the Shuttle scoops Fleet Street-again!

Lord Hamlyn

A Day at The Races

Nearly a week after the Social Shuttle revealed exclusively that the lifetime patron of the famed Sydney dominatrix Madame Lash was the British peer and publisher Paul Hamlyn, Britain's Daily Mail has caught up to speed.

We attended the launch of the Madame Lash biography penned by Sam Everingham last Monday evening at her city residence The Kirk, a deconsecrated Presbyterian Church. While 200 guests were treated to topless acrobats and an opera singer the expected guest of honour Gretel Pinniger -Lash's real name, failed to show despite phoning ahead from her limousine- a former hearse with the numberplate STIFF, to tell our snapper to be prepared and wait outside for her arrival in an outfit she said contained "ten yards of red taffeta and a whip or 2".

Madame at The Kirk

Former Oz Magazine founder and later Kerry Packer executive Richard Walsh launched the book and gave a brief history of Lash expecting the lady to appear at any moment. She never arrived.

 Paul Hamlyn, Baron Hamlyn of Edgeworth was born in Germany and fled with his family to the UK in 1933 and became one of the richest publishers in the world with Hamlyn Books (born Paul Hamburger he chose the name Hamlyn from a telephone book). When he died in 2001 he left an enormous fortune including a $500M charity foundation plus a yearly stipend to Gretel with the stipulation his name never be revealed by her.

Clyde Packer (left) with Sir Frank and Kerry

It was always common knowledge that Hamlyn was Pinniger's benefactor. He was introduced to Madame Lash by Clyde Packer, brother of Kerry Packer. Clyde was considered to be Sir Frank Packer's business heir but after a public spat with his father he sold his share of the publishing business to brother  Kerry for $4M in the 1960's and spent the next 40 years wearing caftans and indulging himself in the counter culture that included hiring  the services of Madame Lash. It was Packer who introduced other wealthy like-minded businessmen like Gordon Barton to Lash.

Hamlyn, who has family members in Sydney visited regularly and would take Lash on trips to Asia. One service that the dominatrix specialised in that is rarely mentioned is that she allowed the whip to be turned on her !. And rarely mentioned is the fact that in her 3 houses-The Kirk, one in Melbourne and a splendid beach house at Palm Beach, she has fully equipped dungeons that includes Nazi officer outfits.

Famous courtesan freaks out !

 Sucessful publisher Todd Tai networks at First Thursday

OK so we hooked you with a headline-go to the story below for the tale of Madame Lash. 

Off the luxury car home in  Kings Cross of the amiable Tony Graziana's  Scuderia Graziani where one can pick up a Lamborghini, Porsche or Mercedes. Each month he is holding a bash to raise money for the Fred Hollows Foundation with his  First Thursday parties. This is a great cause-the Fred Hollows Foundation goes to places like Afghanistan and Africa looking after the sight of desperately poor people.

First Thursday is a sort of 'networking' party for young business people which is just what they were doing on Thursday night like crazy with silent auctions for all sorts of luxury goods like Tancredi jewelry.

Entertainment included the Irish comedian Paul Martell who is one of those old fashion joke tellers but he really is hilarious as the act builds up as you can see in the clip below. With a few celebrities and good looking folk, these regular nights are going to become popular very fast so you should consider booking tickets early.

Next month the guest comedian will be Austen Tayshus- one of the very very best. To attend you should contact Helle@RazorBrandAgency.com.

Adpro Management supplied the gorgeous beauties at the party-they are also a model agency -and that's another reason to attend. Business and beauty should always be combined, is our motto !. Fast cars, beautiful women, wine and song and all in a good cause.

What more could you want ?

                                 
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Where was Gretel on her big night ? 

 Hundreds turned up at The Kirk to celebrate the birthday and book launch for Madame Lash except the lady herself. As far as we can ascertain, the fetishist has fallen out with the author of the book, Sam Everingham.

The Kirk (it has a dungeon)

The Shuttle received a rousing cheer when we assisted up the steep stairs of the Kirk in a gentlemanly fashion, the ex-fiancee of private investigator Frank Monte- Sharon Sargeant who arrived at the same time as we did.

Sharon Sargeant

As the crowd parted  on the red carpet they assumed it was Madame Lash making a grand entrance.  Sargeant has received an extraordinary amount of publicity recently and been flooded with offers from the USA -for what we aren't quite sure yet but presumably it's something to do with the revelation she is the boss of the RedVelvet Escort and Model Agency.

Madame Lash's "autobiography" is the highly entertaining tale of one of Australia's most colourful women  (we've read it) and dominatrix.  Wowsers beware! Gretel Pinniger, aka Madame Lash artist and courtesan to the rich and famous has been shocking and outraging Australia for decades. Never shy of publicity, this daughter of a handsome war hero and philanderer from the Melbourne establishment once wanted to become a nun.

Instead, she threw her leather-clad body into a wild world of sex, drugs and riotous parties. She danced with Elton John, catered to Kerry Packer's brother Clyde's more creative sexual fantasies along with the successful transport boss and newspaper owner Gordon Barton and knocked around with Sydney underworld boss Lennie McPherson.

She also found herself a fabulously wealthy patron, who bequeathed her a generous stipend so long as his name is never disclosed by her .
Which doesn't stop us revealing the world's worst kept secret-that patron was the English publisher Paul Hamlyn who made millions when he and his family settled in Britain after escaping Germany before WW2. Hamlyn spent 4 weeks of every year with Madame Lash. We'll leave it to your imagination what  they got up to. But she does have dungeons in all her homes.
There was a tale that she one locked publisher Gordon Barton in the dungeon of her Melbourne house, hanging from a rack and went on a cocaine bender leaving him there for 48 hours before she re-called he was shackled in the basement. Fearing what she would find when she returned,  a delighted Barton tripled the agreed fee, as he was so pleased with the service.                                                 

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Comedian Paul Martell who was at the premier of the First Thursday charity parties at Scuderia Graziani in East Sydney.

Will the Duchess of York's Oz sister survive the scandal?

Footballer Mark Bosnich & Jane Ferguson

Much muttering amongst PR ranks this week whether the  public relations business of  Sarah, The Duchess of York's Sydney based sister Jane Ferguson will suffer over  the battering of her sister's merry quip that half a million  pounds will do nicely thanks, her tears of joy at the sight of $40,000 in cash and her sensible request for a spare fifty quid for the driver of her loaned Bentley.

Jane has a thriving Australian PR business looking after all manner of prestige clients from Peugeot cars to the famed English fabric designers Osborne & Little. She was also the go-between for the glossy Australian Woman's Day magazine that scored exclusive pics of Sarah's 50th birthday celebrations at the Lanesborough Hotel in London where HRH Prince Andrew obligingly posed for snaps with Sarah and their children. At a fee of $50,000 it was a steal with the pics on-sold world-wide for 6 times as much ( does Sarah just need a better agent ?).

Jane also co-hosted, along with Britain's favourite ex-Royal butler Paul Burrell the TV reality program Australian Princess , said to be inspired by the "fairy tale" romance during the 2000 Sydney Olympics of HRH Prince Frederick of Denmark and Tasmania's Mary Donaldson who was swept of her feet in a Sydney pub as Frederick purchased a round of drinks for the crowd with his platinum Amex card. In a few decades, our Mary will become the Queen of Denmark which is far more exciting than the job she had when we first met her -in a Kings Cross real estate agency flogging expensive over-priced apartments.

One of the guest judges on Australian Princess was  the  daughter-in-law  of an ex- Archbishop of Canterbury, Diana Fisher who started life as a BBC commentator before moving to Oz in 1964 with her husband Sir Humphrey Fisher. Diana  described her experience on Australian Princess as  the low point in a media career which has spanned 60 years that included covering the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill. But she said it had to happen sometime.

In the introduction to Australian Princess ( which we are sure included at some stage London PR Liz Brewer and that darling of the aristocracy Lady Colin Campbell), Jane helpfully informed us that she had been "brought up around royalty !". Which is no lie, what with her dad, the late Major Ronnie Ferguson being the head of the stables at Windsor Castle . Whether she actually ever got into the big house is a mystery.

Before you scoff, we should point out that some historians  claim both Princess Diana and The Duchess of York (and Jane Ferguson) are distant, be it ever so remote, descendents of Georgina Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire and may well have far more aristocratic blood in their veins than the present occupants of Buck House who so cruelly threw them both out to the wolves.

We digress. Jane wasn't taking calls from the media last week as the ghastly News of The World sting video was broadcast worldwide . There had already been some sort of mix-up when her gorgeous daughter Ayshea  a cousin to Prince's William and Harry had inadvertently spoken out of turn, innocently to a media person, of her recent visits to the rellies in London and, as it is with that family, was banished for a certain cooling period (which could be decades) before being invited back to a family barbeque  at Windsor Castle.

It's claimed today in a Sunday tabloid  that  Jane Ferguson had been "disinvited" from a black-tie charity event last week that she had helped organise.
Absolute tosh. Jane had purposely stayed away knowing that the event  would be crawling with reptiles (like us) and had no wish to draw attention away from the very special cause. Sadly, it actually meant the charity was completely ignored. No Jane, no press.

Instead, she and 2009 Masterchef finalist Lucas Parsons were giving cooking lessons to a select few at the luxurious Point Piper home of American born designer Charlie Brown and her husband, the ex-Israeli paratrooper Danny Avidan.    

Will her clientele list suffer? Good grief no.
Each Sunday millions of viewers are devouring  the TV series Underbelly which is based upon the sordid underworld characters of Kings Cross (many still alive and operating) with one of the main stars often featured on these pages, the handsome John Ibrahim, nightclub owner and security consultant-although the police describe him as a "serious crime figure" -almost achieving hero status and who is on every guest list in town.

 At the same time Rupert Murdoch's beloved Daily Telegraph has hired our favourite ex-detective Roger Rogerson who admitted shooting a few people dead (all in the line of duty) and who was run out of the police force for corruption and jailed, as an expert commentator on the series and the interested can blog with him on Monday mornings where Roger will set you straight on who was a bigger crook than who.

Jane Ferguson, always charming, can look forward to a fabulous year with new clients battering down her door when the clamour dies down !

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In the next few days-a full report on the party to launch the autobiography of our favourite dominitrix Madame Lash which is being held at The Kirk, the former Presbyterian Church she purchased many years ago and where all manner of spooky events take place.

Gretel, as she is know to her friends  who was once featured on the TV show Eurotrash, also owns the rather splendid Florida House at Palm Beach where snootier residents have complained to the local council over 'renovations' she has in plan. They have no idea who they are dealing with !