Political Roller-Coaster ; In Association With Metro Bar & Grill

By Hancock

WHAT’S this we hear about the very proper Douglas Hurd, former Foreign Secretary and bastion of Government, having a day trip to Drayton Manor theme park?

Did Doug – now actually Lord Hurd of Westwell – sit astride Stormforce? Did he take a trip on Apocalypse.

Er, no. In fact the 72 year-old former minister was looking around in the name of research.

Lord Hurd has just published a biography of former Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel whose house at Drayton Queen Victoria thought the most comfortable she ever saw.

When Lord Hurd was researching Peel’s life he twice visited Drayton Manor. The house has gone and only the clock tower, the lake and the trees remain.

Boss George Bryan showed him round the theme park which has taken its place.

The two men wondered what Queen Victoria and Peel would have made of it.

“They would have been amazed,” thought Douglas Hurd. “But the man who repealed the Corn Laws would have been glad to see so much prosperity spread so widely.”

Lord Hurd’s book, Robert Peel: A Biography, is published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

(c) 2007 Evening Mail; Birmingham (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.