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ous Britishjorderir_1g of concern
reaches its‘ apotheosis. There is
more despair in the Aspinall
household over the sickness of a
single gorilla than there are
tears over the incipient ruin of a
dynasty. “I would happily sepa-
rate any drunken youth from
the maximum he could handle,
or his family could handle, with-
out the slightest compunction,”
he wrote to a cabinet minister
whose son had run into debt at
his tables. Goodness knows how
he expressed himself in private.

Aspinall is part of a gilded
circle whose history is charted
.irst in the gossip columns and

“ then, to‘ their distaste, in sensa-

tional news stories —- the Lucan
case, the suicide of Dominic
Elwes, the maulings of visitors
and the deaths of keepers at
Aspinall’s private zoo. Brushes
with the law, the tax authorities
and the. bankruptcy courts have
served to develop discretion
and loyalty into an all-envelop-
ing code. An account of
Aspinall’s life could only have
been written by someone enjoy-
ing his confidence, and Brian
Masters, the author of that ex-
traordinary study of the Dennis
Nilsen case, Killing For Com-
pany, is clearly in that position.

This book is full of lively anec-V

dote and contextual detail.

At Oxford Aspinall had dis-
covered the most uncanny abil-
ity to bet blind and win, and in
London. in the 1950s he set
about adding glamour to the le-
gally dodgy business of gam-
bling, by staging roving chemin-
de-fer parties at which his
mother did the cooking and
from which feckless young men
emerged next morning minus
their fortunes. When gambling
was legalised he opened the lav-
ish Clermont, on the principle
that “if one must lose a million,

THE PASSION OF
JOHN ASPINALL
Brian Masters

A Cape, £12.95

this is the place to do so in
style.” It was soon handling the
highest stakes in Europe.

Lord Lucan was a house
player at the Clermont, but
while Masters concedes that
Aspinall is the “one man who
might hold a key” to his disap-
pearance, there is little new on
the affair, apart from a memo-

BOOK
REVIEW

rable one sentence pen portrait
of the Earl. “He signed his
name on cheques in a perfectly
straight line, preferred un-
adorned food like smoked
salmon, and gave the impres-
sion that he hated something in-
tensely, possibly himself.”
Aspinall once wrote that
“One of the most valuable func-
tions of betting is the corrosive
effect it has on such outdated
concepts as the sanctity of
money and the dignity of la-
bour.” His own foolhardy or
courageous behaviour supports
his assertion. What
distinguishes Aspinall from a
thousand other hedonists in his
preoccupation with wildlife,
which began while living in a
flat in Eaton Square. This he
shared with one Capuchin mon-
key, a tigress and two Himala-
yan bears. “It is impossible with
hindsight to identify the deep,
firm flow of motive which

  7.7. W

l*7Garnbleswith beas’Es_

- IN JOHN ASPINALL the curi-

prompted the absolutely crucial
decision to_make these animals
part of his life”, says Masters,
which is a pity, because the deci-
sion is the crux of Aspinall’s life.
What began as a mild eccentric-
ity developed into an obsession,
to which all his gambling activi-
ties were subordinated.

Soon he had piled up enough
money to create his own private
zoos, and had developed an ex-
traordinary monomania. When
only a few hundred people
turned up to hear him lecture at
the Albert Hall he concluded
that mankind as a whole was in-
different to the fate of endan-
gered species. His own achieve-
ments in the successful breeding
of rare animals like snow leop-
ards, Siberian tigers and
Przwalski’s horses, are nonethe-
less practical and important
steps towards conservation.

Mr Masters takes a kindly

, view of John Aspinall, and dis- 

misses those who have sug-
gested that he cares more for
the animal world than for man-
kind. He is intensely loyal to
friends, and clearly has a re-
markable empathy with some
animals. But when it comes to
other humans, he emerges as
curiously one-dimensional, ca-
pable of both total ruthlessness
and strange naivety.

Perhaps a youth spent at the
gambling tables is bound to
make you feel more kindly dis-
posed towards other orders of
creation. Unfortunately for sev-
eral visitors and two of his keep-
ers, not all the animals justified
his sunny view of their dispo-
sition and they got either
mauled or killed. On the ques-
tion of whether Aspinall is a
great conservationist or merely
a self-indulgent right-wing ec-
centric, the jury is still out.

Jeremy Paxman

\/ 4,
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