One of the saddest things when anyone dies, apart from the obvious loss of a loved one if they are close to you, is the loss of experience that dies with them. Add to that wit, humour and a certain degree of respectable maverickness and you have Baroness Jean Trumpington.
I had the pleasure of meeting with her several times in the eighties, it was always a refreshing experience! You were never left in any doubt of what she thought on any given matter! A true upholder of tradition, but not just for the sake of it, it always had to be worth upholding, but she equally acknowledged that times change, and things move on.
Tens of thousands of words have been and are being written, so I’m not going to go into too much detail, but life let alone politics needs more people like her. Resolute, reliable, impish and unpredictable, she was a chain-smoking health minister who was respected by the nation, having been dubbed 'Baroness Battleaxe' after waving a ‘V’ sign at her friend Lord Tom King in the House of Lords.
Born four years after the end of The Great War, she survived beyond the 100th Anniversary of its ending. Unlike so many modern politicians, she knew that real life and real people lived outside the corridors of Westminster.
I don’t know whether she was a ‘Leaver’ or ‘Remainer’, but I have the feeling that she might have made an excellent Secretary of State for Brexit and would have wholeheartedly respected the view of the British people, even if she personally disagreed. It’s such a tragedy that so many of our modern politicians don’t have that sense of duty.
For the record, I voted remain, although I want out of what the Common Market has become and where it is going. It will all implode, partly due to the race to federalism, and we needed to be there to be the driving force shaping Mark 2.
I had the pleasure of meeting with her several times in the eighties, it was always a refreshing experience! You were never left in any doubt of what she thought on any given matter! A true upholder of tradition, but not just for the sake of it, it always had to be worth upholding, but she equally acknowledged that times change, and things move on.
Tens of thousands of words have been and are being written, so I’m not going to go into too much detail, but life let alone politics needs more people like her. Resolute, reliable, impish and unpredictable, she was a chain-smoking health minister who was respected by the nation, having been dubbed 'Baroness Battleaxe' after waving a ‘V’ sign at her friend Lord Tom King in the House of Lords.
Born four years after the end of The Great War, she survived beyond the 100th Anniversary of its ending. Unlike so many modern politicians, she knew that real life and real people lived outside the corridors of Westminster.
I don’t know whether she was a ‘Leaver’ or ‘Remainer’, but I have the feeling that she might have made an excellent Secretary of State for Brexit and would have wholeheartedly respected the view of the British people, even if she personally disagreed. It’s such a tragedy that so many of our modern politicians don’t have that sense of duty.
For the record, I voted remain, although I want out of what the Common Market has become and where it is going. It will all implode, partly due to the race to federalism, and we needed to be there to be the driving force shaping Mark 2.
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