Breaking the Code Read Online Free PDF Page B

in Stratfford-upon-Avon having lunch with the Prince of Wales. What a ridiculous three days. On Saturday I drove from London to Stratford for the Shakespeare BirthdayCelebrations – I did my stuff: it was fine. I drove on to Chester where I spent Sunday morning tramping the fields on a sponsored walk, went on the Dale Barracks to meet the lads in khaki, on to the police station to salute the boys in blue and on to evensong at All Saints Hoole to reassure one of our ageing activists that I am ‘spiritually sound’! This old bird had phoned the office to say that she was concerned that I might not have the right religious values – she’s heard rumours – so Gwyn, 82 there and then, volunteered me to go to church with her! In fact she’s quite a sweet old thing in a Miss Marplish way and she’s loyal to the cause (she’s kept every one of the multifarious handwritten notes Sir Peter has sent to her over the past twenty years) and the service itself was a revelation: the church was
packed
, young, old, (many more young than old), families with children, all fresh-faced and bright-eyed with happiness, singing, swinging, praying, swaying, getting the key messages from the deaconess’s sermon flashed up onto a screen above the altar. It may not be what John Betjeman and I think of as evensong but it was impressive all the same. I then went on to the Newton Committee Meeting and finally dinner at Hoole Hall.
    Today I was up at the crack of dawn and racing down the motorway to get to Stratford in time for Prince Charles’s lecture when suddenly, alarmingly, thick black smoke began billowing from the engine. I moved straight onto the hard shoulder, jammed on the brakes, switched off the engine and waited for the belching smoke to subside. It did. I then laughed out loud. It’s all so silly – tearing hither and yon, and to what purpose? Anyway, for the first time ever the car phone came into its own. I called Jenny 83 and she called the AA and within an hour I was being towed into Wolverhampton – not before the police had stopped to enquire what I was up to. The policeman recognised me and, when I told him where I had been going, he volunteered to get the police to look after the car while he would drive me personally to my royal luncheon engagement. He was quite pressing, and when I said no I think he was quite put out.
TUESDAY 23 APRIL 1991
    I’m back on the train again. This morning the Youth and Sport Conference in WC1. This evening the Younger Women’s Supper Club in Chester. (I’m advised that the Younger Women are all supposed to be under fifty – and indeed they were when the group was formed. Now they are of riper years and several bring their mothers, who are comfortably into their seventies.) In the broadsheets Prince Charles gets plenty of coverage: ‘It’salmost incredible that in Shakespeare’s land one child in seven leaves primary school functionally illiterate.’ I think the Earl of Chester’s observations can be the springboard for my remarks to the Younger Women … David Owen is getting coverage too. Apparently ministers are ‘pressing for Owen to be given a government role’. Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to swing it on the doorstep.
SATURDAY 27 APRIL 1991
    I had my ‘briefing’ with His Grace [the Duke of Westminster] yesterday. He looks permanently exhausted, but he has a nice manner, an engaging laugh, and he’s courteous, friendly and helpful – though it’s clear our relationship’s not going anywhere. I sit and ask him to tell me what’s what and I take notes while he explains that the government doesn’t understand the importance of hill-farming, the nonsense of set-aside, the dangers of leasehold reform, the plight of the TA. I realise that I’m a natural for the government as I don’t understand these things either! He must wonder why he’s having to bother with me. I know why I’m having to bother with him. He’s our President and he’s local royalty. They