On 14 December 1978, at the Minehead Magistrates’ Court, I was committed to stand trial at the Old Bailey. With three co-defendants I was charged with conspiracy to murder one Norman Scott, and in my case alone, with incitement to murder Scott. The trial took place almost twenty years ago, relating to allegations of events upwards of thirty-five years ago. The jury acquitted all defendants – an outcome of which I never had any doubt.
I do not intend to rake over the embers of the trial. Its proceedings were exhaustively covered by the media, both at the committal and the trial itself, day after day, week after week, month after month. However, there are one or two reflections that I wish to set down.
The arrival of the co-defendants at the Minehead committal proceedings was not without irony. Under English law it is possible to conspire with someone whom one has never spoken to or met. It is sufficient that one link in the chain joins the next link in the chain, and so on. I had, in fact, never met, nor spoken to, the second or third defendants (John le Mesurier and George Deakin), and since the waiting room was filled with solicitors, plainclothes policemen and others with duties to perform, I did not know which were my two unknown co-defendants, and they had to be introduced. At the far end of the room there was a distinguished, white-haired man; I asked who he was, to be told that he was the Chief Constable of Avon & Somerset Police. ‘Sir’, I said, ‘you do us much honour’.
Originally there were apparently to be five co-defendants, but the fifth (David Miller) opted to give evidence for the Crown, as a result of which he was warned in writing that he should say nothing in his evidence which might incriminate him!
Al the inception of the trial, the prosecution would probably have held the view that Peter Bessell was the chief Crown witness. Bessell had been a Liberal MP for the Cornish seat of Bodmin, and was therefore a parliamentary colleague. Had the prosecution been aware of how he would stand at the end of the trial on the question of honesty and reliability, they might well have taken a different view of the case.
Bessell’s businesses had failed, in consequence of which he did not stand for re-election. He was living in California when the British police visited him in connection with the case. Bessell was only prepared to make a statement if two British investigative journalists were at all times present during the interviews by the police, including in particular the compilation of Bessell’s statement. In practice, at the conclusion of each session with the police, the two journalists would remain with Bessell. However, none of this inhibited the police from continuing their interviews with Bessell in these unusual circumstances. At the trial, Mr Challis, the policeman in charge of the case, agreed under cross-examination that this was a profoundly unsatisfactory and almost unheard-of arrangement.
What method of preparing the statement was used we do not know. Bessell was told that if he were to return to the UK to give evidence, he would be granted an immunity, in writing, from any criminal proceedings, the grounds for which might arise out of his evidence to be given at the trial. Bessell insisted that he had not asked for the immunity, nor did he ask for the reason it was offered. Mr Challis took a similar line, whilst the Crown, for their part, thought it necessary to adhere to the arrangement. Mr Challis admitted that it was the most widely drawn immunity in his experience. At least we were able to establish in advance, as the result of my application to the High Court, that the immunity would not cover perjury arising out of evidence given at the trial. It is rash to speculate on the grounds on which the immunity was granted. However, Bessell very probably knew for a start that two letters purporting to come from me addressed to him would be challenged as forgeries at the trial. They were not, in fact, produced. In any event, it would be revealing to know against which crimes Bessell was given such a unique immunity.
Private Eye disclosed that Bessell had entered into a contract with the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, who had offered him £25,000 for articles if I was acquitted and £50,000 if I was convicted. It was referred to as the ‘double-your-money contract’. The trial judge, Mr Justice Cantley, ordered the Sunday Telegraph to show good reason why they should not be committed to prison for contempt of court. In the end he ruled that Bessell’s evidence had crystallised by the time the agreement was drawn up, but nonetheless criticised the behaviour of the Sunday Telegraph and referred to the contract as ‘deplorable’. To indicate the extent to which Bessell’s motives were coloured by commercialism, it was further discovered that Bessell’s solicitor’s wife was his literary agent. Payment by the media to witnesses involved in criminal cases remains relevant today in view of the publication by the Lord Chancellor of a consultation document on payment to witnesses. The document makes clear that the practice of paying witnesses still represents a threat to the administration of justice.
Early on, under cross-examination, Bessell agreed that he had difficulty in differentiating between fantasy and fact, and nowhere was this more apparent than his position in regard to the first count, which was that of incitement to commit murder, for which proposition he was the only witness. His recollection of an allegedly highly incriminating conversation with me was remembered in intricate detail in court: the venue where the conversation was said to have taken place was described at the committal proceedings to be in my flat in Ashley Gardens, whereas at the trial, he claimed it was in my room in the House of Commons. No such conversation ever took place, which may explain why Bessell so glibly shifted its location.
Another example of his Walter Mitty world was that within days of being elected as the Liberal MP for Bodmin, he had inquired of Willie Whitelaw, the Chief Whip of the Conservative Party, about the possibility of taking the Tory Whip, and made a similar inquiry of John Silkin, the Chief Whip of the Labour Party. Bessell conceded this, and intact both Whitelaw and Silkin have confirmed this as well.
Perhaps the most damaging accusation made by Bessell was that there had been a long, and as far as I was concerned, highly incriminating telephone conversation, when he claimed that he rang me in Devon from Cornwall on Monday morning, 15 June 1970. It was put to him that this could not have taken place, since I was touring the Bodmin and North Cornwall constituencies in the company of Bessell on that morning, and had spent the previous night of 14 June in Bessell’s home with my wife. This he denied. My solicitor, Christopher Murray, had painstakingly undertaken the task of reading through all my press cuttings. He remarked to me that it was a pity that the press cuttings books had been returned to Devon, since he distinctly remembered a photograph appearing on the front page of the Western Morning News on Tuesday 16 June 1970, recording the Bessell, Pardoe, Thorpe tour in Cornwall the previous day (i.e. the day on which Bessell claimed that the alleged telephone call had taken place). My mother-in-law found the relevant press cuttings book on my shelves in Devon. Thanks to a very helpful young farmer, the evidence was brought to London by car through the night.
The next morning in court, George Carman, my QC, asked that Bessell be recalled. This was granted. Bessell was confronted with the press photograph on the front page of the Western Morning News, which showed that he was with me in Cornwall at the time when he claimed to be telephoning me from his home. Carman remarked: ‘Mr Bessell, it has taken us a long time to nail your lies, but we have done so at last, have we not?’ ‘You have a point’, said Bessell. At that moment, if indeed not before, Bessell’s credibility had been totally destroyed. Where Bessell had gone wrong was that he forgot that whilst I had been due the previous week, on 9 June 1970, to do a tour of Cornwall on the 10th, arriving by helicopter, weather conditions were atrocious and when we got as far as Eggesford the pilot insisted we turn back, and the projected tour was therefore cancelled. It was, however, reinstated the following weekend, when I arrived by car on Sunday evening, 14 June, and spent the night at Bessell’s house, leaving for the Cornish tour the next morning. Had the original tour taken place, I would indeed have been in North Devon to take a call on Monday 15th. As it was, we could prove that I was not In Devon but in Bessell’s company in Cornwall.
Some years earlier, during the mid-1960s, bankruptcy stared Bessel in the face and he came to me in desperation to ask if I could rescue him. Since he was a colleague and constituency neighbour, I said that I would do my best. Not to put too fine a point on it, Bessell’s bankruptcy would have led to a by-election in Bodmin, which the Liberals would probably have lost with potentially dangerous consequences for John Pardoe’s North Cornwall seat and my own in North Devon. I managed to raise £20,000 and in retrospect it was to become clear to me that Bessell was schizophrenic: on the one hand he seemed to be almost pathetically grateful, but on the other, he would be consumed by bitterness towards me, resentful of the fact that I had seen behind his facade as a successful tycoon. He was to become desperate again and asked me to help further. I indicated that it would be much more difficult this time, but I would try. It became clear at a later stage that he was hell-bent on making as much money as possible and in this case at my expense.
Bessell’s fantasy was paralleled by that of Scott. Scott made no secret of his lack of mental stability, his delusions, his suicidal tendencies and his treatments in hospitals. Scott claimed that there had been a homosexual relationship with myself – a claim that I have always totally denied. According to Scott this ‘affair’ had started with a chance meeting at the stables of a friend, when I had spoken to him at the most for five minutes. Many months later he arrived unannounced at the House of Commons. It was after this second meeting that he alleged our relationship began. The defence had discovered from two Thames Valley police officers that many years before they had been called to a house at Church Enstone where a young man was threatening suicide – he turned out to be Norman Scott Josiffe. It was difficult to tie Scott down to the date of his first meeting with me, at the stables where he was employed as a groom. It either took place after the Thames Valley police incident or shortly before. At the most, Scott’s contact with me when seen by the police from Thames Valley was a five-minute meeting at the stables. Scott then proceeded to describe me as a ‘friend’ to the police officers, but had to accept under cross-examination at the trial that he had also asserted to those officers that he had had a homosexual relationship with me, which he then had to agree was a lie.
Furthermore, Scott had to accept that having consistently told Penrose and Courtiour, two investigative journalists, and anyone else who was prepared to listen to him, that his sexual experience with me was after he called on me at the House of Commons some time later, he had now to admit that he had formerly been telling people that he had had a sexual relationship with me before the House of Commons visit. This was based solely upon a brief meeting in the presence of others, or if his timing was wrong, his timescale suggests that he was making the allegations before he had even met me! This was brought out when George Carman was cross-examining Scott:
Carman: ‘You met Mr Thorpe (at Van der Vater’s stables) and talked to him for five minutes or less. He hadn’t written you a single letter before you went to the House of Commons. Neither had you written a single letter to Mr Thorpe before that. Why did you say that Mr Thorpe was a friend of yours when all you had ever done was to speak to him for less than five minutes?’
Scott: ‘Because I had had the therapy at the hospital. I was going through a delusion, and I had had these letters. I was using them to say that I had a relationship with him already.
Carman: ‘You were saying you had a sexual relationship with Mr Thorpe before you went to the House of Commons?’
Scott: ‘Yes.’
Carman: ‘Quite obviously, that was not true?’
Scott: ‘No, it wasn’t.’
Carman: ‘You were suffering from a delusion?’
Scott: ‘Yes.’
Carman: ‘And you had suffered from other delusions, had you not?’
Scott: ‘Yes.’
As far as I know these exchanges were not reported in the press, nor were they given their full significance by the media.
Another example of the workings of Scott’s mind was that he informed me that his father had been killed in an air crash in South America. I suggested that he might be able to obtain some compensation. Accordingly I requested a solicitor friend to initiate some inquiries in this connection. In due course the solicitor reported that the story told by Scott was quite false. There had been no air crash in South America, and in fact his father was at that time a hospital porter living in Bexleyheath in Kent, where his mother also lived. Even the name Scott itself was a fantasy. Wishing to claim that he was a close relation of Lord Eldon, he adopted the family name Scott.
An investigation and prosecution had been mounted substantially on the allegations of Scott, Bessell and Newton (another Crown witness). They had destroyed their credibility and confessed to having fantasies. All three had further been destroyed in cross-examination, and the prosecution’s case at its close was shot through with lies, inaccuracies and admissions to such an extent that the defence decided not to give evidence.
To have done so would have prolonged the trial unnecessarily for at least another ten to fourteen days. The defence took the view that it was time to bring down the curtain, and as George Carman put it in his closing speech, the time had come for the Crown to: ‘Fold their tents like the Arabs and as silently steal away’. (Longfellow)
One of the more bizarre events of the trial was the intervention by Mr Peter Taylor, who led the prosecution; following the acquittal by the jury on all charges against all defendants, he volunteered the opinion that the police were to be congratulated on their work and that the prosecution had been properly brought. I thought to myself: ‘Methinks he doth protest too much’. George Carman, who for the first and last time I saw mystified, replied: ‘Very properly brought, but very properly concluded’. In one sense, the fact that the prosecution had been brought, and its consequent outcome, had largely silenced the campaign of rumour and innuendo that had gone on for three years. But apparently there still seems to be some money to be made by repeating the prosecution’s flawed case! Where congratulations were unquestionably due was to the staff of the Old Bailey for their consideration and courtesy towards all the defendants.
I was asked whether I was disturbed by the fact that the jury were out for two days. On the contrary, I felt they would be open to criticism if they had reached a decision more quickly than they did. There were four separate cases to be considered, and evidence to be gone through which had been given during the four weeks of the committal proceedings and the six weeks for the trial itself – in other words, material that covered almost two and a half months.
At the risk of sounding vindictive, if Bessell could have been shown to publish in the UK any of the major allegations which he was making, lie should have been prosecuted for criminal libel, if not by the Crown, by myself. The Crown would then have been able to make a better evaluation of the merits of the case, and the taxpayer might have been saved a great deal of expense.
As it was, I never had any doubt about the outcome of the case.
Bessell’s ‘double-your-money contract’ with the Sunday Telegraph gave rise to a heated debate in the House of Lords a few weeks later, on 16 July 1979. Lord Wigoder moved the second reading of the Dealings with Witnesses Bill and said:
The third instance was 13 October 1978, when the Daily Telegraph Ltd, and a company called Milbest Publications Incorporated, acting for another witness called Mr Bessell, entered into a contract, the effect of which was – and I stress ‘the effect of which was’ – that Mr Bessell would be paid £50,000 if there were a conviction for certain writings, and £25,000 if there were an acquittal, Let me say at once that, of course, the lawyers who drew up that contract did not indulge in crude language of that kind. It was disguised very simply in this way. In clause 1 of the contract it was stated that, in consideration of the sum of £50,000 sterling, the licensor granted to the publisher exclusive world rights to publish extracts from his book. Then in clause 4 it was stated: ‘If, on the advice of his legal advisers, the publisher is not able to publish the extracts, then instead the publisher will pay £25,000 for up to six articles.’
What that meant was what Mr Bessell understood it to mean, that in the event of an acquittal the book he was writing could not be published because of the laws of libel, and therefore, in effect, the substance of the contract was that Mr Bessell stood to gain very handsomely if there were a conviction. I should add in relation to that contract that it was entered into after Mr Bessell had made his statement to the police, That was a matter which Mr Justice Cantley referred to specifically in taking the view that it might not amount, therefore, to a contempt of court. In view of the evil that was created by this form of activity by various newspapers, which I shall come to in a moment, I am bound to say that it seems to me to be wholly irrelevant whether a contract of that nature is entered into before or after a witness makes his statement to the police.
Lord Hartwell (editor-in-chief of the Sunday Telegraph) replied:
The proposed deal raised two question. One was the propriety of the financial terms. The other was the propriety of agreeing to any such deal with a prospective witness, As to the first, we consulted our own legal adviser, who said that in the circumstances he thought the terms were unexceptionable. Bessell consulted his own London solicitor, who gave him similar advice, but went significantly further. He spoke to a senior official of the Director of Public Prosecutions and explained to him the nature of the proposed agreement, ‘Would the DPP’s Department’, he asked, ‘see anything objectionable in the precise financial terms outlined?’ The answer was that the Department would raise no objection and did not think it would prejudice the case.’
My Lords, if the noble Lord will forgive me, is that contained in a written communication from the Director of Public Prosecutions, or is that what Mr Bessell has said?
To which Lord Hartwell replied:
No, my Lords, it is not what Mr Bessell has said; it was his London solicitor, a man of standing, who, if necessary, is prepared to swear an affidavit to that effect. I know the name of the official, but I do not want to name him in this place.
This allegation, however, was flatly denied by the Lord Chancellor, on behalf of the Attorney-General, two days later, on 18 July 1979, in a written answer to a Parliamentary Question tabled by Lord Wigoder.
Lord Wigoder asked Her Majesty’s Government:
Whether (as was asserted in the House on Monday 16 July), prior to the trial of Regina v. Deakin and others at the Central Criminal Court, the solicitor to the witness Mr Peter Bessell explained to a senior official of the Department of the Director of Public Prosecutions the nature of a proposed agreement between Mr Bessell and the Sunday Telegraph concerning a book, asked whether the Director of Public Prosecutions department would see anything objectionable in the precise financial terms, and received a reply that the department would raise no objection and did not think it would prejudice the case.
I am informed by my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney General that the only approach made by Mr Bessell’s solicitor to the Department of the Director of Public Prosecutions concerning such a matter was on October 1978, when he had a telephone conversation, a note of which was made immediately after, with a principal assistant director. On that occasion, the solicitor said that Mr Bessell had received an offer (the terms of which he did not specify) from a national newspaper (which was not named) to serialise a book which, in part, dealt with the ‘Thorpe case’. The solicitor made it clear that such publication would be after the trial, so there was no question of possible prejudice (in the sense of contempt), but he thought the director should know of the proposal because of the ammunition it could afford the defence to discredit Mr Bessell.
The principal assistant director told the solicitor that his department would be concerned by anything which could be used to discredit Mr Bessell, financial or otherwise, but that he did not think it was for him to advise as to the offer.
The principal assistant director was not told any of the terms of the offer, much less that it involved a contingency payment, and it is clear from his contemporary note that he neither gave his approval to the course proposed or expressed the opinion that it would not prejudice the case.
I was diagnosed as having Parkinson’s Disease in 1979, and had probably suffered from the complaint for at least two years previous to this. The first symptom, which sounds strange, was a difficulty in doing up shirt buttons, which brought on a feeling of nausea. At that early stage, tremor of hands and arms was minimal, but would gradually increase. Another early symptom was the progressive deterioration of my handwriting.
In the early nineteenth century, Dr James Parkinson had noticed from the window of his consulting room in Hoxton the shuffling gait of various people passing by, and by 1817 diagnosed this as one of the symptoms of a clearly definable disease, which was to bear his name. Other symptoms can be weakening of the vocal muscles, which can produce voice inaudibility. This is accentuated by the fact that although the average person swallows unconsciously up to 2,000 times a day, the Parkinson patient needs to make a special effort to clear saliva, and failure to do so can make him dribble like a dirty old man. Rigidity of the jaw accentuates the difficulties of speech. Very often there is a delay in the Parkinson patient replying in conversation, due to the building up of saliva which he has difficulty in swallowing before being able to speak. This leads the conversationalist to deduce that either the Parkinson sufferer is deaf or gaga or both, or suffering from cancer of the throat; hence, more often than not, he decides that the way out is to do what the average Englishman does when speaking to a foreigner – he shouts! Having done their best, the conversation is at an end. Another consequence of these difficulties is that there may be a problem over swallowing food, and in such cases it is necessary to prepare food to a pureed consistency in almost liquid form. The Parkinson sufferer can often be recognised by a rigidity of facial expression and a lack of blinking to moisten the eyes, which produces a staring look. Another aspect is a total ‘freeze-up’ of movement, accompanied by the sensation of feeling nailed to the floor. Fortunately the person’s intellect remains unimpaired. All in all, Parkinson’s makes the sufferer very tired during parts of the day.
One of the dangers connected with Parkinson’s is a loss of balance: this is particularly caused by turning too sharply, but it is also possible to lose balance for no apparent reason. I began to dread the crunch which follows a fall, since in all probability this represents a breakage: in my case, a fracture of the left femur, fracture of the right hip, and a hairline fracture of the little finger of my right hand on three separate occasions. The first two breaks resulted in a six-week and a two-week stay in hospital. On one occasion following a fall (without breakage) in the street, I hailed a taxi, who assumed I was drunk and needed reassurance! He brought me home, and although I had bled copiously over his floor, he refused to accept any money for the fare.
Parkinson’s is a disease which affects 100,000 people in the UK, and it is estimated that one out of every hundred over the age of sixty-five will develop it. The disease is not infectious, is probably not hereditary – and at present there is no known cure. However, let me qualify this bald statement: there is medication which can and does control the condition by a wise balance of drugs. The danger here is that too little medication has minimal effect, whilst a large dose can be more than the body can sustain, with unpleasant results such as clenching of the jaw and writhing of the limbs, which is known as dyskinesia. Each case needs different dosages and produces a wide variety of experiences. To complicate matters even further, each patient may have variations in their condition from day to day.
The cause of the disease has yet to be definitively established, but it is known that what is involved is an attack on what are known as the basal ganglia of the brain, particularly on the part known as the substantia nigra. The result is a reduction of the chemical dopamine, which controls muscular activity from the brain. This can in part he ameliorated by dopamine substitutes and other agents, but it is as yet not physically possible to make up the natural deficiency to produce a cure.
The mainstay of treatment for Parkinson’s Disease remains L-Dopa. However, it may be necessary to take a second agent in order to enhance the effects of the drug or modify some of the side effects such as dyskinesia. Anti-cholinergic drugs like Disipal block the chemical substance acetylcholine, thereby reducing tremor. Another class of drugs is the dopamine agonists, like Eldepryl. These have the advantage that they stimulate dopamine receptors directly and to an extent bypass the neurones which have become depleted as a result of Parkinson s Disease.
A further group of drugs (COMT) are emerging at the centre of research. These aim to prolong the action of L-Dopa by inhibiting the enzyme catechol-o-methyl transferase, and maintaining the blood levels for a longer period of time, resulting, it is hoped, in a smoother, more beneficial effect from each dose. Tolcapone is the most potent COMT inhibitor under trial at the present and is to be followed by others in the group.
Much research has been carried out, particularly in the field of experimental surgery. One such example is the implanting in the patient’s brain of dopamine-secreting tissue from an aborted foetus. This is an attempt to step up the supply of the chemical in which the patient is deficient, and it is hoped that the tissue will grow and reproduce. This treatment is bound to produce controversy and strong opposition on ethical grounds, although individual district ethics committees have reached agreement with various hospitals on a working pattern. In this country most of the experimental implants were performed by the late Professor Hitchcock at the Birmingham Centre for Neurology at Smethwick. I myself underwent the operation on the basis that I would never have forgiven myself if I didn’t try all reasonable cures on offer. The operation involved boring two holes in the skull in preparation for a bilateral implant. One’s head is put in a frame to control tremor, and the three-quarters-of-an-hour operation takes place under local anaesthetic. One remains conscious throughout, and the surgery is painless. The most incredible precision is called for and the operation is preceded by a brain scan. For me this was the most unpleasant aspect: fans which cool the computer had broken down and with the well-established rule that computers take precedence over humans, the scanner fans were transferred to the computer, leaving the scanner itself with the qualities of the Black Hole of Calcutta! It produced in me claustrophobia, and when some days after the operation I was due to be scanned in a £1 million nuclear scanner, which (as before) involved being pushed in a capsule into the machine, I was unable to stay the course and had to be retrieved. Another incident was when in mid-operation the surgeon said ‘Damn, the clutch has gone’. The sensation I was experiencing at the time was as though a pneumatic drill was going through my head. I asked him what was the effect of the clutch going. ‘Oh’, came the reply, ‘I had to push harder!’ I did, however, gain immediate relief for a short period after the operation.
It would seem that the answer lies in the use of more and younger foetuses in each case. Ideally it is hoped that the patient’s own tissue from another part of the body can be engineered to act as a generator to increase the supply of dopamine from the brain to the body. This would remove any risk of rejection and hopefully would not meet with ethical opposition. It is also hoped that in the future, chemical engineering may produce an artificial substitute for the tissue.
Revival of interest has been shown in the operation known as pallidotomy. This involves the surgeon passing an electric probe into the globus pallidus area of the brain with the object of destroying those cells, or neurones, which, deprived of an adequate supply of dopamine, become overactive and result in the involuntary movements of Parkinson’s Disease.
The operation takes a minimum of three hours and is carried out under a local anaesthetic with the patient fully conscious. A hole is drilled in the skull and a dye is injected for the purpose of taking X-rays of the brain, and individual cells are electrically stimulated to ensure that the right cells are destroyed. However, the operation carries certain dangers. If the wrong cells are attacked, this could involve bleeding, possibly leading to a stroke. It could also possibly cause blindness.
The Swedish neurosurgeon Lauri Laitinen has carried out more than 400 pallidotomies and claims definite benefits, lasting for years. British reaction is more cautious. The Institute of Neurology in London is carrying out a long-term trial involving six patients a year, whilst Mr Carl Meyer is carrying out a number of pallidotomies at Smethwick. He also claims a good measure of success.
Another line of research is the pacemaker, involving the fitting of an electrode into the globus pallidus of the brain through the neck. This is controlled by a ‘power pack’, i.e. a pulse generator containing a battery. This is fitted inside the chest. A computer unit is placed on the skin next to the power pack to control the electrical impulses which stimulate and control the diseased area of the brain. The battery needs replacing every five years. The operation is long and can take up to eight hours for one side of the brain; it is expensive and probably involves bilateral devices to act on both sides of the body. This procedure still needs further research.
Much dedicated research is going on, particularly in Sweden, America and the UK. I am confident that a cure will be found, and I hope that it will be sooner rather than later!
North Devon is one of the most beautiful and varied areas in the world. It includes part of Exmoor; the rugged coastline of Lynton and Hartland; the golden beaches of Saunton and Woolacombe; the seaside resort of Ilfracombe and the market town of South Molton; the unspoilt inland villages and the dramatic meeting point of the Taw and Torridge rivers.
It continues to be a great joy to find friends in every town, village and hamlet whom I have known and worked with over the years. The forty-five years in which I have been associated with North Devon are a large part of my life. Certainly I should never wish to leave North Devon for anywhere else. It is home.
At a Liberal ‘do’ in Landkey, North Devon, in the autumn of 1966, the question of who had been where and when for their annual holidays came up. I asked my friend Leslie Farrell, the Landkey sub-postmaster, whether he was going on vacation. ‘I am not, I can’t’, was the uncompromising reply. It turned out that he felt there was a security problem involved and that it was almost impossible to find anyone who would take on the responsibility of running the post office and store while he was away. On almost every occasion that sub-postmasters had attended a national conference there was on average at least one sub-post office burgled. He said to me by way of a challenge: ‘Will you take over and run the store?’ I rashly and immediately said: ‘Yes, provided you and your wife go away together for a holiday’. The deal was agreed.
In the course of the next few days I happened by chance to see Tony Benn, then Postmaster-General, in the Members’ Lobby, and thought he would be interested to hear my proposal. Indeed he was, and an hour later telephoned me to say that there were problems if I took on the responsibility of acting as a sub-postmaster. I would be holding an office of profit under the Crown and as such could be unseated, thereby plunging my constituency into a by-election! The only solution would be for me to run the shop with the assistance of a retired sub-postmaster – if a willing candidate could be found – one of whose main functions every morning would be to change the date stamp. I learnt that if the date stamp was stolen it would enable unscrupulous people to validate a vast number of stolen but undated postal orders. The stamp might also be used to pre-date football pools coupons, arguing that the date marked was proof of their posting dates. Otherwise there were no objections about running the shop. Fortunately, a willing retired sub-postmaster was found, and we were back in business.
Our day started at 5.40 a.m. when the post arrived for sorting and collection by the postman for delivery. We opened to the public at 9 a.m. The village store is a wonderful meeting place, although It is now under threat from competition from the supermarkets. I found it most instructive to learn about people’s shopping habits. I also discovered that one or two people postponed withdrawing their old age pensions until after I had left, out of a sense of embarrassment lest I should learn that they were of pensionable age!
The takings were roughly the same as average, which I thought was a good sign and showed that it was business as usual. I was also of course a sitting duck, as Jehovah’s Witnesses discovered who came to convert me!
It was a highly enjoyable week and a valuable experience. The Farrells returned with their batteries recharged to resume administration of my Landkey emporium.
In the spring of 1969, the Harman family announced that with great regret they had to sell Lundy, the remote island off the north coast of Devon in the Bristol Channel. From that moment, differing rumours spread like wildfire. First, it was suggested that it might turn into a Butlins-type holiday camp; next, that a local syndicate was to be formed to run a casino, and last but not least, that the scientologists would make it their headquarters.
Lundy is renowned for being totally unspoilt and I took the view that it must be rescued. Accordingly, I approached the late Peter Mills, then MP for Torrington, in whose constituency it fell. I also approached David Owen, then MP for Devonport. I suggested that we form a three-man all-party team to launch an appeal to raise the necessary funds to purchase Lundy for the nation. They both readily agreed. The first step was to approach the National Trust and ask whether they would launch an appeal. They said, quite fairly, that there was limit to the number of appeals they could launch but if we three MPs launched the appeal and were successful, they would accept ownership of the island and all that that implied.
Shortly after the news of the intended sale of Lundy broke, John Smith, then MP for City of London & Westminster and founder of the Landmark Trust, made contact and asked whether we would be interested in having the Landmark Trust take a full repairing lease of the island. Needless to say, we were delighted.
John Smith, shortly afterwards, took Mills, Owen and myself over by helicopter. His wife confided in me that what had finally hooked John was the Georgian fog cannon on the west side of the island!
On the strength of this development we launched the appeal to the nation, and received helpful coverage in the press. A few days later Jack Hayward, a philanthropist living in the Bahamas, rang my flat in London at about midnight while I was still at the House of Commons. He said he would ring back in half an hour and Caroline passed on the message.
The call duly came through and Hayward asked what our intentions about ownership were. I told him that we wanted to buy Lundy and vest the ownership in the National Trust, and prior to this John Smith MP of the Landmark Trust was interested in taking a full repairing lease of the island. Hayward mentioned that he was a neighbour of Smith’s in Sussex and this was welcome news. ‘How much is being asked? £100,000?’ asked Hayward, ‘£150,000’, I replied. ‘I’ll buy it’, said Hayward. ‘Where shall I send the cheque?’ I promptly rang John Smith to tell him the news; he said: ‘A promise from Jack Hayward is as safe as the Bank of England’. The cheque came through two days later.
The National Trust were anxious to give a press release. I was opposed to this since I felt that the announcement of the purchase of Lundy for the nation should be the launching pad for a new appeal for £75,000, which was needed for immediate repairs. Over and above this, the Landmark Trust would meet the cost of other repairs, and on the expiry of their lease would help to raise an endowment fund, to spare the National Trust further calls on their resources. We moved very fast: Major-General Fergus Ling was appointed to run the appeal and did a superb job. Rio Tinto Zinc gave us free office space and we were off.
There was a slight hiccup before completion. The National Trust indicated that the cost of the livestock had not been included in the total. This amounted to £12,000. Would Hayward meet the increased amount? I replied that I was sure that he would, but that it would be wholly wrong to make a further approach to him; nor would it be popular to launch an additional appeal, since we were launching an appeal, in any event, for immediate repairs. The Trust must meet the sum involved out of their own reserves – and this they did.
To mark the transfer of ownership to the National Trust, a thanksgiving service took place at St Helena’s Church on the island. Campbell Steamers had to work overtime bringing literally hundreds of well-wishers from the mainland. The church was not large enough for them all and so the Bishop of Crediton (Wilfred Westall) decided to give the blessing from the steps of the church. The weather was magical and one could see the coastlines of South Wales, North Somerset, North Devon and North Cornwall.
Recently, £40,000 was donated to repair and re-hang the church bells at St Helena’s, which for decades had remained silent. They now ring out over the Bristol Channel, after a dedication service by the Bishop of Crediton in October 1994.
From the mainland, Lundy is eleven miles from Hartland, twenty-three from Ilfracombe and twenty-five from Bideford. The island is a quarter of a mile wide and three and a half miles in length. It has a magic of its own, which is enhanced by the hazards of reaching it by often very rough seas. The granite rocks (which were used to build the Embankment in London) have taken their poundings from the Atlantic Ocean. The sea in fine weather can be a translucent blue, and the waters around the island are now a marine park. The countryside is totally unspoilt. At the time of the handover, the population consisted of ten permanent residents and six lighthouse keepers in the two lighthouses.
I remember on one visit seeing a head and shoulders appear as if from nowhere. The intrepid climber looked familiar, and suddenly the penny dropped – it was Lord Hunt of Everest doing some practise climbs!
The island has had a long and fascinating history. First references date back to the twelfth century, when Jordan de Marisco and his family inhabited the island and built Marisco Castle. Lundy was one of the last places to surrender in the Civil War to the Parliamentarians. Much involved during this period was Thomas Bushell, who had been in the household of the Lord Chancellor, Sir Francis Bacon. Bushell mined silver in Combe Martin and South Wales and minted money to pay the King’s army. Lord Saye and Sele claimed the island, backed by the Parliamentarians. Bushell agreed to surrender, provided he obtain the written authority of King Charles II in exile, and provided also that he was given an immunity for the garrison under his command, of approximately twenty-two in number. He also asked for the right to carry on mining his silver mines. A package was agreed.
Another character was Thomas Benson, a Bideford merchant. In 1746 he became Sheriff of Devon and in 1747 was elected MP for the Borough of Barnstaple. He leased Lundy from Lord Gower around 1750. He obtained the contract to transport convicts to the American colonies. In fact he landed them on Lundy and put them to work as slave labour, building many of the walls that still stand. A boatload of convicts escaped and landed at Clovelly. Benson was sued for breach of contract and successfully ran the defence that his obligation was to take the convicts overseas and that by landing them on Lundy he had fulfilled his contract, thereby winning the day.
A less successful activity of Benson was to load a ship, the Nightingale, bound for Virginia with a valuable cargo of linen and pewter. He landed the cargo on Lundy, gave orders for the ship to be burnt and then proceeded to claim the insurance. This time he faced prosecution for fraud but before the High Sheriff arrived to arrest him, Benson took a ship at Plymouth bound for Portugal, where he stayed. The captain and first mate of the Nightingale were hanged and others were imprisoned or transported.
The island was bought in 1834 by William Hudson Heaven. He built Millcombe House and the road leading up the cliff from the landing beach. His son, the Reverend Hudson Grosett Heaven, built the church of St Helena in 1896. Not surprisingly, the island was dubbed I the Kingdom of Heaven! A centenary service was held in the church in 1997, at which the Bishop of Exeter preached.
Martin Coles Harman bought the island in 1925. In 1929 he produced his own coinage – one puffin and a half-puffin, which appeared on one side of the coin, with his head on the other. Fifty thousand coins of each of the two denominations were minted by the Birmingham Mint. He was tried at Bideford Petty Sessions for unlawfully issuing a piece of metal as a token of money under Section 5 of the Coinage Act of 1870. His defence was that Lundy was outside the jurisdiction of the mainland, although it was a dominion territory of George V. He was found guilty and fined £5 plus costs. He appealed to the King’s Bench Division, where the decision of the magistrates was upheld. Puffinage can be bought as tokens but not as legal tender.
Lundy stamps are still lawfully issued and since the Royal Mail does not deliver mail to the island the stamps serve as a receipt for the cost of transporting the mail to and from the mainland. The proviso is that the stamps are on the back of the envelope or the left-hand corner of the postcard so as not to compete with the Queen. This compromise on stamps may be an indicator of how best to play the issue on the European currency!
The west side of Codden Hill adjoins the village of Bishops Tawton. It climbs eastwards to the highest point, which is known as Codden Beacon. It was probably one of a string of beacons crossing the country to be lit as a warning of a Napoleonic invasion. It is generally thought that the mound itself at the top of the hill was a Bronze Age burial ground. The mound is 629 ft above sea level and one gets an uninterrupted view of a full 360 degrees. On a clear day one can see Exmoor, Dartmoor and, forty-four miles away, Bodmin Moor in Cornwall; also the island of Lundy, twenty-two miles out in the Bristol Channel – the lighthouses and church are clearly visible.
Prior to 1970 the beacon was in an appalling state: rusty, with broken-down wire fencing, an abandoned lookout post, an unsightly concrete plinth which served as a trig point and a variety of dumped rubbish. After one visit to the site, Caroline and I decided that one day we would try to buy the site and tidy it up, so that it could be enjoyed by the public. She died in a road accident in June 1970 when we had been married for twenty-five months. I determined that I would create a permanent memorial to her on Codden.
There was one man who I knew would design something worthy of Caroline and worthy of the Hill: Clough Williams-Ellis, of Port Meirion fame. He had designed Lloyd George’s grave at Llanystumdwy, and the Lloyd George stone in Westminster Abbey Clough readily agreed. Negotiations began with ministries, councils, Royal Ordnance Survey people and surrounding farmers – the latter being unusually complicated, since the tenure on which Codden Hill was held was a pre-1925 settlement, and therefore three different parties jointly and severally enjoyed title. However, the owners could not have been more helpful, although one of them, Bert Verney, had, I thought, some reservation. Fortunately he raised it: his brother used to ride his horse over Codden Hill. He had been killed in the RAF during the war. The family had always wanted to erect some memorial to him, and still hoped that they might be able to do so. I suggested that they should incorporate their tribute with mine, and I would ask Williams-Ellis, one of the leading landscape artists alive, to design something which would blend with our plans. Additionally, Michael Ramsey, then Archbishop of Canterbury, had agreed to conduct the dedication service, and again, we could join forces. Bert was delighted. Clough designed a handsome stone seat on the far side of the monument.
What I find moving is that these two young people, who had both died in their prime, should now share pride of place on Codden Hill.
The monument has taken the form of a column, which grows out of a circular stone seat and is crowned by a sculptured flame, all in Portland stone. The seat of the column was to rest on a base of cobblestones from the shore at Clovelly, appropriately by courtesy of Asquith’s granddaughter. The site is completed by a circle of stone slabs, indicating in which direction one is looking and the places involved. The Portland stone is glistening white, and came from the same quarries from which the stone to build St Paul’s Cathedral was supplied.
Round the column is a collar in stone, recording the names of the craftsmen who had been involved in building the project.
The day of the dedication in December 1971 was misty, and one did not get the full view. But one had the feeling of being up in the clouds, on top of the world. The service itself was taken by the Archbishop, assisted by the Bishop of Crediton, Wilfred Westall, both of whom had married us in the chapel at Lambeth Palace. Also present was my old friend Subdean Andrews of Chittlehampton.
I was lent an aeroplane which flew Michael and Joan Ramsey from Canterbury via North Wales to North Devon, picking up in Wales Lady Olwen Carey-Evans (Lloyd George’s surviving daughter) and Clough and Annabel Williams-Ellis. The return journey was in reverse order. I noticed that Michael and Clough arrived with identical suitcases. I didn’t give it another thought – but disaster! Clough opened his suitcase when he got home, to find that he had the Archbishop’s vestments, bible, prayer book, notes for a sermon and several letters. When he reached Canterbury, Michael found Clough’s yellow stockings and breeches, his famous hat and plans and drawings. Secretaries, chaplains, wives, all made the telephone red-hot, and in due course an appropriate exchange was made. I apologised to Michael when I next saw him, and indeed to Clough. Michael’s eyebrows started to twitch in their inimitable way, and he said: ‘Don’t bother, don’t apologise. I could use all Clough’s things walking around Canterbury, but I had very great difficulty in visualising Clough scaling Snowdon in my vestments!’
The hill is now much-visited and, I believe, appreciated and that is the intention.
My home in North Devon is known as Higher Chuggaton and you may well ask: where is that? Higher and Lower Chuggaton, Chuggaton Farm and Chuggaton Cross, along with Traveller’s Rest, are part of the hamlet of Cobbaton. The postal address, however, is Umberleigh, the parish is Swimbridge, the telephone exchange was Chittlehamholt and the nearest village is Chittlehampton. I came to buy Higher Chuggaton by an amazing piece of luck. During the summer of 1968 I rented part of a farmhouse in Cobbaton from my close friend and neighbour, Jim Isaac. I mentioned to him that I was anxious to buy a property in the immediate area. He told me that there was only one house on the market, and this was down a long, unmade-up lane, and needed a lot doing to it. I was standing in Jim’s orchard, from which one could see the thatched roof of a cottage three fields away. I said: ‘That’s the sort of house I am looking for’, to which Jim replied that it was not on the market. He said that the house was in good condition, had central heating and a converted barn. Three days later it came on the market, and within five days I bought it. Caroline and I moved in in January 1969. She was six months pregnant, and was to lift nothing. A group of friends and supporters fifteen-strong awaited us and the removal van, and within two hours the furniture was in place, the drawers had been lined, china and glass unpacked and most of the curtains and pictures were hung. It was an instant move, which I recommend!
The top of the garden was completely wild and one could only reach it in the winter months when the brambles had died down from their six-foot height. An old boy called Reg Rice had agreed to cut the thicket and remarked: ‘T’was like a bloody jungle, the only things missing were tigers!’ In due course we had to re-thatch the barn and the cottage. Traditionally farmers used to set aside a field for growing thatching straw, but this nowadays occurs very rarely. Wheat now grows much shorter for economy of handling, and even Norfolk reed is affected by chemicals and pesticides which have reduced its lifespan. On two occasions, therefore, we ordered thatching reed from Austria and Hungary. It cost a third more, but lasts more than twice as long. I remember my anger, having just organised this source of supply, when I read in a well-known gossip column that I was using plastic thatch! The cottage dates from about 1630 and is built of cob, a mixture of clay, gravel and straw. The walls are three feet deep and retain the heat in the winter and keep the house cool in the summer. An inspector from the Department of the Environment visited the house, as a result of which it was listed. He went into the roof space and there found some of the original thatch, which had been blackened by the smoke of an open fire. As it is the practice to lay the new thatch on the old, the darkened straw, caked with soot, showed the existence of an open fire which dates that part of the house back to the fifteenth century. Some original beams remain, and we have uncovered others which had been plastered over.
On one side of the fireplace a traditional bread oven is built into the thick cob wall. When one day I was showing a step-grandson the mysteries of baking bread, I noticed for the first time, rolled up into a ball at the very back of the oven, a partly scorched newspaper. Still legible was the report of the speeches of David Lloyd George, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sir Rufus Isaacs, then Attorney-General, in the two-day debate which took place on 18–19 June 1913 on the Marconi affair. It had lain there undisturbed for eighty-four years.
Within a few weeks of moving in, Caroline discovered that on her father’s side she had a close connection with Chuggaton, and even more so with the neighbouring village of Chittlehampton. Her great-great-aunt, the late Mrs Lewis, had in my time been president of the local Liberal Association. Many years ago, John Richard Howard of Chittlehampton married Amelia Huxtable, whose father had bought Lower Chuggaton from the Duke of Bedford. Mr Howard’s sister, Mrs Annie Hobbs, had a daughter Winnie, who married an Allpass; their son, Caroline’s father, is my father-in-law, Warwick Allpass. Caroline also had second cousins living in the area. This was a splendid surprise.
The garden has grown and matured over the years. When it wakes up from its winter slumbers, it bursts into a sea of daffodils; one bank is planted out with daffodil bulbs given to Marion and myself as a wedding present by Alec and Elizabeth Home, and we call it ‘Home Hill’. Chuggaton has always been part of my son’s, Rupert’s, life, and the three of us spend as much time there as possible. It is also a favourite visiting place for Marion’s sons and eleven grandchildren – although there are occasionally casualties to the flowerbeds, not unconnected with football sessions!
For me it is the nearest thing to paradise on earth.