The Follies Journal, number 5 (£12; www.follies.org.uk)
The Follies Journal is an annual publication from the Follies Fellowship, a charity founded in 1988 “to preserve and promote the enjoyment and awareness of follies, grottoes and garden buildings” and “to protect lonely and unloved building of little purpose.”
This number is dominated by a lengthy article on Shell’s Visit British Landmarks advertising campaign of 1936-37, which featured artwork by Graham Sutherland and E McKnight Kauffer and was dreamt up by Shell’s publicity manager Jack Beddington and John Betjeman, then a copywriter for the company.
They seem to have been inspired by Betjeman’s friend and near-neighbour, the artist, writer, composer and complete eccentric Lord Berners. Berners, who installed a clavichord in the back of his Rolls-Royce and was given to dyeing doves unnatural hues, had overcome fierce local opposition to have a tower with a “Gothic top-not” built at Farringdon, his Berkshire seat in 1935.
Berners himself went on to paint the structure for Shell, and both he and his folly subsequently appeared, thinly disguised, in Nancy Mitford’s novel The Pursuit of Love.
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
