Norah, Lady Docker

Norah Docker, Lady Docker (1906-1983) was an English socialite. A dance hostess at a club in her youth, she married three times, on each occasion to an executive of a business that sold luxury goods. Her third marriage, to Sir Bernard Docker, the chairman of Birmingham Small Arms and its subsidiary, Daimler Company, was notable for the couple's excessive behaviour. This was often funded by tax writeoffs and company expenditure that could not be legitimately defended, which led to Sir Bernard's removal from BSA's board of directors. She was also banned from the French Riviera by Prince Rainier after an incident in which she tore up a Monegasque flag.

Early life

Lady Docker was born in Derby in 1906 as Norah Royce Turner to Sydney Turner and his wife Amy. The Turners moved to Birmingham where her father bought into a car dealership. Her father committed suicide when she was 16, after which she had to earn her own living. As a young woman she became a dance hostess at London's Café de Paris. Her male friends included the 9th Duke of Marlborough and, for many years, Clement Callingham, head of Henekeys wine and spirit merchants. She had an affair with Callingham, which resulted in an abortion, her being named in a divorce action by Callingham's wife, and her marriage to the divorced Callingham.

Marriages

Norah Royce Turner was married three times: the first, to Clement Callingham from 1938 to his death in 1945, resulted in one son, Lance. The second, in 1946, to Sir William Collins, the president of Fortnum & Mason, lasted until his death in 1948. The third, in 1949, was to Sir Bernard Docker, chairman of Birmingham Small Arms, Daimler and a director of the Midland Bank, Anglo-Argentine Tramways Company and Thomas Cook and Son

Public life

Lady Docker loved publicity and was often in public view.

In the summer of 1954, after a visit to a coal mine, Lady Docker invited several of the miners to a champagne party on the Dockers' yacht Shemara, at which she danced the hornpipe.

Lady Docker won a marbles championship in 1955 at Castleford's "Reight Neet Aht", a charity event for the Cancer Relief Fund, while wearing a sequin dress and diamonds. The match was rigged, the other players having been instructed to let her win. The next year, while in Melbourne, Australia to watch the 1956 Summer Olympics, she challenged the suburb of Collingwood to a marbles match.

Docker Daimlers

Sir Bernard Docker commissioned a series of Daimlers built to Lady Docker's specifications for the show circuit.

Blue Clover, her second show car

Golden Zebra
for the Paris Show 1955

1951 – The Gold Car (a.k.a. Golden Daimler)

The Gold Car was a touring limousine on the Thirty-Six Straight-Eight chassis. The car was covered with 7,000 tiny gold stars, and all plating that would normally have been chrome was gold. This car was taken to Paris, the United States and Australia

1952 – Blue Clover

Also on the Thirty-Six Straight-Eight chassis, Blue Clover was a two-door sportsman's coupé

1953 – Silver Flash

The Silver Flash was an aluminium-bodied coupé based on the 3-litre Regency chassis. Its accessories included solid silver hairbrushes and red fitted luggage made from crocodile skin.

1954 – Star Dust

based on the DF400 chassis

1955 – Golden Zebra

The Golden Zebra was a two-door coupé based on the DK400 chassis. Like the Gold Car, the Golden Zebra had all its metal trim pieces plated gold instead of chrome, beyond that, it had an ivory dashboard and zebra-skin upholstery. Explaining the zebra skin upholstery, Lady Docker said: "Because mink is too hot to sit on.".

Alongside the show cars kept for her personal use, Lady Docker also owned other Daimler cars, including an unmodified Conquest drophead coupé.

Separation from BSA

At the end of May 1956, Bernard Docker was removed from the board of Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA), where he had been chairman. Lady Docker resigned from the board of directors of Hooper at the same time. The company, which owned the Docker Daimlers, had Lady Docker return them.

The issues leading to the removal of the Dockers stemmed from the extravagant expenses they presented to the company, including the show cars made available for Lady Docker's personal use, a £5,000 gold and mink ensemble that Lady Docker wore at the 1956 Paris Motor Show that she tried to write off as a business expense as she "was only acting as a model" at the show, and Glandyfi Castle, bought with £12,500 of BSA's money and refurbished for £25,000, again with company money.

Shortly after BSA disassociated itself from the Dockers, Lady Docker bought a Bentley Continental from Daimler's rival, Rolls-Royce.

Feud with Monaco

Up until 1958, the Dockers often went to Monaco, where, in September 1952, they were banned from the Monte Carlo Casino after Lady Docker slapped a waiter in the face.

The Dockers were invited to the christening of Prince Albert in April 1958. They brought Lady Docker's son, Lance Callingham, with them, but he was not allowed to attend. Later, at the Hôtel de Paris, Lady Docker, still furious about the incident, tore up a paper Monegasque flag that had been at her table. In response, the government of Monaco had her expelled and the Princely Family of Monaco returned the Dockers' christening gifts to them. Through a 1951 treaty with France, the ban on Lady Docker was extended throughout the French Riviera.

News of a reconciliation between Lady Docker and the Princely Family of Monaco was reported by the North American Newspaper Alliance in February 1959. However, in September 1960, Lady Docker announced that she would invest in a company to build a waterfront casino in Cannes to rival the Monte Carlo Casino.

Decline

Without their main source of income, the Dockers began to run out of money. In 1965, Bernard Docker put his yacht Shemara on the market for £600,000; it was eventually sold for £290,000.

In 1966, the Dockers sold their estate in Hampshire and moved to Jersey in the Channel Islands, becoming tax exiles. Lady Docker later said of the people of Jersey: "They are the most frightfully boring, dreadful people that have ever been born."

Death

Lady Docker died on 11 December 1983 in the Great Western Royal Hotel in London. She is buried in the churchyard of St. James-the-Less in Stubbings, near Maidenhead.

Common usage

The term 'Lady Docker' is also used in a derogatory way in the north of England, specifically Lancashire, to describe a woman who has pretensions to be of high station but who in reality is anything but.

For example, 'Who does she think she is – Lady Docker?' or 'Here comes Lady Docker'

It is interchangeable with 'Lady Muck' or the male equivalent 'Lord Muck'.

External links

• Lady Docker at the National Portrait Gallery
• Lady Docker in Star Dust 1954
• The Golden Daimler 1951
• Silver Flash 1967
• re-sprayed Silver Flash 1974
• Star Dust 1954