Wednesday March 27: Didn't feel like driving home last night. I always find this particular parliamentary term, the period between Christmas and Easter, tiring. So I decided to come into the office for a couple of hours early and then head for home. For once I have no constituency engagements until Monday April 8. I have a full programme of Church engagements over the weekend but, apart from that, it will be domestic chores until we go off for a brief, long booked, holiday in Rutland.

Thursday March 28: Spend the day humping books. We have just had new shelving for a thousand books put in one of our passages upstairs, to relieve my study. The task for today, tomorrow and Saturday is to get both passage and study ship-shape. By the time I break off to go to a Maundy Thursday service I appear to have made no impression.

Good Friday March 29: I spend the morning re-arranging books, to the accompaniment of suitable choral music on my splendid new Bose CD player. At two, a service at Church and in the evening to the neighbouring Parish of Kinver where they sing Stanier's Crucifixion. It brings back many memories. As a choirboy at Clee Church in Lincolnshire I sang this every year.

Saturday March 30:At last order out of chaos. At 5.30 I go down the stairs feeling really rather pleased with myself. Mary says there's a programme on the Falklands coming on shortly and turns on the television. A shocked-looking announcer is giving the sad news of the Queen Mother's death. I feel suddenly very numb. I knew she had become more frail of late but I also kept remembering those extraordinary scenes at the re-commissioning of the Ark Royal in November. Somehow they reinforced the impression that she was immortal and indestructible. We go through the motions of having dinner, but unenthusiastically, and then we spend the time flicking across the channels but looking, mostly, at the BBC documentary on the first part of her life. What an astonishing and remarkable woman she was. I speak to the Speaker's Chaplain who says how very appropriate it is that she should die on the eve of Easter, given her strength of faith.

Sunday March 31: Early to the eight o'clock service. Easter is always a joyful time but there is a real sense of loss and sadness among the large congregation in our little church. At the 11 o'clock service, before we move into the Easter Eucharist, I say a few words from the chancel steps. We observe a minute's silence. We sing the national anthem. We also open a book of condolence at the back of the church. Everyone seems to have special memories of particular events in her life which have amused, or moved, or both.I would not be so presumptuous as to claim to have known the Queen Mother well but I was privileged enough to meet her on a good many occasions and the memories keep flooding back. I remember those annual visits to the Field of Remembrance at St Margaret's when the Rector and I would receive her at the church after she had spent up to two hours talking to the veterans and the bereaved as she toured the various plots laid out as regimental memorials. I shall never forget one particularly cold day when she came in full of apologies for keeping us waiting, saying that she really felt that she must have been too long because it was so cold - and there were so many old people out there who must be feeling it!It was in November 1990 that she came to Chequers to unveil a joint statue of Sir Winston and Lady Churchill by Oscar Nemon. Peter Johnson, the London Art Dealer, who had been Oscar's agent, and I, had promised him before he died that we would try and raise the money to erect the statue, which had never been cast. We did so and the Queen Mother readily accepted the invitation to unveil it. It was a sunny November day but quite chilly and the walk from the house to the lake was not a short one, especially for someone of 90 and in high heels. But she set off at a fair pace - and walked back too - and was the star and joy of the party right through lunch. Lord Tonypandy - of whom she was very fond, and who she continued to call "Mr Speaker Thomas" - made one of his wonderfully lilting speeches after lunch. She reached and plucked a rose from her bouquet and handed it to him.Then there was the time when I took members of the committee of the William Morris Craft Fellowship, of which she was Patron, to call on her at Clarence House. Michael Painter, one of the Craft Fellows, a wonderfully gifted sculptor and wood-carver, had carved a magnificent head of William Morris which she accepted with very real enthusiasm. She loved the feel of the wood and stroked it and said: "What a noble head," and then, turning to me, said it reminded her of Andrew Foulds.

Monday April 1: The House has been recalled and we have cancelled our holiday. This is going to be an historic week and one that I would not even consider missing for any holiday anywhere. As it is the hotel could not be nicer and we make arrangements to go later in the year. I decide that I will make public my idea that we should have a special holiday in the Queen Mother's memory, starting off by having the day of the funeral as a public holiday. I speak to Chris Moncreiff of the Press Association and within 20 minutes a succession of calls begins. The rest of the day is filled with an endless series of telephone interviews. At lunchtime a BBC camera crew descends on us for a piece for Midlands Today.

Tuesday April 2: More interviews - including seven for various local radio stations. I manage to get away just after lunch and reach London in time to have a much-needed haircut. Then it's back to Millbank for a further interview and then a quiet supper at Dolphin Square. As we go in we see William and Ffion Hague. William likes the idea of the holiday - as long as we swap it for May Day!

Wednesday April 3: Get in very early to do yet another series of telephone interviews. I have now refined my suggestion to go for a specific date - the Monday nearest November 11. Thinking of Queen Elizabeth's visit to St Margaret's and the Field of Remembrance this seems particularly fitting. A lot of colleagues tell me they like the idea - and the response on the radio is good too. Radio Somerset has conducted a poll and tells me the majority of its listeners who have phoned in agree.The tributes in the House take two hours. It's a moving occasion and one in which I feel very glad to have the opportunity to take part. Then to the BBC, this time with Tam Dalyell, to pre-record a discussion for a programme that goes out after midnight. I'm all for pre-recording that sort of programme. I walked several times through Westminster Hall today. It is being prepared with immaculate precision.

Thursday April 4: We decide to take a day off in London - the only one we shall get this recess. On a wonderful spring morning we make for the V and A and to two quite remarkable exhibitions - "Earth and Fire" and "Tiaras". "Earth and Fire" is an astonishing collection of Italian terracotta sculptures from Donatello to Canova. Looking at the extraordinary achievements one comes, perhaps, closer to the artists that wrought them than in any other way, for many are models for greater works and two in particular, Giovanni Belojna's "River God" and Canova's "Penitent Magdalen" show the thumbprints of the artists as they sketched in three dimensions. "Tiaras" is a sparkling display of diadems, a number of them associated with the Queen Mother. We talk about that as we sit in the garden courtyard afterwards. Then we go to the Ritz, her favourite London restaurant, for a light lunch. The last time I saw her was here, shortly before Christmas. I was lunching with a friend and she came in with a small group of her friends. The whole room rose.We then wander down, on the most wonderful balmy spring afternoon, to Clarence House. No city is more beautiful than London is at this time of year on this sort of day. Many are queuing to sign the book of condolence and little knots of people are gathered round, looking at the flowers and reading the messages. I notice one, particularly affectionate, from some Brazilians, another, "To my greatest friend" from Wakefield and yet another recounting how the Queen Mother's visit to her mother brought great joy at a sad and difficult time. A little boy - he can't be more than seven - seems to sum it all up when he says to his mother: "It shows how many people cared about her."We go through the park, looking at its freshest and best, and then take a taxi to the Tate for our third exhibition of the day - "American Sublime". I have never seen a more arresting exhibition of landscape painting. Wonderfully evocative pictures, they capture the spirit, as well as the beauty, of the opening continent in the 19th century. Two things in particular strike me: Thomas Cole's allegorical "Course of Empire", and Church's stupendous "Icebergs". Shown in a room of its own, suitably darkened and surrounded by velvet drapes it is, without doubt, quite the most amazing virtuoso performance in oils - well worth the admission fee alone.

Friday April 5: In very early to do a live BBC Breakfast broadcast from outside Westminster Hall. The Hall looks magnificent this morning, awaiting the arrival of the Royal coffin. In a couple of hours or so Mary and I will go across to join colleagues and await the arrival of the Royal procession. It will be an historic moment and I wish I could describe it here but we have delayed publication for a whole day and I must get this to the printers before I leave the room. What a week - and the greatest and most solemn pageantry, and the saddest moments, are still to come.