History of England 1-6

The well-attested but elusive link between delinquency and a lack of education had long preoccupied all the major parties. In October 1963, the Robbins Report on higher education led to a flowering of new universities. These were not ‘red-brick’, in colour or in connotation. Rather they were of plate glass. They won many awards but few devotees. Yet they were quite as rigorous in their demands upon the students as any that preceded them. It was surely no accident that the iconic quiz show University Challenge was aired on TV just as the building of ‘plate glass’ reached its apogee in 1963, nor that the first university to win the challenge was the humble University of Leicester.

On 19 October 1963, Sir Alec Douglas-Home became prime minister, to the dismay of Rab Butler’s supporters, who felt that the natural successor had been passed over in favour of a desiccated Scottish nobleman. For its own part, the opposition was delighted. Here was a prime minister whose very appearance ran counter to their vision of a nation gleaming and galvanized. But though cadaverous, aged and out of touch, Douglas-Home had a thorough mind and was helped in his role of physician to social grievances by a courtesy and warmth rare in politics and rarer still among the aristocracy.

The inevitable election fell, and was won by Labour – the only surprise lay in the narrowness of the victory. ‘Be prepared’ is the Boy Scout’s watchword, and Harold Wilson – who had assumed the leadership of the Labour party after the death of Gaitskell – adhered to it throughout his political life. Even in the presence of the queen he could not restrain himself from harking back to his days as a Scout. Like Enoch Powell, he had spent his time at Oxford indulging in what was still considered a rather eccentric pursuit – learning. Those who had observed his intimidating capacity for work chose to recall him as a plodder, forgetting his formidable intelligence. Yet he was a member of that surprisingly common breed, the unreflective prodigy. Grand political creeds held scant appeal for him and even at university he had shown little interest in politics. He was also genuinely benign, wanting the best for everyone as long as not too much was required in the way of moral courage. In short, he was almost as kind as he was genial and almost as genial as he was clever.

Wilson was vastly aided in his work at Number Ten by his wife’s indifference, which left him free to spend the necessary hours closeted with aides and ministers. Mary Wilson, reclusive, devout and devoted to her husband, took little part in parliamentary life. Instead of doing the rounds, she composed poetry. One of her volumes sold 75,000 copies on its first print run. Whether explicitly religious or simply expressive of a vague but poignant yearning, her poems are suggestively titled: ‘The Virgin’s Song’, ‘If I Can Write Before I Die’, and a piece that might have been named by one of her husband’s more ardent critics on the left: ‘You Have Turned Your Back on Eden’.

Still, Harold Wilson needed a helpmeet. Though Marcia Williams was strictly only Wilson’s political officer, she soon became his confidante, imposing her will in matters that lay far beyond her remit and openly challenging ministers of the crown. Predictably, hints of a dalliance sometimes surfaced, but for all Wilson’s lapses into political infidelity, he was devoted to Mary. He was also a northerner, quick-witted, seemingly phlegmatic and reassuring. In this he had his luck to thank, for the north had already come to prominence with a speed that none could have predicted.

‘Did you have a gramophone when you were a kid?’ asked an American interviewer of George Harrison, lead guitarist of the Beatles. The answer came in the amused, undulating tones of Liverpool. ‘A gramophone? We didn’t have sugar.’ It was a classic Liverpudlian tease, and of a piece with Harrison’s character.

Liverpool was not quite in the doldrums suffered by Manchester, but it was scarcely a cultural hub, at least not so far as London was concerned. For all its racial and religious diversity, and its accomplishments in trade, it seemed, in the words of a contemporary, ‘utterly unglamorous’. And yet in one vital respect, Liverpool was blessed. It had access to the sea, which meant access to records and American music.