‘Please don’t mention Margaret Thatcher when you write to me’

‘Arthur Negus’ — Tony Bray — is the only one of Margaret Thatcher’s early loves still alive, though sadly he is now in poor health.

Once I had tracked him down, I found him happy to speak about those distant days at the end of the war when he danced with the future prime minister. But he was extremely anxious — 60 years later — that his wife (who is now dead) should not know of my inquiries. ‘If you ring up, please say nothing of your purpose,’ he said, ‘and if you write, please don’t do so in a Daily Telegraph envelope.’

When he married his wife, a couple of years after the relationship had ended, a similar sense of honour induced him to destroy all Margaret’s letters to him. As a biographer, I protest, but as a fellow human being, I salute his touching delicacy.

This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Spectator’s Notes from this week’s magazine.