With a cast of Kray twins, South London gangsters, topless Soho hostesses, Russian spies, armed robbers, thieves, and adulterous government ministers, this fascinating and previously recounted narrative spans more than half a century.
And there’s a chance it’ll throw in another unexpected surprise.
Today, Keeler’s younger son is running a campaign to clear his mother’s name of the politically driven conviction that led to her incarceration.
Meanwhile, among present Labour MPs, the grandson of Libby Crowley is the bookies’ favorite to become the party’s next leader. As a result, he is a possible Prime Minister.
Who could have anticipated such a thing in that Holloway cell all those years ago?
Wes Streeting, the Blairite Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has spoken about his poor, working-class East End upbringing and the two very different parts of his family that influenced his political beliefs on several occasions.
In December 1993, two longtime acquaintances meet for the last time in a hospice for the terminally ill in London’s Hackney area.
Elizabeth ‘Libby’ Crowley is a grandmother from the East End who has only a few hours to live. Her visitor was once one of Britain’s most renowned — or infamous — ladies, albeit she is now unknown.
Christine Keeler is the young femme fatale of the Profumo scandal, which contributed to the downfall of a government.
She’s come to say her goodbyes.
Their connection began nearly three decades before, when they were both confined in the same Holloway prison cell. Both women could be said to have been victims of the men they lived their lives with.
Bill Streeting, a Royal Navy World War II veteran, was the Cambridge graduate’s paternal grandpa.
Ilford North’s MP has described himself as a “pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps working-class Tory” who has only ever supported Liberal to keep Labour out.
(He was) extremely proud of his country and Queen.
I draw a lot of my Christian faith from him, as well as a lot of my patriotism and views on law and order and other matters.’
Bill was also the name of his maternal grandfather. But that was the extent of the resemblances.
William Crowley had a long criminal career. Streeting has stated that he believes his grandpa had armed robbery convictions, had spent much of his life ‘in and out of prison,’ and knew the Krays.
Streeting’s grandmother had spent time in Holloway with Keeler as a result of his wrongdoing.
However, the MP revealed to the Mail last week that he is unsure about the specifics of his grandfather’s criminal career.
We can now tell that those details are quite colorful.
We can piece together Bill and Libby Crowley’s outlaw existence and subsequent redemption as a social campaigner by chatting to members of the Crowley and Keeler families and investigating records in the British Library and elsewhere.
Wes Streeting, 39, will be the first person to hold such high position whose mother was born in prison if he becomes Labour leader — or possibly Prime Minister. Or whose grandfather’s wedding address was another of Her Majesty’s prisons.
Libby Crowley was a South Wales laborer’s daughter.
It’s unclear how she met her future spouse, who was born and raised in London. But it was most likely through her sister Esme, who was eight years her senior and had also relocated to the city.
Angela Macauley, 68, another of Libby’s sisters, told the Mail: ‘The Krays had nothing to do with Libby.’ They had a relationship with Esme, our older sister.
‘She used to spend a lot of time at their house on Vallance Road (the brothers lived on the Bethnal Green neighborhood).
‘Esmeralda’s, one of the Krays’ clubs, was renamed after her.’
In the 1960s, the Kray twins did own Esmeralda’s Barn, a Knightsbridge nightclub. It’s unclear whether it was named after Wes Streeting’s Great Aunt Esme, who is now deceased, or if it was just a coincidence.
Bill Crowley is claimed to have had a difficult childhood that included’real abuse.’ Bill’s chosen lifestyle resulted in years of hardship and separation for his own family, including childhood council care.
1964, on the other hand, was unquestionably their annus horribilis. It was also the beginning of a lovely friendship with the most well-known woman of the time.
Christine Keeler met Stephen Ward, an osteopath, artist, and socialite, while performing as a topless showgirl in a cabaret establishment on Soho’s Beak Street.
She was thrust into a demi-monde of High Society orgies, intrigue, and low-life brutality after he took her ‘under his wing.’
At numerous events and nightclubs, she, too, bumped into the Krays. Her celebrity was cemented by a Westminster scandal.
Ward introduced his exquisite protégée to John Profumo, then the Secretary of State for War, during a pool party at Cliveden, the mansion of the 3rd Viscount Astor. They started dating.
The security services were concerned about Profumo’s presence in Ward’s social circle. ‘Eugene’ Ivanov, the Soviet naval attaché and GRU spy, was also a member of this group.
Keeler’s later relationship with another man was the catalyst for her incarceration.
Lucky Gordon, a blues singer, assaulted Keeler in April of 1963.
When Gordon was arrested and charged with assault at the Old Bailey in June, he referred to Keeler as a prostitute and Ward as a pimp.
Keeler, for one, lied under oath when she denied the presence at the scene of two witnesses whose identities she had been asked to keep confidential.
Profumo resigned on the same day the assault case was filed, after initially denying and then admitting his relationship with Keeler.
Gordon won his appeal, and December Keeler found herself in court, facing a perjury charge. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine months in prison. Holloway extended his hand.
According to anecdotal evidence, both Bill and a pregnant Libby — who had not yet married — were serving prison sentences in early 1964. Amanda, the couple’s first child, was born the previous year when they were both in their early twenties.
The Daily Mail was unable to locate current court reports on these cases. According to family sources, she was arrested for possession of stolen stuff at the very least. Wes Streeting claimed he was told the item in question was a radio.
‘I made a close friend in prison, Libby Crowley, who was in for supporting her criminal husband,’ Keeler said in her memoirs about her cell mate.
Libby’s family believes she was charged with possession because she refused to cooperate with police investigations into her recidivist ex-boyfriend.
‘I suppose she just wouldn’t grass on Bill,’ her sister Angela told the Mail. ‘We’re Eastenders, and we don’t mow the lawn.’
In the second quarter of 1964, Bill and Libby’s second child, Corinna — Streeting’s mother — was born. According to the evidence, this occurred while the mother was still in Holloway.
The birth certificate shows she was born in Islington, not Tower Hamlets, which is where the prison is located.
That year, there was another big family gathering.
Bill and Libby were married on September 15 at St Nicholas’s church in the heart of Gloucester. Bill listed his occupation as ‘painter’ and his home address as ‘Barrack Square’ on his wedding certificate.
Because this was the address of the adjacent Gloucester jail, it was a little deceptive. Bill was most likely issued a temporary release license, marched to the church, married, and then escorted back to custody.
With Bill still in prison, Keeler recounts how she assisted Libby in ‘getting back on her feet’ in London in her memoir.
Two more children would be born to the Crowleys. Bill, on the other hand, was adamant about not changing his methods.
‘I remember a couple things that he did that were nasty,’ Angela Macauley remembered. Bill nicked the most gorgeous green car, something like a Bentley, when I was about 13 (in 1966), and he said “come on kids,” and we all climbed in the back. He claimed to have “stolen” it and driven us to London Zoo.’
She also recalled the crazy events that took place at their council estate home in Stepney.
Meanwhile, Libby relocated to Wapping, where she began a new chapter in her life as a radical social justice campaigner.
In 1985, she informed a journalist, ‘The housing deprivation around here is simply horrible.’ ‘I’ve warned the local council that the St Mary’s ward, immediately north of Commercial Road, has some of the worst houses in the country,’ says the resident.
There is a widespread lack of basic facilities, as well as dampness and overpopulation. It’s a disaster.’
‘She was a tireless advocate for those at the bottom of the food chain,’ recalls her sister Angela.
Libby marched against racism and joined the picket lines at the neighboring News International company in the Wapping conflict, as well as the occupation of County Hall.
Wes Streeting, who is viewed as being in the center or to the right of his party, has stated that she was “far further to the Left than me.”
His grandmother, he believes, might have been a Labour councillor or possibly an MP if she hadn’t been plagued by the stigma of a criminal sentence stemming from her husband’s wrongdoing (who died in 2008).
Christine Keeler remained a close friend of hers. ‘The last day my sister was in the hospice where she died, I saw Christine,’ Angela adds. Libby died at the age of 53.
Seymour Platt, Keeler’s son, applied to the Criminal Case Review Commission earlier this year to have his mother’s conviction overturned.
‘Libby and my mother met in prison and became good friends,’ he told the Mail. When I was a kid, I recall going to her East End flat. My mother regarded her with the utmost admiration.
Libby was a fascinating and charismatic woman who was dedicated to helping others. Libby was also adamant that my mum should never have been sentenced to prison.’
Wes Streeting stated that his grandfather’s behavior could not be excused. ‘The pity is that my grandfather was a brilliant man who could have accomplished a great deal,’ he told the Mail last night.
‘Instead, he chose to live a life of crime, and his actions had a negative influence on our entire family.’
‘My nan’s criminal record had a negative impact on her life, and he was in and out of prison during my mother’s upbringing. He was simply too old and ill to change after his last release from prison.’