A glorious autumn day and we drive through the gold and russet Worcestershire countryside, under the Malverns, passing the sign to the Elgar graves, and into Herefordshire. I know of no more beautiful time of the year and no more beautiful part of England. Our destination is the 19th century Church of the Holy Cross at Llanwarne. It stands on a rise, opposite the ruins of its medieval predecessor tucked into a fold of the Herefordshire hills. The churchyard and the church are adorned as for a harvest festival but we have come for Julia Trevelyan Oman's funeral. She and her husband, Roy Strong, had worked out every last detail of this beautiful service of celebration for her life, since that day, just a few weeks ago, when they were told that she was terminally ill. We sing the great harvest hymn and then Roy reads, most movingly, from his book The Laskett, the recently published story of the garden he and Julia have created together over the last thirty years and in itself the portrait of a very remarkable marriage.
There is no black – we were expressly urged not to wear it – and although there is much sadness there is much happiness too for a wonderful life richly lived and marvellously completed. John Tooley, in a splendid address, recalls the achievements of one of the truly great theatrical designers of the twentieth century. Her final achievement is to have designed, with Roy, this wonderfully balanced service.
We drive back, in constant sunshine, feeling quietly elated.
In the evening to Brewood, where I have been asked to open a most imaginative extension to the village's Jubilee Hall. I have attended many a meeting there over the years and so it is a very homely occasion.
Saturday October 18th
A day of paperwork – or that is the intention. I have to keep breaking off to give radio interviews and two television crews come to the house, one of which insists on filming me feeding the fish – and although they edit out most of my comments, they leave that shot in. My wife's only reaction is that though it is good to feed the fish, the pictures show that I need to diet. Of course it's all my own fault – or is it? A week ago I wrote to Iain Duncan Smith suggesting that the best way of resolving the current problems might be for him to submit himself to a vote of confidence and not wait to have one thrust upon him. I told a group of colleagues what I had done and one of them helpfully mentioned this to the press. So, outed, I had to make some kind of statement.
But we escape in the evening to a delightful dinner party given by a friend in the enchanting village of Arley, just over into Worcestershire.
Sunday October 19th
After early church and a sizzlingly splendid English breakfast, a five-mile walk along the towpath of the Shropshire Union Canal. The fishermen are out, some of them cooking bacon on spirit stoves. Narrow boats glide past and at one point a heron rears up just three or four feet ahead. Westminster seems a million miles, and light years, away.
Monday October 20th
For only the second time this year I take the train. In order to get to Birmingham International in good time I have to leave home at 6.30. The afternoon is taken up with meetings, attending the Works of Art Committee, which I used to chair, and then a meeting of the Commission.
Tuesday October 21st
In at 7.30 for a meeting of the House Magazine Editorial team at 9.00. Then I take a delegation of Staffordshire MPs to see David Miliband to put the case for better funding for Staffordshire schools.
In the afternoon I address a group of journalists, brought here from Bosnia by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. I urge them to ensure that Bosnia's parliamentary proceedings are rather more fully covered than ours and we have a lively discussion, largely thanks to a brilliant young interpreter. Later I give tea to the newly appointed Bishop of Lichfield, due to be enthroned in the Cathedral in November. Then it's over to the House of Lords to chair a meeting of the group (consisting of members of both Houses and all parties) who are keen to ensure the preservation of a non-elected House.
There are votes at 7.00 and then to a fascinating dinner and discussion with the Kuwaiti Ambassador and colleagues, benignly chaired by Stuart Bell.
Wednesday October 22nd
In early again for a series of meetings before Question Time and then off at 2.00 to Heathrow to catch the plane for Milan. When I get there I discover that Robert Skidelsky has been on the same flight and that we are going to the same place, the grandly named World Political Forum in Turin. There is a car there to meet us and Marshall Goldman from Harvard.
We get to our amazing hotel in Turin after a two-hour drive. It used to be the main Fiat factory, complete with testing track on the roof – now a running track.
After a late supper, very late to bed.
Thursday October 23rd
Up early to scribble a few notes for a brief presentation I am due to give later in the day on human rights. Then to the congress hall for the opening of the two day Forum. The Forum is the brainchild of Mikhail Gorbachev and he is its President. After welcoming speeches from our Italian hosts he gives a forceful keynote address, the theme of which is the globalisation of responsibility. He laments the fact that the end of the Cold War was not properly exploited.
A series of presentations follow and sitting there is like seeing and hearing all our yesterdays. Participants include Andreotti, Benazir Bhutto, Cossiga, Gyula Horn from Hungary, General Jaruzelski, Gianni De Michelis and a host of others.
Presentation succeeds presentation and the time slips. We ought to rise for lunch at 1.00 but we carry on until almost 2.30. We should have resumed at 3.00 but it is 4.30 by the time we get back and the final session closes just after 7.30 rather than at 6.00. Mine is the penultimate speech and partly through Westminster discipline and partly through the sheer exhaustion of waiting I limit my contribution to the ten minutes allowed – a first for the day! I find myself defending the USA following an uninhibited attack by a former French Foreign Minister.
Later a fascinating evening talking to many fellow delegates at a splendid dinner in a wonderful restaurant in the heart of Turin, founded in 1757 and just opposite the first parliament building of a unified Italy.
It is very late to bed…
Friday October 24th
…and very early up – before 6.00, to be collected just after 7.00 and taken back to Milan for I have to return and cannot remain for the next day of the conference.
But when the fog lifts, what a wonderful journey. The Alps are glistening with new snow. My driver, Christiano, is a delightful young man who tells me of his love of opera and of his fiancée's recently acquired doctorate in Classics.
All goes smoothly until we reach Milan airport. My flight has been delayed for two hours and so I do some unexpected and totally unplanned Christmas shopping, fuming all the while because of the delay.
At least the flight, when it happens, is a smooth one and I am met at Heathrow and we have a reasonably easy drive back to the constituency, arriving just before our weekend guests. Don McKinnon, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, his wife Claire and their son James are staying with us en route for the Commonwealth Education Minister's Conference in Edinburgh.
We have a splendid weekend with plenty of good conversation and walks along the canal. James is fascinated by the operation of the locks and we are lucky enough to see half a dozen of the narrow boats go up and down. It is a small boy's paradise – ducks aplenty, a heron fishing and some wonderful autumn weather to boot. We also visit the Kinver Rock Houses. Carved into the sandstone cliffs above the village of Kinver, a group of these were inhabited as late as the 1950s. Then the last occupants moved out and the vandals moved in. Twenty years ago the National Trust acquired two of them. One is now a comfortable home for the warden. The other is open and run by a splendid team of local volunteers. A marvellously evocative painting of a couple who lived in one of the houses at the end of the nineteenth century came to light at the time of the restoration and enabled it to be as near perfect as possible. It is like stepping back in time.
Monday October 27th
For once spend two or three hours in the constituency and then drive back to a Westminster awash with rumour and counter rumour.
Pam Powell, Enoch's widow, comes in for dinner and we reminisce about a number of the dramatic events of former years.
Tuesday October 28th
In early and then my weekly meeting of the House Magazine team.
After Questions I go to the Athenaeum to chair the Works of Art Committee and the pager starts vibrating. There is to be a vote of confidence. There is a television crew at the door of the Club. I send a message telling them very politely to go away. I say I will not be down before 4.00 at the very earliest. At 2.30 I am summoned to a meeting of the '22 Executive. My committee is most understanding and so we gallop through the business and I dash for a taxi. The television crew has already disappeared.
Back at the House all is frenzied activity. Because I was one of those who called for a vote – careful not to say which way I would cast it – I find myself giving a series of interviews. But I have to break off shortly after 6.00 to host a reception for the Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan. What a strange sensation to give an interview to a television station that treats politicians as they used to treat politicians here in the 1950s!
Wednesday October 29th
In very early. This is going to be a fairly momentous day. I see the Director of the History of Parliament Trust and chair our quarterly meeting. Then there is another meeting of the '22 Executive and I am appointed one of the scrutineers. So now I really cannot tell anybody at any time how I will vote, or how I have voted.
At Question Time I try to catch the Speaker's eye. I am glad I fail as I was going to ask about the Hunting Bill. I discover half an hour later that the government dropped it last night.
I give lunch to last year's Chairman of South Staffordshire Council and his wife and then go to the '22 Committee. The Leader makes a very dignified speech which is well received.
Later I do my duty as a poll clerk and then help supervise the counting of the votes. It is all very tense and dramatic and one cannot help but feel for Owen Paterson, there to supervise on behalf of Iain Duncan Smith.
After all the tension and drama it is a relief to escape to a very jolly dinner which I host on behalf of the All Party Heritage Group to mark three very special birthdays – Lord Renton's 95th, Baroness David's 90th and Lord Sheldon's 80th. I give them all copies of the Times for the dates of their birth and there is much reminiscing and good cheer. What a good thing to have interests beyond the cut and thrust of the daily political round – and friends across the parties too.
Thursday October 30th
In early and then to the V and A to see Gothic, with the All Party Group. The layout of the exhibition has been criticised but I think it is a sumptuous feast for the eye with some glorious objects. If you have not been, do go.
Then to the Guard's Chapel for a wonderfully uplifting service to give thanks for Denis Thatcher's remarkable life. Bill Deedes delivers a memorable address which has the whole congregation laughing out loud on two or three occasions.
Now, as I finish this, I am about to go to the launch of Michael Howard's leadership campaign. He has my total support and, I hope, that of the rest of the Parliamentary Party.
