Family: First Person: When Stewart Home began to dig for information on his birth mother, he discovered a glamorous woman whose life was touched by drugs and scandal - and whose death remains a mystery

• Published in: The Guardian (London)
• Main Author: Home, Stewart
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: London (UK) Guardian News & Media Limited 10.06.2006
• Subjects: Callan-Thompson, Julia; Keeler, Christine; Profumo, Jack
• ISSN: 0261-3077; 1756-3224

Learning about my mother's life was, in part, a matter of chance. It began in 2001 when I was visiting a friend called Lucy in Notting Hill, west London. Like me, Lucy had been adopted as a baby and she'd just traced her African father and English mother. I told Lucy that when I was born my mother had lived around the corner from her in Bassett Road. She asked me which number and it transpired a friend of hers called Eddie now owned the property. Lucy took me over to see the house, where Eddie regaled me with tales of the shenanigans of earlier inhabitants, which shocked neighbours had related to him when he moved in. Eddie even told me that when he'd stripped the wallpaper in one of the rooms, he'd found some very well-executed but extremely obscene occult paintings underneath. The first person I tried was the science-fiction writer Michael Moorcock. He'd lived in Notting Hill in the 60s and 70s. Based on the information I had, Mike concluded he'd had a passing acquaintance with my mother through one of her boyfriends. Next I tried the philosopher Roger Taylor. He'd known my mother in the early 60s, but had no idea what had happened to her since then. I don't share my mother's name and Roger was surprised to discover we were related. I've always been happy using the name I was given by my now long-dead adoptive parents, and so none of the many people I'd met as an adult, who'd known my birth mother, ever asked if we were related, despite the fact that we look alike. One of the theories put forward about the [Jack Profumo] affair is that this Tory MP may have been a fall guy used to protect a more important political figure. Anthony Summers and Stephen Dorril in their 1987 book Honeytrap, suggest that British prostitutes connected to [Christine Keeler] slept with US President John F Kennedy, and it was imperative at the time that this was kept secret. A close friend of some prominent figures involved in the Profumo affair has told me that my mother was part of the Keeler set. As Kennedy visited London nine months before I was born, and the space for my father's name on my original birth certificate is blank, some of my friends now tease me that I am Kennedy's illegitimate son.