PROFUMO

Poetry

In the swinging sixties a sexpionage spy scandal took place called the Profumo Affaire unfortunately two of its players were amateurs and didn't know what the rules of their spy games were ; one was sacrificed as a scapegoat and the other Christine Keeler lived life under a long dark cloud until she died and all because they were enlisted by MI5 into taking part in a Russian honey trap for Queen and country which went dramatically wrong ; Dr Steven Ward a brilliant osteopath and gifted portrait artist was demonised and double crossed to the point where he took his own life with an overdose of sleeping tablets the poison chalice , Baron Profumo who was the cause of it all retired in disgrace cleaning toilets and working for a charity where he was eventually awarded an OBE to pin next to the MBE and bronze star that he'd won as a military hero in the war . A wax statue still stands of Steven Ward in the house of horrors at Madame Tussauds a terribly cruel homage to say he was only doing what the British secret service ask or doubtless ordered him to do . The scandal also brought an Iron Curtain crashing down on the conservative government of Harold Macmillan . --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/steven-richardson5/message