CHRISTINE KEELER
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Photos and pictures

29/11/2020

4 Comments

 
I hope this blog finds you well, and thank you for finding this page.

It has been another really busy week. I was interviewed by Kevin O’Sullivan on talk radio last Saturday, and by Ryan Tubridy on RTÉ radio on Tuesday morning. There were also some press interviews, and I wrote a piece for a magazine and all will be out soon. I am trying to get Christine’s Campaign out there.
Having a mild form of dyslexia the writing of blogs and articles takes a lot of time and energy. I find writing professional emails and letters straightforward enough, its mostly terminology or standard phrases that you just get used to typing out, but creative writing is much harder. So it only seems fair to thank any readers for their patience if they trip over my typos on this website. I am happy to be told about them and I do update them.

I get some readers’ questions about Chris and I wanted to answer some this week. I was asked about Christine and how she felt about being photographed as she got older, and it is a brilliant question because I think it says a lot about the person I grew up with.

I am often asked for personal pictures of Christine and family pictures and the truth is, there aren’t very many at all. We forget now how easy it is to take pictures, but when I was growing up, we didn’t have a camera, as they were expensive and film was expensive too.

I was given an old camera by a friend of my mother’s. It was in a brown leather case and had a heavy lens. It just needed film and I remember thinking it was very beautiful. I had recently met my father and he was very wealthy, so Christine suggested that next time I saw my father maybe I could ask him to get some film and the very next Saturday I was due to see him I took my camera with me to his large house in Chelsea.

I remember there were friends of his there when I showed him the camera and I told him I just needed film, but my father said something along the lines of - it needs film so he could see why I brought it now, but he was looking at his friends when he said it

and the grown ups gave each other knowing looks. It made me feel like the poor child from a council estate even though I knew it was a dig at Christine. I was very young but I felt humiliated, so I left the camera there and I never saw it again. Sometimes when a marriage breaks down it ‘salts the earth’ and the hate between two people colours everything.

Chris hated having pictures taken of her. She would put her hand in front of cameras and say “no no”. Part of that was about vanity. She would say “how old I look”.

We talked about getting old and she would say “I still feel eighteen, inside... but then I catch myself in the mirror!” And we would laugh and talk about covering all the mirrors in the house like the crazy old ladies in literature. “I’m not a crazy old lady” and we would laugh even more, because she was a bit.
Chris also said how she worried that personal pictures could just appear in the papers. She worried about that. At some stage she was betrayed to the press by nearly every member of her family, so Imagine the betrayal she would have felt if a picture taken by her son hit the papers? It would be too much. Imagine how I would feel if I betrayed her that way? We only once asked Christine for a picture and that was with her granddaughter a few weeks before she passed. She was so happy having that picture taken, talking to her about modelling shots and asking her granddaughter “What is your best side?” in a photo.

There are only a few pictures of Christine and I. A few photos from my wedding, press pictures from the movie Scandal, and one picture from when I was young that I have already posted on an earlier blog, and that is it. But thats ok I don't need anymore, I was there.

Just to let you all know we have released a campaign image to help with some of the costs in running this website and with Christine’s campaign. We also need help spreading the word about our campaign to pardon Christine so please let friends know, like and share posts. It all helps.

Thank you.
Picture
4 Comments
gillian stimpson
1/12/2020 03:47:13 pm

Well written and another segment uncovered. Interesting read. How much you both overcome over those years. Christine was an incredible woman and you an incredible son. Keep up the good work.

Reply
Dave Tomlin
2/12/2020 04:18:36 pm

Hi Seymour, once again a marvellous blog. Fully understand what you mean when you say how hard it is to express yourself in words as opposed to actually saying what you need to in the right way. (now you have me questioning myself as to whether I am typing gobbledygook) Err
I was hoping in this blog, to hear a respond from you in regard to a question QC put in the comments ‘The Two Policeman’ post.
QC’s asked
My second question is about Paula Hamilton Marshall - we know they both went to prison together, will the appeal include asking for a pardon for her and do you know what happened to her on her release – did she stay in touch with your mum, was there any animosity between them do you know. I’m uncertain as to whether she is still alive, but if so, has she or any family members been in touch regarding the appeal and is it something you would encourage?
You replied
Great questions DC

Thank you. Will be in this week’s blog and blog extra audio.

Again, I am struggling to put into words as to what Christine felt about photos. “I still feel eighteen, inside... but then I catch myself in the mirror!” I think the vast majority of us feel exactly the same when you reach a certain age. Christine laughed and joked about it with you, as we all do with family members…………. But deep down?.............. Well some of your older bloggers will really know what one feels.
The campaign image………… You said in your audio Blogcast, a cheaper more affordable print to help raise funds in the running cost of the website………………..My first impressions was excellent, far better than the original, and believe it or not I thought at first it was copy of the original by Banksy, certainly, in the style of anyway……… Now if we could get him on board……………. Anyone know someone, that might know someone that could have a whisper in his shell like????
Seymour, you might think your blogs are short and sweet, but what you mention in them opens up a thousand questions………… your dad, brother grandmother so much we would like to know.
As for the blog cast in the press section …………24 November 2020 - RTÉ Interview with Ryan Tubridy
Again excellent, you came across positive and clear as to what the campaign was all about. Well done. We are all rooting for you.
All the best Seymour
Dave

Reply
DC
4/12/2020 11:26:53 am

Seymour, thank you for your latest blogs – as we learn more about your, up to now, private life it was interesting to hear that you had an ongoing relationship with your father, I guess the perception was that you lived with your mum almost exclusively and your dad had no input into your life other than sending you away to private school 😊

On a personal level it must have been hard for you growing up, living in quite a deprived area, and I mean no disrespect having been brough up on a council estate myself, and then going to private school. I guess you had a completely different set of friends in each location – so my questions this week are….

how were you and your mum treated whilst living on the Worlds End estate?
did your mum make any life-long friends there?
was there any animosity shown towards her for whom she was?

Without knowing, you must have been in an almost unique situation, there can’t be many socially housed children that have the opportunity to go to private school –

Did you experience any negative situations?
what did your estate friends make of your private educated friends? and vice versa,
how did your school friends react to your home life situation?

Whilst we are talking about friends, I know from reading your mums book and listening to you speak on here, it seems that your mums closest friends were those whom supported her professionally - her co-writer and solicitor – that seems somewhat sad – apart from you and your family, and obviously without naming names, did she have any close friends that she could lean on for support, and were any of them life long friends that stuck by her through thick and thin?

When you read articles and stories about CK, certainly about her later life, there is almost always a negative slant to that reporting, I’ve read about a lonely old lady living in solitude, whom was known to get close to people and then drop them for no apparent reason, would be extremely kind one minute and then ignore you the next – hopefully you can dispel some of those nasty and unnecessary remarks please.

Reply
Seymour
4/12/2020 06:24:23 pm

Thank you

Some great material and ideas for the next blog.

I’ll pull together some answers.

All the best.

Reply



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