tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post7671139963748094934..comments2024-03-28T22:50:02.315+11:00Comments on ART and ARCHITECTURE, mainly: A stately home, sex, class & power: the Profumo AffairHelshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02849907428208235392noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-40895001078758700502017-06-26T23:32:56.871+10:002017-06-26T23:32:56.871+10:00bazza,
my brothers thought Mandy Rice Davies was ...bazza,<br /><br />my brothers thought Mandy Rice Davies was stunning back in the years when she gave evidence in the trial of Stephen Ward. Not only did she confirm that the osteopath was living off the immoral earnings of Keeler and herself, but she exposed a web of intrigue involving the upper ranks of British society. <br /><br />She became most famous/infamous for proving in court that she had an affair with 3rd Viscount Lord William Astor. Cliveden saw some action over the years, didn't it?Helshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02849907428208235392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-10461708415795623502017-06-26T20:47:10.636+10:002017-06-26T20:47:10.636+10:00I remember this affair so well. I once went to Cli...I remember this affair so well. I once went to Cliveden on business and they treated me like a king! I was seated in the Great Hall and they brought me a tray of coffee and <i>petit fours</i>. I actually thought that I had been mistaken for someone else - but no, that was their standard hospitality. There is something very regal about being there.<br />Mandy Rice-Davies married and went to live in Israel and converted to Judaism after what she termed "a slow descent into respectability". She died in 2014. John Profumo dedicated the rest of his life to helping others by working in Toynbee Hall. He had totally redeemed himself.<br /><b><a href="http://todiscoverice.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow"> CLICK HERE for Bazza’s fulsome Blog ‘To Discover Ice’</a></b>bazzahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14794010156639774028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-47753698338070067782017-06-26T00:12:19.022+10:002017-06-26T00:12:19.022+10:00Mike
It really did have all the ingredients of a ...Mike<br /><br />It really did have all the ingredients of a great story! Politicians naturally lie all the time, but it seems there is lying and then there is LYING. In the long run, it seems that Parliament was less upset about extra-marital affairs. Rather they were far more upset about a] Cold War betrayal of the British nation, b] secrets about missile movements in the West that were later passed to the Soviets, and c] immoral earnings from Keeeler selling the story to newspapers.Helshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02849907428208235392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-21405741840008615882017-06-25T01:47:22.930+10:002017-06-25T01:47:22.930+10:00Cliveden will forever be associated with Profumo -...Cliveden will forever be associated with Profumo - all the ingredients of a good story! Actually, Profumo was not the first to lie to Parliament - and he certainly wasn't the last.Mike@Bit About Britainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08741370413282813229noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-6118476607746137092017-06-24T22:01:52.751+10:002017-06-24T22:01:52.751+10:00Ann
Ancestral Voices: Diaries 1942-1943 by James ...Ann<br /><br />Ancestral Voices: Diaries 1942-1943 by James Lees-Milne is a great reference. I like the publishers who called Lees-Milne a snobbish member of the "effetely quaint British upper class", in a great position to visit stately homes and comment on them. But not just the architecture.<br /><br />His connections were impeccable. Lees-Milne was visiting Sir Oswald and Diana Mosley when King Edward VIII "tragically" abdicated. He had loved her brother Tom Mitford when they were at Eton College, and was devastated when Tom was killed in war during 1945. He married Alvilde Viscountess Chaplin, and through Alvilde, he became close to Vita Sackville-West and her set. Helshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02849907428208235392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-34451631181827365652017-06-24T21:33:55.088+10:002017-06-24T21:33:55.088+10:00Joseph
Inept middle aged groping hehe.
There was...Joseph<br /><br />Inept middle aged groping hehe.<br /><br />There was a particular brand of appeasement Astor and her Cliveden Set embraced. The epic house parties there that welcomed FD Roosevelt, Henry Ford, Asquith and Churchill. By the 1930s, the Astors frequently invited newspaper editors of the Times, ambassador from Germany Joachim von Ribbentrop, and the Marquess of Lothian. They agreed that Germany marching into the Rhineland was merely walking into their own backyard.<br /><br />The Cliveden Set was ridiculed in some papers as a kind of upper-class pro-Hitler cabal. It was felt that the house was becoming a second, covert Foreign Office, with the expertise of civil servants being trounced by cocktail party consensus. For 18 months, Cliveden has been the centre of friendship with German influence. And Ribbentrop reported to Hitler on the likelihood of England and Germany forging a lasting agreement.<br /><br />https://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n24/bee-wilson/musical-chairs-with-ribbentrop<br /><br />Helshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02849907428208235392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-50369385413161110572017-06-24T21:15:18.749+10:002017-06-24T21:15:18.749+10:00Andrew
I was a naive high school student when the...Andrew<br /><br />I was a naive high school student when the Profumo Scandal started in 1961 and continued for a few years. Nonetheless, we had rousing speeches from the head mistress about religious morality, parliamentary propriety, spies etc etc. I didn't know what extra-marital sex with a show girl was, but I knew that Profumo was the first person EVER to lie in Parliament.Helshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02849907428208235392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-60293217629100133232017-06-24T15:00:44.002+10:002017-06-24T15:00:44.002+10:00agree with Andrew and Joseph above, and worse thin...agree with Andrew and Joseph above, and worse things are happening in London NOW.<br />Profumo was set up and the whole thing had shifty politics behind it.<br />"I did not have sexual relations with that woman" - oh how many times have we heard that.<br />and the fabulous court-room riposte of Miss Mandy Rice-Davies - "Well he would say that wouldn't he" has gone into legend and is oft quoted. <br /><br />Those girls were only 19 and 20, at that time an age like that was not as hardened as it is now, even for them as 'working girls'.<br /><br />The massive wealth behind rockpiles like Cliveden was not sustainable and offloading a huge lead roof to The National Trust was often a desperate move. A wonderful book about this by <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ancestral-Voices-1942-1943-James-Lees-Milne/" rel="nofollow">James Lees-Milne 'Ancestral Voices'</a> is one of my favourite reads. Invalided post WW2 he was engaged by the NT, and tootled round these rockpiles to assess them and there are scenes like Finding the Duke in the kitchen with the butler because that was the only room of the 200 they could heat, and the duke excited that they had come into possession of some eggs.<br />The East Melbourne site of our Melbourne HILTON was previously a Cliveden, and demolished.<br />Do go here <a href="marvmelb.blogspot.com/2013/03/cliveden-melbournes-largest-house.html" rel="nofollow">aha William J T 'Big' Clarke</a> for the gen, another favourite book.Ann ODynehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01159263330547329077noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-39540988319647422452017-06-24T12:30:31.372+10:002017-06-24T12:30:31.372+10:00I would rather my beautiful stately home be used f...I would rather my beautiful stately home be used for inept middle aged groping than for pro-Nazi anti-Semitic planning.Josephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07701188167981018244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-82813334220624075972017-06-24T12:24:43.425+10:002017-06-24T12:24:43.425+10:00It is a wonderful story. How could it not be with ...It is a wonderful story. How could it not be with politics, spies, sex, deceit, scandal, moral judgement......I could go on. I never realised that this took place at Cliveden. I don't know how I missed that important part of the story. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com