at the side of a road. We had crashed, and I could not move. Richard was sitting beside me on the grass, his head held in his hands, weeping and shocked. I tried to sit up – and couldn’t. There was blood on my face and arms and spilled down the front of my shirt. My trousers were ripped to shreds and my left leg was grotesquely twisted. Even half-conscious, I realised my kneecap was smashed and my leg badly broken. ‘I’ve done it this time,’ I thought, and then lost consciousness. I don’t know now long Richard and I were by the roadside, but he never spoke, and seemed to be in shock. I was in great pain.
Eventually a passing car stopped – hours later, I was told – and I was lifted gently into the back of a station wagon. My next memory is of lying on my back in an operating theatre, full of doctors and nurses in gowns and caps, with a blazing light shining in my face and my leg held aloft while plaster bandages were wrapped around it from toe to thigh.
I woke next morning in the Jos mission hospital, staffed by Nigerian Catholic nurses, to be told that my leg was broken in several places, the kneecap crushed beyond repair. ‘Our X-ray equipment is very old, so we’re not sure how bad the damage is,’ they said. ‘But we can’t treat your knee. As soon as you’re well enough to travel you must go home to England.’ I was too ill to object, and the idea of home seemed very welcome.
But I could not leave immediately, for I was too ill to travel. Jos treated me as well as they could, but no one was sure how badly injured I was. I asked when I would be back on my feet, but there was no reassurance that I would ever walk normally again. When I called out in pain one night, a nurse who spoke no English brought me fresh, cool water and folded back the mosquito net, believing I was too hot. The mosquitoes fed well, but it was a small irritation compared to my other injuries.
When I was fit enough to fly home I travelled by light plane from Jos to Kano – my plastered leg propped up against bulging post-bags for comfort – and then onward to Heathrow sprawled over several seats and accompanied by a Barclays expatriate who was kind enough to travel with me. Mercifully I remember very little of the journey, but I was met by an ambulance, my mother, my sister and Jean.
I was taken to Mayday Hospital in Croydon. When I arrived I was very sick. I lay in bed in a corner, with pop music blaring as chattering nurses cleaned up the ward and changed the beds. Suddenly, the whole atmosphere changed. The Sister had arrived on the shift and seen what a poor state I was in. The noise ended, peace and silence reigned. I was washed, given painkillers and sleeping tablets, the bed was plumped up and thankful oblivion carried me off.
I have never forgotten that Sister, or the relief her discipline brought to the ward. While I was very ill she seemed always to be there; as I recovered, her attention moved on to more deserving cases. She was small, neat, utterly dispassionate, a thoroughgoing martinet, and if every sick person had her to hand they would be very lucky indeed.
My leg did not heal easily. I needed several more operations, without any real knowledge of my prospects of recovery. At times I lay in bed, dispirited, wondering if I would be a cripple for life. The reluctance of the nurses to talk about my injuries made me fear the worst. I realised that my rugby, soccer and cricket days were now over, but I accepted that cheerfully enough, hoping only that I would not lose my leg, and that I would be able to walk normally one day.
Standard Bank were wonderful. Members of their personnel department visited me regularly. I received increases in pay and bonuses; my job was kept open for the many months of my treatment and convalescence, and I could not have been better treated. I shall always be grateful to them.
As I began to feel better I returned to reading. I read everything Agatha Christie wrote – some good, some bad, some indifferent, all inventive – and became proficient at picking out her villains (years later when I saw The Mousetrap I soon guessed the guilty party). I read history, politics, Churchill on the Second World War, Neville Cardus on cricket, R.F. Delderfield, Howard Spring, books on banking – anything I could lay my hands on. My long months of convalescence were not wasted.
I left hospital in August 1967, painfully thin and still unwell. My leg was terribly wasted, and when the plaster-cast was removed it was appalling to look at as the scars continued their slow healing. Jean took me in, and I went back to live with her in Brixton. She nursed and cared for me as I began the long road to recovery. She had more warmth to offer than I deserved, and she rebuilt me mentally and physically. I was very fond of her. I loved being with her, but always – pushed to the back of my mind – was our age difference, and the belief that this could not last. I was not sure it was fair of me to stay, but I was wrapped in such affection that I did.
When I was fit enough to care for myself I moved to a tiny flat owned by Pat and Ted Davies, two friends of Jean’s, and returned to studying for my banking diploma. That September I passed Monetary Theory and Practice and returned to the bank – and to local politics in Lambeth. As my slow recovery continued I was approved, in October, as the Conservative candidate for Ferndale Ward in the local elections that were to be held the following May. It was another safe Labour fiefdom, or so it was thought: candidates for the wards we hoped to win had already been selected. Campaigning was a distraction from studying, but I structured the day to fit in both.
Before I was selected for Ferndale I addressed the Clapham YCs. Hobbling on crutches, I turned up at the Clapham Conservative headquarters, which was the wrong venue for the evening, as the senior association had their own meeting that night. I passed their guest on the stairs – a distinguished Queen’s Counsel who would be speaking on law reform. We did not speak, but I was told he was Sir David Renton, the Member of Parliament for Huntingdonshire.
My mother was still worried about my health and my relationship with Jean, and in order to keep an eye on me, she accepted my invitation to come to a Brixton Conservative Supper Club. The guest speaker cancelled in mid-afternoon, and at two hours’ notice I stood in for him. It was the first and only time my mother ever heard me speak to an audience.
I saw her sitting there, accepting the kind words from her neighbours, and I did not need to ask what was in her mind: if only Tom were here. If only … But he wasn’t, sadly, and never could be now. But my mother nearly burst with pride, and the warm tears, so often near the surface in her gentle personality, flowed unstoppably. I felt very close to her that evening.
The pace of politics was beginning to accelerate. I drew on my experience, the people I had met and the things I had done, my work in banking and all I had done across Brixton and Lambeth, in getting myself known. To my advantage was the fact that I worked twice as hard as anyone else. I attended Young Conservative meetings and functions, canvassed, supported people in elections – I was just there. I was determined never to fail again through lack of effort, as I had at school. I was prepared to fail through lack of ability, through bad luck even, but never again through not having done what I was capable of.
That school failure haunted me, and I felt it very strongly. When I was making garden ornaments with Terry, I didn’t see myself doing that for life. I looked around and thought, what skills do I have? What have I got to offer? I felt I had something, and decided I had better prove to other people that that was the case. That was why I started working so hard. Drive is as important in life as intellect.
I became a regular speaker for Conservative Central Office, was elected Treasurer of the Brixton Conservative Association, and gave evidence at a Central Office inquiry into a dispute with the formidably right-wing Association Chairman, an officer from Brixton Prison who had fallen out with our agent, Marion Standing, and wanted to have her removed. It was an unhappy incident, and I can’t now remember the details, except that I was an ardent supporter of Mrs Standing. Although she came out of the inquiry well, she left the association soon after, as did the Chairman. In the midst of all this I continued to study.
I expected to lose in Ferndale Ward, but thought that contesting it would build up
