So, for reasons that are too complicated to go into, I happened to spend a morning in February at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital getting a leukaemia diagnosis (his) with M (father of H, remember him?) B…
It was the first time I’d seen M in 25 years, but back then I had seen him 1) at home in Ladbroke Grove maisonette 2) in Mytlini, for H and J’s wedding 3) at their house in Edale, where they moved because it was equidistant from Manchester (where he was Legal Affairs Ombudsman) AND Sheffield (where she, A, was chairperson of NATE…).
So, I spent the day with MB, MP 1966-74 (Labour), who, despite Alzheimer’s, knew who I was, read my blog and generally participated…
And then H gave me M’s (unpublished) autobiography, which started with… his incarceration in a mental hospital while at Oxford!
If he, MB – MP! – could open his autobiography with THAT…
And while we were at the Hospital (delays etc.) we went to see JM, widow of K, and hung out there for a bit.
(She lives in the next street. It was the first and only time for me; the umpteenth for H, for whom KM is a Big Thing, as opposed to just a bad-tempered boss I had in my 20s…)
Flash forward a month…
I am at MB’s funeral, at that church which is at the top of Ladbroke Grove (and has a role in The Passenger…).
JM is the only person I know (when I get there)…
So I sit next to her.
And she says (in a stage whisper): I’ve read your blog!
Well, you had to be there…
Stroke of luck 