Jonathan Aitken 1

thank you very much for agreeing to be on the podcast. We're going to start if that's okay with politics. I'd like to talk about your father, who I believe was a politician before you were. Yes, my father was a rather unlikely politician. First of all, he wasn't British, even though he sat in the British House of Commons. He was a Canadian. And in 1938, he had never been out of Canada in his life. But like many Canadians of his generation, he thought of Britain as the mother country. And my father was a bit of a Boy Scout all his life. But when he was a young man, his Boy Scoutism took him into being a very active member of the Territorial Army in Canada, and a particular regiment called the Toronto Scottish Highlanders who went around in kilts. In 1938, my father read in a Toronto newspaper that the mother country, which is how he thought of us, was in danger of attack by Germany. And it was in danger of losing any such war because of a shortage of pilots. So my father, a Boy Scout he was, immediately wrote to the Air Ministry in London, saying, I'm a qualified pilot. I'm part of the Empire. Would you like me to come and join you? And somebody wrote back from the Air Ministry and said, well, if you'd like to come over, we'll look at you. He came over, paying his own fare on the trip. And when he got to the Air Ministry, he produced his documents, which apparently, in pilot terms, were quite impressive. He'd done everything he could do. And they then said to him, how old are you? And he said, 31, sir. The man at the Air Ministry said, have you brought your birth certificate? He said, yes, sir. And the wing commander who was said, burn it at once. So he shoved it into the flames. And the reason for that, he was over the age limit for being an RAF fighter pilot. But having burnt his birth certificate, he was immediately enrolled. But anyway, he did join the RAF. And then he was very, very badly burnt after being shot down. He was one of the famous plastic surgeon, Archie McIndoe's first guinea pigs. My father told me he thought he'd had 148 operations on anaesthetics in his life, most of them having his face re-stitched together. By the time I really focused on him and really knew him, he was actually very well rebuilt. He was, you could see, just. He'd had plastic surgery, but you wouldn't sort of see it on the other side of a room at a cocktail party or even quite close up. Anyway, after the war, there was a feeling in the country generally, and I think in the Conservative Party, particularly, that these young sons of the empire, as they were known, should, when possible, have seats in the mother of parliaments. And my father was one of about 20 young Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans who became British MPs. I was really rather fascinated at a young age by his parliamentary life, which consisted largely of going out into the rural villages of West Suffolk and talking to farmers about pigs or doing a wine and cheese party and some small hamlet. But I just got interested at an early age in politics through him. Before your life changed dramatically, and we'll come on to that, you were tipped at one point to be the next Tory Prime Minister. How corrupting, ultimately, is power? Well, let's get some of these things in proportion. First of all, if you got together all the MPs who at one time or another had been tipped as a Conservative Prime Minister, you'd need a ballroom, not a small cubbyhole to fit them all in. I was tipped as a future Prime Minister, but I actually never took it that seriously, for one simple reason. I had been close enough to power at an early age. I worked for my godfather, Sir Wyn Lloyd, and was working on the day he was sacked from being Chancellor of the Exchequer. I knew enough that actually, once you get to the very top, it's a game of chance, not a game of skill. I think there is part of the trappings of power which are attractive. For example, a Defence Minister gets his own aeroplane all the time. Of course, you get chauffeurs and drivers and you get military officers saluting as you get out of cars or come down the aircraft steps in Bonn or wherever it is. But I don't think that went to my head at all. People who want to be interesting in politics are people who do something. People who want to just be famous and be important or be saluted as they come down the steps of their private RAF jet, they just want to be somebody. And that wasn't of particular interest to me. I don't say I wasn't somehow flattered being somebody, but on the whole not. It was doing something which mattered to me. Politicians, I'm sure you'll agree, should of course be scrutinised by the public, but I think you endured more than your fair share. How do you look back now on that time where you were unwittingly turned into a sort of national villain? I don't think it was really quite as bad as that, but certainly one particular newspaper, The Guardian, went for me. And I think one of the reasons they went for me, at the time I thought it was all rather personal, maybe in some journals it was, but actually it was really to do with the temper of the times. You know, speed the wicked Tories on their way out was a feeling of many journalists, and particularly journalists on left-of-centre papers. Why not? They were allowed to do that. But I think it was, I was just a convenient sort of hate figure. At the time I was angry and thought it was all very unfair. A lot of rubbish was said, but on the other hand one particularly true thing was said, which is I had told a lie about a hotel bill. The old nursery rhyme goes, oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. So, and that's exactly what happened. I stuck to the lie instead of retreating from the lie. I was caught lying, and I paid a heavy price for that. You were sentenced to 18 months in prison in 1999, and you've said before, I was lucky I managed to get along with my fellow prisoners very quickly. That's what politicians do when they're getting votes. Hmm. Well, slightly tongue-in-cheek remark, but some truth in it. Suddenly I was catapulted by the court, but into a completely negative, hostile environment. What do you do? You try and survive. And my survival mechanism was A, to keep my head down, B, to be as agreeable as I could be to anybody who was passing by, to handle difficult situations as best I could. Quite early on I was standing around on the wings in Belmarsh doing nothing, as you do most of the time in prison, and a young prisoner came up to me and said, in a conspiratorial whisper, hey, I've got a problem. Could you help me? And he said, my problem is I've had a letter from my brief, but I can't read it. Could you read it to me? So I said, sure. And I read him this letter, which was from his sister, enclosing one from the Lambeth council, telling him he was going to be evicted from his council flat in Lambeth for non-payment of rent, along with his wife and small child. And as I gave him this news, he went up the wall with sort of anger and hysteria, and the only coherent noise out of all the effings and blindings he was doing was, what shall I do? What shall I do? My kid's going to be on the street. What shall I do? As it happens, considering we were both prisoners in Belmarsh, he couldn't have found easily a more expert source of authority to answer this question, because I had been doing eviction cases for 25 years in my constituency surgeries as an MP. So I knew all the little wrinkles which can postpone eviction of one kind or another, such as if you've got a small child, you can't be evicted quickly. Or if you get somebody to pay some of the arrears of the rent off by installments, you can't be evicted quickly. You can at least let. So I told him all this, and he was delighted. And I said, you know, this is what I do. And I said, all you'll do is write that down, send it back to your solicitor to the Lambeth council, and you'll be evicted quickly. I can assure you. I said, oh, that's brilliant, brilliant. And then he said, look, I've got another problem. I don't do no writing nor no reading neither. Could you write it for me? So I said, sure. So I wrote a letter of appeal. And he was kind enough to say it was rather good, as he already backed on. And he then signed it. And then he did something which was most unexpected. Instead of putting this letter into the postbox or putting it into his pocket, he suddenly transformed himself into a sort of 18th century town crier. And holding the letter aloft, he went down the wing shouting at the top of his voice. Hey, guys, this MP geezer of ours, he's got fantastic joined up writing. And this commercial of my graphological skills fell on the ears of a very receptive audience. Because it's a little known fact, except prison insiders. Roughly speaking, a third of all prisoners in a big London jail cannot read or write to an adequate standard. And so as a result of it being known, thanks to the town crier, that there was a fellow prisoner who might be willing to help you with your letters. From that moment on, there was a queue every single night of my ascendance, of people wanting letters written to them and read to them, often on the most intimate subjects imaginable. And this first one became a bust of a certain amount of good natured prison humour. I remember one old lag saying to me, well Jonno, do you realise with all this letter writing business of yours, you is making a fantastic impact on the girls of Brixton. They can't believe the sudden improvement in the love letters they're getting from this place. Be that as it may, I was making some friends. And that sort of transformed my status. Instead of being that evil Tory cabinet minister, I was, oh well he's not a bad bloke, he helped me with my letters and my girlfriend or whatever it was. And I then became sort of part of the kind of prison scenery as an accepted figure rather than as a hate figure. Did it make it less unbearable being there? Or was it not unbearable in itself anyway? It wasn't that unbearable. It wasn't easy. It was uncomfortable. It was fairly miserable. In terms of the actual physical side of it all, I often say that I think my first days in HMP Eton were rather harder than my first days in HMP Belmarsh. So you cope, you know, and I did. Do you despair a little bit at the state of the prisons in our country? Well, I'd certainly like to see a lot of things reformed. But no, I don't. Actually, our prisons are all things considered pretty decent and pretty civilised. I won't get a lot of people saying that, but I know it to be true. Especially when I compare it to things like American prisons. Now, why is it decent? Well, it's really decent thanks to the staff who are underestimated. In some ways, I think prison officers are in the most difficult frontline jobs way more often than even police officers or armed forces officers unless there's a war. Because every day there are incidents of people, sometimes mentally ill people, kicking off, making trouble, fighting, trying to commit suicide or dramas of one kind or another. And prison is policed and handled by consent. On a good day, we only have about 80 prison officers on duty in Penfield, which has 1300 men. So you could only do that if it's a whole thing is run by consent. And prison officers are constantly defusing difficult situations by a combination of humour, good common sense, sensible management of other people's emotions, stopping things happening. But it's pretty challenging. And I watched them do it and I hope sometimes help them do it. But at the end of the day, prisons are not necessarily bad places, you can complain, you can get your complaint heard very quickly. And the staff are decent with a capital D in my observation. I know there are some bad ones every so often. Fewer than it seems to be in the police. It's not a bad regime. A lot of people are doing a good job inside our prisons. It's not an imaginative job. We don't spend anything like enough time on rehabilitating prisoners. We know how to lock them up, we know how to confine them and contain them. But we are not good at what I think, what was the purpose of prison number one, punish the guilty and to keep dangerous people inside. Number two, to punish the guilty. Number three, to rehabilitate. That's where we're very weak, both on both sides of the prison walls. Probation service doesn't do it well, prison service doesn't do it well. But still a good deal trying. But we could do much, much more in the rehabilitation field, especially. I think too many people go to prison who shouldn't go to prison if we had good alternatives. We have some alternatives. But for example, the number of people doing drug influence crimes, I really think we could do much better in treating some of these conditions and imprisoning people from the conditions. And I'm very interested in myself in trying to help people who are on drugs, get off drugs and get off crime. And we have many failures, but occasionally when you have successes, it's a tremendous joy. I've been mentoring a young man at the moment who's achieved stopping drugs, getting out of prison, getting into work, succeeding, getting a good job and qualifying. I'm getting married in a few weeks time and I'm doing the wedding. And that's a great joy when that all works, but it usually doesn't. How did your time in prison alter your attitude to money? Well, I had none of it, which is one way of altering your attitude. I was actually bankrupt. And some people think bankruptcy is absolutely devastating. I always thought this is something I'll come out of one day, I'll earn my living again. I don't know quite how. My children just asked me, how are you going to earn your living again? And I said, well, if nothing else, I'll be a minicab driver, because I know a lot of Arabs, I know the tips are enormous. And I bet you I'll get a few. And my children used to shriek about it. You always get lost in Westminster, Victoria, you get lost on earth. But I've always been, I think, someone who sees life through the glass half full rather than through the glass half empty. And even in my worst moments in Dalmarsh prison, I always thought life is going to go on. I'm not going to be here forever. I'm going to do something after I come out, which will be interesting. I don't know what it is. So I wasn't, so being bankrupt, I was supposed to be deeply ashamed. I didn't feel very ashamed, if only because I had some creditors, incredibly unreasonable turned down 66 pence on the pound. No creditor ever does that. So, but there you go. Anyway, we're all settled. In the end, my bankruptcy wasn't quite as difficult as I thought it might be. So I was discharged honorably from bankruptcy in the end. There is a wonderful story in your book about you went to Oxford to study theology. And your son William by then was a hungry teenager, I think. And there's a story about you having only 20 pounds in your pocket and asking a fellow student to borrow money. And they had a better idea, which was to tell you about the Summerfield sell-off. Can you tell me about that? Yes. Well, first of all, just going back a bit, it was a rather odd but brave decision to go from prison to the one place in Britain, which had worse food than a prison and more uncomfortable beds than a prison. And this was an Anglican theological college called Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. I actually had two and a half marvellous years, I got really stuck into it. I loved studying theology, it was got all my academic juices flowing. I, at Oxford, first time around, I got a third in law, which is about the lowest you could possibly get. To my amazement, miracles happen. I got a first in theology, because I really got stuck into it and loved the subjects and liked the life of Wycliffe. But I had some problems and I was bankrupt. And I was living on a bankrupt weekly allowance. It was, if I remember correctly, it was 200 pounds a week. Actually, that made me just about the richest person in Wycliffe Hall, if you're a student. So it wasn't quite as I could afford to buy a round of drinks. But even so, there were pressures. And there was one particular moment when it wasn't just the only weekend when money was a bit short at the end of the month, or it was, and my son was coming. And I knew that he had a gargantuan appetite. Six sausages for breakfast, that's kind of what small boys do. And so I tried to borrow 20 quid off somebody and said, you know what you should do, you should go to the supermarket after midnight. And they sell all the produce at a third of the price, something I had not known before. Anyway, off I go to the supermarket, sure enough, I'm able to buy trouble the amount of food for my son's visit, at a very low price, and still have change in my pocket. And I remember just laughing as I came away. You know, the days when I used to go to Harry's bar or Mark's shop for lunch and so on. And now that I was amused greatly that I'd sort of outwitted the difficulty by going to the supermarket after midnight. Maybe many people know they can do that, but I didn't. And that's just to me another little move in the game of snakes and ladders, that you learn how to buy cheap but perfectly eatable food. And it probably feels all the more rewarding for at that meal. Maybe I think it did. How do you view the value of money? What does? Well, I don't in any way decry its importance. In the Bible, one of the most misquoted verses is, money is the root of all evil. That's not what the Bible says. It says, love of money is the root of all evil. And I have met many people in my life, like a character in Henry Fielding's novel, Tom Jones, who think that money is so important, it's the only subject in life which needs to be thought about or conversed about. I think I was ever quite good. I think everybody has to cut their coat according to their cloth. And it's nice to have enough money to be able to go to the theater and dinner afterwards. I would like to do that, but on the other hand, even now I can't afford to do that. But I can still afford a perfectly reasonable, moderate lifestyle. And so money is not at all top of my agenda. I have a reasonable pension. I still occasionally get paid for writing articles or books and do a tiny bit of consultancy work on the side. So I count my blessings rather than count my money. Good for you. And how do you reconcile the two seeming opposites of a spiritual life and a material life? Well, I don't think they are diametrically opposed opposites. Saint Paul, whose epistles I never stopped reading, never said that the love of money is the root of all evil. Saint Paul never said that money is the right root of all evil. He said the love of money is the root of all evil. Jesus never condemned money. What he did say is where your heart is, there will your treasure be also. Jesus did not say it was against money. He said be careful where your treasure is, your heart will be also. So if your treasure is in piling up bank balances or gold coins, then you'll be in that direction. But my heart is absolutely not in there. My treasure is somewhere quite different. So I don't think there's a huge problem. I haven't got a great problem reconciling the material needs and the material requirements of life with the spiritual life. The spiritual lives and spiritual values are just different from the material. But if you can possibly do so, mind you, we have to spend hours pouring over the church accounts, finding how the roof is going to be mended, that kind of thing. So it's not as though we're all completely forgetful and neglectful of material requirements, even if you're in the church, which I am. But it's not to me, it's not what I think about at all. Must be rather freeing. Very freeing. I'm a liberated soul generally. I imagine there was a time where it preoccupied a lot of your time and energy. Sure. I mean, I was a very materialistic businessman. And I once had a bank, which I'd founded, named after me, Heaton Hume. It was quite successful for a time and I was very much involved in all kinds of city deals. So yes, I was terribly interested in that. Actually, at the time, I never found it very satisfying. I was always much more interested in politics. But I think the one link between the good part of my early life and life now is to do with service. I mean, the calling of a politician should be public service. I hope mine was. You care about your constituency, you care about the decisions of government. And in prison chaplaincy life and and church life as a priest, actually, it's to serve as to the purpose. And if you can do that, I think you're achieving something real. You're rich. You are. Absolutely. On that note, it'd be, we should move on. Well, I'd like to talk about religion. But I think maybe we'll do that last if that's okay. I think before that, as long as you're okay, moving on, we'll go on to sex and love. So, sex and love. How much, I wonder, have your relationships with women, I believe, both your wives, shared your faith? You've been married to two women, both of whom were interested in exploring. I'm not putting that well. You've been married twice, both times to women who shared your faith. How bound up, I wonder, in your mind are faith and love? Well, in the matrimonial context, that means when anyone gets married or gets in a relationship, should be on the best reasons, love and faith can, of course, be completely separated from love. But I think ideally, a love which includes faith, I always find a very strengthening and expanding form of love. And it's true that my first wife, Melissa, and my second wife, Elizabeth, both had a faith. Both of us were churchgoers. And I think it was very important. I remember when I was thinking of marrying Elizabeth, saying to her, you know, I hope you realize that God will always come first. My wife said, how can you be so pompous? She said, of course I'm not going to try and come in front of God. And although she didn't, she was actually a woman of quite deep faith. You, as a younger man, I believe that you had a colourful private life. Well, what young man doesn't. But how much have your relationships with women affected the direction of your life, would you say? Well, it's true that probably, like many young men, I had a rather too movemente private life, too many relationships. And it's no use regretting that it happened. But I hope I wasn't unkind too often to anybody, but I probably was sometimes. But the good thing was, it was that when the trips were done and marriage came into it, then, you know, love was really there. And I feel blessed by both my wives. My first wife is still alive, and I have a good relationship with her. And Elizabeth, who's only died a year ago, we were very close to each other for reasons of faith, as well as reasons of all the usual reasons people love each other, emotionally and physically. And in her case, the last six years or so of her life, she had a brain hemorrhage. And she was very close in terms of tactility, but she was just not well enough to be as kind of a kind of hot lady she was when she was younger. But I didn't mind that at all, nor did she. I'm sure she rather preferred it. But I think I learned with Elizabeth, it's possible to love somebody when they're vulnerable, just as strongly and passionately as you can love somebody when they are exciting and sexually thrilling. So that didn't seem to matter at all. And we had a very good marriage throughout our entire married life, including right up to the end in terms of being very, very close, spiritually, physically, and emotionally. So I count my blessings there. How long were you married for? We were married for nearly 19 years. She, I was her most boring husband, long and short, because her previous husbands were movie stars. She was Mrs. Richard Harris, otherwise known as Harris the Hellraiser, various members, and Rex Harrison. She was Mrs. Rex Harrison and Mrs. Richard Harris. So I was much duller and quieter. And we had a very happy marriage. You must miss her terribly. I do. I certainly do. And, but my grief has sort of morphed into gratitude. I commune with her rather a lot in prayer, and also because she's buried just about five minutes walk from where I live. So I often go jogging in the Brompton Cemetery in Paws by her grave. So I feel close to her still. And I, you know, the reason I, of course, I was extremely upset when she died, although it was quite predictable. She was very, very ill for a long time. But I've always been absolutely confident that we'll meet again. And so at her funeral, I gave a tribute, quite a high-risk endeavour. And the last words were au revoir. And I always believe that my faith teaches that we'll be reunited one day. There must be a huge comfort and that brings us on to religion and to your faith. There must be a huge comfort in a firm belief in an afterlife when you do lose somebody you love. I think that's true. I certainly feel that is a great blessing. But I do not think of religion as a comfortable life. I find it's a very challenging life. Lots of demands, lots of pressures. You will always fall short in the spiritual life of the ideals that the Christian life demands of you. No one will ever come near Jesus in terms of character, ethics, religious practice, everything. So it's, you kind of fail daily. But you also, and that's not a bad thing. You're also going to die daily because you know that you're not really up to it and good enough for it. And indeed, I was very reluctant to become a priest and prison chaplain. I came out of, everyone thought it was a factory for priests, Wycliffe Hall. Indeed, I think of 120 odd people who were there, 118 were going to be priests. I always thought I was totally wrong to be a priest. I was too old, not worthy of it. So I didn't become a priest for 15 years. I did quite a lot of, a good church goer, I hope. I did a lot of prison ministry, but I absolutely did not join the club of priests as various people said I should. What changed me was something mysterious and baffling to everyone, including me, which is known in the jargon of the spiritual life as the call. And suddenly you start to hear whispers in your prayer life and suddenly a whisper seems, I want you to be a priest. I remember saying more or less, perhaps more politely than I'm saying it now, if that's you speaking God, please shut up. It's absurd. I'm far too old. I couldn't be a vicar. I'm not nearly worthy of it. So anyway, and then I got a murmur saying, actually, I meant I want you to be a prison chaplain. Now that did make me think because I was doing what's called lay prison ministry, going into prisons Sundays and seeing prisons and seeing, so at least I knew something about that. I thought I could do that. I'm not sure I'd be a good vicar, but I thought I might just be an adequate prison chaplain. But even so, I said, no, again, same reasons. Too old, not worthy of it, et cetera, et cetera. And then somebody came to see me and I was chatting about this and he said, have you seen what the England cricket captain said about this? I said, what? Ben Stokes? What's going on here? He actually didn't mean the present England cricket captain. He meant the cricket captain of England in 1883, who was a very remarkable man called C.T. Studd. And C.T. Studd was indeed cricket captain of Eton, Cambridge, some county and then England, and was captain of the first England team to go out to Australia to play the Ashes. But C.T. Studd, somewhere along this road of being a golden boy as a sportsman, he got religion. And having got religion, he said, I want to go to the church. And the church of England was over the moon. The great golden boy, C.T. Studd, going to be a vicar, going to be a bishop in no time. And C.T. Studd said, no, I'm stuck with what I had in mind. I want to be a prison chaplain. And everyone said, then as now, well, I mean, being a prison chaplain, prison chaplains are below the salt. They never get promoted even to being minor cannons. I mean, they're the lowest of the low in terms of the church hierarchy. And they came on arguing with him. And he got so tired of arguing with people, whether he should be a prison chaplain or not, that he wrote a little verse of Doggerall, which this man gave to him. And it went, some like to live within the sound of church and chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell. As soon as I read that, I said, well, that really does appeal to me. And that's what I do. I mean, being a prison chaplain is helping with a rescue shop within a yard of hell. It's a really, this is spiritual life of the coalface, sometimes of evil, often with drama, often with crises. And, but boy, it's an exciting ministry, never a dull moment. Not for me, the vicar's tea parties. I've done that with the guys who've done terrible things. As I had once too, it's an advantage to be an ex-prisoner. Do they talk more freely to you as someone who's experienced a little bit of what they're experiencing, do you think? I think it does help to strike up a rapport. Right at the very beginning, my Eton and Oxford accent doesn't necessarily go down a bundle with a whole lot of men on prison wing. And I remember somebody shouting at me, F off pie, which took some explaining. He was saying, get lost. And pie and liquor in prison lingo equals vicar. So, you know, get lost, vicar. And I said, hang on, to this rather abusive man, do you realize I used to be a prisoner? And he said, oh, get off, you know. But then I don't take more than half a minute to convince somebody that I know what it's like. Drop a few names, experiences. And I know it's pretty well known in Belmarsh that I'm an ex-con. And that does definitely help to get through the barriers and to really talk openly, and often quite deeply. How do you feel when you go back into a prison? Yeah, I love it. I don't, I mean, It's like going back to Eton. Well, look, there are some mysterious similarities between HMP Eton and HMPs. The customs are bizarre. The language is strange. It all seems totally normal to be inside the institution. It's extraordinary anyone outside it, how it all works. And it's a very, very, very But, you know, in general, I feel at home in the prison community and with the staff, too. I understand the way it all works. I understand, especially when I see, one of the many things I do is to meet the receptions, the first people who have arrived that hour, that day, and they're often cracking up in a big way. And I understand the frustrations of people who don't get parole, or whatever it is. So I feel very warm about the prison community as a whole, and very respectful of it. The officers and others do a great job. And most of the time, in the prison as well, we all have dark values in our lives, and we have to get through this one. Can I, would you like to have a sip of your drink before I just take you back? We're nearly finished, I promise. Was it compulsory, the sip of your drink? Yeah, it is. So you've got a bit of the smoke-scoop arm in you. Can I take you back to when you were four years old, and you had TB, and you were admitted to a nursing hospital in Dublin, and there was a wonderful-sounding sister, Sister Mary Finbar, who prayed by your bed day and night, and your odds weren't great. No, what happened was that I was born in Dublin for reasons to do with the Second World War. My father had been shot down as a fighter pilot, and was very badly burned in the hospital. My mother was extremely busy working for what is now called the WRVS. The R hadn't been added in those days, but she was doing wheels and wheels. And when I came along, what did my mother do? She went back to mum and dad to have the baby. Mum and dad, or her father, happened to be what would now be called the British Ambassador in Dublin, and he was called something else because of strange diplomatic titles, but still, that's what he was. And I then was really parked with my grandparents for the first three or four years of my life. It wasn't a hardship, far from it. I was in a big sort of ambassadorial residence. There was no rationing, no fresh eggs, and I was well looked after and so on. But I caught TB from a nanny or a nurse. TB was very, very prevalent in Ireland right up until the 50s. Anyway, I caught TB, but nobody noticed in the sort of busy ambassadorial house run by grandparents. I was coughing a bit, and Jonathan's a bit seedy, isn't he? He seems a fluey cough which has lasted a long time. But no one really thought it was. And by the time it was diagnosed, my TB had gone a very long way. It had gone into both lungs and into my legs and the bones, which is very bad news. And so my poor, panicky parents had to deal with sort of an advanced TB, and I was taken to a TB specialist on both sides of the Irish Sea. And with one exception, the diagnosis could hardly have been more pessimistic. Most people said, I'm sorry, this child can't live. Some would say, this child might live, but he'll never walk. The only exception to this was an Irish doctor who ran his own hospital now, a rather famous hospital called Kappa Hospital, just as I've dubbed it. But he was the TB specialist and an orthopaedic specialist of the day. And he said, if this little boy comes into my hospital, um, we will, I think, have a very good chance of him being totally killed. But he'd have to be totally immobilised for two or three years. Actually, four or three years. By totally immobilised, I meant lying on a frame, as it was called. But it was a contraption, like an arm lying in a plaster of Paris. And it had the good effect of, for a small boy, who always wanted to move around, you couldn't move in it. Now that sounds absolutely grim. For three years, I was in... The other day, two or three years ago, the BBC wanted to do a programme on me, which was called The House Where I Grew Up. And the person who's the sort of focus of the programme goes back to the house where he grew up. And he remembers, or she remembers, all kinds of things, which they suddenly see, you know, memories tumble out of what was the childhood. Anyway, with these two BBC ladies, I arrived in... Actually, I didn't, sorry, actually, I really didn't grow up in a house, I grew up in a hospital. And so off we went, Capa Hospital, which had hardly changed, as far as I could see, in its architecture. It was an orthopaedic hospital now rather than a TB hospital. And these BBC ladies were really determined to get me to say, oh, didn't I have the most terrible childhood? I was immobilised for three years in this contraption. No one ever put their arms around me and kissed me, such as... That's not how I felt. And I felt I had a very good childhood in this TB hospital. And that's not entirely memory paying tricks on me, because disabled children don't realise they're disabled, they think it's normal. And I was in a hospital with lots of other people in iron lungs, and the unlucky ones died. We were often wheeling the beds around, and the little shamers had passed away in the night. And the only thing we had to get well again, because no drugs didn't come in till 1949, the only thing we had to do was... There was a huge ward of TB little boys, they had French windows, they wound up, didn't matter if it was snowing, the beds were all pushed out to the terrace. And the head nun used to, because the hospital was run by nuns, the nursing staff were all nuns. And the head nun used to sort of, like with a conductor with sticks, deep breathe in, breathe out. I was rather competitive then and now. And so I enjoyed the deep breathing, and I was keen to do better than a little flint next door or whatever it was. Anyway, but in the middle of this, I met a remarkable nun, who was called Sister Mary Thunber. And she was nicknamed The Bar in the hospital. And she was a lady nun of some distinction. Her brother, I now know, was editor of the Irish Times. Her real name was, but she came from a good family. And she very much took me under her wing. But I think she enjoyed having quite a bright little boy who was keen to learn. And she taught me everything. I mean, how to read, how to do maths, all the contraption beyond belief. They were called the magic lantern, which was a very, very ancient sort of kind of projector, which projected onto the ceiling. Because you were lying flat on your back. I was flat. But she was terribly funny, to fill you up. And she used to try to cross as the magic lantern got too hot. Oh, I shouldn't have said punch, I said naughty words. But she was very funny, very witty, charming. And she was very spiritual, of course. But I was protected from that because my grandmother, who was a somewhat bigoted Protestant, could hardly bear the idea of me being nursed by a Catholic nun. Anyway, so she was perhaps under strict instructions not to convert me, not to proselytise me. And the one thing I do remember terribly well, was that she almost every night used to kneel by my bed and I used to fall asleep. Then I would wake up in the stool. And it was Tulsi I pray. But she was a huge influence. And she really was my best friend and mother and grandmother and everything rolled into one. Do you think she saved your life with the power of her prayer? Yeah, well, it's very probably. Oh, I'm sorry you're upset. She was amazing. I'm happily upset. Very good memory. And she was a very good friend of mine. She was a very good friend of mine. She was a very good friend of mine. She was amazing. I'm happily upset. Very good memories of her. And there was something extraordinary which happened. I came out of that hospital aged seven and never saw her again except once. And like 15 years later, I was about 22 or 23. And I was in Belfast for the covering some part of the IRA war. And I suddenly had to drive. I think all the aircraft was closing. And I could get a flight from Dublin. So on my expense allowance, I took a taxi from Belfast down to Dublin with plenty of time to spare. And suddenly we were driving. And suddenly I saw a notice board saying Capper Hospital outside, getting close to Dublin. So I said, I'd like to come in. So in I went. And I arrived. Long time ago, I was a bit patient here. I'd love to see Sister Mary Fenby. And they said, oh, I'm so sorry. It's impossible to see her. Because she's very, very ill. And you won't be able to see her. But we'll go in and tell her that you were here. So I had a cup of coffee with the other nuns. And then suddenly, she arrived in the room. And she was on two sticks, tossing. And all the nuns said, oh, hail Mary. This is a miracle. She's never been able to walk. Suddenly she's got up. Down she sat. And we had a wonderful conversation. Full of old jokes and laughter and memories. And she said something again, which she said occasionally when I was there. I said, oh, you've been saved for some great purpose. It wasn't very obvious what that purpose was at the time. Anyway, we had this wonderful conversation. And there were sort of great jokes about my grandmother trying to stop me being converted. And John Betjeman, who was my grandfather's press secretary, was sent in to make sure that I didn't become a Roman. This kind of stuff. Laugh and laugh. And anyway, I knew she was probably getting near the end. But it wasn't because she was so animated. And these other nuns couldn't believe it. So anyway, we parted. And I said to the nuns, if she does die, be sure to give me a call. And they did. And it was about ten days later she died. Oh. And she said you've been saved for a great purpose. She didn't say that once. She said it about 50 times when I was in the hospital. Isn't that amazing? So how much, Jonathan, are you okay to carry on? No, I'm sorry. No, don't be sorry. It's a beautiful story. I wonder how much the adversity that you have suffered was the gateway to a deeper faith. To the life that you have now. Who knows? I haven't a clue. God's purposes are mysterious. And occasionally people say things like that. If I have one thing in common with the Duke of Edinburgh, it is to say I must just get on with it. And whether it's in prison or the church, I like to get on with things. Not to sit there being moany or too contemplative. Lots of things I don't understand about my own life. Let alone other people's. But I do understand sort of the principles on which anybody who says they love God should try and serve, should try and pray, should try and be a good servant of God. So of course I try to do that. But I always thought it was a bit of a joke, as Mary was saying, that you've been saved for some great purpose. Who knows? You always had a faith, even before you went to prison. But you've described your relationship with God initially as a bit like a relationship with a bank manager. Yes. What I meant by that, I was half Christian, which I now think is about as useful as being half pregnant. But at the time, I thought it was fine to behave rather like a sort of customer in a bank, just to play towards a bank manager. This is a joke which I'm afraid is completely out of date because I grew up in an age when there were real bank managers and you went in to see them. I, first of all, knew that the bank manager struck God existed. That was a step in the right direction. Secondly, I thought you should be polite to him and visit him in his premises every so often. That was a step in the right direction. Thirdly, less honorably, I thought that the bank manager struck God could be useful to me. I could, if I did a little bit of overspending on the moral credit card, he could give me an overdraft. So that was my rather self-centered, selfish attitude to the bank manager struck God. The thing that was really wrong about that was that all this time I thought I was in charge of the account, not God. And therefore, even though I might politely go to the premises on Sundays and say the right things, I didn't think it was really necessary to go six days a week. So that was obviously a failure of behavior and judgment. But even though I laugh at half-Christians, at least they hear some of the stuff and perhaps respond to it in different circumstances. And indeed, when I got into bad trouble and was on my way to prison, I did sort of think, well, I've made a real mess of it, maybe I should go back to some of those things I was taught and think of them and reconsider them. One or two rather wonderful people came alongside me and guided me. So I didn't get there on my own. And I am looking back, I can see people all along my life's journey from Sister Mary Finbar to various schoolmasters and schoolchaplains to good Christian folk who were very kind to me at very difficult moments. I think I've always had kind of guardian angels hovering around. And did your faith get you through your prison time? Yes, it was a huge benefit for two or three different reasons. First, then as now, I spent an awful lot of time in my own cell. Now, some people go crazy but I enjoyed being in my own cell for two or three reasons. First, I quite like my own company anyway, always have done not my negatives, you can have troubles in your mind you lie on your bed and read and think and in my case pray. So just as monks found cells, great places to pray in over the centuries so I found a cell in Belmarsh other prisons good places just simply to pray and with a discipline I never would have had if I had no distractions no telephone calls, no television, nothing. So praying was easy. And secondly, I then joined by chance I mean by mistake a prison prayer group of prisoners and these are wonderful characters I wasn't the leader of it at all I was the biggest learner but an Irish burglar called Paddy recruited me to his prayer group and we unlike any other prayer group I've ever been in we used to meet every day because there was nothing to do in prison and pray together and that was a good experience and I think I was travelling spiritually I wasn't quite sure in what direction I went off to Wycliffe Hall to study theology again with not any very clear purpose it seems to have emerged later for clear purpose So if he was like a bank manager before, what is God to you now? Well God is the absolute centre of my life There's a verse in Philippians Philippians 3 I count everything as loss save for the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord and by that what I mean of course I live a very cheerful active busy life actually the only thing that really matters is knowing Jesus Christ and trying to follow Him sometimes inadequately but still trying and I'm a very happy person these days because Jesus Christ is at the centre of my life and I always start my day very early in the morning with quite long private prayers go on for an hour or so and the days my mind wanders but on the good days I feel very close to my Lord so I add it all together I think I've been incredibly well blessed and you never feel alone never feel alone so even since your wife has died you don't need to feel an emptiness I suppose well of course I've been through and continue to go through quite ordinary human pangs of grief and loneliness and missing and so on on the other hand I'm a great believer in counting your blessings even when they seem fairly well concealed and of course I miss not having her but on the other hand we were actually together about 18 years in marriage but we went out for quite a time before that and then well before that we went out nearly got married but didn't so she was in my life for about 25 years and so of course I miss her enormously but I A. think how grateful I am to have had her and B. I'm absolutely sure we will meet again so it has its sad moments now but I think some great moments are yet to come Faith brings a great certainty doesn't it It does just before we finish is it alright if I ask one more question about religion and then just a little bit about words of wisdom right I wonder I think Christianity is on the wane in this country I mean officially statistically it is how do you view the future of organised religion well first I don't know but I'm not at all as pessimistic as secular commentators or even Christian commentators first of all God in the words of somebody who a thousand ages in my sight is like an evening gone we simply don't know religion ebbs and flows rises and falls I think the Christian churches may be in decline well they certainly are numerically but they are not the only form of Christian involvement Christian worship Christian networks are doing quite well if you are into it as much as I am you find I mean I do at least two or three Christian speaking engagements a week and sometimes more than that and they are often not in churches I do preach in churches but I often do mysterious things like breakfast or morning coffees with people who just want to think about God talk about God from different angles so I think the networks may be stronger than the churches and that doesn't please bickers of course on the other hand there are some churches and I preach most every other Sunday and one are growing, some of the evangelical churches are growing very fast so it's not a sort of simple easy picture but in the end I think people start to feel at some stage a void if there is it's really true that we are just cells Hitler or Mother Teresa we are just cells go through this world and then pass out through death and go nowhere somehow in my innermost being I think that's wrong that there is another world and I think I've been very lucky to catch glimpses of it so that brings us on to aging to what sorry? aging this podcast is focused on people who are over 80 so I'm interested to know you still lead a very busy, very active very engaged life does your energy come from your faith? I think so it's a gift from God I had terrible medical dramas two years ago very nearly died but came through my colon went septic which is a killer usually last minute brilliant surgeons got me round but I have got a lot of energy relatively speaking and both physical I still jog a bit that's a very generous word the verb jogging I plod but I'm fit and I enjoy life I'd much rather rust out I'd much rather not rust I'd much rather burn out than rust out and I have no interest in going to the golf course and doing nothing much in the way of work or interesting things so that's just a blessing I love doing what I'm doing whether it's in prison I've got a calling and I love it and happy as the man who's got something which keeps him energised, busy content, happy and with endless dramas I may say going on around me which I enjoy really What in the prison? Quite a few elsewhere but if you're a pastor if you want to see a pastor when they're in trouble How much of your daily life does your pastoral work take up? Well a lot it depends enormously but among things obviously in prison pastoring people and obviously in church churches and I was chaplain to a bit of the social service to a Christian government again it was pastoral work then individual pastoral work I take Holy Communion to old ladies in their homes and I love that so and then people think people think because you're a vicar wearing a dog collar you've got some wisdom this is not always true but know this, you do your best as if he'll come and ask you I think my next visitor tonight is someone who feels he's in trouble, wants to come and just talk about his problems and whether I'll be able to do anything or not depends but if I have any gifts in this direction they're not my gifts at all they're given by God and so I am busy I'm not quite as busy as I was as a cabinet minister but not far off instead of deciding which kind of aircraft we're buying we're supposed to spend Do you miss that life? No, not at all. I'm very glad to have had it very very pleased to have had it I love Parliament I enjoy being a minister but it's a scene a play an act too maybe that the best act is the last act And are you last question what matters in life? I think what matters in life is your values and if you steer by them but ideally I think your values should be the values of Jesus Christ that's what I, the Christian that's what I believe in I'm quite knowledgeable about Islam don't knock other faiths at all but for me the values and the ethics and the teachings of Jesus Christ are a wonderful series of stars to steer by and so anything you're really trying to do to serve him and serve those ideals the best selling book in the history of the Christian world apart from the Bible is a book called The Imitation of Christ written by an ancient monk called Thomas Acampis for centuries all the good Christian boys and girls read The Imitation of Christ it's fallen out of fashion although I think many people still do it but imitating Jesus which is impossible is a wonderfully satisfying calling and it's a calling which involves some suffering and some disappointment I mean as a matter of fact the Christian journey is a journey to the foot of the cross and so suffering and disappointment and agony sometimes are all part of it but if you look at the whole picture it's a no life is perfect as Jesus's and no better way of spending your life in my opinion than to try and follow and imitate that life and that's what I however imperfectly I try to do Thank you so much and your wise words you may have got an awful lot of rubbish there but I hope you'll edit it edit it into shape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .