually asked a court, successfully, to take him into care for stealing a bale of hay that she could and should have paid for – Norman had developed mental health problems (fancy that!) and been institutionalised for a spell, leaving him ripe for exploitation and manipulation.
And following the trial, millions of people viewed him as a perpetrator rather than a victim and, even more shockingly, as someone who was not only homosexual but wanted the world to know it.
Like Quentin Crisp before him, Norman Scott had had the audacity to stand up in public and defend his sexuality, knowing he would be met with derision, disdain, and downright violence from those who thought gay-bashing was a victimless crime.
Rejected by the Catholic faith for his sexuality – a church whose own priests’ proclivities have since stunned the world – and considered at the time to be a threat to children by a society that thought paedophilia and homosexuality were synonymous and inseparable, Norman didn’t have much going for him.
It was, after all, a world and a country which had chemically castrated Alan Turing for being gay, neatly overlooking the fact that he and his work on cracking the Enigma code at Bletchley Park had shortened World War Two by at least two years and saved millions of lives.
But Norman Scott was never lacking in balls.
His refusal to closet his sexuality cost him friends, jobs and the peaceful existence he could so easily have had - and that, at the time, took more courage than most of us today can even imagine.
As the Press lost interest, Norman settled into a quiet life in rural Devon, still being himself but, gradually, winning the respect of those around him who realised that the Norman Scott they’d read and heard so much about was indeed a fictionalised character invented by the media and utterly unlike the quiet, decent, witty and erudite man whose love and knowledge of horses was winning him kudos in the worlds of dressage and showjumping.
The world, too, was changing, and Norman’s lived to see seismic shifts in public attitudes which resulted in the gay marriage we take for granted today and a tolerance of difference that means no-one would give a damn today if a politician were revealed to be gay.
Every dog has his day, as the saying goes, and Norman has not only outlived all of his persecutors and all of the conspirators but is well on the way to becoming a National Treasure.
This book, the very notion of which so nearly cost him his life so many times, is finally being published, by Hodder & Stoughton, no less, and Norman is about to embark on a round of media interviews, book signings and appearances at literary festivals.
The media, who would now be breaking the law if they treated him with the institutional homophobia they heaped upon him at the time of trial, are finally celebrating him, chequebooks out as they vie for the right to tell his story.
Norman’s conquest, it seems is complete.
It’s been a long time coming, and punctuated by the enduring agony of estrangement from his son who mistakenly believed Norman had betrayed him to The News Of The World (as if!) and spells in which, like Chris Gardner, the real-life hero of the film The Pursuit Of Happyness, he’d been reduced to living in public toilets.
And generations of gay people, too young to have experienced the outright hostility society reserved for their like in the Sixties and Seventies, are beginning to realise that they have a hero among them, a man who stood before what passed for his fellow humanity and told them, effectively: “I’m gay, so get used to it.”
Indeed, they have. And, to gay people everywhere and to the rest of us who remain ashamed of the way our society treated him, and them, Norman Scott really has become an icon.
An accidental one, as the title says, but an icon nevertheless whose time, finally, has come.
That the author survived to write the book at all is little short of a miracle.
Norman Scott could so easily have been a character invented by Thomas Hardy – a Tess-like innocent destroyed by the malevolence of others – or even an Anna Sewell hero in the Black Beauty mould, passed from pillar to post by one uncaring person after another, humiliations and indignities heaped upon him as he clung to what passed for a life.
But instead he became, for a time, an equally fictional character invented jointly by the tabloid press, a Machiavellian bunch of conspirators, and an Old Bailey judge who should have known better.
Norman Scott, we were led to believe, was a liar, a sponger, a hypocrite and a blackmailer – and as if all that wasn’t bad enough, he was also gay, and unashamedly so.
That last fact alone was enough to disgust the vast majority of the British public who, seeing and hearing the man being vilified and pilloried on television, on radio and in the newspapers, afforded him a pariah-like status enjoyed by the likes of Hindley and Brady and, later, Osama Bin Laden.
But Norman Scott hadn’t murdered and tortured children, or planned the single most horrific act of terrorism in history.
The worst thing he’d ever done was drop his beloved pet tortoise, breaking its shell and injuring it fatally. Oh, and having a homosexual affair with Jeremy Thorpe.
And while all but the stoniest-hearted would forgive him for the former, the media and the world at large had no intention of forgiving him for the latter.
Jeremy Thorpe was the charismatic Member of Parliament for North Devon, a man tipped by many to be a future Prime Minister – a family man whose first wife had died in a car crash and whose second beamed beside him at all the right photo-ops.
What his adoring public didn’t know – and didn’t wish to know – was that Jeremy Thorpe was gay at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England.
While no-one would bat an eyelid at the thought of a gay MP or Prime Minister today, Jeremy Thorpe would have been utterly finished, politically and socially, if his secret had leaked out.
So he remained in the closet, flirting with danger and, seemingly, enjoying the thrill of seeing how far he could go without being discovered.
There was nothing wrong with that. It’s what most gay people in public life had to do, living a double life, never being sure who they could trust, and leaving themselves wide open to blackmail.
But any sympathy we might be tempted to give him retrospectively is outweighed by the fact that he was s sexual predator who seemed to view rape as a form of foreplay.
Norman Scott can vouch for that.
Young, naïve, and vulnerable, he was brutally raped by Jeremy Thorpe while the politician’s mother lay sleeping in the bedroom next door.
As shocked and traumatised as any rape victim would be, the excruciating pain he was left in would prove to be as nothing compared with the horrors ahead.
Norman had turned to the MP for help because an employer had refused to return his National Insurance cards – paperwork without which he couldn’t get a job, and couldn’t get benefits either.
Jeremy Thorpe, like any other constituency MP, could have solved Norman’s problem with a single letter or phone call, a task made even easier as he was a friend of the employer in question.
Instead, he led Norman to believe he was working behind the scenes to get his cards back while all the time using the ever-lengthening delay as an excuse to keep seeing Norman, a dashing young male model who epitomised the glamour of the Swinging Sixties.
He certainly kept his puppet on a string, aware that he was, literally, holding all the cards.
And when Norman turned in desperation to another Liberal MP, Jeremy Thorpe paid him a secret stipend equivalent to the benefits he was missing out on in the hope it would continue to buy his silence.
That sealed Norman Scott’s fate.
All he wanted was his National Insurance cards back so he could get a job and get on with his life, but he found himself being kept like Jeremy Thorpe’s mistress, picked up and dropped whenever it suited the politician.
Eventually, in utter frustration, Norman decided to play the only card he held: to out Jeremy Thorpe as the sexual predator and rapist that he was in the hope he’d finally get his cards back and be released from his permanent poverty-trap.
It didn’t go well.
His local police beat him up for being gay, and confiscated the love letters he’d kept from Jeremy Thorpe which were the only real proof of his allegations.
The stakes were upped when Jeremy Thorpe rose to become Leader of the Liberal Party and was, for a time, in with a serious chance of a seat in Cabinet or, with a favourable wind, becoming Prime Minister.
The only thing that could stop him, it seemed, was Norman Scott.
Those love letters had passed from police hands to the security services and hung in the background like a Sword of Damocles, while the revelation that he’d been secretly paying a gay lover would have left him in the gutter after a traditional outing by The News Of The World and the rest of the gutter press.
That’s when things started happening to Norman.
The brake-pipes were cut on his car. A helicopter landed in the field next to his home, two men jumped out, and began hammering on his door.
He was invited to a hotel interview by someone pretending to be a journalist, but sensibly chose not to go. And he began receiving death-threats, not just to himself but to his young son.
Events reached their dramatic peak when a fake journalist who claimed to be protecting Norman from a contract killer drove him to a lonely spot on Exmoor and stopped the car.
To Norman’s utter horror, the man shot Rinka, his beloved Great Dane, right in front of him. And even before the cold-blooded murder of his pet could begin to sink in, the man turned the gun on Norman and pulled the trigger.
The gun jammed, repeatedly, and the hitman, cursing, drove away leaving Norman sobbing over the body of his dog.
Nobody took him seriously. The police, still living in the Life On Mars era, even accused Norman of shooting Rinka himself to publicise what was eventually to become this book.
Then, in a flash of inspiration, Norman allowed himself to be prosecuted for a minor benefits fraud. He hadn’t committed it, but it gave him the chance to stand up in court and in public and say that Jeremy Thorpe was his secret lover.
For the first time in his life, Norman was in a position of power. And this time the media couldn’t get enough of it.
The hitman got a paltry two years for possessing a gun with intent to endanger life but, after his release, confessed to the press that he had indeed been hired to kill Norman.
The various murder methods the conspirators had discussed included concealing a chisel in a bunch of flowers and stabbing Norman if he’d gone to the ambush interview at the hotel; throwing him from a helicopter over the alligator-infested Everglades; dropping him down a disused mineshaft in Cornwall; and burying him at a cement works.
Meanwhile, Norman was being ostracised by his fellow villagers for being gay and speaking out against that nice Mr Thorpe.
He suffered homophobic abuse from Prosecution lawyers at the hitman’s trial, and pictures from his modelling days were doctored to make his eyes look evil.
The hitman’s revelations went round the world, and Jeremy Thorpe resigned as party leader, later to lose his Parliamentary seat, too.
He and three co-defendants were charged with conspiracy to murder and he was further charged with incitement to murder in what was billed, not unreasonably, as The Trial Of The Century.
Just before Norman was due to give evidence at the pre-trial committal hearing, his pet cats were poisoned and placed carefully on his doorstep as he was about to leave for court.
And when he finally gave evidence at the Old Bailey trial, Norman suffered the indignity of having to describe, in detail, how Jeremy Thorpe raped him – testimony he had to deliver in front of the world’s media, a packed courtroom, and his own mother.
Oh, how they laughed.
Rape victims, especially gay ones, had it even worse then than they do now, and roars of laughter and ribald comments echoed round the courtroom as every painful detail of the rape unfolded.
The courage it must have taken to relive those sordid moments under the glare of publicity and the real-time, disapproving glares of so many in that unsympathetic courtroom is almost incalculable.
And by the time the judge had delivered a summing-up so damning of Norman Scott that no-one n their right mind would have dared convict the defendants, he emerged, blinking, from the Old Bailey into an even more hostile world that seemed to have turned the vilification of Norman Scott into a national sport.
No-one today would have blamed him if he’d tottered to the pavement and thrown himself under the nearest London bus – and if he had, a number of people present would have openly celebrated.
So what was Norman to do?
After a Dickensian childhood of neglect, indifference and active hostility – his mother had actually asked a court, successfully, to take him into care for stealing a bale of hay that she could and should have paid for – Norman had developed mental health problems (fancy that!) and been institutionalised for a spell, leaving him ripe for exploitation and manipulation.
And following the trial, millions of people viewed him as a perpetrator rather than a victim and, even more shockingly, as someone who was not only homosexual but wanted the world to know it.
Like Quentin Crisp before him, Norman Scott had had the audacity to stand up in public and defend his sexuality, knowing he would be met with derision, disdain, and downright violence from those who thought gay-bashing was a victimless crime.
Rejected by the Catholic faith for his sexuality – a church whose own priests’ proclivities have since stunned the world – and considered at the time to be a threat to children by a society that thought paedophilia and homosexuality were synonymous and inseparable, Norman didn’t have much going for him.
It was, after all, a world and a country which had chemically castrated Alan Turing for being gay, neatly overlooking the fact that he and his work on cracking the Enigma code at Bletchley Park had shortened World War Two by at least two years and saved millions of lives.
But Norman Scott was never lacking in balls.
His refusal to closet his sexuality cost him friends, jobs and the peaceful existence he could so easily have had - and that, at the time, took more courage than most of us today can even imagine.
As the Press lost interest, Norman settled into a quiet life in rural Devon, still being himself but, gradually, winning the respect of those around him who realised that the Norman Scott they’d read and heard so much about was indeed a fictionalised character invented by the media and utterly unlike the quiet, decent, witty and erudite man whose love and knowledge of horses was winning him kudos in the worlds of dressage and showjumping.
The world, too, was changing, and Norman’s lived to see seismic shifts in public attitudes which resulted in the gay marriage we take for granted today and a tolerance of difference that means no-one would give a damn today if a politician were revealed to be gay.
Every dog has his day, as the saying goes, and Norman has not only outlived all of his persecutors and all of the conspirators but is well on the way to becoming a National Treasure.
This book, the very notion of which so nearly cost him his life so many times, is finally being published, by Hodder & Stoughton, no less, and Norman is about to embark on a round of media interviews, book signings and appearances at literary festivals.
The media, who would now be breaking the law if they treated him with the institutional homophobia they heaped upon him at the time of trial, are finally celebrating him, chequebooks out as they vie for the right to tell his story.
Norman’s conquest, it seems is complete.
It’s been a long time coming, and punctuated by the enduring agony of estrangement from his son who mistakenly believed Norman had betrayed him to The News Of The World (as if!) and spells in which, like Chris Gardner, the real-life hero of the film The Pursuit Of Happyness, he’d been reduced to living in public toilets.
And generations of gay people, too young to have experienced the outright hostility society reserved for their like in the Sixties and Seventies, are beginning to realise that they have a hero among them, a man who stood before what passed for his fellow humanity and told them, effectively: “I’m gay, so get used to it.”
Indeed, they have. And, to gay people everywhere and to the rest of us who remain ashamed of the way our society treated him, and them, Norman Scott really has become an icon.
An accidental one, as the title says, but an icon nevertheless whose time, finally, has come.
April 16, 2023
Absolutely astounding; the best book I’ve read this year. If you watched A Very English Scandal on BBC then this is the book to read; if you have a passing interest in politics, scandals or the 1960s then you need to read this book. The shocking tale of political power trying to silence the truth is an absolute must read.
July 14, 2022
I don't think there was enough about the missing National Insurance cards.
May 20, 2022
Really good but...
This is a good book and its really well narrated but jeezey peeps Norman Scott must have been the greenest, naivest. closeted person on the planet. I cant help thinking he took a loan of people too. I agree with other reviewers that the Rinka affair was terrible and Mr Thorpe should have been held accountable but surely a NI card could have been replaced quite easily and he could have walked away from the sexual abuse at any time....rather than stay because he had no where to go. no money ect.
Through out the book he references his mental ill health and sometimes uses it as an excuse for his behaviour which again makes me think he liked the easy life - he stayed with a doctor and his family who got him on the right road but he went back to JT after a suicide attempt .....he also stayed with other people for free..
I don't think he had an easy childhood and it probably did affect his relationships as an adult but change must come from within rather than let it drag you down.
So to sum up NS liked JT when he mothered him but not the sexual side of it. After the first rape at JTs mothers house he couldn't leave because he would have to walk back to London and he didn't have anywhere to go - even though homosexuality was illegal at the time he could have went to the police/doctor/hospital.
He couldn't work because he didn't have a NI card which he could get but may lack some stamps. The medication he took was responsible for some of his decisions that he made.
NS has written a decent book and I'm genuinely sorry he didn't get a fair trial/the right outcome but he could have helped himself more or grew a backbone.....less of the poor me's.
There's nothing for nothing in this world.
This is a good book and its really well narrated but jeezey peeps Norman Scott must have been the greenest, naivest. closeted person on the planet. I cant help thinking he took a loan of people too. I agree with other reviewers that the Rinka affair was terrible and Mr Thorpe should have been held accountable but surely a NI card could have been replaced quite easily and he could have walked away from the sexual abuse at any time....rather than stay because he had no where to go. no money ect.
Through out the book he references his mental ill health and sometimes uses it as an excuse for his behaviour which again makes me think he liked the easy life - he stayed with a doctor and his family who got him on the right road but he went back to JT after a suicide attempt .....he also stayed with other people for free..
I don't think he had an easy childhood and it probably did affect his relationships as an adult but change must come from within rather than let it drag you down.
So to sum up NS liked JT when he mothered him but not the sexual side of it. After the first rape at JTs mothers house he couldn't leave because he would have to walk back to London and he didn't have anywhere to go - even though homosexuality was illegal at the time he could have went to the police/doctor/hospital.
He couldn't work because he didn't have a NI card which he could get but may lack some stamps. The medication he took was responsible for some of his decisions that he made.
NS has written a decent book and I'm genuinely sorry he didn't get a fair trial/the right outcome but he could have helped himself more or grew a backbone.....less of the poor me's.
There's nothing for nothing in this world.
April 20, 2024
A very interesting autobiography. Norman Scott had a harsh childhood, and at 19 suffered anal rape by Jeremy Thorpe, liberal party leader, who turns out to be an exceptionally nasty grasping politician, albeit frequently turning an easy charm. Norman is more or less "kept" by Jeremy for some time, who uses him for sex on a regular basis. Norman is (amazingly) quite adamant about regarding Jeremy without malice.
As a teenager age 14, while looking after horses on an allotment, an unfortunate accusation of theft by a guy who lent him a saddle casts him into depression, and into a kind of limbo. This is made more abrasive as his mother, who could pay for the goods and defuse the situation, refuses to help.
The story is allayed by the fact that Norman has a tremendous rapport and understanding with horses (and animals generally), and this companionship relieves his desperation. He develops into a prize winning equestrian. His likeability endears him to a number of people, some of who employ him or take him in to do stable duties, including training their horses. These generous acts fairly often seem to end in alienation.
The conclusion - I won't give spoilers - just reinforces ones contempt (fear and loathing if you like) for the psychotic expression of entitled authority - Norman, as it turns out, narrowly avoids a premature end as the subject of this kind of malice.
As a teenager age 14, while looking after horses on an allotment, an unfortunate accusation of theft by a guy who lent him a saddle casts him into depression, and into a kind of limbo. This is made more abrasive as his mother, who could pay for the goods and defuse the situation, refuses to help.
The story is allayed by the fact that Norman has a tremendous rapport and understanding with horses (and animals generally), and this companionship relieves his desperation. He develops into a prize winning equestrian. His likeability endears him to a number of people, some of who employ him or take him in to do stable duties, including training their horses. These generous acts fairly often seem to end in alienation.
The conclusion - I won't give spoilers - just reinforces ones contempt (fear and loathing if you like) for the psychotic expression of entitled authority - Norman, as it turns out, narrowly avoids a premature end as the subject of this kind of malice.
May 17, 2022
What a poignant story of the journey of a sweet, gullible and beautiful young Engishman from a rather lost boy to a calm, capable and settled man. As a young man he was betrayed and again until he fell under what appeared to the kindly protecting of Liberal party leader Jeremy Thorpe who sexually abused him, dropped him, took him up again and eventually, as homosexuality was then a crime with a prison sentence in England, tried to have him murdered to silence him. This horror was disbelieved by the jury who acquitted Thorpe, a scandal that filled the UK newspapers for months. Norman Scott quietly retreated with friends and his beloved horses to a thatched farmhouse in Devon where he continued to build a good life. Now in his early 80s, he is surrounded by people who love him. Thorpe lost all political power and died early. This fantastical story was told in the book and television series A VERY BRITISH SCANDAL. Mr. Scott now tells it himself and it is quite wonderful in that the gentle lost young man finds, in his older years, that he had made a happy life and given happiness to many others. The best kind of story!
November 23, 2025
The story the establishment spent decades trying to hush, but Norman Scott refused to be silenced.
This is a compelling, passionate account of one man's first-hand experience of corruption from the highest level of government in order to protect one of their own.
An Accidental Icon is a compelling, sharply honest account of a life unexpectedly thrust into the public eye. Scott’s voice is warm, witty, and unfiltered, guiding the reader through decades of chaos, injustice, resilience, and eventual triumph. His storytelling is deeply human and surprisingly humorous, making even the darkest chapters feel grounded in hope.
This must read memoir revisits a notorious high profile scandal involving Jeremy Thorpe- the would be next Prime Minister, providing the opportunity to restore the dignity and complexity of the man forced into the centre of it. A powerful, courageous, and unforgettable read.
This is a compelling, passionate account of one man's first-hand experience of corruption from the highest level of government in order to protect one of their own.
An Accidental Icon is a compelling, sharply honest account of a life unexpectedly thrust into the public eye. Scott’s voice is warm, witty, and unfiltered, guiding the reader through decades of chaos, injustice, resilience, and eventual triumph. His storytelling is deeply human and surprisingly humorous, making even the darkest chapters feel grounded in hope.
This must read memoir revisits a notorious high profile scandal involving Jeremy Thorpe- the would be next Prime Minister, providing the opportunity to restore the dignity and complexity of the man forced into the centre of it. A powerful, courageous, and unforgettable read.
April 24, 2022
At the time of the court case if you'd asked the average Briton to name a famous homosexual, most would have replied either Oscar Wilde (who had been deceased for some time) or Norman Scott. Fascinating to look back to this era which now seems like a different world. Very well written piece of work. Excellent.
April 13, 2022
Astounding!
Having watched the 2018 mini-series with Hugh Grant and read the book it was based on, I was eager to read Norman Scott’s telling of the Jeremy Thorpe Scandal tale. Absolutely enthralling. So glad Norman has at last found peace.
Having watched the 2018 mini-series with Hugh Grant and read the book it was based on, I was eager to read Norman Scott’s telling of the Jeremy Thorpe Scandal tale. Absolutely enthralling. So glad Norman has at last found peace.
July 17, 2022
A difficult read.
I was sceptical at first about this book however the more I read the more it became a page turner. Totally credible and an excellent snapshot on the deferential attitude of the Police towards the establishment through the 60s,70s and 80s.
I was sceptical at first about this book however the more I read the more it became a page turner. Totally credible and an excellent snapshot on the deferential attitude of the Police towards the establishment through the 60s,70s and 80s.
April 18, 2022
A really fascinating account of an extraordinary life.
July 14, 2022
This man deserves the world and justice!
February 27, 2026
Not many words for this. except atrocious and definitely wasted my time in reading.
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