Web
Page No 2580
11th
May 2019
Prince Monolulu
1st
Picture. Prince Monolulu cigarette card
2nd
Picture. In later life
3rd Picture. Even a pub named after him!
4th Picture. A good whist hand
Betting
My family were never into
betting, in fact I don’t think my father ever entered a betting shop, if it
comes to that neither have I. The nearest my family came to betting was that
two afternoons a week my mother and grandmother would march off to the scout
hut or the Drayton Institute to play whist.
All this and we lived
next door to a Bookmaker.
The one racing memory I
have is hearing about and seeing Prince Monolulu, the racing tipster. at race
courses on the television. He became quite a cult figure, although his life
story was very different from the tales he told.
He
claimed to be a chief of the Falasha tribe
of Abyssinia,
but the reality is that he was born on 26th October 1881 in St Croix, Danish
West Indies (now part of the United States Virgin Islands).
His baptism (as Peter Carl McKay) has been traced in the records of the English
Episcopal Church of the Danish West Indies. His father, whose name is not shown
in the register, was William Henry McKay and his mother was Catherine
Heyliger. His father and brothers were horse breeders, raisers and racers
on St Croix.
According
to his own account, he made his way from his birthplace to the African coast,
where he was shanghaied on
board a British ship: he styled himself as a prince in the hope of receiving
better treatment. His ship was subsequently shipwrecked on the Portuguese coast,
from where he made his way to New York.
More plausibly he travelled to New York via Puerto Rico.
He had various jobs, on shore and at sea, and eventually reached London in
1902.
He
first went to The Derby in
1903, and soon began to establish himself as a tipster.
He adopted colourful robes, a plumed headdress, and the slogan "I've gotta
horse!", sometimes alternating with "Black man for luck!". However,
he also continued to travel around Britain, and around Europe, for example
visiting Saint
Petersburg with an American "negro show". He
was in Königsberg when World War I broke
out, and was held in Ruhleben internment camp,
near Berlin, for the duration of the war. He returned to London in 1919. He
rose to prominence after picking out the horse Spion Kop in the 1920 Derby,
which came in at the long odds of 100–6, and from which he personally made
some £8,000,
a vast amount of money at the time.
However
there is much doubt about his personal life. Monolulu claimed to have been
married six times, though only five marriages are documented and reliable
evidence exists for only three. He claimed to have been married first in
a Jewish ceremony
in Moscow in
1902, to a girl who was afterwards taken away by the police; and second in
a Catholic ceremony
in 1903 to a German girl who was killed in a car accident. More certain were
his marriages to another German, Elizabeth Arnold, who accompanied him to
England and whom he married in 1908, but who died in 1911; to Rhoda Carley in
1922, the marriage being dissolved in 1929; and finally to Nellie Adkins in
1931, a marriage which also broke down. In the 1950s he was romantically linked
to an Austrian governess in London.
His
death was a bizarre as his life A friend, Jeffrey Bernard, a
horse-racing journalist visited Monolulu in the Middlesex
Hospital to interview him. Jeffrey Bernard had brought
with him a box of Black Magic chocolates
and offered Monolulu a 'strawberry cream', which he accepted and subsequently
choked to death on it this was on Valentine’s Day 1965.
Prince
Monolulu frequently featured in newsreel broadcasts,
and as a consequence was probably the best-known black man in Britain of the
time. He appeared in a clip in the 1939 propaganda film by Alexander
Korda, The Lion has Wings,
Korda used him as an example of what Britain was, a nation at play and at ease
with himself. He also appeared briefly in the 1952 film Derby Day, which is set
around The Derby,
the 1954 film Aunt Clara with Margaret
Rutherford and Sid James,
and also in the 1959 film Make Mine
a Million.
In
March 1957 he appeared on the You Bet Your Life TV
quiz show, hosted by Groucho Marx.
Even in the 1974 pilot show for Rising
Damp Rigsby compares his new tenant, Philip, to the Prince as he had stated
he was the son of a chief.
Peter
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News and Views:
On this day 11h
May 1960-1965
On 11/05/1960 the number one single was Cathy's Clown - Everly Brothers and the number one
album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show
was Wagon Train (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division
1 champions
On 11/05/1961 the number one single was Blue Moon - The Marcels and the number one
album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Bootsie &
Snudge (Granada )
and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's
money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the
Season's Division 1 champions.
On 11/05/1962 the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows and the number one
album was Blue Hawaii - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office
smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's
money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich
Town were on the way to
becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 11/05/1963 the number one single was From Me To You - The Beatles and the number one
album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Liberal
Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was The Great
Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way
to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 11/05/1964 the number one single was Don't
Throw Your Love Away - Searchers and the number one album was Rolling Stones -
The Rolling Stones. The top rated TV show was Conservative Party Political
Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's
money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on
the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 11/05/1965 the number one single was King of the Road - Roger Miller and the number one
album was Beatles For Sale - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street
and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was
worth £11.69 and Manchester
United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
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