Читать книгу John Major: The Autobiography - John Major, John Major - Страница 8

THE WORLD OF WORK was a new experience, but I soon realised that insurance broking was not life-enhancing. The rudiments of the profession, however, were simple enough, and I was prepared to accept the boredom of the routine, if there were opportunities to claw my way up the ladder to some serious responsibilities.

It was not to be. Several incidents pointed the way to a new career. When I overhead a senior manager extravagantly praise a thoroughly idle colleague because ‘he comes from a good family’, I wondered whether Price Forbes promoted on merit. If not, I had no chance. That day I was put under the tutelage of a man with a face like a fish and brilliantined blond hair. This was another mark against the company. Finally, on a day when I’d risen at 5 a.m. to study, far from being given worthwhile work to do, I was despatched to the store room to search for files, because ‘You can climb like a monkey, I’m sure!’ It was time to move on, and in any case a new opportunity beckoned, at the mouth-watering salary of £8 a week.

Terry was still making garden ornaments, but he needed capital. When one of his customers, a retired naval officer, Commander David, offered to buy the business, Terry accepted. Commander David wanted a second member of staff, and I joined Terry. I knew very little about garden ornaments, but Terry soon taught me.

In August 1959 we moved from Coldharbour Lane to a flat in a house on the Minet Estate at 80 Burton Road, Brixton. The only other tenants in the house, Bob and Enid, were a newly-married couple in their thirties. We had the basement, the ground floor and a bathroom on the first-floor landing. There was even a small front garden, and life was much improved. As ever, my mother attracted friends with the speed of light.

Working with Terry was fun. We left home early in the morning and cycled to Caldew Street, near Walworth Road, where we had a small workshop. After two hours building up an appetite, a local transport café provided the best breakfasts I’ve ever had. I was the labourer and Terry the craftsman. Years later he wrote a book and, with tongue in cheek, described how garden ornaments were made. It amused the sneering classes no end that a future prime minister had made gnomes, but it was honest, manual work, and I have never been ashamed of it or regretted it.

In 1959 I joined the Young Conservatives after a plump young man named Neville Wallace knocked on my door one evening canvassing for members. My mother had already met Marion Standing, the Brixton Conservative agent, and was all in favour of my joining – but, as politics fascinated me, I needed no urging. It’s entirely probable that my mother asked Marion Standing to send Neville around – but she never admitted it.

The Brixton YCs were then a merry and growing band, and as I had a few friends, I began to bring them in as new members. We took our politics seriously, and worked hard – but we played harder. One of the side effects of enjoying ourselves so much was that we found we had attracted to our number two members of the Dulwich Young Socialists. When this was discovered they admitted their (not very strong) allegiance to socialism, but charmed us by saying our social life was better. As one of them could drive and the other played the guitar quite well, no one cared very much.

We were a very mixed bunch. Tim Bidmead, who was addicted to Nat ‘King’ Cole’s music; Maria, whose father spent the weekends fortifying himself for slating roofs throughout the week; Maureen the artist, who went to Liverpool Art College and married there; Sonia and Ann, two cousins; red-haired Jean, who married her boss; Derek Stone, Clive Jones, the two Alans, Penny, Malcolm, Delphine, Carol, Geoffrey, Margaret – and so many more. At the end of most evenings we adjourned to local pubs and plotted how to change the world. We didn’t fancy being spoon-fed by the state and having our lives directed for us; we wanted doors to be opened so that we could make our own future. We were natural Conservatives.

It was Derek Stone who encouraged me to stand on a soapbox and speak to the passing public outside our association offices and in Brixton marketplace. Derek was married, a little older, and rather more worldly-wise than the rest of us. Engaging and fun, he played the devil’s advocate. ‘Go on, do it. Why not?’ was his creed, and he lived it as well as preached it. He turned up one day with a microphone and a soapbox, and we were off and running. It was fun. No one paid much attention, but no one complained either. It was good training, and taught me a lot about the tolerance of the British.

We canvassed, enrolled new members, helped in political campaigns, held dances and tennis mornings, went on outings, published our own magazine, heckled local Labour MPs and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. An elderly association member was scandalised when she found one of our members straining printers’ ink through her stockings. Girls took off their stockings for one reason only, she thought. She was right: we needed the ink strained.

Meanwhile, in early 1960 Terry married his girlfriend Shirley – a marriage still going strong thirty-nine years later – and moved a few miles south to Thornton Heath; but we continued to work together. My mother’s health was still poor, but she battled on. The YCs were wonderful to her. She loved them all, especially Derek Stone and Clive Jones, later to be my best man, and made our house an open house.

But my father’s body was wearing out and he rarely left his bed, though his mind was clear and active to the very end. He died at home in bed at Burton Road, early in the morning of 27 March 1962. I was eighteen and he was eighty-three, and the bond between youth and age was very strong. He went as the sun rose. I was with him when he died. We knew he was dying and the family had been sitting up, in rota, overnight. I was sitting by his bed holding his hand. It was very peaceful. He was drowsy, half asleep and, I think, his mind had gone on ahead of his body. I did not know the exact moment he died. He was breathing so shallowly I wasn’t sure. I felt the warmth leave his hand. For a man of the theatre, who loved the dramatic, it was a peaceful end. There was no collapse. No last words.

My father, the man who had given me life and love, was dead.

There were family tears and comforting words for my mother, who sat there with her cheeks wet, reliving a lifetime of memories. When I held her she clung on to me as though she would never let go. Then the dreadful rituals began. The doctor came to sign the death certificate. The vicar, J. Franklin Cheyne, a lovely old boy who had interviewed Dad for the parish magazine as ‘one of the characters of the parish’ only days earlier, came to offer solace. Neighbours came and went, the kettle boiled, tea was offered and the surreal atmosphere that follows death settled on the house.

I went for a walk, and to this day I do not know where I went. Life would not be the same, but there was much to do.

I found it hard to come to terms with the finality of death. Dad’s death was the first time in my life that something had happened which I didn’t believe I could put right in the future. It made a reality of what he had often said to me: make of life what you can, and take your chances, because they may never come again.

So far, I had not made much of my life. School – a failure; career – I had none; sport – not good enough; politics – I was only playing at it. I needed a career and qualifications.

I began studying more ‘O’ levels by correspondence course, and left my brother and Commander David to seek out something more promising to do. No sooner had I done so than Mother fell quite ill and, as Terry and Pat were earning more than I would be able to, it was economically sensible for me to be the one to stay at home and care for her.

This I did, but when she was well enough to be left, I found I couldn’t get a job. I was unemployed – unemployable, I feared – from July to December 1963. Years later, when I was prime minister, some Labour Members of Parliament mistakenly claimed that I had never been unemployed. I think it was the Daily Mail which found corroborative evidence to prove that in fact I had. I was young and single, and had a brother and sister who were both in work, but I did get a glimpse of what it must be like as an adult with family responsibilities, unable to find a job. The Labour Party’s intention was to suggest that Conservatives had no experience of unemployment, and didn’t care about the unemployed. I should have taken more note of their tactics; Labour were to do this kind of thing again later, on a much wider front.

I found my situation degrading. I had ambition, but no prospects. I applied for jobs, signed on at the employment exchange, collected the dole, but could find nothing worthwhile. I was willing to lower my sights until I’d passed more examinations, but even that failed: I was turned down as a bus conductor because I was too tall. Eventually, just before Christmas 1963, I gratefully accepted a job offer from the London Electricity Board, and went to work at their offices at the Elephant and Castle.

It was a cheerful, happy place, with a cosmopolitan staff, but the routine was mind-numbing, and I was only to remain there for eighteen months. I asked if I could work four days a week and study on the fifth (with an appropriate pay reduction), but this was refused. The LEB did not provide me with a career, but it was an important staging post in building up my self-belief that I could do better.

Politics continued to fascinate me, and in the spring of 1964, when I had just turned twenty-one, I contested my first election for Lambeth Council. Larkhall was a hopeless ward for the Conservatives, but I fought it as if it were a marginal, canvassing for support at every spare moment. I lost heavily – they might as well have counted my votes and weighed the Labour votes – but the experience whetted my appetite. The count at Lambeth Town Hall was hugely exciting, crammed with joyful people in red rosettes and resigned good losers in blue. Labour seemed impregnable in Lambeth in 1964, but that was soon to change. Not, however, at the general election in October that year, when Harold Wilson narrowly defeated Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Labour squeaked back into government after thirteen years in opposition. In Brixton, Marcus Lipton, the sitting Labour Member, comfortably saw off Ken Payne, the Conservative candidate. I worked hard for Ken, who warmly encouraged my own ambitions and offered to help me find a better job, but the result was never in doubt. Ken would have made a good Member of Parliament, but sadly he was never to get there, and comforted himself with a distinguished career in local government.

After my own diversion into local elections, I thought long and hard about my future. Politics beckoned more each day, but I knew that if I were to have a good chance of being selected as a Conservative candidate for Parliament, I had to obtain a professional qualification as well as a political profile. The profile was coming along quite nicely, but the career not at all. I could not now go to university, since I had no entry qualifications and no means of support even if I got there. I could not become articled to the law or chartered accountancy, since neither would provide any income for years.

It was going to have to be evening classes – which would wreck political activities – or a correspondence course which would wreck my sleep. That choice was easy. I could not give up politics. But what to study? Accountancy? Possibly. Insurance? No. Banking? Yes. I settled for banking, because it offered more choices of employment, the chance of travel, promotion (I hoped) on merit, and I could study at home.

I joined District Bank in May 1965, at the magnificent salary of £790 a year. I began studying immediately, rising each morning at 4.30 or 5 a.m., when the mind is uncluttered and the brain fresh. To this day I follow that pattern if I have something taxing to get through. For the first time in my life I enjoyed the process of learning, and I widened my reading as well. I studied in the morning, worked at the bank by day, enjoyed my politics in the evening, and read late into the night. Within sixteen months I comfortably passed the five papers of Part One of the Banking Diploma. It was tremendously exhilarating to feel I was getting somewhere.

I began to receive invitations to speak at Conservative meetings in and around London, and accepted every one I could. The audience was often small, but the experience was invaluable. The Young Conservatives in Lambeth used to play a game, challenging each other to speak for a minute on a subject suggested at random. I acquired habits then which remain with me still. I would go to the Minet Library in Brixton and research the subject, then scribble the facts I wanted to use on a piece of paper, jumbling them up in little circles until an argument developed in my mind.

I have always been able to soak up a lot of detail and recall it without difficulty – show me a page of figures and I can remember them. While I have never found it easy to win an unexpected argument, I discovered very early on that when I was buttressed by knowledge I didn’t lose. I operate by knowing the facts better than the other person, so that I am confident in what I say. I felt uneasy with flowery froth and idle oratory. I couldn’t deliver a speech that, when looked at in the cold light of early morning, meant nothing. I needed to have my feet on firmer ground. I can overcome this instinctive caution if I have direct contact with an audience, such as I got speaking on the soapbox or – on occasion – in the House of Commons. But often I needed to be provoked, to have my back against the wall, to give my best performances.

The hardest parts of a speech are the first and last paragraphs. When writing a speech you can start anywhere – even with the conclusion. I used to turn over the points I wanted to make until they formed a pattern, and then the rest would fall into place. That’s why I find it hard to read speeches written by others. As those who have worked with me know, I could be hell to be with before a big speech, marching around and overreacting – mental preparation for the event. When I was prime minister my staff would often be in despair because they had produced a beautifully written speech that I would move all around because they weren’t my words.

In the mid-1960s my sister Pat, her husband Peter and my mother left Burton Road and moved to Thornton Heath, within a few streets of where Terry and Shirley lived. I did not go with them. Some time earlier, at a church fête, I had met Jean Kierans, a teacher who lived opposite us in Burton Road. Jean was dark-haired, attractive and fun, and we had taken to one another immediately. My mother liked her – it was impossible not to – until it registered with her that Jean, despite her youthful looks, was twelve years older than me, was divorced, and had two young children, Siobhan and Kevin. My mother did not approve. Nevertheless, I moved in with Jean, who did all she could to earn my mother’s approval, although it was a doomed enterprise from the start. She thought our age gap too wide, and never shifted her view. Jean encouraged my studying, and shared my politics.

In early 1966 I noticed an advertisement from the Standard Bank Group offering the chance of banking abroad, with large overseas allowances to supplement the salary. I applied, was accepted, and joined their home staff with the intention of applying for overseas service as soon as possible. I had not given up my political ambitions, but I saw the chance to travel, broaden my experience, save some money, improve my CV – and I had itchy feet. I was bored.

My chance to travel soon came. The Standard Bank of West Africa was one of the largest banks in Nigeria, and when fighting broke out in Biafra – a bitter and cruel conflict that was to become a full-scale war – they invited single men to volunteer for service there on a temporary basis. It was perfect. I applied immediately, and flew on secondment to Nigeria in December 1966.

I was lucky in my posting. I was sent to Jos, a plateau in the north of Nigeria, the scene of hard fighting some months earlier, but by then well away from the real privations of the war. Jos was thousands of feet above sea level, and had a glorious climate. I shared a flat with a Liverpudlian about my own age, Richard Cockeram, a member of the bank’s permanent overseas staff. A young Hausa, Moses, was employed as steward/cook/valet and general factotum.

The Jos branch of the bank was managed by another Liverpudlian, Burt Butler, although much of the office revolved around a Ghanaian accountant, who reputedly had several wives. Certainly the wife who attended bank cocktail parties was not the same lady we met elsewhere. He helped me settle in, knew the routine of the office backwards, and let me master the extra responsibilities I was given.

Nigeria was a world away from all my previous experience. The glorious dawns, the high sky, the feeling of immense space, the remoteness, were all new to me. It was easy to see how Africa gained such a hold over people. The centre of social activity for the expatriate community was the Jos Club. It introduced me to curry (served with a vast array of side-plates of nuts and fruits), to outdoor film-shows beamed against white walls, to snooker, to lazy Sundays by the swimming pool, to a calmer, more comfortable and more reflective way of life than I had known. I enjoyed the privacy and peace, but perversely missed the bustle and speed of London life. Nigeria was an enjoyable interlude, but I was homesick within weeks.

Cameo memories of my time there are very strong. Reading Papillon and Michael Foot’s biography of Nye Bevan, listening to the few records I could buy in Jos (most memorably Elvis Presley’s Blue Hawaii), travelling to outlying branches of the bank in the cash wagon, getting to know the grave and respectful Nigerians and exchanging banter with the expatriate miners, bankers and administrators.

At Christmas, when I had been in Nigeria for less than three weeks, Richard asked Moses to buy a chicken from the market for our lunch. That morning we sat on the balcony of our flat like lords of the universe. But Moses didn’t appear, and neither did the chicken.

We were not concerned. The power supply was unreliable and the stewards often shared kitchens – obviously Moses was working elsewhere. When lunchtime arrived, lunch did not. Richard, several Christmas drinks to the good, went to investigate. Moses appeared.

‘Where’s the chicken?’ demanded Richard rather snappily.

‘Downstairs, sah.’

‘Downstairs? It must be ready by now. Bring it up.’

Moses looked doubtful. But off he went, and returned with a chicken which was far from oven-ready, chirpily looking around as Moses led it into the flat attached to a piece of string. It pecked around the tiled floor looking for seeds.

‘Moses,’ said an exasperated Richard, ‘we wanted to eat it, not take it for walks.’

Moses protested: ‘Sah, you did not tell me to kill it.’ He picked the chicken up and reached for its neck as he tucked it under his arm: ‘Shall I do it now?’

Richard blanched. Christmas lunch was very late that year, but we ate well on Boxing Day.

I disliked the institutional racism of colonial life, the lack of respect for the Nigerians, their low pay and poor prospects compared to the inflated pay of the expatriates. So much of the racism was just unthinking. The expatriates were not hostile to the Nigerians but they were careless of their feelings. It did not seem to occur to many of them that their Nigerian employees, whether bank staff or messengers or stewards, had their own responsibilities to their own families and, if they were listened to rather than talked at, they had their own ambitions as well.

My father, brought up in America in the latter part of the nineteenth century, often displayed the same attitude, whereas my mother, believing no one superior or inferior, had a wholly different view. She would go out of her way to befriend someone in a less fortunate position than herself. I sided with my mother, and it was one of the few subjects about which I ever argued with my father.

If the local staff were resentful of the incomers, as they occasionally were, it was unsurprising. I was saving £120 a month, a vast sum to me then, but more than a year’s salary to most of the Nigerians. The expatriates were fiercely patriotic to the country they chose not to work in, and the greatest celebration during my time there was an impromptu party thrown by Scots working for the mining companies after Scotland beat England 3–2 at Wembley. Everyone got horribly drunk, including me, and it was not until I tried to stand up and kept hitting my head on the ceiling that I realised I had gone to sleep under a table. I was not alone – but then, I suppose, Scotland do not often beat England at Wembley.

I had hoped to stay in Nigeria for about a year and a half, but fate intervened after only five months when I was involved in a serious car accident. I cannot recall the prelude to the crash. I vaguely remember watching a film at the Jos Club while Richard was playing snooker. Other accounts – notably in Anthony Seldon’s comprehensive and well-researched biography – suggest that I had attended a roving party for departing expatriates. What is certain is that Richard drove me home in his brand new Cortina, rather erratically – expatriates did not need driving tests in Nigeria at the time, he told me. I sat beside him, tired and sleepy, but certainly aware that he was not fully in control of the car.

I remember no more until I regained consciousness at the side of a road. We had crashed, and I could not move. Richard was sitting beside me on the grass, his head held in his hands, weeping and shocked. I tried to sit up – and couldn’t. There was blood on my face and arms and spilled down the front of my shirt. My trousers were ripped to shreds and my left leg was grotesquely twisted. Even half-conscious, I realised my kneecap was smashed and my leg badly broken. ‘I’ve done it this time,’ I thought, and then lost consciousness. I don’t know now long Richard and I were by the roadside, but he never spoke, and seemed to be in shock. I was in great pain.

Eventually a passing car stopped – hours later, I was told – and I was lifted gently into the back of a station wagon. My next memory is of lying on my back in an operating theatre, full of doctors and nurses in gowns and caps, with a blazing light shining in my face and my leg held aloft while plaster bandages were wrapped around it from toe to thigh.

I woke next morning in the Jos mission hospital, staffed by Nigerian Catholic nurses, to be told that my leg was broken in several places, the kneecap crushed beyond repair. ‘Our X-ray equipment is very old, so we’re not sure how bad the damage is,’ they said. ‘But we can’t treat your knee. As soon as you’re well enough to travel you must go home to England.’ I was too ill to object, and the idea of home seemed very welcome.

But I could not leave immediately, for I was too ill to travel. Jos treated me as well as they could, but no one was sure how badly injured I was. I asked when I would be back on my feet, but there was no reassurance that I would ever walk normally again. When I called out in pain one night, a nurse who spoke no English brought me fresh, cool water and folded back the mosquito net, believing I was too hot. The mosquitoes fed well, but it was a small irritation compared to my other injuries.

When I was fit enough to fly home I travelled by light plane from Jos to Kano – my plastered leg propped up against bulging post-bags for comfort – and then onward to Heathrow sprawled over several seats and accompanied by a Barclays expatriate who was kind enough to travel with me. Mercifully I remember very little of the journey, but I was met by an ambulance, my mother, my sister and Jean.

I was taken to Mayday Hospital in Croydon. When I arrived I was very sick. I lay in bed in a corner, with pop music blaring as chattering nurses cleaned up the ward and changed the beds. Suddenly, the whole atmosphere changed. The Sister had arrived on the shift and seen what a poor state I was in. The noise ended, peace and silence reigned. I was washed, given painkillers and sleeping tablets, the bed was plumped up and thankful oblivion carried me off.

I have never forgotten that Sister, or the relief her discipline brought to the ward. While I was very ill she seemed always to be there; as I recovered, her attention moved on to more deserving cases. She was small, neat, utterly dispassionate, a thoroughgoing martinet, and if every sick person had her to hand they would be very lucky indeed.

My leg did not heal easily. I needed several more operations, without any real knowledge of my prospects of recovery. At times I lay in bed, dispirited, wondering if I would be a cripple for life. The reluctance of the nurses to talk about my injuries made me fear the worst. I realised that my rugby, soccer and cricket days were now over, but I accepted that cheerfully enough, hoping only that I would not lose my leg, and that I would be able to walk normally one day.

Standard Bank were wonderful. Members of their personnel department visited me regularly. I received increases in pay and bonuses; my job was kept open for the many months of my treatment and convalescence, and I could not have been better treated. I shall always be grateful to them.

As I began to feel better I returned to reading. I read everything Agatha Christie wrote – some good, some bad, some indifferent, all inventive – and became proficient at picking out her villains (years later when I saw The Mousetrap I soon guessed the guilty party). I read history, politics, Churchill on the Second World War, Neville Cardus on cricket, R.F. Delderfield, Howard Spring, books on banking – anything I could lay my hands on. My long months of convalescence were not wasted.

I left hospital in August 1967, painfully thin and still unwell. My leg was terribly wasted, and when the plaster-cast was removed it was appalling to look at as the scars continued their slow healing. Jean took me in, and I went back to live with her in Brixton. She nursed and cared for me as I began the long road to recovery. She had more warmth to offer than I deserved, and she rebuilt me mentally and physically. I was very fond of her. I loved being with her, but always – pushed to the back of my mind – was our age difference, and the belief that this could not last. I was not sure it was fair of me to stay, but I was wrapped in such affection that I did.

When I was fit enough to care for myself I moved to a tiny flat owned by Pat and Ted Davies, two friends of Jean’s, and returned to studying for my banking diploma. That September I passed Monetary Theory and Practice and returned to the bank – and to local politics in Lambeth. As my slow recovery continued I was approved, in October, as the Conservative candidate for Ferndale Ward in the local elections that were to be held the following May. It was another safe Labour fiefdom, or so it was thought: candidates for the wards we hoped to win had already been selected. Campaigning was a distraction from studying, but I structured the day to fit in both.

Before I was selected for Ferndale I addressed the Clapham YCs. Hobbling on crutches, I turned up at the Clapham Conservative headquarters, which was the wrong venue for the evening, as the senior association had their own meeting that night. I passed their guest on the stairs – a distinguished Queen’s Counsel who would be speaking on law reform. We did not speak, but I was told he was Sir David Renton, the Member of Parliament for Huntingdonshire.

My mother was still worried about my health and my relationship with Jean, and in order to keep an eye on me, she accepted my invitation to come to a Brixton Conservative Supper Club. The guest speaker cancelled in mid-afternoon, and at two hours’ notice I stood in for him. It was the first and only time my mother ever heard me speak to an audience.

I saw her sitting there, accepting the kind words from her neighbours, and I did not need to ask what was in her mind: if only Tom were here. If only … But he wasn’t, sadly, and never could be now. But my mother nearly burst with pride, and the warm tears, so often near the surface in her gentle personality, flowed unstoppably. I felt very close to her that evening.

The pace of politics was beginning to accelerate. I drew on my experience, the people I had met and the things I had done, my work in banking and all I had done across Brixton and Lambeth, in getting myself known. To my advantage was the fact that I worked twice as hard as anyone else. I attended Young Conservative meetings and functions, canvassed, supported people in elections – I was just there. I was determined never to fail again through lack of effort, as I had at school. I was prepared to fail through lack of ability, through bad luck even, but never again through not having done what I was capable of.

That school failure haunted me, and I felt it very strongly. When I was making garden ornaments with Terry, I didn’t see myself doing that for life. I looked around and thought, what skills do I have? What have I got to offer? I felt I had something, and decided I had better prove to other people that that was the case. That was why I started working so hard. Drive is as important in life as intellect.

I became a regular speaker for Conservative Central Office, was elected Treasurer of the Brixton Conservative Association, and gave evidence at a Central Office inquiry into a dispute with the formidably right-wing Association Chairman, an officer from Brixton Prison who had fallen out with our agent, Marion Standing, and wanted to have her removed. It was an unhappy incident, and I can’t now remember the details, except that I was an ardent supporter of Mrs Standing. Although she came out of the inquiry well, she left the association soon after, as did the Chairman. In the midst of all this I continued to study.

I expected to lose in Ferndale Ward, but thought that contesting it would build up my curriculum vitae. I canvassed, hobbling around, and got a far better reception than I expected. Indeed, we were doing better across Lambeth than we had hoped. Barbara Wallis, one of our candidates in an unpromising ward in Vauxhall, reported a good doorstep reaction. So did Sir George Young in neighbouring Clapham. But I disregarded George’s reports: George was 6'4" and canvassed with his Irish wolfhound, Cerberus, in tow. Cerberus looked even bigger than George: it was no surprise to me that everyone offered him support.

We were optimistic about gaining seats in the council elections. Harold Wilson’s Labour government was very unpopular. It had devalued the pound the previous year and seemed unable to shrug off the difficulties it faced. Even so, winning Ferndale was not considered likely.

Then fate took a hand. On 20 April, three weeks before the local elections, Enoch Powell made his notorious ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech in Birmingham, warning of the dangers of immigration. It stirred emotions and fears, and turned a favourable Tory drift into an avalanche that changed the political landscape. Ted Heath sacked Enoch from the Shadow Cabinet. Quintin Hogg and Iain Macleod denounced him. But millions felt he had voiced their fears. The dockers marched in his support. There was political pandemonium – and everyone took sides.

I thought Powell was wrong and his speech inflammatory – Ted Heath was right to dismiss him, and I said so. But in Lambeth, Conservative politics was divided over his speech. Some council candidates, including my friend Clive Jones, strongly supported Enoch, and some issued ‘We Back Enoch’ leaflets as part of their election campaign. Barbara Wallis and another friend, Laurie Kennedy, opposed him. So did Bernard Perkins and Peter Cary, the two most senior local Conservative figures. Many white people in Brixton thought Powell was articulating their fears. The black residents felt threatened, though I did not know many of them to talk to about it. Those I did know shied away from speaking about Powell, because often they couldn’t be certain if they were talking to someone who agreed with him or not.

I did not share the view that Powell was personally a racist, and I recognised that he was expressing genuine fears. But I was sure he was mistaken. Years later, in the Commons, when I came to know this strange and brilliant man, I saw at close quarters the spell he could weave. I did not often agree with him – he carried his arguments too much to extremes for my taste – but he was a remarkable parliamentarian. In 1968 he conjured powerful political magic. The Labour government slumped in the polls as Enoch caught the public mood. The local election results that year were catastrophic for Labour, and provided unimagined political riches for the Conservatives.

We won Lambeth in a landslide: fifty-seven of the sixty seats fell into our hands. The town hall count was alive with disbelief and excitement as seat after seat fell to the Tories. The new councillors were a mixed bunch. Reg Allnutt and Jean Langley, who joined me as the Ferndale victors, hadn’t really expected to be elected, and were excited to make it, even if only by a handful of votes. Barbara Wallis, George Young, Clive Jones and many other friends romped home in other wards. They were political professionals. Barbara, short, red-haired, fiery for moderation (though in later years the moderation would slip), was later to become my constituency secretary in the Commons and at Downing Street. George Young served in my Cabinet. Clive Jones, amiable, large, a second son to my parents, was to be my best man and a friend for many years.

On the way home from the count I tried to wake up our Association President, Mrs Evans, an elderly Welsh lady, to tell her the news. She was fast asleep, having gone to bed expecting to lose, as usual, and did not answer her bell. Undaunted, I was hoisted up a lamp-post with my damaged leg held gingerly to one side as I lobbed pebbles at her window. Suddenly, my companions fell very silent and I became conscious of another figure standing on the pavement. It was a policeman. ‘And what are you up to?’ he asked, reasonably enough. We explained our election win. He walked off shaking his head at the lunatic behaviour of the sort of young people who went in for politics, and Mrs Evans slept on.

There were one or two squalls as I settled in on the council. Bernard Perkins and Peter Cary made it clear that the new Conservative council would have no part in anti-black propaganda. I strongly agreed with this and fought my own battle against constituency activists who had opposing views. A few weeks after my election the Town Clerk, John Fishwick, gently took me to one side to query my eligibility to have stood as a councillor in Lambeth. I was living between three flats at the time, but the address on my nomination form was for a fourth address, at which I had never lived. Mr Fishwick had discovered this and was puzzled.

In fact, I did have a residency qualification for Lambeth. I was still living partly with Jean and should properly have registered as a Lambeth elector from her address – but, for reasons of discretion, I did not wish to do so. In order to ensure a residency qualification I had taken two rooms in nearby Templar Street, but had not been able to move in by the October deadline for inclusion on the electoral register. As a council candidate this left me in a dilemma, so I registered with the address of an old friend of my mother, Mrs Olifent, also in Templar Street, opposite the rooms I had rented. John Fishwick was highly amused, and I heard no more about this innocent deception until Panorama unearthed it – only partly accurately and to the great distress of Mrs Olifent, who was tearful and upset at the repeated questioning – twenty-five years later.

The greatest problem in Lambeth, then as now, was poor housing. Much of Streatham and Norwood was attractive, and small parts of Kennington were already being gentrified. But Clapham was declining, and large parts of Brixton were slums, overcrowded and insanitary. They were breeding grounds for discontent and misery. The ‘swinging sixties’ did not swing in Lambeth. Land prices were soaring, and owner-occupation was dying. The population was growing, and so were council costs. Many immigrants, mostly from the West Indies, who had come to England in search of a better life, found themselves unemployed, without hope, living in deprived and miserable conditions as fear of real conflict rose around them. In the midst of this powder-keg, Enoch Powell’s speech reverberated – reassuring the whites that their private fears were not overlooked, and terrifying the black population.

Lambeth was overwhelmed. The solution to the housing problem was to build more houses. Yet even as that was done, it created other problems. Remaining streets of owner-occupation disappeared. The population mix narrowed ever more to those in need. The pressure on education and other services rose. High expenditure forced up local rates and forced out small local businesses, thus worsening unemployment. A cycle of deprivation faced Lambeth.

And yet, somehow, Brixton battled on. Tenant groups, church groups, all manner of special-interest groups tried to improve local conditions; if this sometimes led them into conflict with a local authority that would not meet all their demands, that was unsurprising. Yet despite its problems, Brixton was always vigorous and vital. Brixton market was its epicentre: cosmopolitan, bustling, bursting with stalls and traders shouting their bargains, music overlaying the chatter, the scent of spices mingling with hot dogs and South London and Caribbean accents on every side.

The dominant figure on Lambeth Council was Bernard Perkins, the leader of the Conservatives, who knew local government inside out. By profession, he was a senior local government officer in next-door Wandsworth. He devoted all his free time to Lambeth. He was supported by Peter Cary, the deputy leader – a Nigel Lawson-like figure who was a specialist in housing. I was lucky. Bernard appointed me to the Finance and Housing Committees. I could have asked for no more, and threw myself into the necessary learning curve.

Politics began to take over more of my life. I left work each day and headed either for the Conservative Association, where I remained Treasurer, or the town hall for committees and other meetings. If I had none of my own to attend I listened in on others to learn all that was going on. My early-morning banking studies had to share the time with preparation for council meetings. I continued to pass the examinations, but my progress was slower than before.

At the end of 1968 the Brixton Association agreed with neighbouring Clapham and Vauxhall to link together as the North Lambeth Conservative Group, and to appoint Jean Lucas, the formidably efficient agent for Clapham, as joint agent. Jean was to become, and remain, a great friend and ally. She gave me tremendous encouragement as I agonised over whether I would ever achieve my ambition of being elected to Parliament, and was to play a crucial role in bringing that about. Jean had a trainee agent with her, Peter Golds, whom I knew. He too would more than once play a crucial role in my future.

In January 1969 I became Peter Cary’s deputy as Vice Chairman of the Housing Committee, and two months later, Vice Chairman of the Brixton Conservative Association. Lambeth Council was well served with officers. John Fishwick was an old-fashioned Town Clerk. Ted Hollamby was an enthusiastic Director of Planning, impatient to demolish the slums and build decent houses. He would drive around the borough waving his arms to point out monstrosities, apparently oblivious of the need to keep some control of the steering wheel.

The prince among them was Harry Simpson, the Director of Housing. Harry had begun his working life, aged fifteen, with the London County Council, and became a rent collector. He rose to be one of the most respected housing administrators in the country, and after leaving Lambeth, became Director of the Northern Ireland Housing Authority and, at the end of his career, of the Greater London Council (GLC).

I learned a great deal from this amazing man, and it was his drive and Bernard Perkins’s leadership that earned Lambeth a high reputation in local government circles. Before and after meetings I would join Harry in his office and we talked housing – often late into the night. He was the best tutor there could be, both in housing and in the decent, civilised conduct of public affairs.

I also took an interest in my own housing, and bought my first home: a two-bedroom flat in Primrose Court, Streatham. It cost £5,600, and I was a reluctant purchaser, persuaded to buy by a fellow councillor, Geoff Murray, who already had a flat there. My hesitation was simply because I was too busy to buy, but he chipped away at me until I agreed. Later, a third Lambeth councillor, John Steele, also moved there, and Primrose Court became an annexe to the town hall – and my flat was often crowded with younger members of the council. I remained friendly with Jean, but our relationship had cooled.

That year I visited Russia, where Lambeth was twinned with the Moscow suburb of Moskvoretsky. Only the year before Russia had invaded Czechoslovakia to snuff out the Prague Spring of Alexander Dubcek, and I was interested to see for myself what our Cold War enemy was really like at close quarters.

The visit was a mass of contradictions. The Mayor of Moskvoretsky, a man called Chilikin, exercised his power ruthlessly, not least in his responsibility for housing. ‘It’s cold in winter without a flat,’ he told me, smiling, and I did not think he was joking. We were entertained royally, and I saw my first opera, Queen of Spades, at the Bolshoi Theatre and my first ballet, Swan Lake, at the Palace of Congresses, with Natalia Bessmertnova dancing the lead. I preferred the ballet, little knowing that I would soon meet someone who would introduce me more comprehensively to the delights of opera. The Russian system delivered political power with age, and Chilikin was fascinated that I was thirty years younger than the rest of our delegation. After the ballet he plied me with drinks until the early hours of the morning to see if I could stand the pace. As my father’s remedy for toothache for young children had been neat whisky (it took away the toothache but left a sore head and a sleepy child), I was well able to cope. Chilikin was impressed.

But I was not impressed with the new buildings he showed me. If this was communism, it was appalling. Hospitals had electrical wiring sticking out of the walls; houses and flats were built to a very low standard, with no attempt at landscaping to produce an attractive environment. Only mud and rubble lay between the housing blocks. It was a lesson in what to avoid, but a later study trip to Finland, where the quality of building was very high, left no room for complacency about what we were doing in Lambeth.

That year Lambeth faced a dustmen’s strike over ‘totting’, a practice in which the dustmen ransacked the bins to identify items for resale. We had negotiated the end of totting, but the dustmen went on strike to reclaim the right. We resisted. The strike continued, and the outlook for public health and cleanliness was grim. The Conservative councillors, with voluntary help, decided to collect the rubbish themselves, and commandeered the dustcarts. It was strike-breaking in a unique way. Almost every councillor helped. The action created headlines around the world, but they concentrated mostly on Sir George Young and his wife Aurelia, also a Lambeth councillor. George is a baronet, and the sight of him and Aurelia driving the dustcart and collecting bins was irresistible: ‘My old man’s a dustcart, Bart,’ chortled the press. But the councillors’ response was successful: a settlement was agreed, and Lambeth faced no more industrial action during the Conservative years.

In February 1970 I became Chairman of Housing, and the following month Chairman of Brixton Conservative Association as we began to prepare for the GLC elections on 9 April, and the expected general election. I had been asked whether I wished to contest the GLC elections for Hammersmith and Lambeth, but decided I had my hands full.

The GLC elections were held that year on a borough-wide basis, with four candidates being elected from Lambeth. One of the Conservative candidates was Diana Geddes, who on polling day was working out of our Brixton Road headquarters. Peter Golds brought a friend with him to help bring in the votes. I saw them as they arrived. She was slender, a little above average height, with mid-brown hair, shining brown eyes and a beautiful, curving, glamorous smile. Dressed in a beige checked suit, fawn blouse and white, knee-length boots, she was stunningly attractive.

‘Hi,’ said Peter. ‘This is Norma. She’s come to help.’

She was Norma Johnson, ‘mad on opera’, said Peter, adding that she’d been known to sleep outside Covent Garden all night to get tickets for Joan Sutherland. Within minutes I discovered she was a teacher with her own Mini, her own flat – temporarily living at home because she’d rented it out – not very political, but Conservative, and that she also designed and made clothes.

The demands of election day drove us apart. Norma and Peter went out in her Mini to collect and deliver voters to the polling station. I canvassed, cajoled workers, kept in touch with candidates, filled in wherever necessary and arranged for Norma to attend the count at Lambeth Town Hall. Although the Conservatives won control of the GLC that night, we did not win the seats in Lambeth. But I had found Norma.

A few days later she phoned. She was having a party – would I like to come? Parties weren’t much my scene then, and I wanted Norma alone, not in a crowd. I declined, pleading another engagement. She phoned again several days later. She ‘happened to have a spare ticket for a gala at Covent Garden’. Was I interested? I was.

The gala was a tribute to Sir David Webster, the retiring administrator at Covent Garden. It was a long programme and it overran. The opera house was hot and oppressive, and the music too somnolent for someone who had been reading council papers until 2 a.m. and writing banking essays from six in the morning. As Joan Sutherland closed the gala singing the mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor, I fell asleep.

I knew from the moment we met that I wanted to marry Norma. Ten days later we were engaged. Norma was an only child. Her mother, Dee, had been widowed as a twenty-two-year-old in 1945 when her husband Norman – who served in the Royal Artillery throughout the war – had died in a motorcycle accident days after it ended. Four months earlier Dee had lost her baby son, Colin, at only six days old, and with Norman’s death she and three-year-old Norma were on their own. When life treated Dee harshly she fought back. For much of her life she held down two or three jobs at the same time to ensure that she and Norma lacked nothing. Norma went to boarding school from the age of four, and had grown up very independent and practical.

My mother was back in hospital with yet another bronchial and chest infection, and I took Norma to see her. For once there was no caution, no holding back, no reservations. She was as certain as I was that this was the right girl.

Meanwhile, in Brixton, a mini-crisis was brewing. The Conservative candidate for the general election was James Harkess, personally charming but strongly right-wing, with Powellite views on race that he expressed vigorously and openly. He and I were never going to agree. He saw the problems of immigration. I saw people trying to better their lifestyle. Nor did it seem to me that implying that half of his electorate were unwelcome in the constituency was a vote-winning platform.

At the AGM of the association Harkess made a wild speech that was strongly anti-immigrant. I was appalled at his intolerance, and embarrassed too, especially as we had a new West Indian member present, who must have been mortified. I replied angrily from the chair, rebutting Harkess’s remarks, and the atmosphere turned sulphurous. I knew that relations between us were soured beyond repair. The ramifications were considerable. Jean Lucas, the group agent for Lambeth, strongly backed me, as did Lady Colman, President of the association, and widow of the former Conservative Member for the seat who had been defeated in 1945. Others in the association felt the same.

Gradually it became apparent that the consensus was that James Harkess’s views would damage race relations in Brixton, and with them the Conservative cause. I took soundings, and spoke to Harkess about our concerns, but did not receive any positive response. Finally I went ahead with a motion for the executive to consider selecting a new candidate. It would certainly have been approved, and I had Diana Geddes in mind as his replacement. Then Harold Wilson called the general election, and the meeting to discuss whether the candidate should be replaced instead endorsed him, dutifully and without enthusiasm.

It was an odd election campaign, in blazing weather. Opinion polls gave Labour a huge lead, but they proved inaccurate. When the votes were counted the swing to the Conservatives across the country was apparent from the first result. By the end of the night, to everyone’s surprise but his own, Ted Heath was prime minister with a comfortable majority.

There was never any doubt that Colonel Marcus Lipton, the Labour candidate, who was an excellent constituency MP, would be comfortably re-elected in Brixton. In nearby marginal Clapham, Bill Shelton, the Conservative candidate, comfortably took the seat vacated by its Labour MP, Mrs Margaret MacKay, from the recently adopted Dr David Pitt, a black Labour candidate, but without raising the race issue. The swing in Clapham showed what a potent force that issue was, and how inflammatory it could have been in Brixton. We had been fortunate. Labour’s huge opinion poll lead and Marcus Lipton’s long incumbency as the Member meant that James Harkess was considered to have no chance of winning. Passions were stilled by the certainty of his defeat, and he soon moved on from Brixton. Clive Jones lost in neighbouring Vauxhall. On Lambeth Council, the Conservatives were aware that we were probably only short-term tenants at the local level, and that Labour was likely to regain control at the next council elections in 1971. Too many of our majorities were tiny for us not to realise that even a small swing of the political compass would have a serious impact.

We thought our best chance was to mount a real attack on poor housing conditions, and set to it with a will. Bernard Perkins as leader and Peter Cary as Chairman of Finance gave me their full backing as we set about the task. We continued our building and slum-clearance programme. We drew up schemes to sell council houses and to build houses for sale in an attempt to revive owner-occupation and encourage skills and employment in Lambeth. We established registration schemes to tackle overcrowding. We set up arrangements with Peterborough New Town for families to move there into jobs and good housing (I little knew that eight years later many of them would become my constituents in Huntingdon). We encouraged ministerial visits so that we could show the new government our problems as we sought more help and finance.

I remember showing Peter Walker, the new Environment Secretary, the squalor of life in the Geneva Drive – Somerleyton Road area of Brixton, where there was mass overcrowding in dilapidated homes with poor facilities. We met one West Indian on the third-floor landing of one of these monstrosities.

‘Where do you live?’ I asked him for the Minister’s benefit.

‘Here,’ he said, puzzled.

‘No,’ I pressed him, ‘which room?’

‘I don’t have a room,’ he replied. ‘I live here.’

And he did, on the landing.

It was problems like that that encouraged us to open the first Housing Advice Centre in London. The concept was simple. Anyone with a housing problem, of any sort, could go to the Advice Centre for help and advice, free of charge. Soon it was so popular it was packed.

There was another aspect of life in Lambeth that struck me forcibly. Some people in need were aggressive; but very few. Most were frightened of bureaucracy, of government, of their powers to tax, to put up rents, to give or withhold planning consent and, above all, to house them in council flats or not. Moreover, councillors and council officials were too often hidden away. To the public they could be anonymous figures, but nonetheless figures whose decisions could blight or improve their lives. This was particularly true of the decisions to rehouse following slum clearance and new building, and the often artificial restrictions on council tenants even if they were rehoused. At tenants’ meetings the resentments voiced against these anonymous figures were fierce.

I decided to take the Housing Advice Centre on tour, with the main council officials accompanying councillors at public meetings, to face the people directly, answer their questions and explain our policies. There was, at first, a lot of resistance to this revolutionary idea, but with strong backing from Bernard Perkins and – among the officers – Harry Simpson, it was soon agreed. The meetings were a huge success, often attracting audiences of many hundreds that overflowed the halls we had booked. I chaired the meetings, with the Chairman of Planning and Social Services invariably in attendance as well as the local councillors for the ward. More importantly to the public, the Directors of Housing and Planning were there, with other officers, and especially the Lettings Officer, who allocated council houses and flats.

These meetings were generally good-natured, but with the occasional rowdy and angry intervention. I loved them, and thought they were a valuable safety valve. I regretted then – and still do – the fact that such meetings were not a regular practice for all councils. I believe they should be.

Some incidents still stick in the mind. Once, a man held up a rat he’d found in his house. What was I going to do about it? he demanded. I asked where he lived. He told me, and after a whispered consultation I was able to tell him that he lived over the border in Southwark. It was a Southwark rat – and he should take it to Alderman Ron Brown, brother of the former deputy leader of the Labour Party George Brown, and a leading member of Southwark Council. For my pains, he threw the rat at me – happily he was a very poor shot.

At a meeting in Kennington a young, strikingly attractive woman dressed from top to toe in shiny black leather rose to ask a question. The audience looked at her with more than passing interest.

‘I am the wife of the Vicar of …’ she began, but got no further, as the unlikelihood of this registered and the hall erupted in raucous amusement. We did get her question eventually, but I can’t recall what it was. Later she became a Labour councillor.

At the end of these meetings I would hang around, usually with Harry Simpson, who had given me a lift to the hall, to gauge reaction. Even those members of the public who hadn’t liked the answers they’d received enjoyed the meetings. It was politics made real, and not hidden away in committee rooms. These meetings made a profound impression on me: politics seemed so far removed from electors, and they rarely expected to meet the decision-takers. They were accustomed to poor service, remote officials and a system run for government and not for the public. I promised myself that, if I ever had the chance, I would try to open up government and make it more accountable.

I spent every spare moment I could with Norma. She learned about politics, while I began to understand opera. Norma’s mother Dee set herself to planning a big wedding. Then, in mid-September, just over two weeks before the wedding, the phone rang at four o’clock in the morning. I picked it up with foreboding. It was my brother Terry, very upset.

‘Mum’s dead,’ he said, ‘a few minutes ago. In Mayday.’

I had not expected this. My mother’s ill-health had been a constant feature of my life ever since I was a child, but she always battled through. She had been determined to come out of hospital for my wedding. Now she would not, and my heart broke for her. She had lost her last fight with just sixteen days to go.

I lay in bed after Terry’s call, reliving memories of the woman whose fondest hopes had always been for others: firstly my father, and then her children. As the youngest, more hopes had been poured into me, and I had always taken it so much for granted. The smallest gesture cheered and lifted her; the greatest blow would never crush her. My father may have dominated our family, but my mother was its heart. When she died, lame ducks lost a saint. Strangers found in her an instant friendliness. An hour’s acquaintance made a friend for ever. All her life she had been gregarious and, even in her last illness, had become so friendly with everyone at the local corner shop that it closed on the day of her funeral. She was open-hearted and open-handed. But her generosity of spirit was to her family and those in need. She could be an implacable foe when she chose, but in those near to her she inspired the same love she gave so generously. A few days after her death, Mum was cremated at Streatham Vale crematorium, and her ashes were laid beside Dad’s.

I wondered whether we should postpone the wedding, but I knew that my mother would have thoroughly disapproved of such a gesture. Besides, Pat and Terry insisted that we go ahead. The day before the wedding I slipped and fell in a corridor in Lambeth Town Hall, when my suspect left knee gave way. It swelled up like a balloon, and Clive Jones helped me home, where I lay in the bath with an ice-pack wrapped around my knee.

‘Eat your heart out, young Lochinvar,’ grinned Clive as he sipped a whisky beside the bath. ‘I suppose you could always hop down the aisle.’

Saturday, 3 October 1970 was crisp, clear and sunny, and in the morning I could hobble pretty well. My main worry was that the wretched knee would collapse under me as Norma and I walked back down the aisle. But the whole day went perfectly. Norma was acceptably late, and looked lovely. St Matthew’s Church in Brixton was packed. Clive had the ring. June Bronhill – the petite and lovely Australian soprano who had sung Lucia at Covent Garden and starred as Elizabeth Barrett Browning in the West End production of Ronald Millar’s Robert and Elizabeth – sang ‘Ave Maria’, and her wonderful voice echoed around the church. Norma had known June for years, made dresses for her, lived with her as temporary nanny to her daughter, Biddy, and they were close friends. I clutched Norma’s arm as we walked back down the aisle, and we made it safely to the door. ‘I thought you were supposed to support her,’ was Clive’s comment.

After a honeymoon in Ibiza we returned to Primrose Court, and Norma turned it from a bachelor flat into a home. Writing in the late nineties, it is hard to remember how life was in 1970. Our combined income was around £3,000 a year, and £8 a week sufficed for the housekeeping. But week by week our flat took on a new face. Corners were filled, rooms were painted, books and records appeared, and astonished friends marvelled at the transformation of my spartan pad.

Life and politics resumed in Lambeth. In January 1971 I was shortlisted for the vacant parliamentary candidacy at Norwood, but this was Bernard Perkins’s fortress, and he was selected. We prepared for the council elections in May, and I was selected for Thornton Ward in Clapham, which was thought to be a much safer bet than Ferndale. On 28 March, the day before my twenty-eighth birthday, Norma told me she was pregnant, and in May, despite all our efforts, the Conservatives were soundly defeated in Lambeth as Labour regained its fiefdom. Ken Livingstone succeeded me as Housing Chairman, and Tony Banks also became a councillor.

I barely knew either of them before they were elected, although Ken’s emergence as a Labour council candidate caused quite a stir in Norwood, where his mother was an active member of the Conservative Association. Both of them were already identifiably the characters who later became so well known, and Tony Banks was soon involved in controversy as allegedly the moving spirit behind an attempt to ban the Queen’s portrait from the council chamber. (After the 1997 general election he was photographed taking the loyal oath with his fingers crossed behind his back.)

Moving to Thornton Ward did me no good at all: I lost by 411 votes. I was disappointed by the reversal of our fortunes in Lambeth because we were generally thought to have done a good job. Years later Ken Livingstone was very flattering about what our Conservative council had achieved. But there was still so much more to do. I was philosophical about my own defeat. The role of councillor in opposition did not appeal very much.

I decided it was time to try to move onto the national stage. To do so I needed to pass the selection procedure to get on the Conservative Central Office list of approved candidates. Jill Knight, the MP for Edgbaston, who lived in Lambeth and had heard me speak, sponsored my application, and by early June it had been submitted. Then fate, in the shape of Peter Golds, intervened.

Peter was a firm believer that I should be in Parliament. He had mentioned this to a fellow agent, Tony Dey, and took me to see Tony and Bob Bell, the affable President of the St Pancras North Association. It was suggested that I apply for the seat. No one was remotely bothered that I was not an approved candidate. St Pancras North was a safe Labour seat, with Jock Stallard as a well-established local Member. There was little chance of winning, but it was perfect for me: a London constituency, convenient to where I lived and worked, affordable, even on my average income, and the best I could hope for aged twenty-eight.

I had continued studying, and in September 1971 I finally sat and passed the Accountancy and Practice of Banking papers that completed my Banking Diploma. It had taken me six years to pass ten examinations, all of them at the first attempt, as politics, Nigeria, recovery from the car accident and marriage had competed for the limited hours of every day. I was delighted to have passed, even though the qualification was less a tool for a banking career than an element of building up the necessary curriculum vitae for politics. I applied for the vacancy at St Pancras North, was invited for interview with thirty others, and was shortlisted with only one rival.

That summer Norma and I enjoyed a glorious holiday in an old chantry with a secluded garden. We lazed through the long summer days and planned the future. Norma’s pregnancy was nearing full term. She had never been fitter or happier, and she bloomed with health. It was fortunate that she did so, because Elizabeth was in no hurry to make her first entrance. Then, early one November evening, she finally announced her impending arrival.

I saw both my children being born, and am glad I did so. In 1971, when Elizabeth was born, it was quite revolutionary to allow fathers to be present, but King’s College Hospital in Camberwell had no qualms about it at all. Elizabeth was a full-term baby, but her birth was interminable. After fifteen hours I was sent away to lie down – ‘This is all very tiring, dear,’ said the nurse. A few hours later the doctors took me aside and told me Norma needed an epidural. The risks were explained to us, but Norma agreed, and after thirty hours, in the early hours of 13 November 1971, a plump and chubby Elizabeth bounced across the delivery table and lustily announced that a new force had arrived.

There are some moments in your life when every second is implanted indelibly in your mind. Perhaps most parents feel this at the birth of their child. I certainly did. And when I held Elizabeth for the first time I knew my life was changed. She was warm and comfortable, vulnerable and dependent. Here was a baby who – whatever else happened – would for ever be loved, and who one day, I hoped, would tell her grandchildren about Norma and me.

It was after 2 a.m. when I left the hospital to walk home, for the buses had stopped and there were no taxis around at that time. I didn’t so much walk as float. Anyone about the streets that November night would have wondered, who was this lunatic who ran, walked, skipped, turned round in circles, hopped, stepped, jumped up and down and cheerily sang to himself out of sheer exhilaration?

I planned the future and, more immediately, wondered how early I could phone Dee, Norma’s mother, with the news. I needn’t have worried about that. As I stepped into our flat the phone rang. It was Dee. She was very agitated. ‘She’s had the baby, hasn’t she?’ she said. ‘I know she has. I haven’t been able to sleep. Is she all right?’

I told her. She sighed and hung up without a word. Moments later she phoned back.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I was so relieved. I knew, just knew she was having the baby. Now tell me all about it.’

So I did. And if the world ever contained a more relieved and pleased grandparent – well, I can’t imagine her.

At first Elizabeth was going to be called Jane. But that didn’t last. When I visited Norma in hospital the following day she was cuddling a plump and contented baby.

‘I don’t think Jane is right,’ said Norma. ‘She looks like an Elizabeth.’ And so Elizabeth she became.

Later that month I was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate for St Pancras North after addressing the interview panel and answering their questions. I had received an enthusiastic response, and was told I had won comfortably. ‘Some voted for you and quite a few for Elizabeth,’ as Joan Couzens, soon to be my press officer, put it. Joan was one of a number of characters in the association, and certainly the most vivid. She loathed the Labour Party she saw in London, which brought out in her some outrageously right-wing instincts which were held in check by her common sense. She enjoyed flirting with them, however, and often wrote me draft press releases in poetry, based on her instincts, not her common sense, which we both knew could never be used, but which gave us great fun. She was a fine artist as well, and she and her husband Bertie became firm friends.

St Pancras North may have been unpromising political territory for the Conservatives, but my three years as its candidate, which embraced both the February and October general elections of 1974, taught me a huge amount about the party and the volunteers who ran it at local level.

Tony Dey, the agent, was laconic and efficient. Bob Bell, the President, and his wife Edith, Francis Klein, the Chairman, Dennis Friis, Roland Walker and so many others worked tirelessly for little political reward other than to uphold Conservative principles. They weren’t ideological warriors. They believed in the Conservative cause. They grumbled sometimes about some of the leaders and some of the policy, but they loyally battled on.

I worked hard for them in St Pancras. Between my adoption as prospective candidate and the February 1974 election I worked the seat as if it were a marginal, visiting it nearly every evening and every weekend. Margaret Jay, who succeeded Tony Dey as my agent, worked me hard – and herself as well. Norma joined me whenever she could. It was hard work but it was a lot of fun too, although it became harder as Ted Heath’s government ran into difficulties.

Ted had been elected on a strong centre-right platform, but events had forced him off it. Trade union power forced up wages and prices and brought about an incomes policy that upset many in the party and even caused discontented murmurings amongst the St Pancras North loyalists. Ted took Britain into the Common Market, an inevitable, correct and courageous decision, but one that was very controversial, too.

Then came the miners’ strike over a pay claim that would have given some miners up to a 50 per cent rise. The National Coal Board had offered 13 per cent, which was rejected, and an overtime ban began. The miners were led by Joe Gormley, a traditional Labour figure, but not a militant. His interest was in the miners’ well-being and not in attacking the Conservative government. Other miners’ leaders, though, such as Mick McGahey and Arthur Scargill, did see the chance of confrontation and bringing down the government.

The strike worsened. Implacable positions were taken and Ted Heath was forced into a box. Many Conservatives, mostly but not exclusively on the right, wanted to ‘take on’ the miners. ‘Who governs the country?’ they asked. Others recognised the sympathy and respect in which the miners were widely held by the British people. Some of their leaders might be militant, but the British sense of fair play knew that the miners did a job that few would care to do. The public admired the miners and liked the common sense they often heard from rank-and-file NUM members. But they did not like the militants.

Crisis beckoned, and the three-day week was imposed from 31 December 1973 as stocks of coal fell. Pressure mounted. Ted Heath had a dilemma. If he negotiated a settlement because of the economic effect the strike was having, he would be accused of weakness, especially from within the Conservative Party. If the strikes continued the economy would suffer, and gradually public opinion would turn against the government. The third choice, a huge gamble, was a general election to reinforce the government’s authority. Little thought was given to what would happen if the government was re-elected, but the strike itself went on.

Ted Heath went for broke and called the election on the theme of ‘Who Governs Britain?’ At the time I was delighted, and the early opinion polls were favourable, as was reaction on the doorstep, even in St Pancras North. But a one-issue election is dangerous. Midway through the campaign complex evidence on miners’ pay suggested that they were earning even less than the NUM had declared. Harold Wilson claimed an election had been called over an ‘arithmetical error’. Sympathy swelled for the miners.

The public mood changed. Unhappy Tories voted Liberal, and Labour crept home as the largest party. Ted Heath was out and Harold Wilson, to his surprise and everyone else’s, was back in Downing Street, at the head of a minority administration. One bright spot was that George Young was elected to Parliament with a small majority at Ealing, Acton. In St Pancras North Jock Stallard was alarmed by the strength of support I had in some streets, but overall he won comfortably.

A second general election later that year was inevitable. The St Pancras North Conservative Association generously told me I could seek a better seat with their blessing, but could recontest St Pancras if I failed to find one. I did not try very hard, although I was shortlisted for marginal Paddington, where I was narrowly defeated by Mark Wolfson, later MP for Sevenoaks. I also applied for Portsmouth North, where I was assailed with questions about flogging and hanging, which the questioner favoured – whether sequentially or alternatively I wasn’t sure – and I didn’t. That was the end of Portsmouth North, who picked a well-known businessman, John Ward, who would later become my PPS when I was prime minister.

After this setback, I decided to stay in St Pancras North, and contested it again in the second general election of the year in October. The constituency was of little interest nationally, and the only publicity we received was for my new agent, Sue Winter, the youngest in the country and very pretty. It made no difference. Again I lost, after a rather bitter campaign and an unpleasant count, with jeering Labour activists. Jock Stallard’s majority increased. Labour gained seats nationally, and had a very narrow overall majority of only three seats. Soon they would need to rely on Liberal support to stay in government.

By now Norma and I had sold our flat in Primrose Court and bought a modern end-of-terrace house, West Oak, in The Avenue, Beckenham. Elizabeth was growing, and we needed more space. West Oak was a small estate in lovely wooded grounds, full of mostly young married couples, and we were very happy there. Among our neighbours were David Rodgers, a former aide to Iain Macleod, and his wife Erica, who had been National Vice Chairman of the Young Conservatives.

Norma was pregnant again, and James was born in January 1975. I was again present at the birth, and he arrived much more speedily and with much less drama than Elizabeth. We had no difficulty over his name: he was James, if a boy, from long before he was born. He was a fit, contented baby from the very start.

Politics moved on, and in February 1975 Margaret Thatcher defeated Ted Heath to become leader of the Conservative Party. I had never met her, and little guessed how much our paths would cross in the future.

No one expected another early general election – public and politicians were battle-weary – but as seats were advertised or fell vacant I applied for them. I received rejection after rejection without interview, and was puzzled and despondent. It was Jean Lucas, by then the agent for Putney, who solved the puzzle after I applied for the vacant candidacy there. She telephoned and asked whether my biography needed to be jazzed up, and then noticed that the biography sent to Putney by Central Office was not mine. She made enquiries. The answer was comical. There were two John Majors. One, me, on the approved candidates list for Parliament, and the other on the list of would-be candidates for the GLC. Someone at Central Office had transposed the biographies, and was sending out my namesake’s – which was pretty thin – to all the seats for which I had applied. Unsurprisingly, I had not been invited for interview.

After Jean’s intervention I was invited to Putney, interviewed and shortlisted. I was led to believe I was the front-runner and likely to be adopted. But, as their selection process rumbled on, a by-election was called at Conservative-held Carshalton, and I was interviewed and reached the last eight. I withdrew from Putney, and an unknown barrister was chosen: his name was David Mellor. ‘He is very clever and one day will make a real name for himself,’ predicted Jean Lucas.

At Carshalton I was preceded for interview by a confident young man carrying a briefcase with the initials ‘N.F.’ prominently displayed. I asked who he was, and was told his name was Nigel Forman. I had a premonition that he would be selected; he was, and comfortably won the ensuing by-election.

I continued to apply for a seat. Sevenoaks did not interview me. At Ruislip Northwood I disagreed sharply with a member of the selection committee over housing and was not invited for further interview. At Dorset South I reached the second round of interviews and was waiting with the others for my ordeal when I saw the selection committee rise respectfully as a well-built young man with dark hair entered the room. One of the other candidates scowled: ‘That’s Lord Cranborne – he owns the constituency.’ That was not quite true, although he certainly owned a lot of land. He was selected, and twenty years later I was to appoint him to my Cabinet as leader of the Lords, and he was to run a crucial campaign for me to save my premiership. Self-evidently, Robert had great ability, so perhaps owning the constituency didn’t matter.

After the two general elections I contested, Standard Bank had realised I was set on a political career, but remained supportive. Roy Mortimer, one of the senior executives, and Peter Graham, the managing director, were unfailingly helpful, even though they knew the bank was second in my working affections. By 1976, Tony Barber, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ted Heath’s government, was chairman of the bank, and took me with him as his personal assistant to the International Monetary Fund Conference in Manila. That was the year sterling hit trouble and Denis Healey had to turn back from Heathrow Airport to deal with the crisis.

As a result, Tony Barber, his predecessor, was bombarded with press and interviews at Manila, and I dealt with many of them on his behalf; it was my first exposure to high-profile politics, and it lived up to my expectations. I worked eighteen hours a day but it whetted my appetite for the drama of politics. I returned home even more eager for a political career.

When a vacancy for the Huntingdonshire constituency was circulated to all approved candidates I applied immediately, but was not hopeful. It was a rural seat with a large Conservative majority, and it seemed an unlikely home. Norma disagreed. ‘It is for you,’ she insisted. She knew the area because she had been sent to stay with her great aunt in nearby Bourn for summer after summer during her childhood, while her mother Dee continued to work through most of the school holidays. She was confident about Huntingdonshire from the start.

About three hundred candidates applied, including Peter Brooke, Chris Patten, Michael Howard and Peter Lilley, so I knew the competition would be tough. I contacted Andrew Thomson, the agent, and he generously answered all my questions about the association and the constituency.

The first interview merely involved the candidate giving a twenty-minute speech on a Saturday morning, followed by questions. It went well enough, and Andrew Thomson phoned me the next morning to tell me I had reached the last eighteen. Another interview followed, which went better, but against stiffer opposition I was not certain of progressing further. I followed Peter Lilley, and after I had finished, found him sitting on a bench at Huntingdon station waiting for the train to London.

‘It was fine,’ he said, responding to my enquiry, ‘but you never can tell.’ But I thought he looked despondent. Months later Peter was given a lift by a young agent, and was speculating ruefully on why I had been selected for Huntingdonshire. Who was I, he asked, and what had I done to earn such a gilt-edged seat? He seemed aggrieved. The young agent thought Peter was criticising me, and read him a lecture on my virtues. It was Peter Golds – my first trainee agent in Brixton.

After a third interview I was shortlisted. As Huntingdonshire was such a secure seat there was some interest in the final contestants. ‘Crossbencher’, the political column of the Sunday Express, said I hadn’t a chance of selection. Given Crossbencher’s forecasting record, this was good news. That same morning the phone rang. It was a member of the selection committee, Anne Foard.

‘I shouldn’t be phoning,’ she said, ‘but I am – so this must be private.’ She then gave me advice. Be yourself. Show humour. Bear in mind that half the constituency, and the electorate, are big-city overspill. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘and by the way, the district council meet on Wednesday. It would be good for you to be there to listen. And to be seen.’

It was wise advice. Andrew Thomson had already said pretty much the same thing. Being used to the political activity of Lambeth, Huntingdon District Council was a pleasant surprise. I was almost the only spectator, and the object of as much interest, nudging and winking, as the agenda. And the debate puzzled me. It was fierce, and all about ‘local pyromaniacs trying to burn down our county’, as one councillor put it, to the accompaniment of much support. It seemed like a serious crime wave. Then sturdy, outdoor figures with weatherbeaten faces defended the pyromania, and the truth dawned: they were talking about stubble-burning. It was urban man against rural, and a real eye-opener into the issues that stirred the community. That visit to Huntingdon was one of the best investments in time I ever made.

On the way to the final selection meeting I was preparing myself mentally for another disappointment. I couldn’t get my head around the fact that I might be selected for one of the safest seats in England. Norma had no such inhibitions. She was confident we would win. As our second-hand Austin 1300 estate chugged towards Huntingdon she asked me if I had remembered that ‘Friday is an anniversary’. I hadn’t, but it was.

‘It’s five years to the day that you were selected as the candidate for St Pancras North,’ said Norma. ‘Tonight you must do it again.’

I am superstitious, and that seemed a good omen. The selection meeting was in the Commemoration Hall, Huntingdon, and the final opposition was tough. I learned later that Jock Bruce-Gardyne, formerly MP for Angus, had under-performed, having a foul cold. Lord Douro was thought to have had one piece of good news already that week, having become engaged to the Kaiser’s granddaughter. Alan Haselhurst, later Deputy Speaker, spoke brilliantly, and was the runaway favourite when I spoke, last of the four. It went well, and, the ordeal over, Norma and I returned to the holding room and then to the local pub to consider our chances as the balloting got under way.

The Commemoration Hall as we returned was a scene of pandemonium. A decision had obviously been made. Wild applause and cheering could be heard, and as we hurried to the holding room I peered through the glass windows in the door of the main hall and saw Anne Foard, my telephone confidante of Sunday, standing on a chair whooping, with her hands clapping above her head.

Moments later Archie Gray, the Chairman of the association, entered the holding room. We all stood, tense and expectant.

‘You’ve all done magnificently,’ he said. ‘It was hard to choose, but Mr Major has been selected.’ Smiling, he walked over and shook my hand. As he did so I knew the course of my life had been determined.

From the start Huntingdonshire fitted me like a glove, although a few of the older members were startled to have a candidate from Brixton and an agent from Glasgow. They soon mellowed. Norma and I immediately decided to move to the constituency and put West Oak on the market. Unfortunately for us, subsidence of a neighbouring house in our terrace reduced its value and made it more difficult to sell. It took months, and throughout that time I commuted between my home in Beckenham, my job in the City and the constituency in Huntingdon. We found a lovely house in St Neots but, to my fury, we were gazumped by a partner in one of the local estate agents. Eventually we found a conventional four-bedroomed detached house in the beautiful village of Hemingford Grey, and moved in just before Christmas 1977.

By this time I was already getting to know the huge constituency and its rich variety of interests. From the outset, I was treated as the Member-in-waiting and not the candidate. It was assumed that I would win, though ‘not by as many as Sir David’, as I was regularly informed, though never by Sir David. He saw the constituency changing, and had no fears for the majority. Sir David Renton, QC, KBE, MP was an immense support. He had been elected in 1945, still in uniform, as Major Renton, and he and his wife Paddy were as firmly entrenched in Huntingdonshire as any Member could be.

David and Paddy had a handicapped daughter, Davina, and both worked tirelessly for charities, especially the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children. David began to involve Norma in this work, and her association with Mencap, as it became, was to grow through the years. I began to get used to mentally handicapped adults, whose minds had not aged with their bodies, holding Norma’s hand or cuddling her with all the affection of children. We came to understand how so many volunteers work so devotedly for this cause, and years later we were able to put the famous addresses of 10 Downing Street and Chequers to good use in raising funds for this and other charities.

David and Paddy Renton were kindness itself, and there was never the slightest friction between us. They entertained us at their home, supported us throughout the constituency and eased us into the mainstream of Huntingdon life. I shall always be grateful to them and hope, one day, to be as gracious to my successor as David was to me.

And this support mattered. A long incumbency attracts a great deal of loyalty, and if Sir David had muttered uncomplimentary remarks, or hinted at criticisms, even in private, they would have been voiced abroad and caused difficulties. It is human nature to cast doubt over one’s successor to bolster one’s own sense of experienced superiority, but David never did so. Over the years I found in him a wise adviser and a political friend and confidant whom I could trust completely and who never let me down. In 1998, in his ninetieth year, David, now Lord Renton, was still active in the House of Lords, and I had the pleasure of speaking at several of the events to mark his landmark birthday. On one occasion Margaret Thatcher and I both spoke at Lincoln’s Inn. Margaret, as Margaret Roberts, had sought, and received, David’s help as a young barrister.

David’s joie de vivre never dimmed. In his eighties I called on him one Sunday lunchtime to find him in tennis shorts shaking his head sadly.

‘I’ve been playing with Jeffrey Archer,’ he said, ‘and, you know, his game’s going off. And he’s so young.’ Jeffrey was in his late forties.

Other senior members of the Huntingdonshire Conservative Association welcomed us warmly. Maurice and Doris Twydell and Tony Finch-Knightley introduced us to ‘old’ Huntingdon, while Mike and Beryl Robertson – the best judges of how the vote was going locally – did the same for us in the overspill estates.

Archie Gray, a retired naval commander, was chairman, and his writ ran. But, like so many Conservative associations, Huntingdonshire was largely an amazonian enterprise. Many of the guiding forces were women. The President, Mrs Jo Johnson, was a Scot, one of many active in the association. Jo was one of the wisest ladies I ever knew, and a huge support. She was no fair-weather friend. Nor was Emily Blatch, later Baroness Blatch and a senior member of my government, or Olive Macaulay, whom I later gave away in her marriage to Eric Baddeley. As for Anne Foard, she placed a bet at a hundred to one that I would be Chancellor of the Exchequer within ten calendar years of my election to Parliament – and she won.

The farmers were prominent in the constituency. Roger Juggins took me in hand and explained farming. The Juggins family had been in Stukeley for centuries, and had a political commitment to match the Cecils or the Churchills. Ted Smith added to my farming education, as did Joe Pickard, who once remarked, ‘They tell us you know nothing about farming, but Sir David tells us you’re all right.’ Sir David said I was all right! I needed no other endorsement for the farming community.

Old Mr Skinner introduced me to pigs. He loved his pigs, and no luxury was too good for them. With the wind behind them the pigs could make their presence known over a wide area, but no one complained. They all liked Mr Skinner and his pig farm was state-of-the-art.

The non-farmers were just as helpful. Mike Bloomfield, Ivor Ross Roberts and Mike Harford, all successful businessmen, introduced me to the business community and, like many others in Huntingdon, became firm friends.

Andrew Thomson, my agent, was another Scot. Sometimes controversial, he was determined to bring in the new voters in the overspill areas outside Huntingdon and Peterborough, and worked me mercilessly to do so. Meet people. Meet people. Meet people. That was his motto. And it worked. I knew the constituency and it came to know me, and it was a happy relationship. Some MPs see their constituency only as a vehicle to get into Parliament, and something of a cross to be borne. I was lucky. I never did. From the very first, Huntingdon became a home, the source of many friends and a political fortress.

I left nothing to chance. Over the months I came to know Rotary Clubs, business groups, charities, schools, tenant groups, sports clubs and everything else that was active in the constituency. I knew the election could come at any time. Jim Callaghan, the Prime Minister, had formed a Lib – Lab pact to stay in government, but it looked very fragile. Each morning as I commuted from Huntingdon to King’s Cross I wondered how long they’d last. And returning home each evening I hoped it wouldn’t be long.

But stagger on they did. And on. And on. An election looked inevitable in October 1978 when Jim Callaghan announced that he was making a prime ministerial broadcast, but all he said of note was that there would be no election until the spring. After two years’ hard slog as the prospective candidate for Huntingdonshire, and seven years since my first candidacy at St Pancras North, a further delay was dispiriting. A long, hard winter lay ahead, but it was longer and harder for the Labour government as the Winter of Discontent set in.

Eventually, a dramatic defeat by one vote on a Confidence Motion brought down the Callaghan government on 28 March, and the following day the election was called. It was the best birthday present I ever received.

The Huntingdonshire machine swung into action. It was a Rolls-Royce operation compared to anything I had experienced before. By day I canvassed, visited pubs and clubs, market squares, railway stations and retirement homes, gave interviews and filled every moment with activity. Each evening I held three public meetings at 7 p.m., 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. in different villages. Almost all were packed out, with standing room only, and the reception was almost always very friendly. There was little opposition, but I was leaving nothing to chance. The Liberal candidate was Major Dennis Rowe, a well-known local figure, and the Labour candidate a young man named Julian Fulbrook. Years later, in the Blair campaign of 1997, I saw Fulbrook trotted out to praise Labour as if he was a neutral who had fallen in love with the New Labour Party. The age of the spin doctor had arrived.

A few hecklers followed me around. One, a Labour supporter, was a persistent nuisance, and one evening I responded pretty sharply to his comments. He rose from his seat, snorted disapproval and stalked out in high dudgeon. Unfortunately for him he was so intent on registering his disgust that he walked into the broom cupboard rather than out into the night air. The audience watched fascinated, then burst into laughter and applause as he emerged. Red-faced and embarrassed, he slunk out and did not reappear. I missed him – he had provided many a light-hearted moment during the campaign.

Election day, 3 May 1979, dawned crisp and bright. It looked as though we were set to win nationally, although, curious to relate today, many wondered if Britain really would elect a woman as prime minister. But I was confident locally, and Andrew Thomson was super-confident. I drove around the huge constituency with Archie Gray, starting in the south and visiting polling stations and committee rooms. Norma and Andrew Thomson performed a similar odyssey, starting from the north. We planned to meet in the middle.

As Archie and I reached the village of Brampton, I was astounded to see long queues of RAF personnel from the local air station patiently waiting to vote. Archie purred. ‘Look at that. They’re not going to put a Labour government back in office. You’re going to win, my boy.’ So saying, he produced a bottle of champagne.

‘A little early,’ he went on, ‘but we have something to celebrate.’

We pulled into a layby and cheerily drank half the bottle. Thus fortified we pressed on.

At each committee room the mood was buoyant. A high turnout, a Conservative lead and, in some areas, very little sign of opposition. It was a joyous day of pleasurable anticipation and growing excitement. As the polls closed I went to the club at ‘The Views’, the association headquarters, where Emily Blatch had some more news.

‘I’ve done a straw poll,’ she said, ‘outside a few polling stations. Based on that, you’ve romped home. I think you’ve won by twenty thousand!’

Everyone chortled. Good news probably, was the consensus, but not that good.

Because Huntingdonshire was such a large rural seat it did not count the vote until the next day, so Norma and I sat in front of the television as the national drama unfolded. It was soon apparent that there was a swing to the Conservatives. Many who were to become good friends were elected. Robert Atkins won Preston North, John Watson was in at Skipton, Chris Patten at Bath, Matthew Parris at West Derbyshire, Nick Lyell at Hemel Hempstead, Graham Bright at Luton – and then Brian Mawhinney won back Peterborough from Labour. From that moment I had no doubts. If marginal Peterborough was comfortably won, how could neighbouring Huntingdonshire be lost? At 5 a.m., with the certainty of a Conservative government and the happy anticipation of supporting it in the House of Commons, I went to bed.

The count at St Ives was well under way when I arrived the following morning, and the result was soon clear. There was one glorious moment: as I looked at the line of tables holding counted votes for each party, the ‘Votes for Major’ tables stretched way ahead. A huge pile of freshly counted votes appeared, and I waited for them to be added to my opponents’ totals – but they weren’t. They were all Conservative votes, and more tables were levered into place to hold them. Emily Blatch had been right, and the result far exceeded our expectations. The candidates were bussed back to Huntingdon, where the result was traditionally announced by the High Sheriff from the balcony of the courthouse overlooking the packed market square. I had polled over forty thousand votes, and had a majority of 21,563. At last I was a Member of Parliament.

Later that afternoon, after much celebrating in the Conservative Club, Norma and I went home in delight, to find our front doorstep festooned with cards, flowers, chocolates and champagne. I had found my political home.