At the time of the Profumo Affair (1961 - 1963) I was between 9 and 11 years old. When the affair blew up, I did not pay much attention to allegations of a sexual liaison between the man in the pic, John Profumo (Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan's Conservative government), and Christine Keeler, a 19-year-old would-be model. Nor did it bother me when Mr Profumo's denial of sexual misconduct was proved to be a lie and he resigned. The repercussions of the affair severely damaged Macmillan's self-confidence, and he resigned as Prime Minister on health grounds in October 1963. I think I remember reports of the interrogation of Keeler's friend, Mandy Rice-Davis, and her apparent response to the comment that Profumo had denied ever having sex with Keeler: "Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?"
I say that I did not pay much attention to this affair and its details of Russian spies, pimps and pillow talk because, at the time, I was far more interested in the rise and rise of pop music and the youth culture that accompanied it. Or was I?
Last night, listening to Andrew Marr re-telling the story of the Profumo Affair as part of a series on Britain after 1945, I could not help but wonder about the benefit of hindsight. Yes, the Profumo Affair seemed to help ignite the rapid changes in society that occurred in the 1960s but what is cause and effect here? At the time, I do not recall changes in society. I probably never even gave one thought to changes in the social order or the rise or fall of a particular section of society. Of course, journalists like Andrew Marr have the benefit of hindsight at their disposal. This means that he can see historical events in context. But it does not tell us how people at the time thought about it all.
The same is true of other historical events. I am sure that a French person living in 1789 did not say to him/herself, "I am living through a revolution." Likewise, we know now that the poet Wilfred Owen was killed in France just days before the armistice. But very few people at the time knew that an armistice was imminent. Similarly, 1939 did not signal the beginning of a world war. That came later. We might know that it ended in 1945 but nobody knew that in 1940 and that means that the experiences and feelings of contemporaries are out of our reach in 2019. We know that the war was going to last for 6 years and that after a period of recovery, the Swinging 60s would come along and change our world (forever as we are frequently told). But people did not know that at the time. Imagine a novel that takes place during WW2 containing the following snatch of conversation.
"Darling, we have to get married as soon as we can."
Not now, dear. The war will be over in 1945. Let's wait and get married in 1946."
It seems to me that we have forgotten that experiencing an event first hand and reading about it years later are two completely separate stories and this is a rich seam for the writer to mine.
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