A British Achilles by Lorna Almonds Windmill

Author:Lorna Almonds Windmill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS027100; HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781781597255
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2006-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Whitehall Warrior

Harold Macmillan’s first government was in office; Edward Heath was Chief Whip. Jellicoe began a meteoric rise in politics. In October, he spoke again in the Lords to move ‘an humble address’ to the Queen from the Conservative benches:

The last time I addressed your Lordships, was from the platonic sanctity of the Crossbenches. I then had the aesthetic pleasure of seeing your Lordships in profile. I now have the equal pleasure of seeing some of you full face. I do not know why I find myself in this particular hotspot … I can only surmise that the noble Earl [the Leader of the House] was fishing for a large Tory trout, cast over the Crossbenches for an ex-Ambassador and hooked an ex-First Secretary by mistake.1

In March 1959, he followed Lord St Oswald, in a debate on Britain’s Five-Year Defence Plan.2 The following spring, in a debate on the shipping industry, he declared his business connection: a good deal of salt water flowed in his veins from both sides of his family. He outlined ways in which government could help the industry to help itself. It was time for a really effective partnership between vigorous private and progressive public enterprise, both inspired with a dash of what he called ‘the Jackie Fisher spirit’.3

His private life however was unresolved. Old Lady Jellicoe took to Philippa while Peggy Dunne was more redoubtable. Though she admired Jellicoe, as President of the Stratford Division of the Conservative Party and Constituency Party Chairman for Jack Profumo,4 the charming and amusing Secretary of State for War, Peggy knew that politics and divorce did not sit well together. But eventually even she succumbed and Jellicoe and Philippa began house hunting in earnest.5

One Friday when Jellicoe was dining at Brooks’s, the waiter came to tell him he was wanted on the telephone. Peggy had seen a house in Country Life. He had seen one too – a beautiful 1741 Georgian manor house near Marlborough, with twenty acres and a swimming pool. It could not be viewed that weekend because the owners were away. The next day, he and Philippa were due to have lunch with Peggy at Radway in Warwickshire and decided to go via the property. They stopped just up the hill at a little church. Walking through the churchyard to the edge of the property, they looked down through the late morning mists to the sweep of lawns and beautiful manor house. In less than a minute, they turned to each other. ‘That’s it,’ they said in unison. After ten minutes inside the house, they knew they wanted it. Tony and Barbara Hunt looked after the gardens and house respectively. Tony had been born in one of the village’s thirteen houses and had never worked anywhere else.6

Jellicoe still made time for leisure, often dangerous. On a walking and skiing holiday in the Atlas Mountains with Carol Mather and Robin Fedden7 they climbed the highest peak of the Jebel, the 4,265 metres Jebel Toubkal. After skiing ahead of their guide in thick mist, they stopped and waited.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.