The Dennis Wheatley 'Museum' - The Women in DW's life

1914 - 1918 : Wartime diversions

While Barbara was the girl he wanted to marry, DW had a strong sex drive which needed to be satisfied elsewhere.

Early in the War he accompanied his Battery Commander 'Shitty Bill' Inglis when he went out looking for girls, (see Room Two), but not content with that, DW and his comrade Bertie Davies took a flat in London where they entertained women overnight.

As DW reflected decades later in his autobiography, "Naughty boy indeed ! How wonderful it was to be young."

While in France on active service, his escapades continued. While he wrote to Hilda telling her he was "nearly always at least ten miles from a petticoat, and even then generally a very undesirable one", his near contemporary notes and autobiography tell a very different story.

He and his friend Captain Colsell spent their first few evenings in France disporting themselves with a number of pretty girls before they were due to be sent up to the Front, and later on they had various adventures in Amiens.

On one occasion they ended up at a dentist's house. Colsell and his girlfriend took the only bedroom while DW and his had to make do with the dentist's chair (!) Later on DW and his date joined Colsell in the big bed upstairs, they "swapped partners and a good time was had by all".

On another occasion DW was on his own, and was invited up to a professional lady's room. While they were in the middle of things, there was the sound of an explosion and of bricks falling. DW tried to wriggle out from under the girl but she was having none of it, and it was only when he left the building that he discovered the next house but one in the row was now only a pile of smoking debris. For the full story, click here

References : 'Officer and Temporary Gentleman' pp 72-3,82-4,91,92-4,113,114-116,
125,133,141,(France)152,153,185,214,216-7,218,(back in England) 230-1.
Phil Baker pp 94-6,97,102,119-20,131,143-4.

Provenance:

Private Collection