The Secret Worlds of Stephen Ward

Fifty years ago, the world learned that a member of the British government, Minister for War John Profumo, had been sleeping with a nineteen-year-old girl called Christine Keeler, who was seeing Soviet diplomat and spy, Yevgeny Ivanov. The Minister resigned, and attention focused on the prostitution trial of Stephen Ward, the osteopath and part-time artist, who had brought the couple together.

Ward died, an apparent suicide, before the end of the trial, and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan resigned a few months later.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical adaptation of the Ward story premieres in London’s West End today.

Anthony’s book The Secret Worlds of Stephen Ward, written with Stephen Dorril, is a page-turning investigation into one of the greatest sex and security scandals of 20th century. The book will be published on December 19.

The book was the subject of articles in this week’s London Sunday Times anf in the Daily Telegraph today.