Dear Lady Swire,
I am reading extracts from your diaries (Diary of an MP’s Wife: Inside and Outside Power). At first I thought the author might be Craig Brown but it’s really you isn’t it? As you are a little indiscreet may I tell a story about your father when he was Secretary of State for Defence during the Falklands War. I omit a question mark because I will. After dinner he set his sights on one of the two most attractive fillies (twins) west of the Tamar and chased her round and round a billiard table. She kept a safe lead and was a stayer so eventually John Nott gave up the pursuit. His quarry thought it was uproariously funny – funny how things change. She was just as attractive when I saw her the other day and laughed at my remembering the incident.
I am finding your diary credible and insightful but my guess is you didn’t keep a diary and have written your book in diary format, so it’s really a memoir? I wonder if the people portrayed will enjoy it: Old Ma May, Boy George, Boris (“I look at his sweaty face. He looks back, as if he is working out if I’m shaggable) Dave and Sam?
Will they say “Isn’t Sasha a scream” or will you and Sir Hugo be in social Siberia? If the latter you can come here with the children and we won’t break the Rule of Six as beagles don’t count.
You didn’t write it for the money, did you? So why did you write such a scabrous account of the lives of your husband’s political friends? If it was to entertain me, thank you, Sasha.
Yours sincerely,
Christopher
It couldn’t possibly be revenge for the omission of a peerage for her brilliant husband could it? No surely not. Politicians and their spouses never behave like that……
Plus ca change. My late aunt used to tell the story of a similar occasion, in her case as a teenager at, I think, the Lossiemouth home of Ramsay Macdonald during a summer holiday there. Much to her embarrassment she found herself being chased round and round a billiard table by Lord Reith, founder figure of the BBC. “I have never had a kiss from a knight’s daughter”, he apparently kept saying to her across the green baize as their unlikely circuits of the table continued. My aunt escaped. And it became a popular family story down the years. But it was clear it was a long way from being a highlight of her teenage years.