Sex Class and Power in the Age of Profumo
The 1963 Profumo affair is often described as Britain’s ‘worst’ political scandal, a turning point in the nation’s sexual mores, and a precursor of the swinging sixties. None of those assertions really hold up: the Jeremy Thorpe trial of 1979 was profoundly more serious, and attitudes to sex had been changing since 1960, when an Old Bailey jury decided that D H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was not obscene.
Nonetheless, Profumo holds a special place in the British psyche: a unique cocktail of stately homes, swimming pools, politicians, spies, tarts and orgies. The fiftieth anniversary has prompted a new analysis by Richard Davenport-Hines: An English Affair, Sex Class and Power in the Age of Profumo.
In the opening pages the author recalls his father driving up Park Lane in a black Alvis with the hood down, stopping at the then new Hilton Hotel, and announcing with pride that another hotel was planned next door. In this thumbnail sketch we see how the boy’s reactions to the age were formed. His father was one of a breed who loved modern architecture, fast cars, leggy mistresses and the brash new showiness of the times. Today, the dated and unlovely Hilton still dominates Park Lane and reminds us of a different era.
Davenport-Hines meticulously sets the scene for his story, pointing out that it was a relaxation in planning laws by Macmillan’s government which not only scarred the London skyline but created a new breed of millionaire speculators. At the same time, dilapidated Victorian terraces were being rented to the poor by slum landlords like Rachman, who kept Mandy Rice-Davies as his mistress.
The author plots, in detail, the many strands of English history which led to that fateful meeting by the Cliveden swimming pool. They include a patrician, grouse shooting prime minister who ran his cabinet as if it were a gentlemen’s club in St James; a vindictive press baron who detested the Astor family and an ambitious Labour leader keen to undermine a government already weakened by spy scandals.
Into this high octane mix blundered society osteopath Stephen Ward; a swinger who liked introducing pretty young girls to his wealthy and powerful friends. He was charming, garrulous and wildly indiscreet. It is Ward, more than anyone else, who will be the victim; and his indiscretion will cost him his life. We now know, beyond any doubt, that his show trial was a sham; the police intimidated witnesses and fabricated evidence. Ward was not a pimp, and Keeler and Rice-Davies were not prostitutes. They were all promiscuous, and the girls accepted money and gifts from their lovers, but they did not sell sex. For Ward, the final and unbearable blow was the desertion of his friends and he committed suicide the night before his trial ended.
Today, the high jinks at Cliveden would barely raise an eyebrow. The Cold War is over; we have lived through worse scandals and now hold our politicians in low regard. Keeler and Rice-Davies would be reality television stars with their own brands of perfume, and Ward would have written a best-selling autobiography. Britain however, was a very different place in 1963.
The author combines impeccable research with delightful style; his prose is beautifully crafted and richly articulated. I cannot remember the last time I saw the word frottage in any book, but I enjoyed being reminded of it and did not begrudge my occasional trips to the dictionary. This is English political and social history at its best, unmissable!
