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The Scandal of Sir Eugene Goossens

On the morning of 9 March 1956, Sir Eugene Goossens, the celebrated conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, stepped off a flight from London to Sydney and was immediately ushered by Customs officers into one of the official search rooms.

This was rather unusual in those days long before terrorism, as smuggling, and especially drugs, were virtually unheard of. Passengers the likes of the distinguished conductor were always ushered straight through without so much as a glance in their bags. But not this day.

In Sir Eugene’s bags Customs officers found a swag of pornographic material which consisted of 1166 explicit photographs, films, ribald books and three rubber masks which were deemed to be lewd in the extreme. To make the situation even more disgusting, some of the photographs were in envelopes marked with the names of the great composers such as Beethoven, Strauss and Brahms.

Sir Eugene was escorted to the Sydney Criminal Investigation Branch and questioned for the next three hours before he was charged with violations of the customs act. Sir Eugene left Central Police Station to walk into a barrage of journalists and photographers. Sydney had never known a scandal of such proportions. Never before had the two extremes of the social scale been so closely linked.

Sir Eugene became a prisoner in his home at Wahroonga as photographers and reporters maintained a round the clock vigil on his doorstep. But the scandal was to get worse before it got any better.

Legendary Daily Mirror reporter Joe Morris revealed that Sir Eugene had been keeping the company of Sydney’s most notorious witch, Rosaleen Norton, ‘the Witch of Kings Cross’ and that he had been participating in sexual black masses at his Wahroonga home when his wife was away, a stately mansion in the Blue Mountains and at Norton’s Kings Cross establishment, in the company of numerous other Sydney socialites which included high profile radio personalities of the era.

Morris described Rosaleen Norton as ‘a real bit of work. She had once been a brilliant artist and had gone off the rails,’ Morris said. ‘Her witches’ temple was covered in paintings of medieval witches and warlocks. She wore a full-length black dress and a flowing velvet cape with a big hood – like the witch out of Little Red Riding Hood.

‘She had pointed ears and her eyebrows were arched,’ Morris said. ‘Her cratered face was caked with make-up, with the blunt points of her front teeth protruding like a vampire’s from her crimson lips. I’m not sure if the fangs were real, but I kept my distance anyway.’

Rosaleen Norton denied any connection with Sir Eugene Goossens but it was widely believed that he was in fact involved very heavily with her in the occult and the pornography he had brought back with him from England was for their sessions of lust and depravity.

The connection between Australia’s most eminent conductor and Australia’s most notorious witch was a scandal beyond any newspaper’s wildest dream and the stories became more lewd and absurd by the day. Nothing ever came of any of the allegations, and Rosaleen Norton dined out on all of the publicity and became even more notorious.

Sir Eugene was repeatedly summoned to appear in court to face the relatively minor customs charges which carried a maximum of a £100 fine. Each time the charges were brought up in court, Sir Eugene’s solicitors said that their client was too sick to attend, and he was eventually found guilty in absentia and fined the maximum amount.

Sir Eugene never said a word to the press who remained camped on his doorstep for weeks. Abandoned by the society of which he was once one of their most esteemed, the disgraced Sir Eugene resigned as conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and, on 26 May 1956, left Australia for Europe, never to return.

Finally forgiven after many years as a social pariah, Sir Eugene’s wonderful talents as a conductor are now remembered with a bust of him on display in the Sydney Opera House, and the Concert Hall at the new ABC headquarters in Ultimo has been named in his honour.

We can only sit back and wonder what would be the repercussions if the same thing were to happen today. I doubt that it would even rate a mention in this age of admiring people for their talents rather than their legal sexual preferences.