Some digging in the National Archives sheds light on the twenty year gap between Harold Macmillan's resignation as prime minister and his ennoblement as Earl of Stockton.
Absolutely. He had that remarkable ability to make his speeches look effortless, but you just know that he will have spent hours and hours rehearsing what he wanted to say (not least as, I gather, his eyesight had almost completely failed him by then so there was no prospect of reading it out).
He used to be physically sick before PMQs (which of course began during his tenure), but for Supermac the pose was essential. Mind you, a man who'd lain in a shell crater for ten hours with a serious thigh wound and only Aeschylus to read had little to fear from normal life.
I wonder if "not in the family style" may have had another meaning. Yes, his great-grandfather was a crofter, but his father-in-law was a Duke, and his relations with his wife and her family were famously difficult.
His performances in the Lords were spell-binding. Vintage Supermac.
Absolutely. He had that remarkable ability to make his speeches look effortless, but you just know that he will have spent hours and hours rehearsing what he wanted to say (not least as, I gather, his eyesight had almost completely failed him by then so there was no prospect of reading it out).
He used to be physically sick before PMQs (which of course began during his tenure), but for Supermac the pose was essential. Mind you, a man who'd lain in a shell crater for ten hours with a serious thigh wound and only Aeschylus to read had little to fear from normal life.
I wonder if "not in the family style" may have had another meaning. Yes, his great-grandfather was a crofter, but his father-in-law was a Duke, and his relations with his wife and her family were famously difficult.
Quite - when he says 'not in the family style', he's rather pointedly excluding his family through marriage.