Charlotte Bach - Life As A Man

Life As A Man

Hajdu was born near Budapest in 1920. In the wake of World War II she moved to England, and in 1948 began to use the name Baron Carl Hajdu. In 1956 she collected money for Hungarian freedom fighters resisting the then Soviet occupation. The People newspaper, which specialised in lurid exposés, alleged that Hajdu had in fact pocketed all the proceeds. She was sentenced for fraud in 1957 and forced into bankruptcy.

Hajdu then adopted the persona of author and society hypnotherapist Michel Karoly. She rented a salubrious apartment in Mayfair, still the most expensive district in Britain. She began to acquire something of a following in polite society, and wrote an agony uncle style column in a mass-selling magazine of the day. Karoly continued in this role until 1965 when both her wife and her lover suddenly died. She became bankrupt and in 1966 she was sentenced to two months in gaol for taking out a loan whilst bankrupt.

By her own account, the sudden deaths precipitated a profound identity crisis.