Every morning a large crate would arrive, containing the records of all the speeches made in the House the previous day. I always made a point of having them all turned on; and if I were called away from the room to interview the cook or for some similar purpose I would always leave Porstock behind me to hear what was said and to report on anything which had struck him: if this seemed sufficiently important, the dictaphone would have to be reversed till the important passage was reached again. Then, if I were down to speak myself the next day, I would have to shut myself up for an hour or so in the dictaphone room, till a perfect record could be secured. Even a question that had to be asked would be a matter of anxious care. I cannot imagine how the Ministers of those days can have found time for all their engagements, when questions had to be answered into the dictaphone, before the invention of the present mechanical process. Really, we are spoilt nowadays!
Nor were the incidental duties of a Member of Parliament inconsiderable. Now I would be writing my autograph in the prizes to be distributed at my old school; now I would be at the telephone opening a bazaar; now I would be trudging out, in all weathers, to the wireless installation at the back of the house to unveil a statue, to lay a foundation-stone, or (for I was still known as a sportswoman) to kick off at some Manchester football match. Now and again my secretaries would come in to consult me as to how they were to answer some troublesome constituent, whose letter they did not feel capable of answering on their own responsibility. There were Committees, too, of the House, one of them (the Kitchen Committee) actually demanding my personal presence. I also became, as was natural, directress of a good many companies, and it became necessary to build on a board-room at Greylands in which to entertain their Committees.
But, although the life of an M.P. was already a busy one, it was not even then an eventful one. Day followed day, and the press of business which had at first seemed so strange and so insupportable fell, as things will, under the enchantment of routine. But there was one period, in the spring of 1956, when the calm waters of Party politics were suddenly disturbed, and that through my agency. The “duodecimal crisis” which was a matter of so much talk and notoriety at the time, is almost forgotten nowadays, and I hope I shall be pardoned for dealing with it somewhat fully, since I was myself the centre of the storm.