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William Astor: My father, his swimming pool and the Profumo scandal

I was a boy of ten when the Profumo affair began at Cliveden, my family’s home. Andrew Lloyd Webber has captured some of the story – but not all

11 January 2014

9:00 AM

11 January 2014

9:00 AM

Christine Keeler and Jack Profumo might never have met in the swimming pool at Cliveden if it had not been for a filly called Ambiguity. As children, growing up at Cliveden, we all swam in the Thames. In the summer, the river was cold, dark and full of sludge, but my grandmother Nancy Astor, a devout Christian Scientist, thought it good for us.

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