The gripping tale of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in England, unfolds in ITV1’s new series A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, which began on Wednesday 5 March. Lucy Boynton steps into the shoes of Ruth Ellis for this four-part drama, portraying the woman convicted for the murder of her lover, David Blakely (played by Laurie Davidson). The fatal shooting took place outside a Hampstead pub in London, April 1955, leading to Ellis’s execution at Holloway Prison on 13 July that same year.
Ellis left behind two children – her three year old daughter Georgina and ten year old son Andy, who were both tragically affected by their mother’s fate. After the death of their father, Ruth’s ex-husband George Ellis, in 1958, Georgina was placed in foster care and sadly passed away at 50 in 2001. Andy’s story, however, is even more heart-wrenching.
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In 1944, a 17 year old Ruth fell pregnant by a married Canadian soldier named Clare Andrea McCallum. Their son, named Andre Clare after his father but known as Andy, was raised by Ruth’s mother Bertha and sister Muriel while Ruth worked various jobs in London, sending money home for his upkeep, reports the Mirror.
Despite being present during Ruth’s tumultuous relationship with Blakely, which included instances of severe abuse leading to a miscarriage, Andy was never interviewed by the police. It is now believed he could have provided crucial insight into the abusive dynamics of his mother’s relationship with Blakely.
After the tragic loss of Ruth when Andy was just 10, he was sent to St Michael’s College in Hitchin, Hertfordshire under the name Andrew Hornby, adopting his grandfather’s surname. It’s thought that Sir Cecil Havers, the judge at Ruth’s trial, provided annual financial support for Andy’s upbringing.
(Image: ITV)
Carol Ann Lee, author of the Ruth Ellis biography A Fine Day For A Hanging, reveals that Andy often skipped school and was eventually expelled. He resided with his grandmother in Hemel Hempstead, spending much of his time in solitude in his room. As he matured, Lee notes that he “often travelled alone and without purpose on buses and trains for hours on end.” He was later prescribed anti-depressants.
A three-part BBC documentary in 2018 unveiled tape recordings where Andy interviewed Christmas Humphreys, his mother’s prosecutor, in the late 1970s. In these tapes, he refutes Humphreys’ courtroom portrayal of Ruth as “cold-blooded”.
In a heartbreaking turn of events in 1982, at the age of 37, Andy visited his mother’s grave and obliterated the marker bearing her name. He then returned to his bedsit where he tragically ended his own life. Andy was cremated in June 1982, and his ashes were laid to rest near his mother’s remains at St Mary’s churchyard in Amersham, Buckinghamshire.
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