PETER HENNESSY has been among the most perceptive, witty, and positive commentators on the state of Britain over the past 50 years. This book combines autobiographical reflection with a selection of his articles and speeches. While many of the latter cover his specialist interests in the mechanism of government and the workings of the constitution, they are never dry, containing some highly entertaining anecdotes.

Hennessy self-deprecatingly states that what has really fuelled his dual career as a journalist and academic (to which was added, in 2010, membership of the House of Lords) is his love of gossip. He tells of how he abandoned his Ph.D. studies because there was “too much plumbing and not enough poetry”, and describes himself as being of “the Max Bygraves school: I wanna tell you a story.” Among the many stories that he recounts is one about the easing of a tense meeting of trade-union leaders in 10 Downing Street when Edward Heath was persuaded by Vic Feather, General Secretary of the TUC, to sit down at the piano and play “The Red Flag”, charming the notoriously militant Jack Jones.

Movingly, this volume is a collaboration between Peter Hennessy and his daughter, Polly. This is partly because he finds it hard to write since being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. The autobiographical part of the book focuses exclusively on his early life. It makes much of his strongly Roman Catholic upbringing — the first illustration is a full-page photo of him in a lace cotta as an altar boy in 1954, captioned, characteristically, as “an early attempt at piety”.

Polly Coupar-Hennessy writes in her foreword of “the generational reticence to discuss anything personal” found among baby-boomers born in the aftermath of the war and “taken to almost ludicrous extremes in my father”. Peter Hennessy comes across very much as a child of his time in his devotion to the late Queen and the integrity of the UK, his strong sense of both British and European identity, and his attachment to the “good chaps” model of government. In a post-Brexit audit of Britain’s assets, he noted that “we lead the world in self-irony and understatement.”

I would have loved more of an insight into the soul of this engaging and lovable man. But that would not be true to his character. He shares the personal modesty and reticence of his great hero, Clement Attlee, who famously replied when he was asked by his biographer whether he was a Christian, “Believe in the ethics, can’t believe the mumbo-jumbo.” Like Attlee, Hennessy is a good chap who has done much to champion the values of fairness, tolerance, and probity in public life. And, like Max Bygraves, he tells a cracking good story. 

Dr Ian Bradley is Emeritus Professor of Cultural and Spiritual History at the University of St Andrews.

On the Back of an Envelope: A life in writing
Peter Hennessy with Polly Coupar-Hennessy
Haus Publishing £30
(978-1-913368-85-2)
Church Times Bookshop £27