But of course, Profumo was no ordinary man. He was in fact the 5th Baron Profumo of Italy, with friends in high places. Not least the Queen herself, who it seems intervened on Profumo’s part when he was allowed to resign from his post rather than face the alternative.1
It was not the only display of how he was forgiven and then lauded by both the aristocracy and the Conservative Party despite the scandal to which he gave his name. In 1995, Margaret Thatcher invited him to her 70th birthday dinner, where he sat next to the Queen. The former Conservative Prime Minister called Profumo ‘one of our national heroes’ and said it was time to forget the Keeler business, as ‘his has been a very good life’.2
In July 2000, Profumo was among the guests at St Paul’s Cathedral for the tribute to the Queen Mother on her 100th birthday.
Another former Prime Minister, this time John Major, attended a formal opening of a new building at the Toynbee Hall complex named after Profumo in November 2003. Major also presented Profumo with a book of tributes to mark his work there. After the event, Profumo was quoted as saying that Toynbee Hall had taught him ‘humility’. In what was his first press interview since the scandal, Profumo told Lord Deedes, a former school friend, for the Daily Telegraph, ‘If you define wealth in monetary terms there’s no hope for the future. It’s only when you realise what you have to give that you become a real person.’3
The following year, Profumo visited 11 Downing Street to accept the Beacon Prize for his charity work and he was also a guest at the Westminster Abbey memorial service for Sir Edward Heath on 8 November 2005. This was his last public appearance before his death in March 2006, at the age of 91. Paying tribute to Profumo, Prime Minister at the time Tony Blair described the ex-minister as a politician who had had a great career but made a serious mistake, after which he had undergone a ‘journey of redemption’, giving support and help to many others.4
Undeniably, Profumo was a valuable asset to Toynbee, described as a ‘master fundraiser with huge energy’. He raised thousands of pounds while volunteering for the social reform charity, heightened its profile, becoming its president from 1982 to 1985. Having been introduced to the charity by the Marchioness of Reading, Profumo helped at Toynbee until the week before his death at London’s Chelsea and Westminster Hospital following a stroke two days earlier, his loyal and loving family at his bedside.5
The success at Toynbee was no doubt due in some part to his background and his access to the rich and influential. Even Profumo’s early political career was founded on having the right connections. David Margesson, a government Chief Whip, sponsored Profumo when he started out; Margesson was also a guest of John’s parents at their home in Warwickshire.6 In fact, until 1963, Profumo had led a charmed life, as John Profumo’s son David details in his book Bringing the House Down, in which the younger Profumo describes his father’s early years as pleasure-seeking and full of advantage, with an indulgent upbringing.
Even immediately after the scandal of Profumo’s admission that he had lied about his affair and his resulting resignation, Profumo and his family were afforded the privacy and sanctuary the other players in the drama could only dream about. David Profumo tells how, to avoid the press, the family first stayed at Cottage Farm, then in Warwickshire at Ivy Lodge, owned by Peggy Willis, and then at Randolph Churchill’s house in Suffolk. Back at the family home in Chester Terrace, loyal staff remained tight-lipped too.7 When Mr and Mrs Profumo did return to the London address, it was with a police escort.8 The family were safe and protected despite what David Profumo refers to as a desolate time for his parents during which Hobson likely considered leaving her husband and Profumo was forced to resign from the Privy Council before the Queen had to take the unprecedented move of removing him herself.9 Later that summer, the couple flew to Zurich and the family holidayed in the House of Tongue in Scotland, owned by the Countess of Sutherland.
There is some evidence the Profumos were initially shunned by their social circle. Profumo resigned from Boodles and the Other Club, but several influential friends did stay in touch, not least the Queen Mother and Bronwen Astor. The couple received hate mail from the public alongside offers of support, work and the services of a literary agent, and even a note from Noël Coward. It was a fall from grace, yes, but there was a cushion to soften the blow.
Born 30 January 1915, John Denis Profumo was the fourth child of a quiet barrister, Baron Albert Profumo, and an actress and dancer from Edinburgh, Martha Thom Walker. The marriage was happy, and although the couple’s first son had died as a baby, John was to grow up with two elder sisters and a baby brother. An earlier baron (the King of Sardinia had bestowed the barony in 1843) had founded the Provident Life Association company, and when his political career was over, John Profumo benefitted from being able to become the director of his family’s firm. For his parents, however, the existence of Provident Life had meant the family led a comfortable life, moving to Avon Carrow, a grand house in Warwickshire, complete with ‘sizeable staff’. It was a house that became a busy and sociable one, perhaps giving Profumo the taste for a party lifestyle that was to be his political downfall.
As a child, John Profumo was sent first to Sloane Street for schooling and then to a boarding school in Kent, and from there, on to Harrow. He was happy at school, although he was dyslexic10 and enjoyed sport, but was not academic, which is why his son describes Profumo senior’s offer of a place at Oxford’s Brasenose College to read law as a little unexpected. Brasenose was not a scholarly college and was said to be presided over by tutors worse-the-wear for booze, who preferred their undergraduates to achieve sporting Blues rather than first-class honours.11 Later John swapped to study agriculture and political economy and went on to enjoy membership of the Bullingdon Club, polo and point-to-point, hunt balls and cocktail parties. He also learnt to fly while at university and in 1935, the book tells us, as a 21st birthday gift, John was treated to a Grand Tour of Russia and the Far East lasting ten weeks. He also visited the States and Canada.
When Profumo left Oxford, he was awarded a ‘Special Pass’ degree, which his son likens to the type of rosette given out to everyone who takes part in a gymkhana, regardless of their abilities.
After Oxford, however, John Profumo did make a name for himself, when he became the youngest MP in the House of Commons in 1940 at the age of 25. His father died three weeks later, passing on the barony and his fortune. Profumo became fifth baron of the Kingdom of Sardinia and third baron of the United Kingdom of Italy, although he thought using his title would hinder his political career.
This stellar political career had actually started in his final year of university, when he had canvassed and campaigned on behalf of the member for East Fulham, the Hon. W. W. Astor. This friendship was to have a lasting impact on both their lives and reputations.
On his way up, Profumo had spent three months at the League of Nations in Geneva and become the Chair of the Lillie War Conservative Association in Astor’s constituency. At 22, he was running the party’s Warwickshire youth wing and became a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Conservatives. By March 1939, he was adopted as a prospective candidate for Kettering, while in June he signed up as a Territorial and then convinced the party to continue to let him fight the election in uniform. With Labour agreeing not to oppose the seat because of the war, a small turnout (38 per cent) and a quick count, Profumo won an overwhelming majority. Profumo was officially a rising star of the party.
He did, however, arouse hostility when in May 1940 he joined twenty-nine other Conservatives and voted with Labour on his first vote in the House of Commons, against Neville Chamberlain and his appeasement policies. Sixty other Tories chose simply to abstain. The other Tory MPs that voted to censure Chamberlain included Harold Macmillan and Quintin Hogg. It formed a lasting allegiance between Profumo and the other rebels and showed political courage.12
During the war, Profumo served in the Northamptonshire Yeomanry, as an air intelligence liaison officer and then a general staff officer, being posted abroad in 1942. He fought in the battle of Tunis, the invasion of Sicily and the conquest of Italy. He was mentioned in dispatches and in 1944 was awarded a military OBE. By the war’s end in 1945, and after Labour’s general election triumph put him out of his seat, he was promoted to brigadier and worked as chief of staff to the British military mission in the Far East, living in the British Embassy in Tokyo. While he had lost the Kettering seat in 1945 following the Labour landslide, by 1950 he was the MP for Stratford-upon-Avon, and then held junior posts in transport (1952–57), the colonial department (1957–58) and the Foreign Office (1958–60). And in July 1960, Profumo became Secretary of State for War after a Cabinet reshuffle removed Christopher Soames from the role.
John Profumo met his future wife, Valerie Hobson, at the Chelsea Arts Club Ball on New Year’s Eve, 1947. She was the daughter of a naval commander and she’d had a conservative, moral upbringing. At the time, Hobson’s acting career was in the doldrums. It’s accepted that the couple began seeing each other while Hobson was still married to her first husband, although they were openly dating by the Easter of 1949 when they went to Paris together;13 Profumo had also invited Hobson as a celebrity guest to open a charity fete in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1948. The couple did have a cooling-off period when Hobson found herself pregnant by Profumo and opted for a dilation and curettage to terminate her pregnancy.14 Profumo was meanwhile canvassing in Stratford.
During this time, they both made advances in their respective careers, not least Hobson landing the role of Mrs Anna in the London production of The King and I and Profumo making it to Churchill’s front bench in 1952. Hobson had also become pregnant by her estranged husband, having had her second son in April 1951, after which the couple decided to divorce.
However, the couple were eventually reunited, announced their engagement in October 1954 and were married in the Chelsea church St Columbia’s on New Year’s Eve, where a small crowd gathered to watch. The bride wore a grey vicuna suit, finished with sapphire mink cuffs, and a grey silk bonnet. The newlyweds flew to Paris for their honeymoon, with complimentary champagne offered to the entire flight by the head of Heathrow. They stayed at the city’s Ritz hotel.
Authors Knightley and Kennedy believe the wedding was the icing on the cake for Profumo’s political image, with the Conservative Party believing that once married, Profumo had all the necessary attributes to make it to the very top spot.15 The marriage effectively improved his chances of becoming PM.16
Hobson retired from acting shortly before David Profumo was born in October the following year. Hobson was 37 at the time, and Profumo 40. Despite other attempts to fall pregnant, which Hobson spoke of in a posthumous letter to her son, David remained the couple’s only living child. Such was their status as a Golden Couple, the Department of Transport afforded them the number plate PXH1 (Profumo times Hobson equals Number One), and the Foreign Office issued them passports with the numbers 3 and 4.17
By 1959, Profumo was Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, a promotion that some thought put him above his station and youth,18 and by 1960 Macmillan recommended Profumo be sworn of the Privy Council. The couple now enjoyed a VIP lifestyle, attending and hosting many social events. Their Chester Terrace home, leased from the Crown Estates, overlooked Regent’s Park and boasted a forty-foot drawing room, the décor of which had been overseen by a Parisienne interior designer that was very much in favour. Ivory pagodas and a Fabergé bulldog graced the house. Valerie Profumo wore Italian couture paired with stilettos and had a skirt made from python skin.
When Profumo became Secretary of State for War, which was to be his final government role, his challenge was to abolish the system of National Service that had run throughout the war years and instead return the army to a force made up of those that had chosen it as a profession. The National Service Act had been passed in 1947 under the Attlee government and was designed to continue to maintain high levels of military manpower in parts of the world where Britain had ongoing commitments, such as Germany, Palestine and India. It came into force in January 1949 and meant that all physically fit males between the ages of 17 and 21 had to serve in one of the armed forces for an 18-month period. The abolition of National Service was announced in 1957 but actually ended in 1960, with the last national servicemen discharged in 1963.
During his time in office, Profumo and his wife continued to take many outwardly glamorous official trips and diplomatic missions. However, David Profumo suspects that this novelty had begun to wear off for at least his mother, that a rift had begun in their marriage and that Profumo’s openly flirtatious nature and love of partying was beginning to grate on his wife.19
And then, in the summer of 1961, the Profumos went to Cliveden House for the first time. And that was where John Profumo met Christine Keeler.
Chapter 2
Christine Keeler – A Fly in a Web of Deceit?
Cliveden House on the Berkshire/Buckinghamshire border was built in 1666 by the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, as a gift to his mistress. In the 1890s, the stately home first passed into the Astor family when William Waldorf Astor bought the property for $1.25 million. In 1906, his son Waldorf Astor took ownership when he received the Italianate mansion as a wedding gift after marrying Nancy Langhorne. While the house was eventually deeded to the National Trust in 1942, the Astor family continued to live there.
By 1961, the 3rd Viscount Astor, William, more often known as Bill, and his third wife, the former model Bronwen Pugh, often entertained at the property, Bill having inherited the house and the title of viscount on his father’s death in 1952. Bill was particularly pleased with the installation of a heated outdoor swimming pool he had overseen, paid for with prize money when his horse named Ambiguity won the Epsom Oaks.1 In her book, Mandy Rice-Davies describes how the magnificent parklands surrounding the house were home to the nation’s premier collection of rhododendrons2 along with magnificent sweeping lawns and great oaks.
Over the weekend of 8 and 9 July that year, Bill and Bronwen, who was five months pregnant at the time, played host to several influential guests. These included Field Marshall Ayub Khan, the President of Pakistan, who was en route to meeting President Kennedy in Washington. Others there over that weekend included Lord Mountbatten, his daughter and son-in-law Pamela and David Hicks, Sir Robert Lancaster, his son the cartoonist Osbert Lancaster and his wife, government economic advisor Sir Roy Harrod, Lord and Lady Dalkeith, the former Polish countess Sophie Moss, a fashionable interior designer named Derek Patmore, and artist and set designer Felix Kelly. It was this weekend that John Profumo and his wife were on the guest list for the first time, and while others came and went for various lunches and dinners, the Profumos stayed the whole weekend. It was a weekend that would change the course of history.
Within the estate and a mile along the River Thames was a property called Spring Cottage. Rice-Davies says it was a gabled residence that was built on the riverbank with a top floor that stuck out so that it extended over the river itself.3 Bill Astor had let out the double-fronted cottage to osteopath Stephen Ward since 1956. Bill suffered from crippling migraines and neuritis and had used Ward since 1949 after the two had been introduced by Astor’s half-brother Bobbie Shaw. Since Bill particularly liked to be treated after hunting on Saturdays, it was useful to have Ward so close by.4
Knightley and Kennedy say that Astor and Ward had grown close over the years and that Ward was a frequent guest at Cliveden and that Bill’s second wife, Philippa Astor, looked on Ward as a friend too. When Ward took over Spring Cottage, it had been dilapidated and damp and the garden was a wilderness. Ward spent his weekends turning the place into a home with his then girlfriend Margaret Brown, a successful model. The friends that visited Ward mucked in, making do with the limited facilities the cottage offered. These exciting people drew Astor himself to the cottage, since he cut a lonely figure and had little else in his life. But it was a reciprocal arrangement, as in return for entertaining him at the rental property, Astor would invite Ward and Brown to the parties at the main house, where Ward would often sit near Nancy Astor as they got on well together. Astor also allowed friends to use Cliveden for private parties, and Ward would be invited to these events too.5
Ward was also hosting a party at this cottage that weekend in July, and it had been established that Ward and his guests could use the pool of the main house. Alongside Sally Norie, Ward’s girlfriend at the time, one of Ward’s guests on the same the evening that the Profumos visited the big house was Christine Keeler. Keeler’s name is now synonymous with scandal, with the film of her relationship with John Profumo (or Jack as she and his social circle referred to him as) being titled exactly that.
But who was Christine Keeler, and how did she become the girl at the centre of one of the most notable scandals in British history?
For Christine Keeler, the story behind the Profumo Affair starts with her job at Murray’s,6 a Soho cabaret club she began working at as a showgirl after she moved to London in 1959. The audience was largely wealthy and influential and was often made up of the aristocracy. It was also where she met Stephen Ward, who was a guest of a rich Arab, Ahmed Kanu, whom Keeler knew. Ward was to become her guru, and what she calls a ‘Svengali’.7
Keeler’s mother, Julie Payne, who was living with her own parents after being abandoned by her husband and Keeler’s father Colin, initially brought up Christine alone. Later, when she was about 4 years old, Keeler moved to two unheated converted railway carriages in Hythe End Road, Wraysbury, Berkshire, with her mother and her (eventual) stepfather Edward Huish. It was an uneasy relationship, and home comforts were sparse. There was no bathroom and no hot water in the home, lighting came from oil lamps and her mother cooked on a fire for several years until electricity was connected. She spent her days on her push bike and in the outdoors, being sent away to a Littlehampton holiday home aged nine because a school inspector decided she was malnourished.
She was aware of unwanted male attention from an early age. Knightley and Kennedy say that Keeler, in a tiny but homemade bikini, was the main draw for the many swimming parties the local youths had at abandoned gravel pits in the summer months. By the time she was 16, they tell us she had been ejected from more than one local pub for being intoxicated.
Despite being academically capable, Keeler was not encouraged to work hard at school and at 15 left to start the first of several office typing jobs, which she hated. At various intervals she tried modelling, appearing in Tit-Bits in 1958. Instead of office work, she switched to minding the home, freeing up her mother to go out to work to bring some money in instead. For several years, Keeler bounced between failed relationships and jobs, trying to find her place in the world. After a DIY abortion went wrong, when she was 16 Keeler gave birth to a baby boy in Old Windsor hospital. His father was an American serviceman stationed at the Laleham air base.8 The baby died at six days old. When she left hospital, and with relations with her parents at an all-time low, Keeler headed off to London, and after a spell in a gown shop and as a waitress, Keeler ended up at the members-only cabaret club Murray’s.
Nightclubs were an easy road to big profits for their owners, explains Davenport-Hines,9 and Oswald Murray opened Keeler’s workplace in Beak Street in the 1930s. It worked on a bottle party system to avoid the strict licensing laws that prohibited alcohol sales after 11.00 pm. Invited clientele would order ahead so that they could circumvent the rules. The club had a spot-lit revolving stage but as at the time the law required strippers to remain absolutely still, while some clothed employees did the dancing, others, like Keeler, would stay topless and motionless at the back. The club employed forty-five women, with hundreds more waiting to fill any vacancy.10
