ONE hundred years ago this week, readers of the Echo’s sister paper, the Darlington & Stockton Times got a steamy glimpse behind the long, plush curtains of one of the top houses in the district via a sizzling report from the London divorce court.

Captain Edward Berry wished to part company from his wife, Mary, due to her “alleged misconduct” with Keith “Jock” Selfridge, a “film actor or producer” – and this story is good enough to be turned into a film.

The captain and Mary had married in 1913 and had come to live at Whitcliffe Hall, near Barnard Castle. It was, the court heard, “a beautiful home in the north, with dogs and horses and everything they cared for”.

However, differences arose around 1920, and “Mrs Berry was in the habit of going away and staying at hotels for holidays”.

She met Jock and, according to the captain’s solicitor Sir Marshall Hall, “became madly in love with him and they used to drive together”.

He said they went to “a nightclub kept by a black man”, and that in a hotel in south France Mary was seen in Jock’s bedroom drinking and smoking cigarettes.

Jock, said Sir Marshall, was a wrong ‘un as he had been declared bankrupt and “was a man who had lived on women for years”. Three or four wealthy lovers had apparently funded his lavish lifestyle for £8,000-a-year and Mrs Berry was just the latest of these.

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But Jock took to the witness box and alleged that he was the real victim of the piece.

“Your charming spouse was introduced to me at the Savoy and from the moment I met her, she showered her attentions on me, and I in my old age felt somewhat flattered,” he said.

He said that their relationship had become “somewhat sultry”, but he said that it was Mrs Berry who took him to “the nightclub kept by a black man” where she got “disgustingly drunk”. Then she persuaded him to go to Monte Carlo where she promised him a film deal worth up to £30,000.

It was while they were in Maxims hotel in Nice that they were seen kissing and cuddling in his bedroom but the fact that Mrs Berry was in a dressing gown did not indicate any “misconduct”.

“People do this on the Riviera,” said Jock. “People in France and Italy are more broadminded than in England. This is the most narrow minded country in the world.”

He refused to either confirm or deny any misconduct had ever taken place, saying that “he had kissed and cuddled girls hundreds of times”.

When it became clear there was no lucrative film deal to be done, he said “he returned to England a sadder and a wiser man”.

And then he told Capt Berry: “I consider your wife ought to be branded with ‘liar’ on one cheek and on the other ‘dangerous’.”

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Desperately unsatisfactorily, the D&S finishes its report by saying: “The hearing was adjourned till Tuesday next.”

Sadly, the edition next of the paper carries no report of the outcome, so readers will have to make up their own ending to this saucy story.

And while doing so, can anyone tell us about “Whitcliffe Hall” where the Berrys lived so happily with their horses? We have never come across a Whitcliffe Hall in Teesdale, which may just be our ignorance, or could possibly be the London court reporter’s mishearing of Wycliffe Hall just a couple of miles from Barney.