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Secrets and Lies

The Trials of Christine Keeler

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Secrets and Lies

By: Douglas Thompson, Christine Keeler
Narrated by: Sophie Cookson
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About this listen

The sensational true story behind the major TV drama series The Trial of Christine Keeler, performed by Sophie Cookson.

In her own words, the life of the beautiful young model and dancer who helped to bring down the Tory government of Harold Macmillan - the 'Profumo Affair' remains the greatest political sex scandal in recent British history.

Having found fame and success as a model, Christine's short affair with the minister for war, John Profumo, led to his downfall at the end of Harold Macmillan's Conservative government and was at the heart of the social and political earthquake that followed. She became the subject of scandal, intrigue and gossip and was tried for perjury and briefly jailed following the death of Stephen Ward, the socialite who had introduced her to Profumo.

Following Christine Keeler's death in December 2017, her book has been updated to include revelations that she did not wish to be published in her lifetime. The result is an audiobook containing material that has never been officially released, which really does lift the lid on just how far the Establishment will go to protect its own.

©2019 Douglas Thompson and Christine Keeler (P)2019 Bonnier Books UK 20th Century Europe Great Britain Historical Modern Political Science Politicians Politics & Activism Politics & Government Women England

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You can’t help thinking throughout that this woman needed her head looking at. The countless disastrous decisions just glossed over by Ms Keeler in this book just left me thinking she wasn’t capable of making any good decisions. I’m not getting any admission of wrongdoing on her part nor any real regret other than when situations inevitably turned out badly for her. It’s a frustrating read, one car crash after another and she never seems to grow up. I’m feel bad for her sons. There’s more to read on the espionage that’s for sure without the endless faux romance interruptions this read gives. I spent so much time groaning “You idiot“ throughout this.

Intrigue… and annoyance

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I enjoyed listening to Christine’s own words about her life. She was a young and inexperienced girl who happened to get caught up in the hedonistic lives of debauchery and cover ups of the rich and famous and more importantly of those in positions of power. Anyone who knows how government works, knew the film Scandal was only a small part of what went on. I enjoyed the narrator’s tone and expressions. Well read.

A more believable account.

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I have been fascinated with the Perfumo affair since I did politics at A-level in the 80’s.

I could never understand how people believed that a barely 20 year old could be the scapegoat for all of those old traditional conservative, powerful, deviant men? Now it would be preposterous that this could have ever happened to her, but the fact that it did was awful.

And Lucky Gordon? I can’t even believe that he was allowed to live in society with the amount of times that he had harmed other women.

She was no saint by any means but I truly believe she told the truth here. Like we finally heard the real truth. I feel so sad that she never seemed to really have anybody that had her back apart from ironically, Stephen Ward in the very beginning, but I really enjoyed this and I hope that they make a proper movie out of this book, so we actually get the truth.

I always knew it…

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In a story like this, you can chhose your side of the fence or sit on it. I'm choosing a side and it's Miss Keeler's.Her story rings true to me, and as someone who came very close to becoming the Christine Keeler of the eighties, it was the story of what had happened to her that saved me. I came to a crossroad, and took a sharp right, but I saw the seedy side of London society and it didn't seem to have changed too much. I was a secretary to a wealthy club owner, but kept outside the gates instead of walking through, turning down endless offers of flats, cars, trips to exotic locations, until it became far too tough to keep on saying variations on a theme of 'flattered but no'. No names, most of them are dead anyway.

Measuring what didn't happen to me against what did happen to Christine, I'd have no hesitation in saying that she was groomed, used and abused. Would it happen now? Re-cast with available characters and yes. Maybe not bringing down a government, but that young girls are dazzled by rank and money? Yes. Should they know better? How?

I found this account painfully convincing and I'd recommend it to anyone.

And if a Belgium arms dealer or American property developer asks you to go to Wai kiki beach, or a Park Lane Hotel, say no.. It's a dark and destructive road to walk, run or drive down. Thank you Christine.

Riddle me riddle me riddle me ree

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The recent BBC drama series on the Profumo Affair starred Sophie Cookson as Christine Keeler, and in this audiobook Cookson narrates Keeler's memoir. It provides much more background detail on Keeler's belief that Stephen Ward, her one-time alleged pimp, was in fact a Soviet spy, though probably closer to a double agent, who ran a network of young women with the aim of luring targets into honey-traps to compromise them, and to extract secrets from them. Society osteopath Ward was probably scapegoated by the Establishment - convicted on dubious charges of living off "immoral earnings" as a kind of high society pimp, and killing himself before the conclusion of his trial. But Keeler paints an even darker picture. She felt Ward used her for espionage (she delivered secrets to the Russian Embassy, though claims she didn't know what was in the envelope). She says Ward attempted to murder her. And she believed his case was a miscarriage of justice - not that Ward was convicted, but that he was convicted of pimping and not spying. There's an understandable bitterness that runs through the book, as Keeler ends up living in a rough London housing estate called "World's End" with her son Seymour. She loses her dinner-lady job after the headteacher discovers who she is. Keeler spent a lifetime in the shadow of a scandal often credited with bringing down a Conservative government (though ironically Keeler was a lifelong Tory voter!), and became an expert on the background, reading up on the key figures. This book appears to rest largely on Keeler "filling in the blanks" - she heard and saw a lot living with Ward, but at the time might have been in the dark about the significance of the people he spent time with. How much of the book is based on subsequent study is difficult to know, but most of it seemed plausible.
She educated herself in the years that followed, even getting hold of old FBI files on her (now online). It's the remarkably destructive effect that the Profumo Affair had on the lives of just about everyone involved - and the secrecy that still surrounds it - which continue to fascinate. The narration can be a bit grating - Cookson uses the "little girl lost" accent from the TV series - and by the end I was starting to lose sympathy a little for Keeler, and to wonder if she was quite as naive as she'd always maintained. But it does provide a great picture of what was going on behind closed doors and in exclusive clubs in London in the 1960s, and as Keeler's memoir it is unmissable for anyone with an interest in the greatest sex scandal in British political history.

Lies and spies in Swinging London

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