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@historicallolitics
austen lamp
from The Best of Low by David Low, 1930; pg. 15.
THEY MADE HIM INTO A LAMP WHAT THE-
also almost everyone being asleep and he is just there. standing. annoyed as hell. this to me is a metaphor for the fact no one ever listened to him but that’s just my brain speaking
(although shoutout to the Home Secretary cat)
Collection of interesting anecdotes from Andrew Roth’s Heath and the Heathmen (Opening / the long prologue):
Madron Seligman once asked him when he first became so pro-European. Heath joked that it was when he was twelve and looking across the Channel from his hometown of Broadstairs.
His interest in alcohol did expand after he became Prime Minister - beforehand he was stated to only be interested in malt whiskey.
I may have discussed this before but I believe Heath was narcoleptic, and this book seems to confirm a bit more along these lines, “quite typically once he relaxes he falls asleep on them [his friends] (…) the removal of tensions puts him to sleep, sometimes for days.”
He banned smoking in Cabinet meetings. While not the first postwar Prime Minister to do this (that would be Attlee), he decided to do so, probably due to him having never smoked himself.
He had a habit of organising people in ways that would appeal to him. At a businessman’s lunch at Chequers, he asked everyone if they wanted to listen to Bruckner, one of his favourite composers. Before anyone could properly answer, he put it on.
A peer stated that the only hereditary peer he would listen to was Lord Carrington.
When extremely driven by a task, particularly after the 1966 election, he had a habit of snapping and getting easily mad at people. There was even speculation that he would have a breakdown if not for his hobbies to fall back on.
His favourite music was by Elgar, Strauss and Mahler. For the piano he mostly played Beethoven, and for the organ Bach and Bruckner. He originally hated Wagner due to the postwar associations of Wagner’s music with the Nazis, but later warmed up to it.
For his birthday in 1970, he was thrown a party on a Thames ship with thirty friends. (It is noted that the only Cabinet ministers on the ship for it were Willie Whitelaw and Lord Carrington.) The party was largely quiet until Heath started playing at a specially installed organ on board. A friend, Phil Kaiser, joked that he should install an organ on Morning Cloud.
Heath was extremely protective of Morning Cloud and very certain regarding when he would drive it. More specifically, he never did a day’s cruise on it and only drove it outside a race on one occasion - to get it to another place ready for a race.
As noted in the asexuality masterlist, early on in the days of Morning Cloud, while the rest of the crew would sleep in their underwear, Heath refused to wear anything less than a full set of pyjamas.
Apparently he was once interested in Carl Jung for a short period of time?
He could definitely be polite. He answered personal letters of congratulations and sent gifts to relatives of his staff. But, of course, he always hated small talk and went for long silences.
Around 1965, he and Moura Lympany went to Balliol for a concert. A faculty member asked them if they liked the new curtains there, to which Heath bluntly responded, “No!”
Anecdotes from Chapter 1:
Heath was partially named after his uncle who died in WW1.
As a young boy, when he travelled back down to Broadstairs alone, he had a label tied to him.
For the first years of his life he lived in Crayford, but he moved back to Broadstairs at the age of seven.
He was forbidden to join the Scouts by his father as he believed it killed initiative.
His stresses over the exam for the Chatham House scholarship led to him getting a fever and experiencing bouts of sleepwalking.
At thirteen, Heath managed to persuade his headmaster to let him take LUGS (London University General Schools exams) which were normally taken at fifteen. Out of the seven subjects he took, he got five distinctions.
If a visitor came over to the house, Heath would greet them politely… and then head straight upstairs to read.
As a boy he sang in the choir and was the page turner for the church organist. He also attended the church’s young people’s club and their tennis parties.
He took his job as prefect seriously. He was reported to be so strict with stopping boys from larking about in the tram going home that some would deliberately miss it.
Before Kay Raven, his interest was in a girl called Joan Stuart. They went to the beach together and also went for his last dance at Chatham. However they found it difficult to converse well.
Anecdotes from Chapter 2
His budget was £220 a year (around £1220 in today’s money) - £90 as a loan, £130 from his parents. And his degree would be PPE in today’s terms, but back then it was Modern Greats. And then of course he grabbed his organ scholarship.
He was nicknamed Teddy at this time. He only really became Ted after the war.
When working in the Oxford orchestra, he learnt that they gave performances in the town hall. Inspired, he inquired about if something could be done in Broadstairs as well. The Broadstairs carol concert officially began in 1936 and he gave it every year except during the war.
He joined all three major party political clubs in Oxford out of curiosity. An Anthony Howard quote strikes true here as quoted, “Nothing makes more effectively for ardent and self-publicising loyalty to the Conservative Party than a basic feeling of social insecurity.”
He learned to play ping pong but he wore a glove and held the paddle “as if it were a soup spoon.”
Apparently he did a lot of lonely walking.
Of course, anyone who knows Heath knows that one of his integral moments as a young man was seeing a Nuremberg Rally which hardened his anti-fascist views. He had gone to Germany as part of a family exchange program and got access to see it - he was utterly shocked. He ended up buying a Swastika ornamented walking stick as a souvenir from it.
This made me laugh:
When Anthony Eden resigned in 1938, Heath said very little while his friends were waiting for the radio to announce it. When it happened, he thanked his friend and walked out of the room.
As an escape from his fear of the fight between the Chamberlainites and anti-appeasers, Heath took up humour as an escape.
In his experience in Spain during its civil war, another famous anecdote, he narrowly escaped being killed - a bomb hit his hotel but found its way down the lift and exploded in the bomb shelter, while he was on the top floor.
If the war didn’t break out, he probably would have gone into law. He even secured a scholarship at Gray’s Inn but he never took it up.
On a second visit to Germany before the war, Heath and his friend Madron Seligman looked at the painting Sistine Madonna for ninety minutes while talking about the world. After they heard about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, they knew it was their moment to flee.
After war broke out, he volunteered at Oxford. He was recommended for the Royal Artillery but was told he wouldn’t be called up until 1940 due to the sheer amount of recruits. In response he decided to go to America on a university debating tour. They were told to decline any debates talking about the war due to American neutrality, but Pittsburgh University was insistent on it. Heath, being literal minded, wanted to go back home as a result. He rang the Ambassador who told him to accept the debate but have him and his friend speak on different sides.
Anecdotes from Chapter 3
Heath noticed a champagne bottle in the officers’ mess he didn’t recall them getting. His friend told him they had taken it from an abandoned German camp alongside the necessary supplies. Heath, calling it out as theft, refused to drink any of it.
His army number was 179215!
He was said to always read in bed and didn’t go out much at training except with his band.
In 1943, as part of his role as Adjutant, he had to prosecute a gunner. The gunner in question had learnt his wife was having an affair and drove back home to catch them in the act. He was subsequently charged for absence without leave and petrol theft. Heath demanded six months punishment. He got three.
When the regiment cut their ATS girls to match a mobile battle standard, Heath refused to see their officer off, complaining that he “didn’t want anything to do with her.”
While his fellow officers trained with new guns, vehicles and equipment, Heath wrote a regimental drill book for a mobile heavy anti-aircraft regiment.
The regiment once held a liberation dance at a local hall where Heath’s band provided the music. He left after the commanding officer did to go do more planning.
He was recommended an MBE for his war services!
The regiment inherited a cellar in the middle of war-torn Germany. They all collectively decided to drink through the stocks of liquor and share out the cost for a lunch. Heath would spin out his drinks and complain when he got his tab that it was unfair and he had too little of it.
He tried horseback and failed, a colleague saying the reason was he weighed only a bit too much.
ted heath lonely walking is everything i feel him in my soul i fear
So true… let him do what he wants
Collection of interesting anecdotes from Andrew Roth’s Heath and the Heathmen (Opening / the long prologue):
Madron Seligman once asked him when he first became so pro-European. Heath joked that it was when he was twelve and looking across the Channel from his hometown of Broadstairs.
His interest in alcohol did expand after he became Prime Minister - beforehand he was stated to only be interested in malt whiskey.
I may have discussed this before but I believe Heath was narcoleptic, and this book seems to confirm a bit more along these lines, “quite typically once he relaxes he falls asleep on them [his friends] (…) the removal of tensions puts him to sleep, sometimes for days.”
He banned smoking in Cabinet meetings. While not the first postwar Prime Minister to do this (that would be Attlee), he decided to do so, probably due to him having never smoked himself.
He had a habit of organising people in ways that would appeal to him. At a businessman’s lunch at Chequers, he asked everyone if they wanted to listen to Bruckner, one of his favourite composers. Before anyone could properly answer, he put it on.
A peer stated that the only hereditary peer he would listen to was Lord Carrington.
When extremely driven by a task, particularly after the 1966 election, he had a habit of snapping and getting easily mad at people. There was even speculation that he would have a breakdown if not for his hobbies to fall back on.
His favourite music was by Elgar, Strauss and Mahler. For the piano he mostly played Beethoven, and for the organ Bach and Bruckner. He originally hated Wagner due to the postwar associations of Wagner’s music with the Nazis, but later warmed up to it.
For his birthday in 1970, he was thrown a party on a Thames ship with thirty friends. (It is noted that the only Cabinet ministers on the ship for it were Willie Whitelaw and Lord Carrington.) The party was largely quiet until Heath started playing at a specially installed organ on board. A friend, Phil Kaiser, joked that he should install an organ on Morning Cloud.
Heath was extremely protective of Morning Cloud and very certain regarding when he would drive it. More specifically, he never did a day’s cruise on it and only drove it outside a race on one occasion - to get it to another place ready for a race.
As noted in the asexuality masterlist, early on in the days of Morning Cloud, while the rest of the crew would sleep in their underwear, Heath refused to wear anything less than a full set of pyjamas.
Apparently he was once interested in Carl Jung for a short period of time?
He could definitely be polite. He answered personal letters of congratulations and sent gifts to relatives of his staff. But, of course, he always hated small talk and went for long silences.
Around 1965, he and Moura Lympany went to Balliol for a concert. A faculty member asked them if they liked the new curtains there, to which Heath bluntly responded, “No!”
Anecdotes from Chapter 1:
Heath was partially named after his uncle who died in WW1.
As a young boy, when he travelled back down to Broadstairs alone, he had a label tied to him.
For the first years of his life he lived in Crayford, but he moved back to Broadstairs at the age of seven.
He was forbidden to join the Scouts by his father as he believed it killed initiative.
His stresses over the exam for the Chatham House scholarship led to him getting a fever and experiencing bouts of sleepwalking.
At thirteen, Heath managed to persuade his headmaster to let him take LUGS (London University General Schools exams) which were normally taken at fifteen. Out of the seven subjects he took, he got five distinctions.
If a visitor came over to the house, Heath would greet them politely… and then head straight upstairs to read.
As a boy he sang in the choir and was the page turner for the church organist. He also attended the church’s young people’s club and their tennis parties.
He took his job as prefect seriously. He was reported to be so strict with stopping boys from larking about in the tram going home that some would deliberately miss it.
Before Kay Raven, his interest was in a girl called Joan Stuart. They went to the beach together and also went for his last dance at Chatham. However they found it difficult to converse well.
Anecdotes from Chapter 2
His budget was £220 a year (around £1220 in today’s money) - £90 as a loan, £130 from his parents. And his degree would be PPE in today’s terms, but back then it was Modern Greats. And then of course he grabbed his organ scholarship.
He was nicknamed Teddy at this time. He only really became Ted after the war.
When working in the Oxford orchestra, he learnt that they gave performances in the town hall. Inspired, he inquired about if something could be done in Broadstairs as well. The Broadstairs carol concert officially began in 1936 and he gave it every year except during the war.
He joined all three major party political clubs in Oxford out of curiosity. An Anthony Howard quote strikes true here as quoted, “Nothing makes more effectively for ardent and self-publicising loyalty to the Conservative Party than a basic feeling of social insecurity.”
He learned to play ping pong but he wore a glove and held the paddle “as if it were a soup spoon.”
Apparently he did a lot of lonely walking.
Of course, anyone who knows Heath knows that one of his integral moments as a young man was seeing a Nuremberg Rally which hardened his anti-fascist views. He had gone to Germany as part of a family exchange program and got access to see it - he was utterly shocked. He ended up buying a Swastika ornamented walking stick as a souvenir from it.
This made me laugh:
When Anthony Eden resigned in 1938, Heath said very little while his friends were waiting for the radio to announce it. When it happened, he thanked his friend and walked out of the room.
As an escape from his fear of the fight between the Chamberlainites and anti-appeasers, Heath took up humour as an escape.
In his experience in Spain during its civil war, another famous anecdote, he narrowly escaped being killed - a bomb hit his hotel but found its way down the lift and exploded in the bomb shelter, while he was on the top floor.
If the war didn’t break out, he probably would have gone into law. He even secured a scholarship at Gray’s Inn but he never took it up.
On a second visit to Germany before the war, Heath and his friend Madron Seligman looked at the painting Sistine Madonna for ninety minutes while talking about the world. After they heard about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, they knew it was their moment to flee.
After war broke out, he volunteered at Oxford. He was recommended for the Royal Artillery but was told he wouldn’t be called up until 1940 due to the sheer amount of recruits. In response he decided to go to America on a university debating tour. They were told to decline any debates talking about the war due to American neutrality, but Pittsburgh University was insistent on it. Heath, being literal minded, wanted to go back home as a result. He rang the Ambassador who told him to accept the debate but have him and his friend speak on different sides.
I’m becoming more like my father: I rarely have sex. What do I expect when the women I meet are always my mother? Ted Heath + the birthday by Jason Shinder
for when you’re considering a coalition
Collection of interesting anecdotes from Andrew Roth’s Heath and the Heathmen (Opening / the long prologue):
Madron Seligman once asked him when he first became so pro-European. Heath joked that it was when he was twelve and looking across the Channel from his hometown of Broadstairs.
His interest in alcohol did expand after he became Prime Minister - beforehand he was stated to only be interested in malt whiskey.
I may have discussed this before but I believe Heath was narcoleptic, and this book seems to confirm a bit more along these lines, “quite typically once he relaxes he falls asleep on them [his friends] (…) the removal of tensions puts him to sleep, sometimes for days.”
He banned smoking in Cabinet meetings. While not the first postwar Prime Minister to do this (that would be Attlee), he decided to do so, probably due to him having never smoked himself.
He had a habit of organising people in ways that would appeal to him. At a businessman’s lunch at Chequers, he asked everyone if they wanted to listen to Bruckner, one of his favourite composers. Before anyone could properly answer, he put it on.
A peer stated that the only hereditary peer he would listen to was Lord Carrington.
When extremely driven by a task, particularly after the 1966 election, he had a habit of snapping and getting easily mad at people. There was even speculation that he would have a breakdown if not for his hobbies to fall back on.
His favourite music was by Elgar, Strauss and Mahler. For the piano he mostly played Beethoven, and for the organ Bach and Bruckner. He originally hated Wagner due to the postwar associations of Wagner’s music with the Nazis, but later warmed up to it.
For his birthday in 1970, he was thrown a party on a Thames ship with thirty friends. (It is noted that the only Cabinet ministers on the ship for it were Willie Whitelaw and Lord Carrington.) The party was largely quiet until Heath started playing at a specially installed organ on board. A friend, Phil Kaiser, joked that he should install an organ on Morning Cloud.
Heath was extremely protective of Morning Cloud and very certain regarding when he would drive it. More specifically, he never did a day’s cruise on it and only drove it outside a race on one occasion - to get it to another place ready for a race.
As noted in the asexuality masterlist, early on in the days of Morning Cloud, while the rest of the crew would sleep in their underwear, Heath refused to wear anything less than a full set of pyjamas.
Apparently he was once interested in Carl Jung for a short period of time?
He could definitely be polite. He answered personal letters of congratulations and sent gifts to relatives of his staff. But, of course, he always hated small talk and went for long silences.
Around 1965, he and Moura Lympany went to Balliol for a concert. A faculty member asked them if they liked the new curtains there, to which Heath bluntly responded, “No!”
Anecdotes from Chapter 1:
Heath was partially named after his uncle who died in WW1.
As a young boy, when he travelled back down to Broadstairs alone, he had a label tied to him.
For the first years of his life he lived in Crayford, but he moved back to Broadstairs at the age of seven.
He was forbidden to join the Scouts by his father as he believed it killed initiative.
His stresses over the exam for the Chatham House scholarship led to him getting a fever and experiencing bouts of sleepwalking.
At thirteen, Heath managed to persuade his headmaster to let him take LUGS (London University General Schools exams) which were normally taken at fifteen. Out of the seven subjects he took, he got five distinctions.
If a visitor came over to the house, Heath would greet them politely… and then head straight upstairs to read.
As a boy he sang in the choir and was the page turner for the church organist. He also attended the church’s young people’s club and their tennis parties.
He took his job as prefect seriously. He was reported to be so strict with stopping boys from larking about in the tram going home that some would deliberately miss it.
Before Kay Raven, his interest was in a girl called Joan Stuart. They went to the beach together and also went for his last dance at Chatham. However they found it difficult to converse well.
Collection of interesting anecdotes from Andrew Roth’s Heath and the Heathmen (Opening / the long prologue):
Madron Seligman once asked him when he first became so pro-European. Heath joked that it was when he was twelve and looking across the Channel from his hometown of Broadstairs.
His interest in alcohol did expand after he became Prime Minister - beforehand he was stated to only be interested in malt whiskey.
I may have discussed this before but I believe Heath was narcoleptic, and this book seems to confirm a bit more along these lines, “quite typically once he relaxes he falls asleep on them [his friends] (…) the removal of tensions puts him to sleep, sometimes for days.”
He banned smoking in Cabinet meetings. While not the first postwar Prime Minister to do this (that would be Attlee), he decided to do so, probably due to him having never smoked himself.
He had a habit of organising people in ways that would appeal to him. At a businessman’s lunch at Chequers, he asked everyone if they wanted to listen to Bruckner, one of his favourite composers. Before anyone could properly answer, he put it on.
A peer stated that the only hereditary peer he would listen to was Lord Carrington.
When extremely driven by a task, particularly after the 1966 election, he had a habit of snapping and getting easily mad at people. There was even speculation that he would have a breakdown if not for his hobbies to fall back on.
His favourite music was by Elgar, Strauss and Mahler. For the piano he mostly played Beethoven, and for the organ Bach and Bruckner. He originally hated Wagner due to the postwar associations of Wagner’s music with the Nazis, but later warmed up to it.
For his birthday in 1970, he was thrown a party on a Thames ship with thirty friends. (It is noted that the only Cabinet ministers on the ship for it were Willie Whitelaw and Lord Carrington.) The party was largely quiet until Heath started playing at a specially installed organ on board. A friend, Phil Kaiser, joked that he should install an organ on Morning Cloud.
Heath was extremely protective of Morning Cloud and very certain regarding when he would drive it. More specifically, he never did a day’s cruise on it and only drove it outside a race on one occasion - to get it to another place ready for a race.
As noted in the asexuality masterlist, early on in the days of Morning Cloud, while the rest of the crew would sleep in their underwear, Heath refused to wear anything less than a full set of pyjamas.
Apparently he was once interested in Carl Jung for a short period of time?
He could definitely be polite. He answered personal letters of congratulations and sent gifts to relatives of his staff. But, of course, he always hated small talk and went for long silences.
Around 1965, he and Moura Lympany went to Balliol for a concert. A faculty member asked them if they liked the new curtains there, to which Heath bluntly responded, “No!”
hey if anyone ever gets access to Susan Crosland’s interviews (I believe at this time it was in the Times?) can you track down this one for me? thanks!
happy pride month, get icons for the polycule (requests open for the month. only doing politicians who are queer and their actual identities)
Happy Pride Month by the way, go research queer politicians
Preferably old or dead ones, not the ones you all know about. Queer history is vital to knowing the current day and in politics this is important. I might make a post about the queer involvement in the Wolfenden Report establishment
I actually might not (TLDR It’s Boothby he’s everywhere) but a reminder still that history is vital to learning the present day. Might make some silly pride icons though
Happy Pride Month by the way, go research queer politicians
Preferably old or dead ones, not the ones you all know about. Queer history is vital to knowing the current day and in politics this is important. I might make a post about the queer involvement in the Wolfenden Report establishment
Happy Pride Month by the way, go research queer politicians
hi! loving the recent pre-pm macmillan posts! from what i understand (via the other mac), his wife’s affair with boothby looms large over his early politics but what else do you have on him from the same era? (interwar into wwii)
I don’t honestly have a lot on him… all I have is Boothby tbh he’s the main interest out of these three. Mac’s kind of just the link between my interest in Boothby and Heath :<
“okay but why are you so interested in boothby” he is a living example of complex morality and human nature that’s why. for every extramarital affair, there’s a free milk for children. for every czech gold scandal, there’s his work to legalise homosexuality. for every kray association and everything affiliated with that, there’s the pro-european and anti-appeasement. people aren’t one-sided and he really proved it. even if he was a bitch.
The Statesman's Tragedy (1942) by C.W. Bowra
Contextual notes: This poem was written as a parody of Thomas Hardy’s The Trampswoman's Tragedy. It tells an interpretation, blending fact and fiction, of the relationship between Harold Macmillan, his wife Dorothy, and her lover Bob Boothby. While most elements of the poem draw from the actual story, the fictitious parts emerge in the concept of a financial bargain, that Macmillan exposed Boothby, and extreme exaggeration of Boothby’s fall from power.
🗳️ 📖 and 🌀 !
🗳️ — a turning point that doesn't get the attention it deserves
Sunningdale Agreement in terms of trying to end the Troubles. It would have been interesting if that would have led to anything earlier if it wasn’t cut so tragically short.
📖 — a book about your era that everyone should read
Once again will hype up Philip Ziegler’s biography of Ted Heath because it is so insightful into his character and breaks a lot of common misconceptions about him.
🌀 — a moment where someone made the wrong call and probably knew it
I mean… appeasement definitely. But also I’d say Jeremy Thorpe talking to the Tories over coalition talks. He later called it the worst mistake in his career (… Jeremy-) and seemed to regret it - from what he said he seemed to do it on poor instinct and it definitely portrayed the Liberals for the short term as desperate. Heath wouldn’t have gotten the support from the Unionists anyway so a coalition was already a difficult option. Supply and confidence agreement maybe? Same could be said for the Lib-Lab Pact of Steel’s time.