arrived we treated them like royalty, bicycling Scandinavian royalty perhaps, but royalty all the same. Cameras whirred, bulbs flashed, we all beamed and the PM and Norma worked the line, winning hearts, shaking hands, squeezing arms, grinning resolutely all the way. As they got to us I was thrust forward clutching my ‘famous jumper’ – powder blue with ‘MAJOR TALENT’ boldly emblazoned on the chest – and as the Prime Minister caught sight of it I saw a danger signal flash behind his eyes. Whatever happened, he was not going to be photographed with that silly jumper. He started back, he grimaced, he gave a little cough, he muttered ‘Good to see you’ and moved firmly on.
LATER
We have just watched the Prime Minister give his end-of-conference address. It was exactly right: clear, uncomplicated, compelling. Some good self-deprecating jokes (onhis educational qualifications: ‘Never has so much been written about so little’) and lots that was quite personal (‘the long road from Coalharbour Lane to Downing Street’). I know I’m easily moved, but I found it rather touching. It worked. And best of all, at the end, when John and Norma went walkabout among the cheering delegates, what did we see? Picked out by the TV camera – again and again and
again
– the comely girl who last night bought and is today wearing a powder blue jumper bearing the legend ‘MAJOR TALENT’.
So there.
WEDNESDAY 30 OCTOBER 1991
Judy Hurd, wife of the Foreign Secretary, came to Chester to be guest of honour at a charity lunch at the racecourse. She talked about life as the wife of a Foreign Secretary and did it rather well. I introduced myself and we travelled back together on the train. She is the second Mrs Hurd, was his secretary I think, is now quietly grand (not in a nasty way), tall, slim, fair, more presentable than pretty, but friendly, ready to be chatty. Around Rugby (and the second cup of tea) we’d exhausted Castlereagh and Lord Curzon and Anthony Eden and the rest and moved on to star signs (as one does) and we discovered, first, that Douglas Hurd and I share a birthday (8 March – different years, natch) and then, amazingly, that Judy and Michèle share a birthday too – 14 March, same day as Albert Einstein and Michael Caine. (Not many people know that…) I told her the poem that Tom Stoppard sent to me years ago, called simply
14 March:
Einstein born
Quite unprepared
For E to equal
MC squared
THURSDAY 31 OCTOBER 1991
We were invited to the State Opening of Parliament as guests of the Duke of Edinburgh. This was a real kindness as I have never seen the State Opening, even on television, but somehow, when we woke up this morning, we both felt shattered and decided we wouldn’t go. I felt a bit guilty about it, but Michèle was adamant: ‘It’ll be like a garden party, nobody’ll notice.’ I wasn’t sure, I went on brooding, and, at the last minute, we went. Fortunately. Not only were we expected (our names in elegant italic on daintycards placed on our gilt and red-velvet seats), we were
awaited
. As we beetled along the red carpet, moments before Her Majesty, white-tied tail-coated flunkeys were anxiously checking their watches. We were seated in a sort of royal stage-box in a narrow gallery to the right of the throne, a ringside seat at a wonderful piece of pageantry and hokum that came over as magnificent and ridiculous all at the same time.
TUESDAY 5 NOVEMBER 1991
Christopher phoned Kirsty 96 and Kirsty phoned Michèle to say: had we heard? Robert Maxwell had committed suicide – thrown himself off his yacht somewhere in the Canaries. Was it suicide or was he pushed? He was an alarming man. I vividly remember my first encounter with him, more than twenty years ago, when I was about nineteen and at Oxford. I was invited by Philip and Anne 97 to an amazingly grand party at Headington Hill Hall where – I am ashamed to say – in the middle of the library, just after supper, I was attempting to
LATER
We have just watched the Prime Minister give his end-of-conference address. It was exactly right: clear, uncomplicated, compelling. Some good self-deprecating jokes (onhis educational qualifications: ‘Never has so much been written about so little’) and lots that was quite personal (‘the long road from Coalharbour Lane to Downing Street’). I know I’m easily moved, but I found it rather touching. It worked. And best of all, at the end, when John and Norma went walkabout among the cheering delegates, what did we see? Picked out by the TV camera – again and again and
again
– the comely girl who last night bought and is today wearing a powder blue jumper bearing the legend ‘MAJOR TALENT’.
So there.
WEDNESDAY 30 OCTOBER 1991
Judy Hurd, wife of the Foreign Secretary, came to Chester to be guest of honour at a charity lunch at the racecourse. She talked about life as the wife of a Foreign Secretary and did it rather well. I introduced myself and we travelled back together on the train. She is the second Mrs Hurd, was his secretary I think, is now quietly grand (not in a nasty way), tall, slim, fair, more presentable than pretty, but friendly, ready to be chatty. Around Rugby (and the second cup of tea) we’d exhausted Castlereagh and Lord Curzon and Anthony Eden and the rest and moved on to star signs (as one does) and we discovered, first, that Douglas Hurd and I share a birthday (8 March – different years, natch) and then, amazingly, that Judy and Michèle share a birthday too – 14 March, same day as Albert Einstein and Michael Caine. (Not many people know that…) I told her the poem that Tom Stoppard sent to me years ago, called simply
14 March:
Einstein born
Quite unprepared
For E to equal
MC squared
THURSDAY 31 OCTOBER 1991
We were invited to the State Opening of Parliament as guests of the Duke of Edinburgh. This was a real kindness as I have never seen the State Opening, even on television, but somehow, when we woke up this morning, we both felt shattered and decided we wouldn’t go. I felt a bit guilty about it, but Michèle was adamant: ‘It’ll be like a garden party, nobody’ll notice.’ I wasn’t sure, I went on brooding, and, at the last minute, we went. Fortunately. Not only were we expected (our names in elegant italic on daintycards placed on our gilt and red-velvet seats), we were
awaited
. As we beetled along the red carpet, moments before Her Majesty, white-tied tail-coated flunkeys were anxiously checking their watches. We were seated in a sort of royal stage-box in a narrow gallery to the right of the throne, a ringside seat at a wonderful piece of pageantry and hokum that came over as magnificent and ridiculous all at the same time.
TUESDAY 5 NOVEMBER 1991
Christopher phoned Kirsty 96 and Kirsty phoned Michèle to say: had we heard? Robert Maxwell had committed suicide – thrown himself off his yacht somewhere in the Canaries. Was it suicide or was he pushed? He was an alarming man. I vividly remember my first encounter with him, more than twenty years ago, when I was about nineteen and at Oxford. I was invited by Philip and Anne 97 to an amazingly grand party at Headington Hill Hall where – I am ashamed to say – in the middle of the library, just after supper, I was attempting to
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