MY MOTHER, CHRISTINE KEELER
An art exhibition about my mother, I am not sure how she would have felt about it.

Christine Keeler is an icon. She must be, there is an art exhibition in her name. Her story represents something, a particular time, a place in history where things changed, and they really needed to change.

In Britain at the start of the 1960s, Victorian values are still mainstream. There is a rich ruling class who are better than everybody else, women are mostly thought of as the property of the men around them and if you are Black, discrimination, IS the culture. I believe the Profumo scandal shone a light on all of that poison and was another step on the road that we are still very much on, to a more equal society.

So, I think in some ways the Profumo scandal was a good thing. But for my mother, I am sure she would say, “What a price I had to pay!”

The truth is, she didn’t set out to hurt the Establishment, or strike a blow for equal rights. She didn’t want to hurt anybody. She was just a young girl who was mostly afraid. So, maybe my mother has an art exhibition in her name today for less lofty reasons. Maybe because there is something about her story that speaks to people. She was young and beautiful. Maybe it’s because of the glamour and her beauty, made extra famous by the photo by Lewis Morley of her sitting on that chair, “With my knickers on” my mum would add.

I was once told very earnestly by an older man, “Christine Keeler was hated by almost everyone, but she was really sexy, and you knew she would do anything in bed”. He felt it was a reasonable assessment of my mother to share with me, because (something I hadn’t realised at the time) Christine Keeler is an icon, because icons aren’t real people. If art can unmask some humanity behind the icon, and bring that icon to life in some way, it may be harder to pass a cruel judgement on Christine Keeler. I hope so.

The more I understand her story, the more it is clear to me that she did not do a single thing wrong. There was no malice in any action, no reason or excuse to judge her poorly, no reason at all to hate her.

So let’s not judge Christine Keeler, let’s see her as a young and beautiful frightened girl. Because she didn’t mind at all when people said how pretty she was, I bet she may even have enjoyed this exhibition!

I want to thank Fionn Wilson for all her hard work, drive, and creative brilliance, she has done my mother a great service with these exhibitions. And also a special thank you to Professor Steve Chibnall, De Montfort University, and all the team here for hosting this event.

Seymour Platt, January 2023

Here is my speech from last nights opening of Scandal ‘63 Revisited at De Montfort University Gallery Leicester - apologies if it is a little long!

It was a great night and a special thank you for all the team at De Montfort University - Hugo, Chris and Dan, and of course Co Curators Fionn Wilson and Steve Chibnall - the exhibition runs at the Leicester Gallery up until 15 April.

Flights are booked and I will be making my way to De Monfort University for the 2nd March. I have been given the honor of opening an exhibition about that scandal from 1963 on behalf of my mother, and talk about our campaign and the woman I knew.

Its been five years since my Mother, Christine Keeler, passed away.

She always said “when all the documents are released everyone will see that I was telling the truth”
I wonder what she would think about the recent MI5 papers released through the National Archives.

In the last five years we started a campaign that she should not have gone to prison in 1963, that she was clearly the victim of a violent attack and she was wrongfully punished. The case files are still with the CCRC (criminal case review commission) and most recently I am told they are pulling together a report to be considered by a Commissioner, who will decide whether the case needs to be considered by a committee of three Commissioners, because there is potential for it to be referred for an appeal.

I wonder what my mother would think of the campaign as well.

At this anniversary, like many people who have lost someone they love, I would love another five minutes to ask her all these questions…

But If I actually think about it, and if we had five minutes, there would be plenty of other things to say instead.

22 February 1942 - 4 December 2017

Happy New Year

I thought it was time for another update and maybe share some stories and thoughts.

I and others passionately believe it was wrong that my mother went to prison in 1963, and this year, work continues to clear my mothers name. In 2021 we asked the then Secretary of State for Justice Robert Buckland, to consider a royal pardon for Christine Keeler.


In September there was a cabinet reshuffle and Dominic Raab took over the role as the new Secretary of State for Justice. Soon after his appointment we received a letter, the Pardon could only be considered if all other legal avenues had been attempted and it was their view we should go the CCRC (Criminal Cases Review Commission) first.

The CCRC (Criminal Cases Review Commission) are an independent body tasked with investigating alleged miscarriages of justice. So I am happy that my mothers case is with them, in fact just before Christmas they confirmed that they had all our information and it is currently under review. Hopefully we will have an answer early in the the new year.

If the CCRC decide that my mothers case may have been a miscarriage of justice, it would be much more significant, it would mean her conviction could be expunged.

In that trial in 1963, my mother wasn’t the only woman punished and sent to prison. Paula Hamilton Marshall also went to prison, and for exactly the same reason as my mother, she had not lied about witnessing my mother being assaulted, but she had lied about there being two more witnesses to my mothers assault.


Another wrinkle being, Paula was a new mother with a 9 month old baby, and she was still sent to prison.

I can’t be sure, but it is possible that Paula’s baby was at the flat the night my mother was assaulted this may explain why Olive Brooker, the housekeeper was there, because I always thought that Olive was really helping Paula as she was a new mum. It wasn’t mentioned in court so I may well be wrong.

My mother always thought it was particularly cruel for any mother with young children to be sent to prison. Unless of course their crime was particularly heinous. My mother remembers there being lots of woman in prison with young families and how cruel it was.

Just recently, Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was interviewed by Nick Robinson for the BBC and he talked about his Nan Libby, and that she had shared a cell with my mother.

She did!


I had no idea Libby, my mums old friend was his Nan, until I heard the interview. They went on to be friends long after they left prison and I have memories of her from when I was very young. She was politically very active, a socialist to the core, and was one of the woman I met as a child, who was around my mother, that showed me that belief, conviction and integrity had nothing to do with someones gender.

It doesn’t matter what your politics, its a nice story, I can’t help but imagine how proud Libby would have been to see her grandchild become Shadow Health Secretary. I think my mum would have argued it was in the genes.

I note Wes said in the interview that his Nan always thought my mother shouldn’t have gone to prison, what a wonderful woman.

I have a response form the Ministry of Justice regarding our application for a pardon for my mother, Christine Keeler.

It is actually quite a nice letter, explaining, before they would consider a pardon we should go to the “Criminal Case Review Commission”. The CCRC are an independent body who investigate possible miscarriages of justice, so it makes sense that we would be directed here as we are arguing so strongly that my mother was actually innocent. We thought this was always a possible outcome, or next step.

I have now pulled all the documents together and sent them on to the CCRC asking if they would consider my mothers case for investigation. I think because we have argued my mother was in fact innocent

So people are taking this seriously.

My mother was sent to prison for lying about who was present when she was assaulted, (there were more people who saw and confirmed that she was beaten up in the street) She did not lie about being attacked…they put a victims of an assault in prison and it was wrong.

So I look forward to hearing from the CCRC and then taking the next steps.

The application for my mother’s pardon was sent in on 14th June 2021 and is available to read on on the campaign pages on this website.

It is very detailed and leaves no doubt that my mother was assaulted by Gordon on 18th April 1963 and, as the victim of crime, it was wrong that she was sent to prison. It’s filled with evidence that shines a new light on that part of history.

The Ministry of Justice has received the application and have said they are going through the review process. I believe lots of you have emailed or written to the Ministry to show support for Christine’s pardon, so thank you. If you haven’t yet, please go to the campaign page, where there are instructions about how to give your support.

Campaign page

In August 1963 John Hogan sold his story to The People, the article had the snappy heading of “Christine Keeler is a shameless slut”. John Hogan could now tell the world that he had been working as a butler for Christine. Some of his duties seemed to include bringing her up cups of tea in bed, sometimes an extra cup for a lover who might be there too, allegedly once John Profumo.

John Hogan also claimed that Christine did not wash, her feet were so dirty he had to tell her to get them clean, had disgusting nicotine stained fingers and that she left her clothes on the floor where they fell.

John Hogan told The People how how she had such a voracious sexual appetite that on Stephen Ward’s say-so she would pick up homeless men and drag them back to her flat for sex, and his story went on to lament the suicide of Stephen Ward who, he said, was an innocent man in all of this.

Mandy and Christine were the real monsters in his eyes.

John Hogan was paid £600 for his story, according to Lord Denning, and he wasn't a butler, he was a carpet cleaner. The idea that Christine had a butler in 1962 is ludicrous. She was broke, in fact she was always broke and never had any money, that is until June 1963 when the News of the World newspaper gave her £23,000 for her story.

Maybe some of the men around her resented her sudden fortune, felt they should have their share, as her success was their property.

Robin Drury had an axe to grind with Christine. Robin was Christine’s manager and had been trying to get a book written, “Christine’s Story”. He had a good friend who would write the story for £15,000 (£100,000+ in today’s money). She was being conned and she knew it, so she pulled out of the book deal and fired him.

They had recorded a tape for the book while everyone was drunk and high, and Christine insisted that Robin destroy the tape. She watched him burn it in an ashtray - Robin did put a tape in the ashtray and burn it, it just wasn’t Christine’s tape.

According to Christine, Robin now turned to straight blackmail: he had the tape and wanted £10,000 or he was taking it to the police.

Robin was bankrupt and desperate for money so, after being turned down by Christine, he took the tape to the police and started selling his story to the press.

By the beginning of October 1963, Robin Drury, Christine’s ex-manager, was selling his story, talking about orgies and the lies Christine had told. He said Christine had said on the tape that she wasn't assaulted by Lucky Gordon and that on that night there were two other West Indian men who witnessed it all. He said that Christine had picked up another woman for an orgy and she had beaten her up - it was all nothing to do with Gordon. And the newspapers printed every word

The press had a new story, there was proof Christine was a liar and Gordon was an innocent man, or so it seemed. However, Robin Drury was lying.

Of course in court the tape recording was thrown out, rambling drunk and high people talking rubbish is not admissible but, asked in court, the police did assert, “The tapes confirm that Gordon assaulted her”.

John Hamilton-Marshall was a friend of both Stephen Ward and Lucky Gordon. He went to the police and said he had been in an altercation with Christine on the same night that Lucky assaulted her. All through August 1963, John was also selling his story for money in The People and the Daily Express, telling them he was responsible for all her wounds and injuries.

It was another lie. We show in our pardon documents that John Hamilton-Marshall’s allegations were not corroborated by anyone else. He had a criminal record and had recently lied under oath in the Stephen Ward trial.

Unusually, he was given immunity from prosecution for what he would say in court, and even the prosecution admitted he was a tainted witness whose testimony was not “evidence that one or more injuries to Keeler were caused by him and not by Gordon”

John was Paula Hamilton-Marshall’s brother and Paula was a witness who supported Christine's account of the assault that night. So John would have known his testimony could end up causing his sister’s conviction.

He said after her trial, "I did it for Stephen Ward. Paula was for Christine and I was for Stephen. But it all seems rather pointless now."

Of all the elements to this story, I have found John’s lies and exaggerations the hardest to grasp. Why would he step forward and do so much damage, for money, resentment or vengeance for the death of Stephen Ward or any of the three?

I recently asked Douglas Thompson, co -author of my mother’s autobiography, for his thoughts on what John did. Douglas told me a story of a serial killer in the US. A child had gone missing and the police had thrown up checkpoints and were screening all cars. A father and daughter pulled up. They talked to the police and were waved on, without the police searching their car. This was a father out for a drive with his daughter, so the police assumed that he could not be the man they were looking for, but in the boot of that car was his next victim. The Police didn’t appreciate that a murderer would take his child for a drive with his victim in the boot.

I’m not suggesting John was a serial killer or anything that awful but I think it illustrates people are beyond understanding.

Through June 1963, before Stephen’s trial, members of Parliament, protected by parliamentary privilege, destroyed Christine’s reputation, lining up to call her a prostitute.

Both John Hamilton-Marshall and Robin Drury were friends of Stephen Ward and both went to the police with their stories in the same weekend, the 6th and 7th of July 1963, days after Stephen Ward’s committal proceedings and only a few weeks before his trial.

I’ve been asked if I think there was a conspiracy to punish my mother, I still remember my mother saying.
“If you want to keep a secret, tell no one” and “keeping secrets is the hardest thing in the world”

Still I think people deliberately stepped up to destroy her, or just make money…Or maybe it was just the way women were treated in 1963.

I know on this website some of my spelling can be “experimental” or to put it another way, wrong, and sometimes I write sentences that don't flow very well when you read them.

So thank you dear reader for your patience... and notice I didn't dare mention the grammar on this page,, I still cant understand why Oxford felt they needed their own comma! 

Hopefully what you are hearing is my voice, its a little bit dyslexic its a little bit malapropic, but its my voice. I recently wrote a piece that proved far too long, I tried to rewrite it and managed to make it even longer, I think this highlights how complicated this story is. 

Obviously the piece was heavily edited, but I thought, here would be an ideal home for my overly long edition.

In July it will be 60 years since the beginning of that chapter in our nation’s history known as the ‘Profumo scandal.’ An affair, in which my mother, Christine Keeler, had a starring role, and is credited with the fall of Harold Macmillan’s government.

The story of that affair is well known: Christine Keeler met John Profumo, the Secretary of State for war, at a summer pool party at Cliveden. She found herself the focus of the world’s press two years later when her relationship with the Tory MP became public knowledge. At the same time, there had also been a drunken night with a Soviet attaché called Yevgeny Ivanov. The scandal was a cocktail prompting feverish claims of espionage and sex parties amongst society’s elite.

What is less well known, however, is the consequences for my mother after being frontpage news around the world. Her name and reputation were tainted, which ensured she was the innocent victim of a subsequent, miscarriage of justice. In December 1963, six months after Profumo’s resignation, she was sentenced to nine months in jail for lying under oath about an entirely different case.

By April 1963. Christine had been tormented by a jazz singer Aloysius ‘Lucky’ Gordon, for 18 months. He had abused, assaulted and, according to Christine, even raped her on two occasions. He was now calling and threatening her – in today’s language, he was stalking her.

On the morning of 18 April 1963, as she was leaving her friend Paula’s house in Westminster for an evening of dancing, Christine was attacked by Gordon. In full view of Paula and two of her friends, he hit and kicked my mother. Paula called the police and Gordon fled. The two men who had witnessed the attack, Rudolph Fenton and Clarence Camacchio, wanted nothing to do with it. Both were West Indian and afraid of the police. They also were married and had criminal records, so they hid in a bedroom when the police arrived. Christine was pressured to say they weren’t there.

When the assault went to court, my mother denied under oath that the two men were witnesses to the attack. Gordon even admitted that he had hit her and was quickly found guilty. His criminal record for violence against women was disclosed and he was sentenced to three years in prison.

Then a few weeks later, a tape emerged of Christine admitting there were two more witnesses at the assault. They were found and interviewed and, even though they confirmed the assault, Gordon’s conviction was overturned in record time. My mother was arrested.

My mother’s barrister, the celebrated Jeremy Hutchinson QC, said of talking with her: ‘It was the voice of a person who had lived many years longer than her twenty-one years and who seemed to have grown entirely weary of life. It was a voice which had lost any joy in life.’

In court there was no disputing that she had been assaulted by Gordon, The police gave evidence of the terror Christine was subjected to by Gordon. All witnesses gave evidence that Gordon assaulted her – even the prosecution accepted that she had been attacked.

What this demonstrates is that, in 1963, it was more important to punish Christine for lying about who witnessed her assault then punishing the man who assaulted her.

In Parliament they were calling her a slut and a prostitute, and in the newspapers it was now the men selling stories for money that destroyed her reputation, It was the end of a hellish year; Christine had been in four very public court cases in 1963: Johnny Edgecombe, Lucky Gordon, Stephen Ward and now her own and she just couldn’t fight anymore. After seeing what had happened to Stephen Ward at his trial, she knew that the system was against her, as what chance did she have? Therefore, on the second day of the trial she pleaded guilty to perjury and obstructing justice and was sentenced to nine months in prison.

As I was growing up, Christine say to me “I should never have gone to prison, Seymour” but the story was complicated and she found it very difficult to explain.

So it wasn't until December 2019, shortly before the BBC was set to release a six-part drama about my mother, that the show’s executive producer, Kate Trigg, phoned me. She said the drama would tell Christine’s story up to her going to prison. It occurred to me that nobody had really done that before and I remembered my mother’s sense of injustice at what had happened to her

In the last line of her will, she wrote: ‘It is my wish that [Seymour] will look after my rights and reputation and do what he can to make sure that the truth is told about events of which I took part during my life.’ I think this is what she meant so I started to piece together what actually happened through books, court documents and newspaper clippings. I didn’t need to rely on just my mother’s account, as everything I needed was was there; in 1963, Christine Keeler couldn’t move without there being a record.

I had the help of Desmond Banks, her long-time friend and solicitor, and together we worked on a timeline of the tragic events, and built a website to tell her story. Then in August last year, I was contacted by a lawyer, James Harbridge, who wanted to help. He had looked at the website and he thought I was right – this was a miscarriage of justice.

Since then he has worked pro bono on the case and now, with the help of a Felicity Gerry QC, we have drawn up our petition for mercy for Christine.

The artist Caroline Coon, a friend of Christine’s, said ‘The most beautiful woman I had ever seen; she took your breath away. Every man who met her wanted her and those who couldn’t have her wanted to punish her.’

All the men around her, honourable or not, didn’t care about the danger she faced from Gordon and she had asked them all for help.

In last year’s BBC drama, people watched a woman being accosted and assaulted by a man he who then assaulted her in the street, they watched as he was released and she was sent to prison.

Her story is another terrible example that the system that does not protect women from violence, and sadly this is still true today. There is a myth that woman lie about being assaulted and in the year to March 2020, just 1.4% of rape cases recorded by police resulted in a suspect being charged: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48095118

There is a awkward truth: sometimes victims lie, but it’s true that they can be intimidated, coerced or afraid. Sometimes they lie to protect somebody or just to spare their last shred of their dignity. The victim may not even think it is a lie – my mother didn’t. Sometimes the victim can only see the one truth - that they were assaulted and nothing else mattered. Being raped or even a punch in the face it is all very personal.

My mother was coerced in to a lie on oath about there being two witnesses to her assault, but there was no malice in her lie. Christine’s two witnesses would later corroborate her story, that she was assaulted, so denying they were there would not have changed the outcome of the trial, was not material and therefore was not perjury.

The criminal justice system failed my mother in 1963 and it is still failing women today.

I hope that 2021 is the year we see this miscarriage of justice reversed and her reputation restored.

It’s Mother’s Day in the UK today and I was struggling to remember a Mother's Day with my Mum. Did I get her card and make her breakfast? I just can’t remember.

​I do remember the first cup of tea I ever made her. I was probably about six years old and had seen tea made a hundred times. I felt very grown up when she said yes and I went off to the kitchen. We used a tea strainer to make tea, it was the 1970s - add a teaspoon of tea leaves in the strainer and pour the boiling water over into the cup then add the milk and two sugars. That was how she took her tea. As it was the first cup of tea I had ever made, I wanted to make it special, so I added a pinch of salt for extra flavour.


She took a few sips and asked, “What is that strange taste?” I told her how I had added a pinch of salt for extra flavour and she just started to laugh. “Oh god! That’s why it tastes awful!” and she was laughing so hard, tears were rolling down her face.


It’s not a Mother’s Day story, it is a tea story and there was a lot of tea in the 1970s. At about the same time my mother had some toilet water, and after going to the loo I would go and find that bottle of toilet water and then pour some into the basin before flushing.


My mother asked me, “Why do I keep finding my perfume in the toilet?” 
“That’s your perfume? I thought it was for the toilet” 
“You’ve been putting my perfume down the toilet?” 
She was laughing again and I learned that Eau de Toilette is another name for perfume and not, in fact, toilet water. 


The perfume wasn't a Mother’s Day gift from me. In fact I don’t remember ever buying a Mother’s Day gift. 


A few years later, when I was about 17, just after the film “Scandal” hit the screens, my mother was taken to a fancy restaurant, for an interview. When she got back it was late and she was a little bit tipsy but always thinking of her son, she had brought me back a “doggy bag”, some of the food wrapped up in a napkin. 


“It was delicious, Seems, I had to save you a bit.” At 17 I was always hungry so I was delighted - that is until she opened the napkin. “It was some of my starter, a beautiful steak tartare.”

​If you don’t know, steak tartare is raw steak with chopped onions, all covered in a raw egg, one of the worst meals you could put to one side and save for later.  After several hours in her handbag, it looked and smelled like dog food.


“Go on, have some, it is delicious.”


The look and smell of the steak tartare made me never want to eat food again, but because Chris was a little tipsy, not wanting to eat this ‘dog food’ wrapped in a napkin was insulting to her. She had gone to all the trouble to bring me back a little doggy bag. She told me, “I had to get the journalist to distract the waiter while I put the napkin in my bag.”


She told me I was ungrateful for not eating the food - “If you’re not going to eat it, then I will!” and off she went to get a fork. After one bite, she said, “Don’t eat that, it’s gone off, yuk!” and she ran off to spit it out. We laughed so hard she started coughing, that deep smoker’s cough.


The fancy restaurant meal that night wasn't a Mother’s Day treat from me.


It seems every day more people are stepping forward and offering to help with the campaign, which is wonderful, and any help is gratefully accepted. I am finding myself getting a little nervous now and thinking what would happen if her pardon is rejected or why it would be rejected. I guess these are all understandable fears, but I also realised it’s because the story of getting my mother a pardon is not just my story. In fact it hasn’t been for a while, as more and more people get involved, more people become invested. 


I sometimes sense the same nervousness in the people around me, the people who are working on this so hard to get her pardoned. I’m sure that is a good thing because sometimes being nervous reminds us when things are important.


Today is Mother’s Day, so we do something in recognition of the women who brought us into the world, and this week I wanted to tell you stories about my mother that could equally have been stories about any mother, stories that show a mother’s love.


If you are lucky enough to be with your mother today, why don't you tell her that you love her and maybe make her a cup of tea? But don't put any salt in the tea, it makes it taste yuk. 


Happy Mother’s Day, Mum.

Today is International Women’s Day, 8th March 2021, a day where we can: “Celebrate women's achievements, raise awareness against bias, and take action for equality.”

Of course there may be some men reading this who are feeling a little left out - they can put International Men’s Day in the diary, it is 19th November each year.

This year International Women’s Day (IWD) is asking people to choose to challenge #ChooseToChallenge. I think this means that we need to do more than just think about bias and equality, we need to challenge it when we see it, and I think we see it everywhere.

By December 1963 Christine was tired and beaten so she pleaded guilty to perjury and was given a nine month sentence. As it is International Women’s Day I wanted to talk about one of the reasons Christine was so beaten down and why she felt fighting was hopeless. To help illustrate some of the hate being thrown at Christine at the time, some of the ‘bias’ she suffered, I wanted to share how she was being talked about by MPs in the House of Commons.

There was some strong language used in Parliament, and I think it helps illustrate her worth in their eyes and helps give a flavour of why Christine would chose to plead guilty, if only just to get away from it all.


Christine, who had never been arrested or even in trouble with the police, is assassinated in Parliament. Is it any wonder that a few weeks later Stephen Ward was found guilty of living off the immoral earnings of both Christine and Mandy.


In the spirit of International Women's Day, I call out Parliament for their discriminating treatment of Christine Keeler in 1963.


My wife/partner, Lorraine, was talking about one of her memories of Christine, it was soon after they met, so around 2001 for a short time we all lived together. Lorraine remembered how one night Christine was talking to her about her story and she just said a little mournfully “You know, Loz” - Christine called her Loz - “I should never have gone to prison”.


And she shouldn’t have.


As it is International Women’s Day I should quite rightly take this opportunity to thank the women who are helping in our campaign to pardon Christine Keeler.


Thank you to:

Mum, Chris - for her love, for being my mother, for raising me, for keeping me safe, and for the confidence she gave me through her love.

​Felicity Gerry QC - Our barrister for Christine’s pardon
https://www.felicitygerry.com

Hannah Marsh - Just started on the campaign, marketing and communications consultant
http://www.marshworks.co.uk

Julie Otter - A friend who has always been there for support and inspiration.
https://ocdistilling.com/blogs/news/ocd-brand-story

Fionn Wilson - A passionate supporter of Christine, who wanted to reframe our understanding of her and would go on to curate the ‘Dear Christine’ exhibition
https://www.fionnwilson.co.uk

Kate Trigg - Producer of “The Trials of Christine Keeler,” the drama that gave oxygen to this campaign.

​Amanda Coe - The writer of “The Trials of Christine Keeler,” for the sympathetic telling of her story.

Tanya Gold and Tara Hanks - who have both championed Christine.

Kacey Ainsworth - for her support and kind words.

My Partner - Lorraine, who has supported and pushed me all the way on this campaign and helps me understand the bias and discrimination in Christine’s story.

My Daughter , Daisy, who is on her own journey to change the world and who is so proud of her grandma Chris.

In the 70s and 80s Johnny and Chris would drink in the same watering holes through south west London. Sometimes I would be dragged along and be given a glass of cola and a packet of crisps and left in a seat in the far corner of the pub. The Man in the Moon or The Water Rat on the Kings Road or Finch’s on the Fulham Road.

When Johnny was out, he was the centre of the universe -famously he had a pub party trick to show off the size of his penis, he could balance 5 half pint glasses along its length. He was magnetic and a huge personality, Johnny had a rare charisma that made him immediately likeable. If I caught his eye he would give me a little wink that would make me smile.

Johnny said to me, “Your mum is a great woman, she’s a survivor,” in a proper London accent.

Everybody knew about his affair with Princess Margaret, even I knew and I was a child. People would say he was very decent not to talk about it ... And yet everybody knew.

Christine once said to a friend that she “really respected Princess Margaret being with Johnny.” I overheard and asked her what she meant? She looked awkward and changed the subject.

In 1971 there was a famous robbery at Lloyd’s Bank in Baker Street and safety deposit boxes where emptied;there was film about the robbery starring Jason Statham 2008. It was rumoured that one of the boxes had compromising pictures of Johnny Bindon and Princess Margaret, but I’m not sure that the dates work for that to be the case.

All of Johnny’s charm and charisma did hide one truth, he was capable of immense and lethal violence. He was charged and acquitted of the murder of John Drake, pleading self defence. It was also rumoured he ran protection rackets in the west end. I was a child and didn't see any of that.

Christine never seemed uneasy in his company or any of the men like Johnny.

Christine met The Kray Brothers at the height of their powers in the mid sixties when she was dating their nephew Freddy. She knew who they were and what they were capable of, but she said, “I had no fear of them”.

The Krays tried to give her sage financial advice: “If you have any money Christine, you should invest with us, in property in Spain.” Christine wasn't the invest money type, or having any money to invest type either.

Years later, in the early 1970s she felt she needed protection. She had left my father and wanted a minder, some muscle to frighten him off if he came near her. Johnny Bindon introduced her to a local hard man called Ginger. Christine wasn’t going to be anyone’s property any more.

When we moved to the World’s End Estate, Ginger and his family happened to be neighbours and I was friends with his youngest son. I remember Ginger was always well dressed, suit and tie, then one day my friend’s dad came home, not from the pub, but from hospital, Ginger had had the life kicked out of him by Johnny Bindon.

I was far too young to know the details but my memory of seeing my friend’s father, back from hospital, lying on their couch, was that he was all smashed to pieces, covered in wires that seemed to be holding him together. They said he was lucky to be alive.

Johnny Bindon died of AIDS related syndrome in 1993.

I don’t want to paint the picture that this was Christine’s life, because it wasn’t, these were just some of the colourful people that she met. Christine didn’t have a boyfriend who would wear a sharp suit and could have the life kicked out of him by another angry man. She would have hated that. Christine met all the characters in London because she was Christine Keeler.

The newspapers have said that Jonny Bindon was an ex-boyfriend of hers, but I’m not sure that is true or rather I never heard that until I read it in a newspaper. It seems every man Christine ever met is called an ex-boyfriend.

I never saw Christine afraid of any of these men. She was only afraid of Gordon. These hard men or London gangsters didn’t frighten her at all. Maybe she had already used up all of her fear.

Mariella jumped bail and with a false name made her way back to London, where she returned to hosting sex parties for the well connected. 

Alan Towers pleaded not guilty to all charges and also jumped bail but made his way to Eastern Europe. The FBI soon dropped the charges and Towers returned to London to enjoy a long career producing a vast number of movies, but there was always a question mark as to whether he had been a Soviet spy.

Dibben and Mariella hosted sex parties, this time for the elite in London, like the infamous ‘Feast of the Peacocks’ sex party that had the mysterious man in the mask.

Christine told me years later that lots of people were wearing masks.

Mariella did an interview with The News of the World in 1963, and it’s a cracking read even now.

In 1973 she wrote a book called ‘Kings Road,’ talking about famous lovers. Later in the 1970s she helped investigate police corruption, even working undercover. In 1980 Mariella announced she was going to write a book about her amazing life and all of her encounters. “It is going to be dynamite,” she said.

The book never arrived and three years later she was found dead at home in bed. The coroner called it ‘death by misadventure,’ a drug overdose. Apparently a few days later her flat was burgled and her notes, files and diaries disappeared.

Christine maintained she was murdered for the secrets she knew and because the book she was writing would have embarrassed people in power. Christine believed Mariella was pivotal to those events in 1963, “because of all she knew and the power of blackmail”.

Both Mariella Novotny and her husband Hod Dibben gave evidence to Lord Denning for his report. What had they to say? Well, you will have to wait until 1st January 2048 when that part of the report is declassified.

Mariella lived the most extraordinary life, I really haven’t done her justice on this blog, in fact there is a book on its way about her: The Novotny Papers: 'A Bit Vulture, A Bit Eagle' by Lilian Pizzichini. I do hope it is dynamite!

Mariella’s Wikipedia is almost entirely blank.

This week there was some publicity because I was asked to go on the BBC’s Woman’s Hour to talk about the pardon for Christine. The show had run over so there was a little pressure on time, as I found out that Woman’s Hour is not actually an hour long, but much closer to 45 minutes. 

Interviews are always nerve wrecking because you never quite know what angle they are going to come at you with.

38:30 minutes in and Emma Barnett, the presenter, said they were going to play a clip of my mother’s interview they had from 2000. There was no prior warning and I didn’t see it coming, honestly it took the legs from under me. When you lose a parent hearing their voice again brings them back, they are in the room or on the telephone with you, that is a by-product of loss. It was particularly emotional because Christine talked about how much she loved me, and how I had understood her. It was very moving and as you can hear on the interview my voice did get stuck in my throat.

After the interview lots of people got in touch to ask if I knew the BBC were going to play the clip of my mother. No, that took me by surprise. I had no idea.

In the clip Christine was really emotional about how people could just lie about her, she talked about being called a ‘gobbler’ in the newspapers, ‘gobbler’ meaning exactly what you imagine. Christine talked about how horrific that was her. People could say anything they wanted about her; it made her feel worthless, it made her feel less than human. I heard the exasperation in her voice and it took me right back to her sadness and her frustration because people could say anything they wanted to Christine and they could even say it to her face, because she was a convicted perjurer. 

That is why.

Dave Allen

When I was at school I heard my first Christine Keeler joke. By then there weren’t that many, they were already out of fashion by the time I went to school. One of my friends said to me, “Here’s a joke my dad tells: Christine Keeler walks into a fishmonger.” Now my friend had no idea who my mother was, we were young kids at school and we didn't waste our time talking about our parents. “The fish monger says to her ‘pound of fillet?’ and Christine Keeler says, ‘I bet you a pound you don’t.” I never said it was a good joke. 


When I told my friend Christine Keeler was in fact my mother he was mortified and this story ended with me consoling him, but I realised even then that of course there would have been jokes about my mother, she had been famous, and of course there would be jokes like that. I would be naive to think anything else.


Just a few years ago a very good friend contacted me, he was all excited as he had just been told a Christine Keeler joke. He was working with an older man who had no idea of the connection between him and me, and he told him the joke out of the blue. 


My friend couldn’t wait to tell me.


“Now you won’t get upset?” He was being polite because he was a good friend so he was going to tell me the joke if I wanted to hear it or not.


“Christine Keeler gets her toe stuck in a bath. Mandy Rice-Davies does everything she can to help Christine get the stuck toe unstuck, but after a long time of pulling and pushing at the toe, they decide to call a plumber because the toe won’t budge.


Before the plumber arrives Mandy grabs a tea towel to cover Christine’s top half and finds a bowler hat to cover her lower area so Christine wouldn’t be naked when the plumber arrived. The door bell rings and in comes the plumber. He takes a good look at Christine in the bath with the tea towel over her top half and the bowler hat covering her lower area and then he points at the bowler hat and says, ‘I won’t be able to get him out of there’.”


We both laughed.

I was asked, not too long ago, if there was any way I could prove that Christine was not a prostitute - if, for example, I had old tax returns showing her income from modelling or something like that. The very idea of the Christine doing a tax return makes me smile and I think the question was less about proving my mother wasn't working as a prostitute and more about finding a piece of evidence to show that Stephen Ward couldn’t have been living off her immoral earnings. No, I don't have her tax returns because of course she didn’t do tax returns, but equally it’s obvious Stephen Ward wasn't living off her immoral earnings.

I have spent a lot of time researching the events around Christine being assaulted in April 1963 and the follow up trials for her application for mercy and there is an amazing amount of hard information out there in press and court records and it’s quite easy to find. 

Going through these court records you can trip over some interesting exchanges that add more colour to the wider story. For example Paul Mann, who was a bridge playing friend of Stephen Ward, was called by the prosecution to give evidence at Christine’s preliminary hearing at Marylebone Magistrates’ Court on 28 October 1963. He was questioned about a trip to Spain with Christine in March earlier that year, and he was asked whether he was trying to sell a photo of somebody famous pictured with Christine. The famous person in the picture remained unnamed, but Paul Mann was allegedly asking for £2000 to hand it over, a huge amount of money in 1963. We can only wonder who was the man in the picture. (Press record pictured)

​I like this piece from the court case, because at one stage Paul Mann was asked what his business was that took him to Spain, he answered, “That is my business.” The barrister then asked, “Do you refuse to answer that question?” and he said, “I refuse to answer.” I have never been asked a question in court, so it never occurred to me you can tell the court to mind its own business!

I think back now and Christine had lots of sayings she would throw out and most of them would drive me crazy.

“Never listen to the words in a song, just listen to the music.” She used to say this one a lot and it used to drive me crazy. 

“The words are part of the song” I would argue. 

“Don’t listen to the words! It’s just somebody else’s story that mostly don’t make sense anyway, just feel the music.” We would argue about this often and she was convinced that she was absolutely right, the lyrics to songs were not necessary and she couldn’t understand why I couldn’t understand that.

One day after she had dropped that expression again I said, “What about opera? If you don't listen to the words you don't know what’s going on”

“Seems,” - she would call me Seems -”they are singing in a foreign language, so you won’t understand it anyway!” she replied. “Anyway, I’ve been to opera and you do understand it without the words.” She might have had a point about opera I didn’t actually know enough about it to argue with her.

She had another expression that used to get under my skin. “Whatever someone says, apply it to themselves.” Christine would throw this expression out when somebody had said something nasty about someone and every time I would ask, “What does that mean?” When I got older and I would put an ‘even’ in my question “What does that even mean,” because this expression drove me crazy.

She would explain, “If somebody says something horrible, then really they are talking about themselves. If someone calls you a liar, it’s because they are a liar”.

“That makes no sense,” I would argue. “If I called you a mad old woman, does that mean I am the mad old woman?” 

She would laugh at that and say, “I may be mad, but I’m not old,” but she would say same expression the next time anyone had something nasty to say.

She also used to say, “What people say doesn't matter, it’s what people do that matters”. As a young man I didn't understand this either and I would argue, “What about all the beautiful things people have said or written? They matter”.

Lots of people have written books and opinion pieces on my mother’s life, some of which are better than others, but it does strike me that so many books and opinion pieces have been written by people who clearly didn’t do even the most basic research. 

Christine would get really angry if people who told the story of her life and were wrong with any detail. For her it was an unforgivable act. You might think you are right, or you may even be mistaken but for Christine there was no excuse. For my mother, truth was real and tangible, it could be hard to find, it could take a lot of work to get at it, but it was something you could almost touch.

Christine made some scathing private notes about things people had got wrong when telling her story, in her eyes it was not about poor research or misremembered an event, in her eyes it was an unforgivable lie.

So Christine used to tell me, “What people say doesn't matter, it’s what people do that matters,” and for her I think she had a point. Maybe all of these little expressions meant the same thing, sometimes people lie and there are even some people that lie a lot and sometimes people tell stories they think are true.

So don't believe what one person says, if it’s important, do the research, find the proof.

​Lastly a quick reminder about the campaign to pardon Christine, and why we are doing it.

In 1963 Christine Keeler famously went to prison
Not because she had made up an assault - because she didn’t
Not because somebody else had slapped her earlier that night
Not because a drunken conversation was recorded
But because she denied that two witnesses were there when she was assaulted

So why does it matter?
It is time to forgive my mother, so as to better understand our history, or for her family, or just because she was a human being.

It is time to free Christine Keeler

This week Christine got her entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, a record of national figures who have helped shape Great Britain. I think you get your mention a few years after your death, so I am again reminded of the story Christine would tell me about what Stanley Baker said to her. Stanley Baker, probably best known for his starring role in Zulu, said, “Christine, you are the most famous person here, we’re all actors and we will be forgotten, but you, Christine, you are in the history books forever.”
 
We have just finished another draft of the pardon document and are really pleased with how it is shaping up. So fingers crossed it won’t be too long, but these are strange times.
 
Some memories are much harder than others to write down and share but they are just as important as they paint a more rounded picture of our lives. This year I wanted to talk more about the price that Christine Keeler paid.
 
It wasn't long after Christine was released from prison she met James Levermore. She said he was sweet with a great personality, he was educated and chose to work as a labourer in the outdoors. They fell in love, a whirlwind romance, and in 1965 they were married at Reading Registry Office. It was a normal wedding, her family all came too. Her mother and step-father, her grandmother and one of her aunties, who being more or less the same age as Christine, was like a sister. Of course the press were there too, so maybe not an entirely normal wedding.
 
Christine wanted to start afresh, she would play the part of a wife and play the part of being happy and maybe even for a time she was. A few months later she was pregnant with my half-brother James and things started to come apart. At the hospital she went into a panic, in fact a complete meltdown. “You are trying to kill me,” she said to the doctors.
 
One of the team that night in the maternity ward was West Indian and maybe because of the drugs they gave her something snapped, maybe she thought Gordon was there or maybe she thought it was a friend of his, but that night going in for her Caesarean section she was terrified they were going to kill her.
 
Christine went home with her new baby and played the part of a new mother and housewife but something was wrong, she was desperately unhappy. She was struggling to bond with her son Jimmy. She said, “I didn't feel he was mine at all.” 
 
Christine then became convinced that her husband was going off with other women, because, why would any man want to be with Christine Keeler! She was so insecure, she would secretly follow him to work to make sure he wasn’t seeing other women. Her suspicions and insecurity destroyed her marriage. 
 
The marriage was over and her husband James left. Christine had a three month old baby who was a stranger to her. Her mother stepped in and offered to help, she would look after Jimmy until Christine felt better. They used to call it the baby blues but now we call it post-natal depression and it is surprisingly common. I don't know if it was linked to the bad experience when Jimmy was born or finding herself trapped or maybe it was everything, but Christine was very sick.
 
Jimmy never came to live with Chris, her mother would always find a reason to extend his stay. She would tell Christine, “You’re not settled enough to look after a child,” or, “The baby is holding my marriage together”. So days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and months turned into years.
 
Five years later Christine remarried and Jimmy still wasn't with her, and then I was born. I had moved around so much inside Chris that my umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck, so it had to be an emergency C-section. Christine used to tell me that the doctors asked, “If it’s a choice, who do we save: the mother of the baby?” and Christine told me she said, “Save my baby,” and, no, I don’t really believe that story, but she never let me leave her side. So maybe it’s true!
 
I met her mother, my grandmother, only a few times. I stayed there for a week one summer when I was seven; according to Christine they didn't want me back again, I was too much hard work and it upset Jimmy. 
 
The last time we saw either Jimmy or Christine’s mother was at the Worlds End Estate in 1988. I can’t remember how it came up, but Christine was saying, “At least tell him I bought your house for you.” I think Christine wanted to show Jimmy she had done something for him. She wanted to show him she wasn't “just a bum”.
Then we argued some more because Christine’s mother talked about all the “black faces” in London and how frightening she found it. I was only 16 or 17 and said, “That’s what Hitler would have said,” and they left and we never saw them again. I have sometimes wondered if I was the one who went too far that night.
 
Christine sent them birthday and Christmas cards and even tried to call them over the years, but it was done. 
 
Looking back, strangely, I have no recollection of ever talking to my grandmother, of ever making eye contact or being hugged. I always thought she was a cold woman.
 
I once asked Christine if she had any regrets, she thought about it for a while and said, “My cat, Thomas, I took him to the vet too late. I think he suffered and I blame myself for that’ 
 
Now I am a parent and I think to myself, of course that’s what she would say to her son. Of course she had regrets, but what else could she say? 
 
Jimmy was her one major regret.