European Diary, 1977-1981 (32 page)

In the evening the annual Guildhall dinner of the Overseas Bankers' Club, at which I last spoke almost exactly ten years ago in my first year as Chancellor. In the meantime they have desirably cut down both the number of courses and the number of speakers, but not the size of the audience, which is still quite remarkable, at about seven hundred. John Baring
¹⁸
was in the chair, the Lord Mayor spoke briefly, I spoke for twenty-five minutes, and Gordon Richardson spoke for about fifteen. A very grand occasion, with a sung grace, loving cups, etc., particularly impressing Michel Vanden Abeele, the new Belgian member of my
cabinet,
who came with me.

TUESDAY, 7 FEBRUARY.
London and Brussels.

8 o'clock British Airways plane from London Airport for the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels. We had a mad pilot who would not take off for about twenty-five minutes because the plane was not clean. I had a conversation with him in which I felt rather torn, for he kept saying, ‘We've got to keep up standards; this airline is going to pieces,' a proposition with which in general I rather agree, but not to the extent of making everyone twenty-five minutes late in order to have bits of the carpet re-Hoovered. However, I eventually
got into the Council soon after it had begun. There until 1.15; not particularly exciting or demanding. I made several interventions during the morning, lunched with them, and then went back to the Council for another two hours. I then saw the Jamaican Foreign Minister, a rather dynamic figure called Patterson, and went to a male dinner party with the Canadian Ambassador, preparatory to my visit to Canada.

THURSDAY, 9 FEBRUARY.
Brussels.

10.00 meeting with the Socialist Group of the Parliament on economic and monetary union. Only British and Germans spoke and they in their differing ways were both pretty sceptical. Then on to a meeting with the executive committee of the ETUC. About twenty-five people present, Vetter in the chair, Len Murray
¹⁹
arriving rather late: a rather better meeting with them.

SATURDAY, 11 FEBRUARY.
Brussels and Northern France.

A new pattern of weather now; quite different from anything we have had since the early winter before Christmas. Cold and freezing hard and on the whole sunny, with occasional cloud and slight snow. Left at 12 o'clock to drive via the Namur citadel to lunch at Les Ramiers in the valley at Crupet. Then on and over the French frontier near Sivet to dine and stay at Auvillers-les-Forges.

SUNDAY, 12 FEBRUARY.
Northern France and Brussels.

Drove to Laôn, very cold on the hill, though with a little cloud coming up; spent an hour there looking round the cathedral and the town, which was better than I had remembered. Then on to Reims where (in spite of heavy restoration) the cathedral is magnificent, particularly the glass. It came on to snow during lunch and we drove back in rather mixed weather to Brussels, arriving about 6 o'clock.

MONDAY, 13 FEBRUARY.
Brussels and Strasbourg.

Entertained the Labour Party Regional Organizers—all of them -for a quick drink at 12.30. (I am certainly working hard on direct elections.) 4.17 TEE to Strasbourg. Deep snow over the Ardennes, slight snow in Strasbourg. To the dismal old Sofitel.

TUESDAY, 14 FEBRUARY.
Strasbourg.

I made my Programme speech in the Parliament from 10.15 to 11.00. Dullish speech, which I delivered in a fairly low key but thought it was quite well listened to. Back to the
hémicycle,
where the debate continued mostly in a fairly desultory way, although there were one or two good speeches, notably from Mark Hughes, the Labour MP for Durham. The most critical speech came from a German Christian Democrat, chairman of the Budget Committee. I wound up from 5.40 to 6.05 and then went to the Château de Rohan for the Museum of the Year Award, jointly sponsored by the Council of Europe, UNESCO and IBM, and made the presentation to the Ironbridge Gorge Museum at Telford.

WEDNESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY.
Strasbourg.

Easy and routine Commission meeting from 9.00 to 11.00, and then, feeling in need of some exercise, for a long walk round the Orangerie and out beyond it, getting rather lost, through a vast housing estate, and the new university area of Strasbourg, which brought me out on to the canal, or one of the rivers, the Ill perhaps, down below the cathedral. Five miles altogether.

I gave a dinner for the British Labour Group. It was memorable mainly for a tremendous row between Mark Hughes, who becomes an increasingly admirable man, and Gwyneth Dunwoody,
²⁰
which led to her flouncing out before the end.

THURSDAY, 16 FEBRUARY.
Strasbourg and Brussels.

Brussels by avion taxi for a pre-lunch meeting with Vouël, Ortoli, Vredeling and one or two officials about how we should handle the
deputation of van Agt
²¹
and most of the Dutch Government which was coming that afternoon to try and reach an agreement with us about their Bill on investment aids. Then the normal, rather pointless COREPER lunch, and then the huge Dutch delegation from 3.30 to 5.30. Van Agt I thought rather impressive. From 5.30 to 6.30 an hour-long interview with
Die Zeifs
foreign editor (Dieter Bühl). An agreeable small dinner party for Fredy Fisher, editor of the
Financial Times,
with the Jonquières
²²
and Tickells.

FRIDAY, 17 FEBRUARY.
Brussels, Copenhagen and Brussels.

Plane to Copenhagen, arriving at 8.45 in cold, sparkling weather. Greeted on the tarmac by Jorgensen (Prime Minister) and drove to the Christiansborg where we talked mainly about plans for the European Council, but also about wider economic problems for two and a half hours. Then a lunch for about thirty people in the Parliament building before going into a question session with the Danish EEC Committee. This went on from just after 2.00 until 4.15 and was exhausting but otherwise quite satisfactory. Rather good general questions and all my careful preparation of specific Danish issues proved unnecessary. Then a press conference followed by a drive round Copenhagen for about half an hour. It looked a handsome city as always; it was snowing hard, which suited it. Then to the airport where I thought we were rather lucky to get off at all, but we did so only a few minutes late. Rue de Praetère by 8.00.

SUNDAY, 19 FEBRUARY.
Brussels and Paris.

Left home just before 11 o'clock to drive to Paris. Near the frontier we ran into quite a considerable snowfall, saw about twenty cars in the ditch, and had slowly to follow a snow-plough for nearly thirty miles north of Senlis. To the Train Bleu restaurant at the Gare de Lyon for lunch with Edward; good décor, expensive, moderate-quality food, quite fun however. To the Embassy in the afternoon.
Nicko had a drinks party with Pierre-Brossolettes,
²³
Courcels, t Beaumarchais
²⁴
, two or three Embassy couples, one or two Paris
grandes dames,
Odette Pol Roger and another; quite agreeable. Then to the Brasserie Lipp for a dinner alone with Nicko, and afterwards sat talking with him in the Embassy for another hour and a half until nearly 1.00.

MONDAY, 20 FEBRUARY.
Paris.

Jogged around the Embassy garden on a beautiful morning from 8.45. Hard freezing snow without any real
pistes
established and, as it proved, disastrous going for my ankle. In the afternoon I drove over difficult roads to see Jean Monnet at Houjarray, near Montfort L'Amoury. Monnet looked immensely frail. He came into the room very slowly on a stick, helped by his wife, and sat down surrounded by rugs like a passenger on a pre-war Atlantic liner, although these were very necessary as the heating had collapsed, and I sat in some considerable chill. But in conversation, certainly in the length of it, he was less weak than I had expected and, having been told that half an hour was about all that he could do, found that he kept me for two and a quarter hours.

There was a lot of talk about his book, by the English edition of which he was absorbed. Also, towards the end, some general European conversation. I am not sure that he said anything of particular penetration, which is not surprising at the age of eighty-nine, although he was remarkably sharp in his comments about other people in the early days. Uri
²⁵
and Hirsch
²⁶
were first-class, but apart from them there was hardly anybody of any use. Schuman
²⁷
didn't really understand the treaty which bore his name, and the German members of the Commission—and indeed those from other nations—were pretty useless. However, it was very nice to see him and, curiously, I left on this occasion with less of a feeling that it
was the last time I would see him than I had on some previous occasions.

TUESDAY, 21 FEBRUARY.
Paris and Brussels.

A substantial thaw during the night. Worked all morning in the Embassy. To the Elysée for my meeting with Giscard at 5 o'clock. Found him with a cold, dressed rather peculiarly for a Tuesday afternoon in a tweed suit, and perhaps not looking as svelte as usual but otherwise quite relaxed, in spite of election pressure. Talked to him for about an hour. Crispin was present but Giscard had no one. He had however an agenda which he wished to work through, and did so quite effectively, leaving time for me to raise any points. Nothing tremendously significant, except for his suddenly saying that the French were entirely on the side of the British about agricultural prices and believed that a 2 per cent increase was too high, that 1 per cent would be better, and that he would be prepared to fight for this. We shall see. The French are, of course, now in the British position so that they can give their farmers an increase by dismantling their Monetary Compensatory Amounts
²⁸
without a general rise in the price level. A friendly conversation on the whole. No discussion—not raised by him and obviously not at this juncture by me—about the French internal position and electoral prospects. On economic and monetary union at the end he was favourable in theory, non-committal in practice, but not discouraging.

6.45 train from the Gare du Nord. Rue de Praetère by 9.30.

THURSDAY, 23 FEBRUARY.
Brussels, London, Dublin and London.

After a meeting with Ortoli to tell him about the Giscard talk and generally review EMU progress, I took the 10.45 plane with Crispin to London for David Bruce's memorial service in Westminster Abbey. The service was brought alive by one or two good hymns
and by Harold Macmillan's reading of the second lesson, which was a spectacular piece of ham acting and show-stealing, but very well done.

4.25 plane to Dublin. Met at the airport by Michael O'Kennedy, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and drove in for three-quarters of an hour with the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, and found him pleasant to talk to though a bit too concerned with fairly detailed Irish points. Then an hour's meeting with four or five ministers presided over by Colley, the Minister of Finance and deputy Prime Minister, with a lot of Irish complaints on four or five specific points, but all done perfectly agreeably. Then a dinner with Lynch and these other ministers all in Iveagh House before leaving in a hurry for the airport and the 10.15 plane. Escorted out (fortunately he was not at the wheel) and on to the plane by an extremely drunk deputy Chief of Protocol who kept on trying to tear up my airline tickets and came down the aisle of the aircraft to say goodbye to me on, I think, four separate occasions, the last two messages of farewell being mysteriously delivered in French. Kensington Park Gardens by 11.30.

FRIDAY, 24 FEBRUARY.
London, Cardiff and East Hendred.

A party at the Commission office for the Monnet
Memoirs,
at which I wish I could have stayed longer, as there were a lot of people there I was very glad to see: Hugh Thomas,
²⁹
David Watt,
³⁰
George Brown, and indeed old Michael Stewart,
³¹
as well as two or three other journalistic or literary figures of note. Richard Mayne
³²
has a good intellectual drawing power. Left for East Hendred just after 12.30. Afternoon train from Didcot to Cardiff to preside over the annual meeting of the UWIST court for just over an hour. Hurried departure for return train and East Hendred by 8.00.

SUNDAY, 26 FEBRUARY.
East Hendred.

To Sevenhampton for lunch with Ann Fleming, Bonham Carters, Arnold Goodman and Susan Crosland, the first time I had seen her since Tony's death. I was delighted to do so and found her forthcoming and friendly. She and I must have talked for an hour and a half. She didn't ask me about Tony's earlier life,
³³
as apparently she had been asking one or two others like Raymond Carr,
³⁴
but was nonetheless fascinated by any conversation about him, and particularly by the story which I eventually decided to tell her about my two dreams, the one in Rome on 19 February 1977 and the other on the same day this year. On both occasions he appeared vividly and we talked for some time, the first being almost at the exact moment of his death and the second its exact anniversary.

MONDAY, 27 FEBRUARY.
East Hendred and Brussels.

9.55 plane to Brussels. A late lunch with Gundelach, rue de Praetère, for a general review of agricultural problems. I found him as usual persuasive, easy, agreeable and worthwhile to deal with, but it all being a little
insaissisable,
partly because everything is so much in his mind, so little on paper, so little confided to his officials or even his
cabinet.
Sarah Hogg of the
Economist
for a ‘major' interview on EMU from 5.45 to 7.25, which was at least giving her good value in time.

TUESDAY, 28 FEBRUARY.
Brussels, Bonn and Brussels.