I was not to know that Mr Lord had a brother who was manager of an insurance company and was always interested in taking on promising young people. At the time people under twenty-one were paid less than other workers and all but a handful of Mr Insurance Lord’s staff were between sixteen and twenty-one. He was always keen to take on sixteen year olds who would mysteriously become incompetent five years later and need to be dismissed. More importantly, the two brothers hated each other.
“Well, what about it then. Insurance?”
I said nothing and Mr Lord picked up the telephone and dialled a number, and sat smiling, very pleased with himself, while he waited for someone to answer. And with that my life underwent and immediate and considerable change that itself would remain unchanged for the next three years.

The point of the Profumo Scandal was lost on me—but that might have been because I was hopelessly in love with Christine Keeler right from the start. I would have done anything for her, so therefore John Profumo’s actions were, to me, completely forgivable. What we were watching really was the final scene of the Victorian Age being played out, and it sure did so with a bang.

   For those who haven’t the foggiest idea what I’m talking about, John Profumo (don’t you love the name?) was an Pommie MP, a bald, nondescript man but he must have had something going for him because he was married to a movie star—Valery Hobson. I guess he must have come from a very rich family, but in any case, in a spectacular attack of greed, he got caught screwing a 19 year old high-class prostitute, Miss Keeler. So what? So he got asked about it in parliament and lied, and it was that lie that ultimately caused PM Macmillan to demand his resignation, and that he leave the stage in disgrace (with the movie star on his arm, loyal to the last). But why was the question worthy of parliament? Well, it eventually emerged, that was because the pimp was a very respectable doctor (and a real nice bloke) named Stephen Ward who moonlighted providing classy girls for the upper crust. Suddenly, Lord this and Sir that were sucked into the scandal as they were revealed to be customers of Christine Keeler and her sexy blonde friend, Mandy Rice-Davies. And so was a Russian spy (well, an attaché but you never can tell). Actually, the security implication (which was never proved) was dragged in at the last minute, probably to try and justify the embarrassment that everyone suffered over this.
   Anyhow, besieged by angry mobs and the media, the scapegoat Ward went on trial and when he saw clearly that he was to be the vessel into which the collective guilt of the entire Pommie upper class was to be poured, he made a messy attempt at suicide.
Even while he lay in a coma, fighting for his life, the court found him guilty. It was just too cruel. Ward lingered for days, his condition always the front page headline, and the great public shame at the injustice inflicted upon him festered and grew until by the time he died, all sympathy had turned toward him. The falling Empire finally hit bottom.
   These days such indiscretions by a politician would receive the wrist-slap they deserved—unless the country involved was very backward, like USA for instance where thirty-odd years later, far more cynically, the same trick was tried on Bill Clinton, and succeeded in dimming Bill’s popularity not one jot.
Nevertheless, in 1963, just a few months after Profumo, the true nature of the dark side of America was just about to reveal itself to all…