Port is fashionable once again

I once drank some excellent port at Ted Heath’s table. The invitation came as a surprise, but it almost certainly had nothing to do with the monstre (un)sacré. The dinner took place during a Bournemouth party conference at the Close in Salisbury. Ted had an unofficial PPS, a then Tory MP called Robert Hughes. Rob had a sense of fun and mischief. There would have been little scope for either while he was enduring the sullen maunderings of the Incredible Sulk. Anyway, he was given a chance to amuse himself when asked to organise a dinner party. He included me.

This would not have been Ted’s choice. I had never been polite about him in print, nor to him in person. But he was at one disadvantage. As I was not a head of state or even a head of government, I was hardly an interlocuteur valable for le grand épicier. Although he knew perfectly well who I was, he was not prepared to admit it.

That said, he started the evening with a boundary at my expense. We were admiring the stuff on his walls. There was a photograph of him with the governor of Lee Ho Fook province or some such. It was of great significance because he was prominent. 

Next to it was a delicious Gwen John portrait and I complimented him. ‘That is indeed superb, Ted.’ (He would no doubt have preferred a more honorific mode of address but sod that.) He saw his chance. ‘Ye-es. Those who know about these things saythat it is a fine example of her work.’ Four runs to Heath.

Dinner ensued; pretty good, as I recall, with some decent claret. But the high point was the port, clearly from a serious year.