Unparliamentary Language: Black Rod

Living in Jordan, when I was about three or four. My father, mother and brother were away most of the time. We lived in a rather volatile situation and so I had a permanent escort guard of two Bedouin Arab soldiers who were essentially my personal protection. My first language was Arabic, I was brought up speaking it. I loved that time in my life and I wasn’t aware I was in any danger, but occasionally there would be bullets flying over the house. That was my first childhood memory. 

 

All the Brits were all thrown in the early 1950s. We literally, overnight, packed our bags and left early the next morning. I can remember the first really big upset of my life was being taken away from those Bedouin Arabs who had been my childhood friends. It was a very happy time, but it was rather traumatic being taken away from them.

 

I was a very anxious child. I was a very slow learner and I had a lot of trouble with language, because I hadn’t been brought up with English as my first language. When I arrived at primary school my command of English was pretty poor, and it pretty well has been ever since. I’m a very slow reader and a very slow writer. That was my biggest handicap at school. 

 

No, it’s disappeared. It’s probably somewhere on the hard drive but it’s disappeared. When I hear the language, I hear the music of it but I don’t recognise the words. 

 

I have no regrets in my life about anything. My life has been so varied, I have made so many mistakes, I don’t forget them but I don’t regret them. If you regret those things you get stuck. It would be lovely to speak Arabic, if I had some time perhaps I’d go and learn it. 

 

I always wanted to be really outstanding at something in the sporting world or something in the musical world. 

 

I don’t think I have any talents at all, otherwise I would have been a sporting or musical champion. 

 

If there is an interesting fact my colleagues don’t know about me, it’s probably best they don’t. I would say, and it’s a typical of this House, that there are lots of things my colleagues don’t know. I find colleagues here are very focused on what they do. I’ve found none of my colleagues have taken any interest in each other in their private or personal or social lives. Some are good friends. But there isn’t the spirit of people knowing each other as there have been in other parts of my career. They are really focused on the House and they don’t have time for what I call the froth of life. 

 

Discourtesy, above all. 

 

Sleep on it overnight. We all live life at 100mph and we all get tired and frenetic and at the end of the day, you sit down and you do your emails and you get irked. But the best advice is ‘draft it, sleep on it overnight, see how it looks when you’re fresh and in the morning and you’ve got your perspective back’. 

 

Probably every day. 

 

Goodness me. That I should become a lawyer. I read law at Cambridge and at the end of my course, there were a number of reasons that I didn’t go into the law, one was I was fed up with studying and couldn’t face more exams. Another thing was I managed to get a criminal conviction and although the Law society and the Bar council were very understanding and were prepared to make an exception, I thought it would be more helpful if I went and did something else in life before going back to the law. For those reasons I went and joined the army instead and I thought I would just do a short service commission for three years but three years turned into 39 years. 

 

I was poaching pheasants and partridges. 

 

Loyal, committed and a fool. 

 

About ten minutes ago in the outer office. 

 

I reported what one of my staff was provoked to say over a little office drinks party last night – which was very uncharacteristic and exceedingly unusual and very obscene. I recalled it and it cracked everybody up.

 

A Quiet Life. 

 

Nigel Havers, because apparently he resembles me a bit. Or Hugh Grant because his life is chaotic and I think my life has been quite chaotic quite a lot of the time.

 

Appear on BBC television putting on my stockings. That was quite embarrassing. It’s going to take a little bit of living down. 

 

Been chased by a crocodile when I was waterskiing. 

 

On the river Zambezi in Rhodesia, as it was. 

 

Yes. We were water-skiing on a bit of a bit of the Zambezi where we were fairly sure no crocodiles had been seen there for a while. I dropped in and zoomed up along the river. The boat went past these crocodiles on the bank under the shade of a tree, and the crocodile just went like a rocket into the river and I suppose I was probably 20 yards away. They move very, very quickly when they’re frightened or when they’re chasing something. The trouble was I had to get over the water ski and into the boat. I managed to get into the boat very quickly and there was a guy on the boat with a rifle so if the croc had caught up, he could shoot it. Anyway it was fine but I wouldn’t want to do that again. 

 

Yes, but I don’t think I’ve ever done it in crocodile risky waters. 

 

Worzel Gummidge, at the Black Rod Christmas party. 

 

The thing that didn’t surprise me most was the humbling modesty and kindness and thoughtfulness of some of the most eminent people in the land who are here. What surprised me much more than I expected was that the House of Lords is a reflection of society and therefore there are some members who are difficult, awkward, accursed, some who may even be a bit on the spectrum, and I suppose that did surprise me. But it shouldn’t have done, because the House of Lords is surprisingly much more representative of society than I’d ever imagined before I came here. 

 

When the House agreed to security measures which I proposed and then a very vocal cross section of members then took against my proposals. They expressed their displeasure and criticism of me on the floor of the Chambers and in the newspapers. That was a pretty low point. 

 

That was in my first year, very shortly after I arrived. Have I got over it? Yes, you have disappointments in life, you’re let down by people in life and this is a reflection of society. I suppose the turning point of that was when one of the most senior pugnacious, notorious figures in that group who expressed their distaste for me and for what I was proposing came and saw me about three years later and sat down. He said “you were right and everybody now accepts what you did and what you proposed and what’s been implemented.” He then said: “I admire you for the balls for seeing it through”. A lot of members have acknowledged that without ever saying it, so that was a bad point in my first year and about three years later the damage was finally healed. 

 

Oh, yes. Usually about 9 o’clock on a Monday morning. I have considered giving up and I will give up. I will leave within the next year because I want to go and do some other things before I get too old. 

 

Eat well, sleep well and set yourself priorities in life.