‘He could remember Oswald Mosley speaking in Wigan in 1930 and then pretty much everything in… almost total recall on events from that point onwards, really – incredible mental acuity, even into a very old age’
Sir Patrick Duffy
Wigan-born former Labour MP and defence minister Sir Patrick Duffy has died aged 105 following a short illness, a family friend has said. Sir Patrick, who died on January 2, is believed to have been the longest-living former MP in the UK.
Family friend Kevin Meagher, who helped write his second book, published when he was 103, said Sir Patrick was ‘kind of a living historical jukebox’ where you can ‘push the buttons and say, what was it like to meet, you know, (former prime minister) Clement Attlee?’
Sir Patrick was born in Wigan in 1920 and his earliest memory was of the 1926 general strike, Mr Meagher said, where Britain’s miners walked out over attempts by pit owners to increase their working hours but reduce their wages. He was ‘pre-internet’ and ‘pre-computer’ and used a typewriter or pen to write up From Wigan To Westminster: Hot Wars, Cold Wars And The Carrier Strike Group – which reflected on his political career and modern-day issues, the author and political commentator said.
“He could remember, you know, Oswald Mosley speaking in Wigan in 1930 and then pretty much everything in… almost total recall on events from that point onwards, really – incredible mental acuity, even into a very old age.”
Sir Patrick, described as a committed Catholic, remained forward looking and often had well thumbed issues of The Daily Telegraph and The Times on his coffee table and Sky News on the television, Mr Meagher told the Press Association. The former MP, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and received a papal knighthood from Pope John Paul II, was concerned about Russia’s war in Ukraine and possible escalation, he added. During the Second World War he survived a plane crash in the Orkney Islands while serving in the Fleet Air Arm.
Mr Meagher said: “He lay in the fuselage of his aircraft for 24 hours on a Scottish mountainside literally freezing to death, until he was discovered and he took the last rites by a priest because they didn’t think he’d make it. When they found him the medics couldn’t inject him with morphine because his arm had literally frozen – they had to stab the needle into his arm to be able to get the morphine in.
“And he just mentioned this as an aside, this was extraordinary tale, but again, it’s that stoicism.”
Despite undergoing plastic surgery for his injuries he flew again. Sir Patrick first ran for Parliament in 1950 and was elected MP for the first time in 1963 after winning the Colne Valley by-election, before holding a seat in Sheffield Attercliffe from 1970 to his retirement in 1992.
The war veteran served as parliamentary under-secretary for the Royal Navy for James Callaghan’s Labour government in the late 1970s. He ‘took a lot of flack’ as the only MP who ‘berated’ former prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1981 for the death of republican hunger striker Bobby Sands, Mr Meagher said.
Mrs Thatcher and Sir Patrick would later have tea together, particularly when he was president of the Nato Assembly in the 1980s, he added. A statement written by Mr Meagher, and approved by Sir Patrick’s family, described him as: “An extraordinary man with a lifetime of accomplishments, Patrick leaves behind him family and friends – across all age groups – who will miss his kindness, humour and incredible acuity in recalling personalities and events from a century ago.
“Patrick’s was a life well-lived, brimming with achievement, the admiration of colleagues and the love and affection of his many family and friends. He will be greatly missed.”