Every now and then you can come across a book that is so startling that it changes your view of the world. I found such a book this week. It is one of the great love stories of all time and it concerns Queen Victoria, Empress of India, and a humble Muslim man from Agra, Hafiz Abdul Karim.

It is a story that has been concealed, only hinted at, for more than a century. It is a story that had social and political implications. It is a story that illuminates how the British Empire functioned at its peak. But above all, it is an intensely human story about a love affair that lasted 14 years between a woman and man 44 years younger than her.

They triumphed over the opposition of politicians, the Royal Court, the Queen’s advisers, Viceroys of India and the Queen’s family. (At one stage her family considered whether they should have her declared insane, and on her death burned many of her letters to Abdul and, in effect, had him deported back to India. The fullest account to date of this amazing story is told by Shrabani Basu, an Indian author and journalist based in London. Her book, “Victoria and Abdul: The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant” is the result of years of research and a tracking down of new sources of information.

Adbul came into Victoria’s life at the time of the Golden Jubilee. He had a humble background — his family worked at Agra jail — and he had been chosen as a servant to help out during?the festivities in Britain. But his position at court soon changed. The Queen decided that she wanted to learn Urdu and that Abdul would be her teacher, her “munshi”. They met daily and he became devoted to her and she to him. She lavished gifts and decorations and property on him, some quite substantial. She gave him 400 acres of land in the Agra region, much to the dismay of the Viceroy who felt that bypassing the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for India in this manner was not justified. The Queen ignored him.

She began to bombard various Viceroys with letters suggesting how India should be run. Whatever the Queen and Abdul discussed today, would be in a letter to the Viceroy tomorrow. All this seriously worried the Palace. Curry was on the menu at whichever palace the Queen was staying at — to the horror of the Royal chefs. Palace rooms were stuffed with Indian valuables and artifacts. Royal courtiers were ignored in favour of Abdul. They tried a protest strike, and sent one of their numbers to the Queen to announce that if she took Abdul on her Diamond Jubilee tour of Europe they would not be going.

Victoria was so angry she swept the contents of a table in front of her crashing to the ground. The courtier fled, the strike collapsed, and Abdul accompanied the Queen on her European tour.

How intimate was the relationship? There are clues: little, personal notes in the Urdu homework Abdul set the Queen; emphasis on love poems in Urdu. But for me the clinching piece of evidence is a letter from Victoria to Abdul that has survived.

Abdul’s wife came from India to join him. Victoria was disturbed to find that the wife was childless and wrote to Abdul a letter setting out in intimate detail how he should go about getting ?her pregnant.

After Abdul was deported to India he seemed to fade away and died four years later. He was only in his forties. Why should their love story be resurrected now? Because it is all part of the rich history that the two nations share.

Published in The Khaleej Times.

The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth-Maker is recognised as the definitive book on war reporting and war propaganda.

From William Howard Russell who blew the whistle on the appalling conditions of the British forces in the Crimea, to the correspondents who lifted the lid on the reality of the Vietnam War, through to the modern day, it is a story of heroism and manipulation, censorship and espionage.

The lengths to which governments lie to fool the citizens of the enemy and, even more so, fool their own, has not diminished with the years, it is argued – it has grown.

Chosen as American Book of the Month Club main choice 1975, and Winner of the 1976 Overseas Press Club of America Award for the Best Book on Foreign Affairs, the book has been continually revised over the years as new wars occur. An updated paperback edition of the book is now available that includes the US-led war in Iraq.

Disturbing, even dismaying, yet also in its painful way, enormously entertaining
- New Yorker

[This book] may make us all a little more free to talk about and find the truth.
- Garry Wills, New York Times Book Review

In war, truth may be the first casualty, but in Phillip Knightley’s compelling examination of the war correspondent as journalist-mouthpiece-propagandist, the truth survives unscathed. Myths are exploded, scoundrels unmasked, the best and worst of the history of a century plainly revealed.
- Morley Safer

Few books have deserved an updated edition more than Phillip Knightley’s history of war reporting since the 1850s . . . Invaluable for anyone with an interest in the media, it is equally recommended as a modern history of government lies.
- Times Literary Supplement

Alexander Orlov was a masterspy born in Russia just before the turn of the 20th century. Spotted by the founder of the Soviet secret police, Orlov was behind the creation of the notorious Cambridge network of British spies of Philby, Burgess, Maclean and Blunt, and recruited a large number of moles across Europe for the Russians.

However, when Stalin turned against him, Orlov fled to the States where he lived in secret for years until the American intelligence agencies finally discovered his true identity. Orlov remained undercover, only popping up in 1953 when he delivered an inside account of Stalinist terror in his book The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes. He never betrayed the men he had recruited and so was allowed to live out his days in peace.

As such, many questions remain about Orlov, his activities and his feelings and this book – his personal memoirs – published for the first time, will finally shed some light on this extraordinary man. Phillip edited the memoirs and has written the introduction and epilogue to this intriguing book about one of the intelligence world’s most fascinating characters.

The Second Oldest Profession: The Spy as Bureaucrat, Patriot, Fantasist and Whore, Andre Deutsch (London) and as The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century, W. W. Norton (New York) is a comprehensive and controversial history of espionage in our times.

The first permanent intelligence agency was created in 1909, and within a few years all the great powers had similar agencies. Concentrating on Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States, the book reveals why these services are not worth the enormous sums they cost, are not effective in predicting enemy actions, and cause more trouble than they prevent.

It includes anecdotes of failed operations, and questions the official versions of such famous operations as Ultra, Magic, and the XX Committee. An updated paperback edition is available in the UK. Chosen as Book of the Month Club Alternative choice, 1986.

Buy The Second Oldest Profession — UK | US

Philby, the agent, double agent, traitor and enigma revealed all to Knightley just before his death. Few knew the real man that for years fooled British Intelligence, the CIA and the FBI and was simultaneously head of the British Intelligence Service’s anti-Soviet section and a long-time KGB agent.

After he defected to Russia in 1963, he maintained a code of silence for 25 years – until a few weeks before his death. He invited Phillip Knightley to his Moscow apartment and in six days of conversation bared his soul.

He told of his childhood, the influence of his extraordinary father and the events that lead him inexorably to turn traitor. He tells the story before and after defection and discusses everything from loyalty and patriotism to pop music and Margaret Thatcher.

Available form Andre Deutsch (London) and Knopf (New York), an updated paperback edition is available in the UK.

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Part history, part travelogue, part memoir, this book tells the inspiring story of how a one-time British colony with only two sorts of citizens, convicts and gaolers, turned itself into a proud, prosperous and confident country, the greatest sporting nation on earth, where the citizens of its high-leisure cities enjoy a lifestyle that is the envy of the world.

Read a review of the book by Jan Morris in The Independent

Despite the appalling bloodshed of two world wars, the horror of the great depression, strikes, riots, secret armies and near civil wars, out of this amazing mix grew a new and unique character – the Australian. Through the eyes of ordinary people struggling with their passions, hopes, dreams and ambitions, Phillip Knightley describes the journey that has taken the Great South Land from a dark, racist and often murderous past to a working multi-cultural society.

Sharp, racy and irreverent.

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In this revealing and very funny account of his career in journalism, Phillip Knightley tells the real story of a reporter’s life. From inauspicious beginnings as a seaman, vacuum cleaner salesman and South Sea Island trader, he went on to work for the notorious, foul-mouthed Australian newspaper magnate Ezra Norton, whose lurid tabloid became the model for the Sun and the New York Post.

Eventually, Knightley moved to England and wriggled his way on to the staff of the Sunday Times just as it entered its golden years. Twice winner of the Journalist of the Year award, he covered some of the most dramatic and ground-breaking stories of his time – exposing the cynical double-dealing of Thalidomide, reporting on the shadowy machinations of the Profumo scandal and unravelling the Hitler Diaries fiasco. Knightley’s investigations into the world of espionage led to an extraordinary correspondence with Kim Philby – the spy who betrayed a generation – and he became one of the few journalists to get access to Philby in Russia.

A Hack’s Progress is a vivid and revealing portrait of the press, and a compelling insider’s view of the stories behind the stories. At once thoughtful and marvellously entertaining, it is one of the best books ever written about journalism.

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An Affair of State: The Profumo Case and the Framing of Stephen Ward examines the scandal that shook the British government in 1963 and tells how the establishment tried to hush it up by framing a society osteopath on procuring charges.

The book presents new evidence to clear Stephen Ward, who committed suicide following his involvement in the scandal, of espionage. Based on Ward’s own tapes and writings, numerous interviews and previously classified FBI documents, this fast-paced book brings one of the most fascinating scandals of the 20th century back to life.

Written with Caroline Kennedy and published by Cape (London) and Simon and Schuster (New York).

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The Rise and Fall of the House of Vestey: The True Story of How Britain’s Richest Family Beat the Taxman – and Came to Grief. Until 1991, the Vestey family had virtually disappeared from the news – from being Britain’s wealthiest family they had slipped out of the top ten.

Then they made the headlines again, as the older generation, Sam and Edmund, were kicked out and replaced by 30-year-old Tim. The City said that their old-fashioned ways had cost them their share of the meat market. The House of Vestey looked as though it could go under – a case of “clogs to clogs” in two generations.

Published by Warner (London), the book is currently out of print. Used copies are available from Amazon.

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