Ian Handford: Osteopath was destined to remembered for role in a scandal

It was in 1920 that the whole family moved when his Reverence was appointed Vicar of Holy Trinity Church Twickenham. Two years later they moved again to Devon when the Vicar was awarded the living at St Matthias Church Wellswood in Torquay in October 1921. Living at Mount Vernon on Higher Erith Road it would be a Sunday in November 1924 that Stephen made his first headline news after an incident was reported by the Lincolnshire Echo, not our local newspaper.  

The Echo stated a "Cliff Thrill at Torquay" after an eleven-year-old son of a local Vicar and his brother had walked to Redgate Beach near Anstey’s Cove at Walls Hill on lower Ilsham. The boys then dared to climb the cliff of  Wall’s Hill being unwilling perhaps to use the more safe pathway to the top. Having clambered to about 150 feet Stephen then found he was unable to continue and hated the prospect of descent which seemingly now overawed him. He nevertheless kept his cool in what could have been a crisis had he tried to continue. Now his younger brother quickly descended to go off and fetch help and eventually, Eileen and friends brought a stout rope to safely rescue Stephen from his precarious perch. Throughout the long ordeal, it seems the boy remained perfectly calm and later was reported as being "the least excited of the company".

He attended Canford School where he was reported as a "somewhat lazy and a regular underachiever" and yet was involved in another "incident" where he refused to name the true perpetrator and was duly punished. Again this marked him out as "being a quite cool dude" and having finished school in 1929 he took up numerous occupations including being a translator in Hamburg before becoming a tourist guide in Paris. Yet on return to Torquay in 1932, it was his mother Eileen who suggested he take up osteopathy to gain a real skill and chose to train at the "Kirksville College of Osteopathy and Surgery" in Missouri, America. This saw him away for four years before achieving an American qualification as a medical practitioner. Having returned to Britain and Torquay he now opened an osteopathy practice in the Rotunda building in Torwood Street in 1938.

The following year Stephen volunteered to serve in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) but then discovered the British medical world did not accept American qualification. It now took two years to somehow be conscripted as a private practitioner with the RAMC before his skills could be put to good use. He now became a Second Lieutenant before being sent to India where one of his first patients was Mahatma Gandhi. But then a nervous breakdown saw him discharged from the Army "on grounds of disability".

Returning to Britain he now worked for the Osteopathic Association Clinic in Dorset Square London where he treated the American Ambassador Harriman and then Winston Churchill's son-in-law Duncan Sandys, a man that would introduce him to Nancy Astor’s son the Honourable Lord William Astor.

Having rented a small cottage on Astor's Clevedon Estate by 1956 Stephen's house parties involving famous people across the social spectrum became infamous. He personally enjoyed the company of all beautiful women though it was later reported relationships were often platonic. It seems he preferred so-called "alley cats or city girls" - those he could impress and dominate. Lots of pretty girls were brought to Cliveden including models Mandy Rice-Davies and Christine Keeler. But now enter Britain's Secretary of State John Profumo MP at the same time as a Russian Emissary and scandal was assured, which I will continue with next week.