Thirty years ago last week, on March 16th 1976, Harold Wilson, the Islands’ most prominent visitor, announced his resignation as Prime Minister. Though the real reason for his departure is still open to debate, it is known that he was suffering the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
Wilson was the iconic political figure of the 1960s and arguably the first populist politician the UK had ever seen, always keen to portray himself as man of the people with his Mac and pipe (although privately preferring less image-friendly cigars). Aside from his secondary function as Prime Minister, his primary role was as regular and much loved holiday-maker in his little house at the top of Church Road on St Mary’s. Harold and wife Mary did more to put the Isles of the Scilly on the tourist map than any amount of advertising. After all, if it’s good enough for the PM, it must be alright for everyone else.
Wilson was something of prot’g?e in his time. Born in Huddersfield in 1916, he attended grammar school before winning a scholarship to Oxford in 1934, where he emerged with a double first in politics and economics. He courted Mary, still a regular and appreciated visitor to the Islands, whilst at university and she fondly recalls him sculling her on the River Isis (‘It was very romantic.?) They were to be married for half a century.
He entered parliament in the 1945 Atlee administration and was soon to become the youngest cabinet minister since Pitt the Younger as President of the Board of Trade. He resigned his cabinet post with Aneurin Bevin in protest against NHS charges in April 1951 and was not to be in government again until he became Prime Minister in 1964.
Wilson, remembered for his stirring ?white heat of technology? speech as Leader of the Opposition, was considered a moderniser at the time, much as the early Tony Blair would be decades later. He came to office at the beginning of a sustained period of economic instability that would last 30 years. The post-war Keynesian period of demand management was collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions by the mid 60s, culminating in the late 70s under Wilson’s successor Jim Callaghan. The three Wilson governments were concerned with crisis management - and when he needed a break from it all, he came to the Isles of Scilly.
Harold, Mary and sons Robin and Giles were regular visitors from the late 50s, moving into holiday home Lovena in the Spring of 1960. At the time, Wilson was a relatively obscure politician in a party out of power for ten years. By 1963, he was leader of the opposition and by 1964, had become Prime Minister. The degree of ruthlessness and ego necessary to become the UK?s premier politician was never apparent in Harold the holiday-maker. Locals fondly remember him walking around in his ?slightly silly baggy beige shorts, knapsack with Paddy (his Labrador) on the lead,? as though he didn’t have a care in the world. This normality was part of the Wilson’s appeal.
Friends and family spoke of Harold’s time on the Islands in the recent ITV1 documentary Wilson. ‘He just enjoyed it,? Lady Mary told the programme-makers. ‘It was wonderful to be right away from everything and to set up a little house and to live a normal life, which you could at the time in the 60s.?
‘He never had anything to prove,? remembered Islander Lesley Hopkins. ‘He just lived here and in many ways became adopted by the islands.?
Colleague Shirley Williams said: ‘You see everybody’s father, all the fathers of families everywhere, you don’t see a Prime Minister, and that was something that was a strength to him. He really had no pretensions to be grand, he lived the life of ordinary people and he liked that.?
‘The locals never stared,? said son Robin. ‘They might say hello but they never stared.?
One of Wilson’s neighbours in the late 60s was community bus driver and tour guide Steve Sims, then a young boy. ‘It was Christmas in the late 60s, I was 9 or 10 and up early on my new bike,? he recalls. ‘I rode past Harold’s house (that’s what mum and dad called him). He was stood in the window, pipe in hand, and he saw me and waved. What was memorable for me was that he was wearing only a string vest and underpants. I didn’t think much of it until later. I mentioned it on my tour and was told that if it had been Thatcher I would have needed psychiatric help.
‘I also recall receiving a letter addressed to me as a small boy, on ‘Ten Downing Street? notepaper, ordering me to stop tearing his hedge apart to make bows and arrows. It scared me to death.?
Security on the islands was thin until the Irish troubles began in 1968, after which armed detectives would stay across the road in the Tremelyn Guest House. Government files made public last year reveal that Wilson thought he was being spied on by Russian ships disguised as trawlers whilst on holiday on Scilly in 1974 and was warned about the dangers of discussing sensitive information on the radio he used during bird watching expeditions. On his return to London he wished to know if the MoD had noticed any unusual activity by Soviet vessels during his stay, and was assured that they had not.
Never one to let the business of running the country to spoil his holiday, Wilson was forced on one occasion to have to call a press conference. Rather than return to London, one local recalls, he insisted on holding it on South Hill on Samson ? in his beige shorts and t-shirt, on a sweltering Summers day, to a very sweaty, hot and bothered political press corps.? It was while on the Isles of Scilly that he came up with the idea of the Open University, perhaps his greatest legacy.
Wilson remained a member of parliament until 1983, before moving to the House of Lords as Baron Wilson of Rievaulx. He was rarely seen in public after 1985, Alzheimer’s Disease gradually increasing its grip. Lady Wilson eventually moved him permanently to St. Mary’s, where he died of colon cancer in May 1995 and was buried in Old Town Churchyard. Tony Blair did put in a brief appearance at the funeral, before flying back to London then on to holiday in Tuscany.
To those who can remember Harold, the suffix ‘Lord? never seemed quite right. He was known as a cheerful, ordinary man who seemed to have very little to do with the corridors of power. Perhaps the best tribute the Islands can give him is that, for a politician, he has been greatly missed.