With his resignation imminent and all the burdens of office upon him, it seems Harold Wilson had one thing uppermost in his mind in January 1976 - whether his dog would be able to join him on holiday.
The former Prime Minister stepped in personally when he believed his precious pet Paddy was about to be banned from the family’s Scilly holiday home, records reveal.
Previously restricted documents show a flurry of phone calls and urgent letters between the former Prime Minister and the Islands’ council in early 1976.
It started when newspapers reported on January 14 that the council had proposed a ban on visitors’ dogs to prevent rabies spreading from France.
But Paddy’s presence in the Church Road bungalow was non-negotiable to the PM.
The council’s then chief executive Roland Phillips wrote a grovelling letter to Wilson on the same day, documents released by the National Archives at Kew under the 30-year rule show.
Mr Phillips wrote that a colleague ?rang me late last night to warn me that the Committee’s deliberations yesterday on the subject of Rabies was blowing up into a lot of stupidity hinging round your poor unfortunate dog’.
He said Wilson was right to be ?furious’ and said he could ?well appreciate it”.
The letter said the council was anxious about animals coming ashore off yachts from the Continent and it had debated whether hoteliers could be persuaded to refuse to accept guests with dogs.
Mr Phillips wrote: “There was absolutely no intention of trying to effect any control over ?residents’ dogs, in which category you would, of course, come, and the whole arrangement would, of course, have to be entirely voluntary.
‘We can’t for the life of us understand why people want to bring dogs on yachts but they seem to want to do so.”
He added: “Our sincere apologies for the way in which all this has been blown up into a lot of nonsense around you -I suppose it is inevitable these days!?
But Wilson was not reassured, and within two days the Prime Minister was given a note headed ‘PADDY?, and a draft of a response to the Islands. A handwritten note signed HW reads: ‘Please see draft and have worked at quickly (sic).?
And on January 27, he sent a letter saying that such a ban ?would do little to safeguard the indigenous canine population’.
‘Any steps designed to safeguard both the islands and the mainland would have to be related to control over French and other continental vessels,” he argued.
‘This is a problem not only for the Isles of Scilly but for other islands, and those parts of the mainland (eg Cornwall) regularly visited by the yachts, and it, therefore, seems to me that the problem should be studied on a wider basis.?