My Private Secretary burst through my office door, abandoning the usual courtesies, but remembering to open it, and panted breathlessly – it was at least two yards from her office to mine – “Minister, the Prime Minister has resigned!”
The gates of Number 10 were visible from the office window, the then lavish lair of the Minister of State for Health in Richmond House, on a sunny 22nd June 1995, the day John Major resigned. Well, the gates were visible if you stood on a chair, stuck your head out the window and squinted north. Junior ministers felt pride swelling in our breasts, greater bragging rights over fellow pipsqueaks, if we were close to No 10, or even the gates.
“Bloody Norma, I mean Nora, turn on the TV”. When the tube warmed up – televisions took a not inconsiderable time to warm up then – we peered at the figure of the Prime Minister, making his “put up or shut up” statement from a dais in the garden of No 10.
