January 6, 2003
GODFATHER OF THE THIRD WAY PASSES:
-TRIBUTE: Politics is the poorer for Roy's passing: pub landlords will be, too (Robert Harris. 01/06/2003, Daily Telegraph)British politics and letters are undoubtedly the poorer this morning for Roy's passing - but so, too, I fear, are the landlords of the Blue Boar at Chievely, the Harrow at West Ilsley, the Royal Oak at Yattendon, the Red House at Marsh Benham, and a large number of other congenial establishments across Oxfordshire and West Berkshire.If this sounds a frivolous way to remember a great man, I do not think he would have objected. "The crucial thing about Roy," as Sir Nicholas Henderson, a far older acquaintance than I, once remarked, "is his infinite capacity for friendship". It seemed to be one of his aims in life never to pass a lunchtime alone, and in this, as in much else, he was triumphantly successful. [...]
Someone once said that, in listening to Roy's voice, one heard the authentic echo of English as it was spoken in the 1930s. He practised conversation, too, as an art from a golden age, in the way that Evelyn Waugh once defined it: "with anecdote occurring spontaneously and aptly, jokes growing and taking shape, fantasy".
His memory was prodigious, and he was generous in sharing it. Here was a man - is there another left? - who was in the gallery of the House of Commons to listen to Churchill's great speeches in the summer of 1940, and who bumped into Ernest Bevin on the promenade at Sidmouth in 1937 ("I'm 'ere on 'oliday with Flo," was how the old trade union warhorse greeted him).
There was a difference of 37 years between our ages, but I was never conscious of it. He had that quality which many obituarists mentioned in connection with the Queen Mother: he would talk about the past, but he refused to live in it; he was always eager for the latest gossip, or to discuss the latest book or film. Dozens of his oldest friends must have died during the course of our acquaintance, but he never sighed after them, or dwelt on details of their passing. "Most lives end pretty badly when you stop to think about it," was all he would say.
And thankfully his own death - working up to the end, after a lunch with friends the previous day, and with his biography of Churchill still rising in the bestseller list - disproved his theory.
Mr. Jenkins was wrong about nearly everything, not least about a united Europe, but far less wrong than his Labour colleagues. Britain would be a better place today if his vision had prevailed in the '60s, rather than having to wait until Tony Blair's election. After leaving politics he became a very fine biographer.
MORE:
-ARTICLE: Lord Jenkins dies at 82 (George Jones, 01/06/2003, Daily Telegraph)
-OBIT: Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, OM (Daily Telegraph, 01/06/2003)
-TRIBUTE: The crusader for moderation who listened: Prof Ben Pimlott looks at the life of a brilliant writer and reforming politician (Daily Telegraph, 01/06/2003)
-TRIBUTE: A great Whig (Daily Telegraph, 01/06/2003)
-OBIT: Statesman Jenkins dies at 82 (Michael White and Lucy Ward, January 6, 2003, The Guardian)
-TRIBUTE: A major progressive: Roy Jenkins charted the path of reform (Leader, January 6, 2003, The Guardian)
-TRIBUTE: Gang leader who paved way for Blair: The social reformer and political writer who never became PM is seen by some as the grandfather of New Labour (Michael White, January 6, 2003, The Guardian)
-OBIT: Roy Jenkins, 82, Dies; Helped Start Centrist British Party (PAUL LEWIS, 1/06/03, NY Times)