Good etiquette was more strictly observed in my young day – I had been married to the first Lady Bonkers for several years before I learned that her Christian name was Maud – so we elder statesmen are well placed to advise younger party members on such matters. (I served as the Young Liberals’ Vice-President for Deportment throughout the 1960s.) At Brighton I was called upon more than once to show the proper way for a gentleman to accompany a lady through the revolving doors at the Metropole or the Conference venue. The principle is simple to establish: the gentleman must go first and push, but the lady must be allowed to leave the doors before him; it therefore naturally follows that the gentleman must go round twice. Should another lady join the door before he has made good his exit, then he must repeat the procedure. One should, however, be wary of pushing too hard. I recall that in the 1920s a prominent member of the Women’s Liberal Federation was flung from the Grand with such force that she flew clean across the promenade and landed in the sea. This is considered Bad Form; besides, there may be children and donkeys playing on the beach if the tide is out.
Shortly after Conference I treated myself to a trip in the latest airship and enjoyed a short holiday in New Zealand. As those who have seen The Lord of the Rings at the moving cinema will know, it is a beautiful country, but I fear that fame has done no favours for the hobbits who live there. They no longer do any work, but sit by the roadside selling trinkets to tourists; I fear that whatever they make is spent on drink. Against my better judgement, I bought a ring from one of the furry-footed little fellows. I have it close at hand as I write; indeed, I have grown strangely fond of it.
The other day a television camera crew and a funny little Spanish chap turned up at the Hall. Before I could load my twelve-bore, the crew explained to me that they make a popular series in which the game Spaniard takes up a number of jobs for which he is singularly unsuited (single mother, Secretary of State for Defence) with, as they put it, Hilarious Consequences. So I agreed to give him a trial as an under-parlourmaid. This morning, after an unfortunate incident with a cow creamer, I was forced to conclude that he Simply Will Not Do. Nevertheless the people from the moving television seemed happy with their filming. Next week the doughty Iberian starts work in my Stilton mines.
To one who has dined with Salisbury, Baldwin and Macmillan, the current Conservative leader does not cut an impressive figure: he may have lost his Yorkshire accent, but he is still bald as a coot. I read the other day that he has had all sorts of trouble because he once employed his wife as a secretary and people are asking how much work she really did for him. It happens that the other day I turned up an account of a typical day in the life of the first Lady Bonkers; some of the highlights were as follows: shooting snipe with me before breakfast; judging the pork pie class at the High Leicestershire Show; receiving the Bulgarian Ambassador; hosting a gala luncheon in favour of the Home for Distressed Councillors in Herne Bay; driving a tank in manoeuvres for the Rutland Territorials; playing eighteen holes with Bobby Jones; singing Brünnhilde at the Royal Opera House, Oakham. No one ever accused her of not pulling her weight.
When I read of renewed attempts to persuade members of our ethnic minorities to join the Metropolitan Police I recall my own days as an investor in commercial television and the efforts we made then. Each week our series Mbopo of Dock Green would relate the adventures of an African policeman seconded to the London force as he alternately clipped short-trousered youngsters around the ear and helped old ladies across the road. At the end of the show he would deliver a homily to the camera (“Young Johnnie wasn’t a bad lad, but he fell in with the wrong crowd…”) before serenading the viewers with “Swanee River” whilst accompanying himself upon the tenor banjolele. Mbopo was played by a succession of leading British actors of the period, including Dirk Bogarde, Finlay Currie, Kenneth More and Nyree Dawn Porter. It was a sad day when it was taken off the air to make room for a grittier drama set in Liverpool: Z Bicycles.
Did you see that Chinaman in space? I have no doubt that the plucky oriental will take his place alongside Raymond Baxter (who shall ever forget his becoming the first Englishman in space in the very year that Denis Compton conquered Everest and the young Elizabeth II won back the Ashes?) and our own David Chidgey, pilot of the Bird of Liberty. Quite where this leaves the question of Chinese Labour, I shall leave other pens to discuss.
I write these lines sheltering under a hedge on the borders of Rutland; it is all the fault of that dratted ring. My old friend Lord Rennard arrived at the Hall unannounced this morning, and was shown into the Library. He unfolded a tale which made my knotted and combined locks to part and each particular hair to stand on end, like quills upon the fretful porpentine. It seems that the ring is immensely powerful; why, it could hold the key to the next general election! The only thing to do, Rennard assures me, is to summon up a jolly fellowship and head off with the intention of lobbing the aforementioned ring into the “Crack of Doom”. (I cannot locate it in Wainwright’s Midland Second Places, but no doubt we shall come across it sooner or later.) My fellowship consists of Meadowcroft (I am told it is traditional to invite one’s gardener on such expeditions), Paul Burstow (the party’s new elf spokesman), Lady Nicholson (here on behalf of the European Parliament to extirpate Certain Practices amongst the orcs), Rising Star (“to track um dwarves”), Nancy (my loyal elephant), Paul Keetch (it is always a good idea to have our defence spokesman to hand if it comes to fisticuffs) and a couple of Well-Behaved Orphans. I am not sure when we shall return, but I hope it will be in time for the opening of the skiing season in Lincolnshire.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10