Open Writing

I first met Richard Cranbourne when I worked in the Department of the Environment.

The government of the day wanted to do something about the environment - I forget exactly what and I suspect it really didn’t know itself. It certainly didn’t want to do what everybody was insisting it should do, which would have been costly and would have got up the noses of a lot of the people it wanted to keep in with.

Richard Cranbourne was Member of Parliament for a constituency in Lincolnshire. He was very much into environment, owned large tracts of land, took part in any number of traditional country pursuits, knew all the right people and could be relied upon to do what was required of him, at the same time convincing various lobbies that he had got the best deal possible out of the government. The plan was that both would emerge from all this to-ing and fro-ing smelling of violets. I suppose the sort of thing I was expected to do would nowadays be put to a committee for a couple of time-wasting years or handed over to the spin doctors. But in those days no such refinements had been thought up.

“Ring him up,” they said. “Go and talk to him. Invite him to dinner at your club.”

“I don’t belong to any clubs,” I said.

“Whatever,” they said.

“How much?” I asked.

“What?” they said.

“How much am I allowed to spend on this exercise?”

“Don’t be crude,” they said. “There’s no budget for this sort of thing. But play your cards right and … well, you never know.”

They used to speak like that then. We were supposed to guess what they meant.

In the event I didn’t take Cranbourne out to dinner. I telephoned him and asked if he could spare some of his valuable parliamentary time to talk to me about the environment. He didn’t seem at all surprised and asked me to meet him at the House one afternoon.

He was in his forties, always impeccably turned out, with an easy charm which affected all who came into contact with him. He had long ago abandoned any attempt to remember people’s names and functions, assuming - correctly, as it turned out - that if he associated with them long enough that sort of information would eventually find its way into his memory. If he didn’t, then he had saved a lot of energy.

“Basil Smallapple,” he would say when introducing me. “From the Ministry of Agriculture.”

“Tom Stone,” I would say as I shook hands. “From the Department of the Environment."

“Whatever,” he would say with a wave of his hand and a disarming smile. He never showed any sign of being abashed.

I eventually gave up trying to set the record straight. In the weeks after our first meeting I met William Parsonage of The Jockey Club, Michael Sampson of The National Trust, Janice Blackstone of The Nature Conservancy Council and about a dozen others. At least, I might have done. I had only him to rely on, since no-one ever corrected him. But it didn’t really matter.

Cranbourne was a busy man. He chaired meetings, talked to journalists, attended lunches and dinners, was interviewed on television and generally put himself about, all with a practised smoothness and geniality which made him well-known, popular and - to an extent remarkable amongst politicians - trusted.

I never regarded him as a political heavyweight or a great or original thinker, but I learned never to underestimate his influence. People did things for him - produced reports, consulted contacts, made enquiries, had a word with X or Y. There was never any suggestion of underhandedness or sleaze.

He taught me a great deal about the environment from a non-governmental point of view. I would go so far as to say that he believed in it, unlike many of his more self-seeking colleagues in the Palace of Westminster.

For my part I fed him titbits of information about the government’s thoughts on various matters, whilst he suggested projects, initiatives, collaborative ventures which the government turned to its advantage whenever it could. Although I had other duties, more than once I told them that I was not sure that I was doing much more than fetching and carrying. I fact, I once asked them for a real job.

“You’ve got one,” they said.

“Look, I’ve been doing this for about three years now. Shouldn’t I be moving on?”

“You’ve established an excellent working relationship with Cranbourne. We greatly value that. Believe us, you’re doing a grand job. Gets you out of the office a lot, doesn’t it?”

It did, so I didn’t push my luck.

When I got to know him really well, he asked me where I would be going when I moved on.

“Funny you should mention that. I ask them the same question from time to time, but all I get is a lot of guff about doing a grand job, keep taking the tablets, that sort of thing.”

“Have you ever considered a job outside government? I might be able to help.”

“Are you poaching me?”

“Good heavens, no! It’s just that … well, you’re a bright young man. Don’t want to get in a rut, do you? The world could be your oyster, you know.”

I looked at him. That very day he had asked me to call him Richard. It was about the time when Christian names were becoming all the rage. I wasn’t certain whether he was indicating a genuine trust and affection or simply following a trend. He was collecting papers and about to set off for yet another meeting.

“Think about it,” he said putting a friendly hand on my arm.

I told them about this. They seemed a bit suspicious.

“Did he say exactly what he had in mind?”

“No.”

“Was it your impression that he was inviting you to become his personal assistant?”

“I’ve really no idea.”

Then they promoted me, but asked me to retain this particular part of my job. I showed my disappointment.

“Now you’ll be in a position to take him out to dinner,” they said. “You could join a club. We might be able to help.”

“No thanks,” I said. “You should know by now that I’m not really a club person.”

After a number of minor scandals, the PM decided to reshuffle his team. There was a great deal of ill-informed speculation. Richard asked me what was likely to happen.

“I’m not privy to their plans, Richard. Anyway, you’re not interested in a job, are you?”

By now I knew him well enough to talk like this. They probably suspected as much, but they didn’t see fit to do anything about it.

“I have helped the government more than once on environmental matters, as you well know. I could do a great deal more from inside the tent, as the saying goes.”

“I’ll drop a hint.”

“I’d be grateful if you would, Tom.”

They seemed surprised.

“Richard Cranbourne?”

“Is it so surprising? He’s been a great help. Isn’t it time to think about rewarding him?”

Richard didn’t get a job. He got a knighthood. He wasn’t overly pleased.

“That’s not bad, you know.” I said. “You can hardly expect both. At the same time.”

“Tom, I’m fifty-three. There won’t be another chance to become a minister, believe me.”

“You never know,” I said.

“Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”

His enthusiasm waned, however, and, at long last, they really did move me on.

I kept contact with him and we exchanged little notes from time to time, particularly if either of us got into the news for some reason or other. The notes were wry if there were brickbats and - more rarely - congratulatory if there was praise. After a gap of several years his wife rang me to say that he was in hospital in the Westminster area. If I could spare the time …

I found him not at all well, but he seemed genuinely pleased to see me. I teased him.

“Are you going to introduce me to the hospital staff?” I asked. “Eminent surgeons and registrars, I must warn you, don’t take kindly to being misidentified.”

He gave a wintry smile.

“There’ll be none of that, Tom.”

Then he was serious again. Serious and very tired.

“What went wrong?” he said.

“You’re not still smarting about not getting into the Cabinet are you, Richard? Forget it. Concentrate on getting well.”

“I did what I could, didn’t I? There was no sleaze, I didn’t sleep around, no picking up young men on Clapham Common, no dodgy business deals.”

I felt sorry for the man.

“You would have been better off in what they used to call the groves of Academe,” I said. “You were up to it intellectually. You know that. Politics is a dirty business, Richard. You should never have got mixed up in it.”

“It needn’t be dirty, Tom, it needn’t be. I wanted to prove that”

He fell asleep before I left and died three days later.

I think about him to this very day.