Saltwood - Wednesday, May 5, 1982

Now nearly four weeks into the Falklands "Crisis", and for the last three of them I have been almost ceaselessly occupied. Every single day I have done at least one TV or radio broadcast, sometimes as many as three.

Saltwood - Monday, May 17

This is the crisis. I am lucky to be in the House for it. Lucky, too, to be "recognised" and allowed to "achieve". When one has seen this through, then one will have discharged one’s duty.

Saltwood - Tuesday, June 1

And what a crisis! When I think back to the state of utter depression on 2 April - on trial, complete and utter humiliation; I even contemplated emigrating. Now not only have we redeemed everything that was at stake then, but one has advanced immeasurably in self-esteem and in the status accorded to us by the whole world.

And I did play my part in this - whether greater or lesser than if I had been a junior minister I don't know - I suspect the former. I was almost immediately recognised by the media - the "leader of the war party".

Cloisters - Thursday, June 10

I telephoned Edward Adeane at Buckingham Palace and told him that there was some concern that the Recognition Committee at the MOD might be parsimonious with their awards. I urged that these be distributed in the most profligate manner - and particularly in the Parachute Regiment which has performed such prodigies. After a period of froideur following that curious leak by Willie Hamilton about my criticisms of fat, ugly, dwarflike, lecherous and revoltingly tastelessly behaved Princess Margaret, our relations have improved and are now quite good.

Cloisters - Monday, June 14

I dined with Norman St John-Stevas, and, as always, he was delightful company, talked obsessively about politics and what a "dreadful" Cabinet we have at the moment.

"There cannot ever have been a Cabinet with such a dearth of talent," he kept saying. He recounted how Norman Tebbit - whom he described in a number of scatological terms - had come down to a Conservative Club in his constituency, "not at my invitation I hasten to say", wearing a coloured evening shirt and how, "my dear, they were all over him."

I said that The Lady's autocracy was complete. She could make any policy or break any individual. At the moment, I said, she is completely fire-proof. "Yes," he replied, "and will be completely combustible shortly thereafter."

Cloisters - Tuesday, June 15

I could not go back to sleep, still over-excited by the events of last night. I had got back to the House about 9.30pm, after dining at Brook's with Edward Adeane and was reading the tape over Phil Goodhart's shoulder when I saw something about, "individual British commanders at all levels have been authorised to negotiate ceasefires". "It means they have surrendered," he said.

The cloakroom attendant told me that there was to be a Statement at 10pm, after the vote, and when I got up to the lobbies I found the whole House, policemen, badge messengers, etc, everybody bubbling with excitement.

I found that "my" bench was completely crowded. However, among its magical powers, as is well known, is that of infinite expandability, and they allowed me in lowish down. And then The Lady entered, radiant, and there was cheering - bellowing, indeed. She made a very brief statement, but it was important in that she used the phrase, "negotiate a surrender" (not a ceasefire).

Trust her. She has led from the front all the way.

For a few seconds we were stuck in our places by some procedural back-and-forth. I rose rapidly, pushed my way through the crowd at the bar of the House and shot round through the "Aye" Lobby to catch the Prime Minister as she emerged at the back of the Speaker's Chair to get to her room. Ignoring Willie, who was shuffling benignly three paces behind, I rushed up and said to her: "Prime Minister, only you could have done this; you did it alone, and your place in history is assured." She looked a little startled. Had she heard properly? She was still a little bemused by the triumph. Willie looked grumpy; an unseemly display of emotion. We do not do things like that in the Tory Party.

So ends the Falklands Affair - which began in such despair and humiliation.

Cloisters - Monday, June 21

This evening I dined with the Commander General of the Royal Marines. They are all delighted about the Falklands, of course. The officer next to me, a Major Hooper, said the only other decent army was the German one. The US Marine Corps? The 82nd Airborne? He said they were useless. On exercise in Corsica last year, the US Marines were stoned so far that the officers in the Fire Control and Unit were actually falling about and giggling for hours on end.

Cloisters - Tuesday, June 22

Really and truly if I do not get Minister of State at Defence in the reshuffle, or take Ian's place if he is given a portfolio, I think I will go into "retraite". More time for travel. Might even not be bothered to stand again in Plymouth. But I must not forget that I was turning all these things over in my mind as long ago as 1976. One has these moments of depression and futility - and if I had succumbed to temptation then, I would not have been in my place (and played such a part as I did) in what was the most exciting and significant episode in our history since 1945. What a time to be in Parliament that was!

Saltwood Great Library - Tuesday, July 20

My father has had a coup-de-vieux and is now in unhappy decline. There is scarcely any longer a point in going over [to the Garden House] to call on him. He just sits, on his low green velvet chair by the big window. Col was very aggrieved the other day because as he approached my father smiled simperingly and said "Ah, now, who’s this?"

"It’s your younger son, Colin, Papa."

"Aha." (Of course my father knew perfectly well who it was. He just gets irritated with Col blatantly sucking up to him and talking a lot of recycled balls about art). Aha.

Most of the time my father does not speak, or read, or really show any vitality whatever, although at intervals his face may indicate a cross expression. What is he actually thinking?

Disappointment, I would surmise, more than apprehension. And principally with his marriage.

At first he started off jolly. But Nolwen is so odious, and false. "Sweetie" this and "Sweetie" that, but he is her third husband, after all. And Papa has twice suffered "intrusive" surgery since his wedding five years ago, once on his gall bladder, once his prostate. "No surprises," as Nolwen over-brightly told everyone - by which I assumed her to mean no indications of malignancy. But the operations "took it out of" him. He is going to die. It could happen at any moment; but equally he could last for another three years. [Lord Clark died in May 1983.]

Cloisters - Monday, July 26

The day of the Falkland Islands Service at St Paul's. I was in my seat three-quarters-of-an-hour early. Every minute was interesting as the congregation assembled. The first member of the Cabinet to arrive was Norman Fowler; how common he always looks. A little later up came Heseltine and I was glad to see he had been (obviously deliberately) put at the very end of the Government row so that he was blocked by pillars.

I squirmed and turned in my seat, staring shamelessly. Soon I realised that the block behind me was filling up with next of kin. Many of them were Para families and, very touchingly, they all wore something red - the red of the Red Beret - about their clothing. With the exception of the very young children, who were excited and jolly, most of the relatives looked deeply unhappy.

Some of the wives, or Mums, wore old NAAFI comforts and painted up to the nines, but the majority were beauties, many of them raging beauties, and none of the young ones wearing any make-up, which was probably just as well as most of them cried all the way through the service.

Cloisters - Monday, September 27

I was sitting at my desk, first day back, when Tristan Garel-Jones walked through. He is not discreet. He is a good Whip because he is independent and has a nose for information, but he cannot resist the sound of his own voice. He said, but I think it a little simplistic, that the reshuffle had been deferred until January because of the need to make "Notty" carry the can for the Falklands Enquiry. This is rather a bore as it means one has to be a good boy for the whole winter term, careful not to put a foot wrong, etc, rough the service.

Cloisters - Wednesday, October 20

The awful thing is I really don’t like the Right Wing, and this enlightenment is, I fear, mutual. The writing on the wall was last year when so many of them welched on me in the contest for the Defence Chair. George Gardiner who is, of course, sensible, put it down to jealousy. But that is too over simplified because there is nothing to be jealous of, unless it is that gift of nature which makes me more intelligent than say, Sir Patrick Wall, or little Winston.

However, back in the Lobby Garel-Jones beckoned to me. He said that he had a special message from Jopling. G-J more or less said that Jopling had undertaken to get me a job in the next reshuffle, we must do something for Alan, etc. After the vote I rang Jane and told her, but I said that I was not in the slightest degree elated by this. These undertakings are practically valueless. And if it was their intention to keep me quiet until January - well, that suits me fine as it conforms exactly with my own intentions.

Cloisters - Tuesday, October 26

I was still in my flat at 11 o'clock this morning, washing up and pecking in a desultory way at housework. Then the phone rang. I was in two minds about answering it. The telephone at Albany is nearly always bores or ill-wishers. It was the Chief Whip (the Chief Whip seems to be phoning me an awful lot at the moment). He told me that there was now a place in the Falklands delegation and would I like to go.

I could not refuse. "What is it?" "Tomorrow." Christ! I said I would have to talk with Jane, which I did and she said I "must go".

Wednesday, November 3

From 22,000 feet the surface of the South Atlantic was rippled like the sand of a shallow tidal beach. But if I held an individual ripple in my gaze, I could watch it slowly alter shape and disintegrate into a thin white border that disappeared and blended into new patterns. With awe I realised that these were enormous waves. To have been visible to the naked eye from our altitude those rollers must have been seventy or eighty feet high. Ascension Island was clear and blue.

Bleary and stubble-chinned we lurched out of the Hercules with our hand luggage. Senior RAF officers were ultra-creased and starched. Shorts, bleached stockings, chiselled tans, they had shaved twenty minutes earlier. The Air Commodore then suggested that we should go on a tour of the Island and there followed one of the most memorable experiences of the whole trip.

The mini-buses climbed away from the airfield into the foothills of the Green Mountain. Gradually, as we climbed, the vegetation became greener and thicker, nameless white and yellow blooms and petals and voluptuous curving ferns. The gradient was very steep and often the mini bus drivers had to reverse on the hairpins and hold bottom gear between swerves.

Then, quite suddenly, in this equatorial jungle, we drew up beside a perfect English vicarage of the Regency period. Everything was flawless, from the Georgian window panes, to the guttering, to the broken pediment over the arch that led into the separate kitchen garden. This was the dwelling built for the Commander of the Marine Garrison that had been stationed on Ascension to help defend St Helena after Napoleon had been exiled there. All the materials and craftsmen had been brought out from Britain and the result was the most perfect country house south of the Tropic of Capricorn.

The drive down the Green Mountain was a nightmare. Corporal Duffy drove "on his brakes" - and I mean on them. The only time he took his foot off the brake pedal was to accelerate downwards between the swerves, instead of using the gears to brake the mini bus, and so steep was the gradient that it would overrun the rev limit in second gear. He was actually changing up to a higher gear whenever he had the space. It was a matter of minutes before we all went over the edge. "Don’t change up," I hissed, and actually put out my hand to hold the gear lever in second. Startled, he obeyed.

It had been suggested that we should hang about on the balcony of the Exiles Club for the hour-and-a-half or so that remained before take-off. But I preferred to explore. Just as I was about to turn down the hill into Georgetown quay I saw a white beach some half-mile away. I took a short cut and as I drew nearer could hear the thunder slap of those same giant rollers that I had watched from the Hercules crashing on to the sand.

"Do not whatever you do bathe," had said the Air Marshal. The undertow is very strong and we lost quite a lot of personnel before we made it a Court Martial offence. Court Martial offence! That made it even more irresistible.

The beach was deserted and I took off my clothes and went into the water. Perfectly incredible, the best bathe I have ever had, although the undertow was very, very strong. It was dangerous to swim other than parallel to the beach, which meant one was rolled about and buffeted by the breakers.

I dried on my shirt and, towelled and full of white gritty sand, feeling marvellous, started back to the Exiles Club. On the way back I ran into two RAF erks who were goggle-faced. They said bathing was very dangerous and that sharks and Portuguese-men-of-war came right up to the shore.

© Alan Clark 2000

Extracted from Alan Clark Diaries: Into Politics: The long awaited early years, to be published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson on October 12 (£20). Available from The Times bookshop (0870 1608080) for £17, including p&p, or from www.times-eshop.co.uk.