Suzanne Heywood - What Does Jeremy Think?

William Collins

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2021

Copyright Suzanne Heywood 2021

Suzanne Heywood asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Cover photograph by Louise Haywood-Schiefer

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780008353124

Ebook Edition February 2021 ISBN: 9780008353148

Version: 2021-01-18

For Jeremy,

civil servant, husband and father

Some heroes wear capes mine wore a cardigan.

Jonathan Heywood

It may safely be asserted that, as matters now stand, the Government of the country could not be carried on without the aid of an efficient body of permanent officers, occupying a position duly subordinate to that of the Ministers who are directly responsible to the Crown and to Parliament, yet possessing sufficient independence, character, ability, and experience to be able to advise, assist, and to some extent, influence, those who are from time to time set over them.

Northcote-Trevelyan Report, 1854

Jeremy with his father Peter in 1962

Jeremy driving, 1963

Jeremy with his father Peter, mother Brenda and younger brother Simon

Ralph Butterfield Primary School, Henley

Jeremy on the cricket field

Glossop, 1966

In France with friends

Posing in France

Jeremy in 1983

Jeremy in the Financial Secretarys office

Jeremy recovering from his first lung operation

Working for Norman Lamont in the aftermath of Black Wednesday

In the Chancellors Office

Working for David Mellor

With Norman Lamont in the Chancellors private office

Suzanne and Jeremy on holiday in Hungary

Wedding day

Admiring the new home

Outside Number 10

On the Number 10 stairway

Jeremy with Tony Blair

Gordon and Sarah Brown and the rest of the private office

Meeting with David Cameron and Nick Clegg (Shutterstock)

Jeremy with David Cameron in his Downing Street office (Tom Stoddart Archive/Getty Images)

Receiving the knighthood in 2012 (John Stillwell/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

With the twins in 2003

Jeremy and Jonny in 2002

The family in Santas Grotto

A Cabinet meeting with David Cameron (Neil Hall/AFP/Getty Images)

Welcoming Theresa May to Downing Street in 2016 (Andrew Parsons)

Becoming Baron Heywood of Whitehall, 2018

The family in Malta, 2017

UK Prime Ministers speaking at Jeremys memorial service (Shutterstock)

Seated at the memorial service (Shutterstock)

(All pictures from the authors personal collection unless otherwise stated)

I will always be grateful for the year that I spent talking to Jeremy about this book. And I know Jeremy felt the same way. The last time we spoke about it was in the hospital shortly before he died. By that point, Jeremy was rarely awake, and I was sitting by his side, talking to him, or maybe to myself, and watching him breathe. The news had been full of reports of his retirement as Cabinet Secretary, and I feared would soon be full of news of his death. But for then it was just the two of us, the beeping of the hospital instruments and the rumble of cars on the Marylebone Road.

During one of those afternoons, Jeremy opened his eyes. Your book, he said, his voice faint and raspy though still clear. We have to put our names on it. Jeremy and Suzanne. So all our descendants will know. Theyll be amazed.

They will indeed, I said, though his eyes were closed again. Ill make sure they know. Grandad Jeremy and all you did.

Id begun writing this book a year before, in October 2017. That was six months after Jeremy had been diagnosed with lung cancer, but while he was still working as Cabinet Secretary, trying to help Theresa May deliver Brexit. The process had started with a series of interviews, sitting on the sofa in our childrens playroom where we discussed everything from Black Wednesday to the financial crisis and multiple attempts to reform the public sector.

Its like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, isnt it? Jeremy said with a smile at the end of one of these sessions.

Id laughed at this, remembering when we had gone to see Tom Stoppards play, which tells the story of those two minor characters from Hamlet, and Jeremy leaning over in the darkness to whisper that it made no sense at all since hed never seen Shakespeares original. But it was also typically modest. Yes, Jeremys story is like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who witnessed so much. But Jeremy saw several Hamlets rise and fall. And unlike Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he was on stage throughout, though determined not to catch the spotlight. Indeed, its partly Jeremys punctiliousness about minimising his visibility that explains why, until now, hes barely left a mark on the endless pages dedicated to those years.

So this is my account of the role that Jeremy played in the making of modern Britain. Its the tale of a man who evolved from being a specialist economist in the outskirts of the Civil Service into someone whom many considered the consummate insider, though he never stopped challenging the system.

Some people have questioned why I have written a biography of a civil servant, and why Jeremy agreed to let me interview him for it. The fundamental reason is that we both believed that this is a story that has historical value and that the Civil Service will be better defended if it is understood than if it hides itself away. Ideally Jeremy would have shared his memories and learnings from almost thirty years of service in interviews and speeches after leaving office as his predecessors have done, perhaps followed by a biography several years later, as has also been done before. However, fate did not give him that option and instead forced us to decide whether to tell his tale in this way or to allow his memories to be lost.

This story emerged from many hours of talking to Jeremy, who found it difficult to escape his biographer. We began by discussing each story in outline so that I understood his perspective on it and I then researched each one in detail. Over the course of writing the book this meant interviewing almost two hundred eyewitnesses, including all the prime ministers whom Jeremy served, together with many of the other ministers, civil servants and special advisers with whom he worked, as well as his business contacts, family and friends. Many interviewees also shared personal papers and diaries and later commented on draft chapters. Jeremy sent me texts giving me his view of what I needed to cover in these interviews, unable to resist a little back-seat driving, and would quiz me on my findings when I returned from each one. His text before my interview with David Cameron is a good example of his interventions and while perhaps not typical of those sent between spouses, it was very useful. It read as follows: