Stephen Ward's former home

The Profumo Affair was the most explosive British scandal in recent times. It was named after John Profumo who was War Minister in Harold Macmillan's Conservative government. While married he had an extramarital affair with the 19-year-old model Christine Keeler. This overlapped Christine’s involvement with a spy called Yevgeny Ivanov thereby creating a possible national security risk. The affair would not have exploded into a three-ring circus had it not been for a reckless shooting incident in December 1962 in London. Here I am at a house in central London where it happened.

I’m stood outside the mews house which was the home of Stephen Ward, an osteopath and socialite. He’d taken Christine under his wing and let her rent a room. Being flighty, and hedonistic she saw several men with the relationships overlapping. She was seeing two black men who were both possession: "Lucky" Gordon, a Jamaican jazz singer with a history of casual violence and Johnny Edgecombe, an ex-merchant seaman from Antigua. 

On the afternoon of 14th December 1962 Christine and her friend Mandy Rice-Davies (who also lived here) were at home in mews. Edgecombe arrived in a taxi and demanded to see Christine. Both women ducked down from the windows and Edgecome was so exasperated at being ignored he pulled out a gun and fired shots at the front door and window (then fled in the taxi.) The incident filled a small column the evening newspaper. The highly-competitive red-top newspapers could smell a juicy story. In those day unscrupulous cheque-book journalism was rife and when the press found out Christine was sleeping with a cabinet minister and a Russian spy they began frothing at the mouth. The Mirror Newspaper Group urged (and overpaid) Christine to spice up her connections with both men. They jacked up the current nuclear war paranoia and claimed Christine was asked by Stephen Ward to find out nuclear secrets from Profumo.

None of this was true but the red-top newspapers ruthlessly vied for explosive stories and what more nuclear material could you have -a good-time girl sharing pillow talk with the War minster and a Russian spy! Moreover they pushed the idea that Stephen Ward sympathised with the Russians and pimped out Christine and Mandy to high society to garner useful information for Russia (he ended up killing himself.)

The Profumo Affair was the scandal that rocked the 60s. Who'd have thought a brief romance between an MP and a naive young woman would shatter so many lives, spurn thousands of acres of newsprint, books, films and documentaries? It started where I'm stood - where Johnny Edgecome arrived in a taxi, shouted, shot two bullets in haste and fled.

I've bought all the books on The Profumo Affair (some have been retitled so you buy the same book twice) and got acquainted with many characters - socialites, royalty, crooks, nobility, MPS, lawyers, MI5 agents and prostitutes. It was pleasing to see where Christine, Mandy and Stephen lived and where the seed from which so much misery and intrigue sprouted.

17 Wimpole Mews was last sold in December 2015 for £4.25 million. It's since been demolished and a new house rebuilt. What a shame a bit of history has gone. I did a salute and left.