Dare to Be a Daniel (34 page)

I met David Lloyd George in 1937 knowing that Father didn’t trust him and had left the Liberal Party when Lloyd George became leader.

Grandfather Holmes, a teacher at Paisley Grammar School, who became MP for Govan.

Mother, as the first President, inaugurates the Congregational Federation, London, 1972.

Father (left) and Grandfather Holmes (top hat) on the terrace of the House of Commons, 1913.

The family home, 40 Grosvenor Road, later renamed 40 Millbank, where I was born. Sidney and Beatrice Webb lived next door and both houses were demolished to make way for Millbank Tower: Clause 4 of the Labour Party constitution was drafted (by the Webbs) and repealed (by New Labour) on the very same site.

Benn Brothers, Ernest and William, by the seaside, 1926.

Stansgate then (1899)…

… and now (2004)

Michael’s 8th birthday: with the family on the beach at Stansgate, 1929, in front of the old Coastguard Hut.

My cousin, Margaret Rutherford: she made the part of Madame Arcati in
Blithe Spirit
her own.

David, aged 8, in his busman’s uniform talking to a fellow driver at Victoria Station, 1936.

Me leaving for Gladstone’s School, aged 11.

Oswald ‘Tom’ Mosley. I saw Mosley twice: once in 1928 when he was a Labour MP and seven years later as the leader of the British Union of Fascists marching near Parliament Square.