It is a long time since we had a two-week recess and as I drove home on the 1st April I felt well ready for it. The period from January had been a hectic one and the final short week had been especially busy. We had the visit of a delegation from Finland, led by their Speaker, and former Prime Minister, Paavo Lipponen. As Chairman of the Finnish Group I was much involved and discovered in Mr Lipponen a fellow enthusiast – and a very knowledgeable one too – for Barry and Pugin. We had a long and fascinating conversation at the dinner which Mr Speaker generously hosted on the Wednesday night.
But then, on Thursday, I headed first for home and then for North Wales where we had a stimulating weekend combining some formal duties with some holiday. We stayed at Bodysgallen Hall Hotel, the mainly seventeenth century manor house that was for centuries the home of the Mostyn family. There are wonderful views towards Conwy Castle and Snowdonia beyond and the garden and parkland has been restored in parts to its Victorian heyday and in others to its seventeenth century state.
Coming out of breakfast on Friday morning who should I see deep in discussion and surrounded by papers, but Michael Howard, up for a tour in Wales and to address the Welsh Conservative Conference in nearby Llandudno. I was there to speak at a different gathering. As Chairman of the William Morris Craft Fellowship Committee, I was to perform at the launch of a splendid training scheme for young craftsmen at the Faenol estate on the Menai Straits. Its manor houses, and there are two, (one of which featured in the BBC’s Restoration series) are being saved from crumbling into decay. Before the war the delightfully eccentric owner had elephants and giraffes wandering around the park, and lions and leopards in secure pens – a forerunner of the safari parks of more recent years.
Official duties over, we had a weekend delving into Welsh history: an afternoon in Conwy and then a day devoted to two extraordinary rescues. We went to Hendre House where the brave new owner has saved a gracious early nineteenth century country house from collapse. And then we went on to Gwydir Castle, bought almost at the point of total ruin ten years ago and now magnificently restored. Judy Corbett (very much joint rescuer and restorer as well as wife) has just published a wonderfully entertaining account of her mission, Castles in the Air. It includes one of the best ghost stories I have read.
On the Sunday, after early church, we had a tour of the gardens and parkland of Bodysgallen. With an 1870s map in hand we traced overgrown Victorian footpaths. We walked on the restored seventeenth century terrace and speculated where the bowling green might have been. Afterwards we had a nostalgic trip into Snowdonia from Caernarvon on the newly extended Welsh Highland Railway, travelling for much of the journey in a narrow-gauge Pullman coach given by the owner of Bodysgallen and named after the Hall.
On the Monday it was back to Staffordshire, spending long enough in Chester to walk the rows and wander around the Cathedral. Then a country week, based at home. I worked gently through mounds of papers until Maundy Thursday. Easter weekend was dominated by churchwarden’s duties. But we took time off on Saturday to have a browsing day in Ludlow, a town where life has not exactly stood still but where the pace is refreshingly different from the London round.
On Tuesday, a very happy and touching story. One of my constituents whom I had helped on a number of occasions sadly died before Christmas. His widow rang recently to say that he had left me a sum in his will to be given to a charity of my choice and so a handsome cheque arrived, made out the Staffordshire Historic Churches Trust, of which I am President.
But I must be honest. I did no more than three hours a day at the desk during the week following Easter. It was one of those rare things in my life, an almost totally domestic week, tending to household chores - re-hanging pictures, making new plans for the garden and doing all the things for which the frenetic Parliamentary year gives all too little opportunity. We even had time to go to a dinner given by friends where there were no speeches to make or problems to address. One really does need time to stand and stare occasionally. Every New Year I make a resolution that I will devote more time to doing just that. But by the end of the first week of January the resolution has generally gone the way of all its predecessors.
On Sunday I did pay the necessary price of my three hour days and drove back to London after breakfast, to write articles in the flat in the afternoon and to be in the office shortly after 7.00 on the Monday morning.
Monday 19th April
In the Chamber all eyes were turned to the screen. It is a tragic commentary on the times but I am full of admiration for the speed and efficiency of the Serjeant and his team. As a member of the Commission which had to agonise over this decision, I believe we had no alternative.
We had one of our regular Commission meetings today. The general view was that the screen is less obtrusive and ugly than many feared it would be.
Tuesday 20th April
In again shortly after 7.00 as at 10.00 I have one of my regular appointments with my ophthalmic surgeon. He puts drops in my eyes which make it impossible to see anything properly for three or four hours afterwards. So I am not able to be in my place for the Prime Minister’s historic referendum announcement. I watch it, bleary-eyed, on the television in the flat and then, a real bonus, I am given lunch at the Allium restaurant in Dolphin Square, by a former PA. I have written about the restaurant before but I make no apologies for doing so again as I have no interest to declare, save one in splendid food - beautifully cooked and presented at a very reasonable price.
Then back for a series of meetings, including one with Marshall Goldman from Harvard, a fellow speaker at a meeting in Turin, chaired by Mr Gorbachev, last year and author of a remarkable book on Russian privatisation – The Piratisation of Russia. He is just back from Moscow where he has been having meetings with key Russian figures and making arrangements for the book’s publication there later. Then a meeting with the Director of Communications of the British Museum and a colleague, talking of the Museum’s incredibly important international role. We are so fortunate to have this, one of the greatest of the world’s flagship museums and I was delighted by the robust and vigorous defence of its status and stature (and statues) by Estelle Morris during Question Time on Monday.
Wednesday 21st April
In by 7.00 because I have a service at St. Margaret’s at 7.45 and then it is back to the desk, missing the convivial breakfast we always have after these services, in order to do some correspondence before the first of four meetings. Then to Question Time – a particularly lively affair on this post-referendum announcement day. Michael Howard clearly relished the occasion, and so did most of the party, with one or two notable exceptions!
Then a quiet lunch with a friend in the Members’ Dining Room and back to my office for a lengthy meeting with a constituent who has been campaigning on behalf of women falsely accused of the so-called Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. And after that the 1922 Executive before a convivial dinner with good friend and former colleague Michael Brown, who made the transition from the Chamber to Press Gallery so brilliantly.
Thursday 22nd April
A session with the dentist followed by the debate on the screen, and then to Covent Garden to see Rosenkavalier. I just hope to get there before the overture. But that depends upon the timing of the vote because it is a 6.00pm start.
