One Day in October

On a cross-Channel ferry at the start of her honeymoon, my mother met Clement Attlee. In those innocent days, there was nothing odd about a former prime minister exchanging a few words with a stranger as the two of them queued for a cup of tea and a rock bun. Some ministers were protected but no one took the process very seriously. When he was home secretary in the mid-1960s, Roy Jenkins suggested that the uniformed policeman who was detailed to stand outside his door might come inside and make himself useful as a part-time footman.