Whicker's World

Alan Whicker meets the French aristocrat-tycoon Count Robert John De Vogüe.

A sort of saint, and a man with the best kind of message for 1970, an Irish priest who founded the Shoeshine Hotel for the juvenile floram of wartime Naples, then set up the famous Boys' Towns of Italy where wayward youngsters govern themselves.

Alan Whicker meets Johannes, 11th Prince of Thurn and Taxis, a German businessman and head of the immensely wealthy Thurn und Taxis family who own more land in Germany than anyone else.

This Lutheran vicar of a sleepy village in Jutland wanted to wangle a free holiday for his parishioners so he organised a coach tour. In Segovia he paid £50 for a meal wrongly ordered so, to recoup, he organised another tour... It was the luckiest mistake of his life, for today Pastor Eilif Karogager has the largest travel agency in Scandinavia - it copes with 300,000 holidaymakers each year, runs 65 coaches and several hotels, and his airline of 28 aircraft (14 of them Caravelle jets) is Europe's largest independent airline.

The son of a lord with a famous name and an unusually passionate life. The passion, shared by his wife, a princess and serene highness, is for... the preservation of Eire's Georgian buildings. Desmond and Mariga Guinness could lead an agreeably tranquil life in their green and faded land, but have instead flung themselves into a breathless campaign to save the stately homes of Ireland, now threatened by decay and developers. Even Castleton, most splendid mansion in Ireland, stands threatened. Most Irish seem unmoved by the decay of their birthright, but as Desmond and Mariga gallop to the rescue, Alan Whicker observes how Guinness is good for Georgiana.

Napoleon called Venice "the best drawing room in Europe," and for nearly 40 years the man in the white jacket carrying in the drinks has been... Harry. His is probably the most famous bar in the world. To international celebrities Harry is the ultimate professional host, attentive, observant, shrewd. His tiny bar still looks like a railway waiting room, for he believes people are the best decor. Most of the world's famous have jazzed-up his sophisticated scene. In Venice, place of fantasy with its endless succession of echoes and reflections, Alan Whicker's sixth European considers the view from the other side of the cocktail shaker.

When the talk is about international show business, the name of Margaret Kelly does not immediately leap to mind... yet few have dazzled more audiences. Miss Kelly, born in Dublin, abandoned by her parents, adopted by a Liverpool family, grew up to be Miss Bluebell, the iron hand behind the velvet gowns of thousands of dancers and statuesque showgirls who have been widening eyes since 1934. The Bluebell Girls dance their way through the Lido lights in Paris, the Stardust Show in Las Vegas, the International Casino in Nairobi; in Buenos Aires and Madrid. So what sort of person is this Miss Kelly, who sets them dancing and who, after 35 years, still commands their routines? And what are the Bluebell Girls like when they are dressed? To find out, Alan Whicker went to Paris - willingly!