Whether the current BBC series The Trial of Christine Keeler is the 'real' story of Christine and the Profumo Affair is open to interpretation but at least it's a brave attempt to give a more authentic picture of Christine than the cruel, damaging and false tabloid version of her as prostitute/slag/scarlet woman etc.
I arrived in London in winter 1963 so I was around when newspaper
headlines, tv news and gossip-mongers were salivating, fabricating and
raging about the Scandal. But the people I hung out with were artists,
students, teachers, would-be actors, would-be-anything, foreigners and
Anglos of various backgrounds and politics (mostly left-wing), employed
and unemployed. None of us were among the accusers of Christine or Mandy
and there was also sympathy for Stephen Ward. We were anti-war,
anti-racism, anti-establishment (the Hornsey Art College student
revolution happened around that time) pro equality and so on. Yes there
was patriarchy but mostly we had fun with the patriarchs. I can only
speak about my own experience but it was one of the most fun periods of
my life, the down bits as exciting as the ups. The 'suffocating
atmosphere' didn't happen to me, but maybe i was lucky.
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