Pop, Politics and Profumo
Insider Tales from the Decade That Swung
‘Sexual intercourse began
in nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) –
between the end of the “Chatterley” ban
and the Beatles’ first LP.’
Larkin’s poem ‘Annus Mirabilis’ is a wry lament for those who came of age in the 1950s – all drab postwar austerity and national service – before being forced to watch the next generation having all the fun. Although Larkin doesn’t mention the Profumo Affair directly, 1963 was also the year that event hit the headlines – a symbolic starting gun for the ‘Swinging Sixties’, as they’d soon become known, after TIME Magazine baptised London ‘The Swinging City’ in a feature dated April 1966.
The unravelling spectacle of the Profumo Affair offered the nation - some horrified, some delighted, many a mixture of both - a heady mix of the street and stately home, as the old order was revealed to be nothing more than a house of cards, whose class, race and national barriers were folding in plain sight. Social hypocrisies were exposed along the way, especially when it came to the treatment of women by the media - and the law. Christine Keeler’s son Seymour Platt is still in fact fighting today for a posthumous pardon for his mother on the count of perjury, for which she served nine months in jail. Commenting on the event’s broader significance, social historian David Kynaston commented, ‘The Profumo affair was one of the things that switched the English default position on politics from deference to scepticism, if not yet to cynicism’.
Aside from its impact on politics, the Profumo Affair did something else of significance. It telegraphed to the world the astonishing nascent power of a new generation of angel-faced youth. Britain’s new faces, soon to point towards the light, would include Quant and Hockney, Twiggy and Lennon, Riley and Jagger, Faithfull and Sassoon, Christie and Stamp, Shrimpton, Birtwell, Blake, Boty, Bailey and more, but it was Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies who smashed through the doors of tradition first, tearing them off their hinges as they went, so that everyone else could walk straight through.
In the end, the verve, innocence and glitter of the early-to-mid ‘60s gave way to anger, militancy and a profound sense of post-trip disillusionment, which only the moon landing of 1969 could rise above. The cold realities of the 1970s swept away such childish things once and for all, as a grimmer version of the old order climbed back into power, albeit with a nouveau-riche face and a morality to match. But perhaps the way the ‘60s ended only serves to make its beginnings more magical. For all of Larkin’s amusing irony, it was Wordsworth, almost two centuries earlier, who best captured the flavour in ‘The Prelude’:
'Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven.’
For those of us who grew into ourselves in later decades, the sherbert fizz of being young and hip in the 60s can only be imagined - or envied. I recently had the chance to talk about its rising years with two of that number, who - one in London and one in Manchester - crossed paths with some of the names most indelibly linked to its iconography, including Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies.
My first interviewee is restauranteur Jeremy Friend, who opened iconic Pimlico dining establishment ‘Grumbles’ in 1964, going on to serve everyone from the Beatles and the Mamas & Papas to Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies. Jeremy’s dashing entrepreneurialism was noted by Jonathan Aitken in his 1967 book about up-and-coming London stars, ‘The Young Meteors’, with Aitken going on to be a customer for many decades.
Jeremy Friend, pictured with daughter Daniella at the 25th anniversary of Grumbles in 1989
My second interviewee is Joan Collett (author’s note – also my mother-in-law!), a former science teacher and Deputy Headmistress, who arrived at Manchester University in the autumn of 1963 to study Botany. Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits and Jimmy Savile were amongst those who regularly crossed the paths of Joan and her student cohort and, when Top of the Pops launched in January 1964, Joan became a regular part of the audience, dancing alongside Georgie Best and the rest of the Manchester United team. Evenings on the city’s thriving nightclub scene brought her into contact with the Kinks, Dusty Springfield - and Mandy Rice-Davies.
Joan Collett, Manchester University, 1963
Mustn’t Grumble
Grumbles Restaurant, Pimlico, London (photo by Ella Doran)
Grumbles is a small, neighbourhood bistro on Pimlico’s Churton Street. It serves French and British classics, ranging from escargots to cottage pie, and celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2024. To underline how rare such longevity is in the hospitality business, figures from The National Restaurant Association reveal that 60% of restaurants fail in their first year, and 80% within the first five.
Grumbles’ mix of down-to-earth friendliness, fun foodie fayre and wallet-friendly prices, however, soon made for a successful recipe. The restaurant became a happy haunt for locals, as well as those looking for a great place to eat beyond the confines of Chelsea and Westminster. The Pimlico location, however, arose more out of practicality than desire.
‘We very much wanted to be in Chelsea, but the rents were ruinous’, Jeremy Friend recalls. He and his business partner, fresh out of drama school, viewed locations further afield with mixed emotions. ‘The rent for the former sweet shop and tobacconist site was very affordable, but only because Pimlico was still such a slum, with ladies of the night walking the streets at all hours. In fact, when we first opened, we’d see men going upstairs at regular intervals. We went up ourselves one day to find out what was going on, only to be confronted by the sight of a large naked lady lying on the bed. We never ventured up again!’
The original tiled entrance to Grumbles inherited from its confectionery predecessor –
and the unchanging restaurant interior (photos by Ella Doran)
Running a restaurant wasn’t a given for Jeremy by any means. As a young entrepreneur looking for the next great idea, he’d just finished a successful stint selling vacuum cleaners, employing posh undergraduates from Oxford University to knock on doors and pitch their wares to housewives in a highly effective side-hustle.
A mention in ‘The Young Meteors’ by Jonathan Aitken, published in 1967 (photos by Ella Doran)
The formula for running a successful restaurant seems to have been innate: ‘We treated everyone the same, irrespective of fame, and that, along with our youth, optimism and the restaurant’s location away from the main drag, made Grumbles a place people could really relax. The restaurant was crammed right from the start and our first long-serving waitresses, Sylvia and Patsi, also helped establish a sense of fun. Their skirts were so short it was rarely a mystery what colour underwear they were wearing on any particular day!’
Sylvia, the first ever Grumbles waitress (photo of original by Ella Doran)
Grumbles’ most famous customers were the Beatles, who also made a memorable appearance in Jeremy’s after-hours life in June 1965, when Allen Ginsberg came to the UK to head up the First International Poetry Incarnation at the Royal Albert Hall.
‘Some friends who knew Allen said he was looking for a place to hold an after-party’ Jeremy explained. ‘As my brother and I had just taken on a basement flat in Chester Square, we offered it up and it was gratefully accepted. On the night of the party, Ginsberg was one of the first to arrive. I left him talking to guests each time the doorbell rang, until eventually, I opened the door to none other than John Lennon and Paul McCartney. John especially was a fan. As we came into the living room, we were confronted by the sight of a completely naked Allen Ginsberg, still talking to the same people, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Apparently, it was his party trick. John Lennon’s face was a picture as Ginsberg bounded over to give him a hug!’
The restaurant soon became a favoured locus for journalists too, including in later years Sunday Times Editor Harold Evans and future wife and Vanity Fair Editor Tina Brown. The restaurant was equally favoured by politicians. Jeremy’s personal favourite, Shirley Williams – ‘the most sensible politician I ever met’ - was a regular. Whilst Islington restaurant Granita is now legendary as the setting for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s historic power-sharing deal, Jeremy tells of a similarly momentous role Grumbles played in another game-changing power play. ‘Over a series of lunches, the future ‘Gang of Four’, who formed the breakaway SDP in 1981 - Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and Bill Rodgers - plotted their moves. I remember sheets of paper all over the table as they scribbled out their plans and ideas downstairs.’
The restaurant’s original menu – and the 2024 version (photos by Ella Doran)
At the beginning of the 1980s, Grumbles played host to another very famous customer – Lady Diana Spencer. ‘Lady Di was working down the road in St George’s Square at the Young England Kindergarten and would come for lunch with girlfriends. This was just before she started dating Prince Charles and we only knew who she was because she always paid by cheque!’
But back to the 60s and the original object of our inquiry – how did Jeremy meet Christine Keeler? ‘Christine came to the restaurant quite a few times’ Jeremy says, ‘as did Mandy Rice-Davies, but it was Christine who came the most and to me, was by far the most memorable. People always say she was beautiful, but let me tell you that for all the front covers and the hundreds and thousands of times she was photographed, not one single image captures how lovely she was in real life. And not only lovely, but a gorgeous person too – so fun and funny.’
Jeremy’s eyes still dance as he recalls one particularly unforgettable moment. In fact, the 88-year-old almost blushes at the memory: ‘It was a busy New Year’s Eve party and Christine Keeler was sitting on top of the bar in the downstairs section of the restaurant, waving her legs to and fro. I needed to get past to grab a bottle of red wine for guests upstairs and, as I tried to pass her, she snapped both legs round me, stopping me in my tracks. These were not any legs, of course, but the most famous and beautiful legs in England! Her companion, a smartly-dressed, buttoned-up man, said ‘Do you mind? That happens to be my fiancé!’ Of course, I didn’t mind at all, but really I had no choice. What Christine wanted, Christine got. She was such fun, always.’
Jeremy Friend at the downstairs bar where he was once held in a clinch by Christine Keeler (photo by Ella Doran)
In a postscript to the story, actor John Hurt later became a restaurant regular and personal friend. Hurt would go on to star as Stephen Ward in the 1989 film ‘Scandal’, reprising the events surrounding the Profumo Affair for a new generation. Twenty years later, the TV series ‘The Trial of Christine Keeler’ was aired by the BBC. Each generation feels compelled to revisit the events of 1963, it seems, to register its take and reveal its sympathies in the story, which lie increasingly with Christine and Mandy.
Manchester for Moderns
When Joan Collett arrived at Manchester University in the autumn of 1963, her first impression of the city was one of considerable bleakness. ‘There were bombsites everywhere and really dense fog. I remember being with a friend with a car one day and having to get out and walk in front just to make sure he didn’t bump into anything!’’ Luckily, as a botanist, Joan found traces of natural beauty poking through too, ‘The bombsites were absolutely covered in Rosebay Willowherb – Chamaenerion angustifolium, to give it its Latin name – with its tall pinky-purple flowers rising up everywhere out of the rubble.’
Accommodation in 1963 meant ‘living in digs’. In other words, renting a room from landladies who provided basic food and drink along with a room. ‘My first-year accommodation was in the Longsight area of Manchester and was absolutely horrible. I had to share a bedroom with another student called Diana, a complete stranger, though luckily we got on well. Our landlady was definitely on the mean side. I remember she always served us margarine and kept her own personal-use butter out of sight – or so she thought!’
Herman’s Hermits, with Peter Noone second-from-left
Other students struck luckier, some of them lodging with the mother of Peter Noone, the soon-to-be lead singer of Herman’s Hermits. ‘I have such a strong memory of Peter Noone winding down his car window one day and shouting ‘Hey Joan! Did you hear? Kennedy’s dead!’ One of my brothers’ friends was called Hughie Kennedy, known by everyone as Kennedy, so I must have looked back at him completely blankly as I wondered how he on earth he knew who Kennedy was - before it clicked what he must mean.’
Another less welcome face was also well-known to the new intake: ‘Jimmy Savile was always driving around in his pink Cadillac, waving at the students. We all knew he was a greaseball – and so big-headed. We absolutely hated him.’
A local face with no such ego was Manchester United star George Best, whom Joan ended up dancing with most weeks as part of the regular Top of the Pops audience, after the programme launched at nearby Dickenson Road Studios in Rusholme in January 1964.
‘An invitation came into the Student Union to come along and be part of the show if you liked music and had a contemporary look. We quickly became regulars. The Manchester United boys were there most weeks, always dressed very smartly, and we got to know them over time. They were always offering us tickets to go and watch matches. We ended up going to Old Trafford quite often.’
George Best would usually be in a huddle in the Top of the Pops studio with friends from the team. ‘George had only made his debut the previous September, but we already knew he was a fantastic footballer. When you talked to him, he really was just one of us - so ordinary and sweet. He was quite a shy character and not at all a show-off. I think that was true of a lot of the big names of the decade in those early years. We were all on a level and there was a feeling of being on an adventure together. You didn’t need to put yourself above anyone else to be part of it.’
I asked Joan which groups still stood out in her memory from those Top of the Pops performances?
‘The Kinks were always great’ she replied. ‘My flatmate had a definite crush on the Davies brothers. I remember Little Richard being out of this world. He made such a big impression that we went to see him in concert too. And the Stones, of course, who’d long been my favourites. I’d seen them plenty already before I went to Manchester, at Eel Pie Island and at small venues locally around where I grew up, near Camberley and Guildford.’
Joan’s second year at Manchester saw a move to another horrible flat, this time, however, lodging with an old schoolfriend called Jill. Jill opted to sleep in the kitchen, so at least now they had some semblance of privacy. Their downstairs neighbour was a comedian on the working men’s clubs circuit, Tommy Dean, who soon became a friend. His material was very blue and he forbade them from coming to see his show, but he was great fun all the same, Joan says, and loved nothing more than to come up to their rooms to hang out and try on their make-up.
Joan in Manchester, 1964
‘Tommy - and an American student friend of ours called Fred, who also worked as a barman - were significant because they were our passport into the Manchester club world. There were so many wonderful nightclubs in that era. God knows how we could afford to buy a drink. We probably had them bought for us. We just drank beer very slowly – usually Newcastle Brown!’
The nightclubs of the day were set up like modern-day jazz clubs, with individual tables and chairs, and were often located in basements, which helped make for a great atmosphere. Amongst the musicians Joan saw there were Cream, Long John Baldry, the Kinks and Dusty Springfield. ‘Dusty took a fancy to another of our friends, Caroline, and whisked her off to her hotel for a week or so until she tired of her. We were all a bit shocked at the way she was suddenly discarded!’
The nightclub scene also brought Joan and her friends into contact with Mandy Rice-Davies in the spring of ‘64, when Mandy was launching her short-lived singing career with the ‘Introducing Mandy’ EP.
‘We went to see her do her act and she looked absolutely fantastic’ Joan recalls. ‘Afterwards, she came out from backstage looking quite different, with her wig off and in more ordinary clothes, and we got talking. There was a kind of mutual fascination because we were the same age and from similar backgrounds, even though our lives had obviously taken very different paths. We wanted to know all about her and she was keen to know about our life too. She ended up coming back to our flat and brought her whole stage outfit with her in a suitcase on casters. We stayed up talking for hours.’
Joan with Fred and other friends – and Fred’s nippy car – in 1964
‘I didn’t know you could sing!’ I remember one of us said. ‘I can’t’, she replied. ‘I just warble and wiggle. The men only want to ogle anyway, so they don’t care.’
When we asked how she got to look so gorgeous, she opened her case and showed us all her gear, from high-heeled shoes to wigs and a bodice that accentuated her hourglass figure. We tried it all on and laughed non-stop. It was a revelation to transform ourselves like that and see how so-called glamour was actually mostly artifice.
Mandy told us that she had to make a living somehow and that people would come and see her on reputation alone. We thought she was great and we loved how she knew what she was doing and was getting the last laugh, especially after the way she’d been treated. She was very, very nice to us – and funny and quite ordinary too, even though she’d obviously lived the life.’
The Retrospective View
I asked Joan and Jeremy how they saw the sixties now when they looked back?
‘The beginning felt like the 50s’, Joan said of her arrival in Manchester, ‘with grimy buildings, filthy fog, all the bombsites and having to share a bedroom - and a bath - with a girl I’d only just met. Plus, we really wanted all the latest fashions, but our budgets were completely shoestring. Manchester was quickly revealed as much more than those superficial impressions though – and as a truly glitzy and glamourous place. The music scene was great, both in the clubs and the Top of the Pops studio, whilst the Student Union hosted ‘celebrities’ of all genres. All that was missing from my personal version of heaven were Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand and Elvis, though I did finally get to see Bob Dylan in 1969 at the Isle of Wight Festival!’
Jeremy’s affection for the decade also endures: ‘When I arrived in London in 1959, I took a bedsit in Chelsea for £1.20 per week, directly opposite Mary Quant’s first shop Bazaar, the birthplace of the miniskirt. In 1960, I bought a yellow, 1923-model Rolls Royce for £100. It was very decrepit and sounded like a tractor, but one night I managed to persuade three beauty queens from the Miss World contest at the Café de Paris after-party to join me and a friend, who’d been working on the contest, to go to another club in it. We piled the beauty queens into the back and set off down Piccadilly. After a few minutes, the engine cut out and to our total dismay the beauty queens just got out and wandered off, but the whole episode was pure ‘60s all the same - spontaneous and fun, regardless of whether things went to plan. Every day was sheer excitement’ he says, before concluding wistfully, ‘It felt as if the world had been put there for my especial pleasure.’