1. Contacting Mrs. Thatcher : did she see my papers?
Sunday 07 October 1984
It was on the spur of the moment that I wrote to the Prime Minister, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher. The letter was handwritten on 7th October 1984 but dated 6th October for a bit of number signalling. I had not shown it to anyone so there was no possibility of a leak at my end.
The text was as follows:-
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6th October 1984 Dear Mrs. Thatcher, In January 1971, at the suggestion of the late Lord Butler, I wrote to the then Home Secretary (Reginald Maudling) about certain manipulative practices I had encountered in the previous few years and raising a number of questions about the involvement of various organisations in those practices. I would first like to know the position with regard to the papers, receipt of which was acknowledged by the Private Secretary to the Home Secretary. Will they be subject to the 30 year, 50 year or longer embargo on public scrutiny? Also, are the papers available to you? I ask this because, in the light of later events and increased understanding, I wish to revise and update my statements. The way in which I do this will greatly depend upon the availability or otherwise of the original material. One of the questions I raised in 1971 was the possible mis-use of the security services. My experiences since 1971 strongly reinforce my misgivings and I therefore urge you to institute an enquiry not simply into the penetration by foreign powers but also on the relationships between the security services and other kinds of organisations. It has been pointed out to me that Brendan Bracken made numerous false statements about his early history and that this did not affect his career and the service he rendered to society. I cannot imagine, however, the Press nowadays letting someone in a similar position survive. I have nothing to be ashamed of in my extraordinary so-called career and I feel that the truth of it must come out both, in itself to be of service to society and to put me in a position to render other service without being assailed on false premises by the media and others. I enclose a copy of a letter from Lord Butler (17th October 1970), the Home Office acknowledgement (18th January 1971) and a Draft Summary of topics of relevance to the practices originally referred to. Yours sincerely, Harold Beck |
Letter from Lord (RAB) Butler, 17 Oct 70
Draft Summary of Human Rights book
[The Brendan Bracken point arose from a book which Lord Hill of Luton (Charles Hill, the wartime Radio Doctor and a Minister in Harold McMillan's Government until the 'Night of the Long Knives') was keen for me to read. It described how despite a murky past Brendan Bracken had rendered invaluable service to Prime Minister Winston Churchill. When I gave the book back to Charles Hill I had made much the same point to him as in the letter to Mrs. Thatcher].
Monday 08 October 1984
I addressed the letter to 10 Downing Street and posted it First Class at Woodhall, Welwyn Garden City, on my way home from teaching at the Hatfield Polytechnic Management Centre at Balls Park, near Hertford.
Tuesday 09 October 1984
The Conservative Party Conference began at Brighton. Mrs. Thatcher arrived early so she had probably not seen my letter.
Friday 12 October 1984
At 02.54 a.m. a bomb exploded at the Brighton hotel where Mrs. Thatcher and the top brass of the Conservative Party was staying.
Monday 15 October 1984
I received a letter from 10 Downing Street, dated and postmarked 12 October. No reference was given and the initials or signature were undecipherable by anyone not in the know.
The media was full of security investigations related to Brighton bomb.
Tuesday 16 October 1984
It was uncanny that JRA Clark, a colleague at Balls Park said to me, completely out of context, "You will have to ask Mrs. Thatcher". This prompted me to ask him if he had ever had a letter from Mrs. Thatcher. He did not reply.
Wednesday 31 October 1984
It was reported in the media that Peter Lilley, M.P. for St. Albans Constituency had achieved exceptionally rapid promotion. Mrs. Thatcher appointed him Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, and he was given an office, as one media report put it, between No.10 & No.11. If I remember correctly, Peter Lilley's appointment was not part of a reshuffle but was a one-off.
Not for the first time I saw a possible communication channel opening up between myself and a Government Ministers, this time at the top level.
Friday 02 November 1984
A local paper, the Herts Advertiser, featured an item about Peter Lilley, M.P. for St. Albans, being given an office between the PM and the most important man in the Cabinet, Nigel Lawson.
Tuesday 13 November 1984
There were media reports that Mrs.Thatcher had been asked to look at one more paper by her PPS, Butler, just before the bomb went off at about 3 am on 12 Oct.
The reference to Butler provoked much thought. I had mentioned the name Butler in the first line of my letter to Mrs.Thatcher and had enclosed a letter I had received from RAB Butler. Was the news item a veiled message that Mrs. Thatcher herself had seen my letter?
The Earl of Stockton (Harold Macmillan) made a speech about the need for a Spiritual and Moral revolution.
Sunday 18 November 1984
I received a telephone call from Maude Oliver, Secretary of the Harpenden UNA Branch. The Branch had become interested in Law of the Sea issues. Maude Oliver pointed out that the Government was to decide Britain’s position on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) at the next meeting of Cabinet and she wanted a letter to go on behalf of the Branch to our M.P., Peter Lilley, for transmission to the Minister concerned. We arranged to meet to go through the letter.
[Peter Lilley was M.P. for St. Albans Constituency which included Harpenden].
Friday 23 November 1984
The text of the Harpenden UNA letter on UNCLOS was
agreed. It was to be sent in my name as Chairman of the UNA Branch and I
suggested I deliver it direct to Peter Lilley.
Maude Oliver arranged for me to take the letter the following day to Peter Lilley's 'surgery' at the Conservative Constituency HQ at Stanhope Road, St. Albans. However the 'surgery' was fully booked so I would not get to see the M.P. himself. Maude Oliver reported that apparently I was persona grata with John Seller, the Party Agent.
In view of my wish to talk to Peter Lilley in person I attached to the UNCLOS letter a handwritten note suggesting I meet him at the House of Commons or elsewhere to discuss the Law of the Sea letter “and hopefully other matters”:-
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Dear Mr. Lilley, I had hoped to see you to give a little background to the enclosed letter but I understand your 'surgery' is fully booked. I wonder if instead we can do it the other way round - I would be happy to come and see you, either at No.33 or at the House of Commons or elsewhere to discuss this and hopefully other matters. I will telephone Mrs. Mullins on Monday to obtain your reaction. With best wishes. Yours sincerely, Harold Beck |
[At that time Peter Lilley's home was at 33 Temperance Street, St.Albans].
Saturday 24 November 1984
After phoning to confirm arrangements, I took the UNCLOS
letter and my accompanying note to the Constituency HQ for handing to the
M.P. at his 'surgery'. In fact it was sent on to Peter Lilley at the House
of Commons.
Thursday 29 November 1984
Peter Lilley wrote inviting me to meet him one evening at the House of Commons. He enclosed a letter about UNCLOS of 16 November which he had received from from Malcolm Rifkind, Minister of State at the FCO, about points made to Peter Lilley by another person, presumably another constituent.
Monday 03 December 1984
I phoned Mrs. Mullins and fixed up to see Peter Lilley at 5 p.m. on Wednesday 12th December.
Wednesday 12 December 1984
On this day I had a meeting with Peter Lilley M.P. at the House of Commons.
I arrived at 5 p.m. at the House of Commons. I had been asked to make my way to the central lobby where Peter Lilley would meet me. While waiting I was interested to see Sir Keith Joseph, who as Education Secretary was my super-boss so far as my employment in Hatfield Polytechnic was concerned, come out and look for someone, meeting my eyes briefly, and then returning without other contact to the Chamber.
Peter Lilley soon appeared and conducted me forthwith to the small Strangers, or Pugin, Room, which I was given to understand was reserved for the use of M.P.’s and those Peers who had been M.P.’s. I had prepared a list of points I wanted to put to Peter Lilley and afterwards ticked and crossed those points I had and hadn't made.
There, over tea, we first discussed UNA matters and in particular the Law of the Sea and UNESCO. The decision about UNCLOS had been made. Geffrey Howe's statement was OK.
We then got onto the "hopefully other matters".
I said I had written to the Prime Minister and had received an acknowledgement but I did not know if she herself had seen my letter. It was probably at this point that I mentioned veiled communication. Peter Lilley said it was most unlikely that my letter had been placed before Mrs. Thatcher. There were about 10,000 letters a week addressed to the Prime Minister and it would be quite impossible for her to see every one. However when, in response to a question from him, I said I had written about a security matter, Peter Lilley thought she may well have seen that kind of letter. I elaborated a little about the contents, e.g. my query about whether my earlier papers to the Home Secretary would become available to the public in 30 or 50 years and the need for an enquiry into the relationships of the Security Services with Companies, the Press, and Professional Institutions. I added that I wanted the truth to come out about my extraordinary experiences.
I then asked Peter Lilley about the media report that as a result of his appointment (on which I congratulated him) he had a room between Nos.10 and 11 Downing Street. He responded that it was not like that but rather that behind the Speaker’s Chair in the House of Commons the Prime Minister had a room on one side and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the other and squeezed in between them was a tiny room which was his. As a matter of a fact, he went on, only the other day he had gone into his room and found Mrs.Thatcher in it talking to somebody, using it as an overflow to her own room. Peter Lilley said he had beaten a hasty retreat!
I asked if he would be willing to pass some papers from me directly to the Prime Minister without going through the security people or anyone else who might keep them from her. He agreed to do so without hesitation. I asked him if I should send them to him at the St. Albans Constituency office or to 33 Temperence Street - he replied that I should not send them to the Constituency office but to his secretary at the House of Commons and that he would alert her that they were coming.
The arrangement was that I would send the papers to him via his secretary sealed in an envelope which he would pass unopened to Mrs.Thatcher. I mentioned that consistent with my wanting the truth to come out I would not mind him seeing the papers but Mrs.Thatcher might not wish it, initially at least, but if she agreed to him seeing them that would be fine by me.
At one point Peter Lilley asked me about my departure from the Conservatives and I filled him in as best I could. [There is now a well-documented account of what happened in the Conservative to Independent section of this website].
He told me that his experience before he became an M.P. enabled him as a backbencher to get an amendment or a Bill through Parliament, to do with the Oil Industry, which had brought in £500m to the Exchequer.
Having concluded our conversation Peter Lilley asked me if I would like to look in on the debate going on in the House, which happened to be about the GLC. I said I would and accordingly he conducted me towards the East Gallery. Just before we got to the door Peter Lilley hurriedly raised a new topic. He said he had been to the Open Day of a company in St. Albans called SICK Electronics. Peter Lilley thought the Polytechnic (which we had not thus far mentioned) should be able to help with advice on product development. He seemed a little disconcerted when I responded by telling him about the Managing Design initiative and the interest expressed by Mrs. Thatcher but this may have been due to my interrupting him in my keeness to tell him about Managing Design. Anyway I said I would look into SICK Electronics.
Peter Lilley was most friendly throughout and as we parted he warmly expressed the hope that we would be meeting again.
[It was on 26 October 1984 that I learned of an interesting development which must have been some time in the pipeline. I received that day from the CNAA - the Council for National Academic Awards which regulated the degrees given by Polytechnics and Local Authority Colleges - 10 copies of a Report entitled “Managing Design”, which had been compiled in conjunction with the Design Council and DTI. The Report very strongly supported a particular field of management education which for many years I had been practicing and advocating, almost as a lone pioneer. The Report stated that this neglected aspect of management education was so vital to the economy that management courses should devote 10% of their time to it. The most thought-provoking aspect, however, was the inclusion of a Foreword in the form of a signed letter from the Prime Minister, Mrs. Thatcher, showing her great interest in the development. She had held a Seminar on the topic at No.10 and was exhorting management departments in educational institutions to adopt the proposals in the Report].
Friday 14 December 1984
At 3 p.m. I called at SICK Electronics, Drake's Drive, St. Albans and met the MD, John Sidnall BSc. Apparently Peter Lilley had opened their new premises. The firm had some contact already with Hatfield Polytechnic.
JS said they had no product development problems - the St. Albans operation was a purely Sales organisation run from West Germany and R&D and Production were outside its remit. It seemed to me that its main management problems were those of a hi-tech company reorientating itself in the face of competition.
I was surprised at a strange remark at the end when JS said that Marconi Instruments people who poured out their woes to Peter Lilley at his 'surgery' found it very useful that the M.P. was a scientist. [I had always thought that PL was an economist but I see from his website that he studied natural sciences as well as economics].
Christmas Vacation 1984
My attention was now firmly fixed on the opportunity to communicate directly to Mrs. Thatcher and I set about writing something which would convey to her the scope and essence of the matters I wished to be brought out into the open. This, I decided, would be centred on an account and analysis of the extraordinary events at Coventry in 1975. Thus I researched, wrote and typed 19 pages of E1:The Coventry Miracle', covering from the February 1975 discovery of a poster at the Belgrade Theatre to the publication of a piece, with picture, in a local paper. I brought out the left-wing stance of the Harold Beck in the play, the emphasis on ‘water’ and the parallel person in the programme, Edward Carpenter. [The current version, little changed in its account of events but better presented and with the analysis greatly enhanced by later information, is in The Coventry Miracle section of this website].
Saturday 12 January 1985
I prepared a package for posting to the House of Commons. I placed a copy of The Coventry Miracle’, together with a letter to Mrs. Thatcher as Head of Security, into a semi-sealed transparent sleeve and then put the whole package in a sealed envelope addressed to Peter Lilley, enclosing a letter asking him to pass it direct to Mrs. Thatcher. That done, I addressed an outer envelope to his secretary, Mrs. Mullins, with instructions on what to do with the enclosure. Al of the letters were on headed notepaper and dated 12th January.
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Dear Mrs. Mullins, Would you please place this letter directly into the hands of Peter Lilley unopened. If in doubt please show him this letter. Yours sincerely, Harold Beck |
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Dear Peter, I hope I may address you thus after our discussion at the House of Commons, which I greatly enjoyed. I enclose papers which I would be glad if you would pass direct to the Prime Minister in her capacity as Head of Security. I would not mind you reading them but I think it best that you do not do so without the P.M.'s agreement. Accordingly, I have packaged them in such a way that you may security check them but with only a modest degree of access for reading. I hope very much that we may meet again in the not too distant future. With kindest regards, Yours ever, Harold |
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Dear Mrs. Thatcher, Further to my letter of 6th October 1984, I enclose papers describing an episode in my life which has occurred since the happenings reported to the Home Secretary in 1971 yet which I believe is directly related. Most of the action in: this episode took place 10 years ago but major developments (not all of them reported in these papers) have continued to take place right up to the present time. There is much which needs to be looked into and I am sending this information to you in your capacity as Head of Security in the hope that it will be helpful to you as well as to me. Yours sincerely, Harold Beck |
Sunday 13 January 1985
I posted the package in time for the Sunday collection in Harpenden.
Wednesday 16 January 1985
The media was full of reports about Mrs. Thatcher doing a U-turn about celebrating VE day, 1945. 1945! My identifer! [Earlier in 1984 I spoke into my phone a code number by which the organisation intercepting my communications could identify itself. The number was 1945].
The left hand side of the back page of The Times
carried the news of the Prime Minister's change of view - she was now in
favour of celebrating the European victory in 1945.
The centre of the broadsheet page was taken up by a large picture captioned "Snow boats: Outlines in an aerial view of snow-covered mudflats reveal a far from busy boatyard at Rochester on the River Medway yesterday (Photographer: Harry Kerr)". Despite the ubiquitous appearance of C.P. Snow in my life I considered this item as entirely coincidental.
I was not so sure about the item on right hand side. This was an article by
Julian Haviland entitled “Thatcher polishes the apples” containing several
references to “water” and its various derivatives such as “douse”, “stream”
and “mists”. Allusions to water had been a striking feature of the Speak Up, Harold Beck!
play described in the E1:The Coventry Miracle paper I had sent 3 days
beforehand to Mrs. Thatcher.
I never got a direct reply to my letter.
Monday 11 February 1985
The media announced that 10 years had lapsed since Mrs. Thatcher had wrested the leadership of the Conservative Party from Mr. Heath. Considering this timing in relation to the date on which the poster-brochure announcing the Speak Up Harold Beck play was observed at Coventry, new explanations became tenable.
Sunday 17 February 1985
I wrote to Peter Lilley on behalf of the Harpenden Branch of the UN Association expressing its views on the call for aid by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
I could not resist penning a note incorporating a veiled communication though I doubt Peter Lilley realised its significance.
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Dear Peter, This is just a note to let you know that I followed up your point about Sick Electronics. I visited the company and met the Managing Director and as a result I acquainted Hatfield Polytechnic's laser expert with Sick's area of technology. He will be getting in touch with the M.D. (if he hasn't already done so). As you see alot of water has flowed under the bridge since we last met. With kindest regards Yours ever Harold |
Thursday 21 February 1985
Peter Lilley wrote re UNHCR.
There was no mention of my accompanying note.
Sunday 16 June 1985
I attended a Civic Service at St. Nicholas Church. At the Reception afterwards I spoke with Peter Lilley about the papers I had sent him for transmission to Mrs. Thatcher. He said he had given them to Michael Allison M.P., Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mrs. Thatcher, who would certainly have given them immediately to the Prime Minister. Peter Lilley said he would convey more papers from me. I showed him the Speak Up, Harold Beck! poster which showed me in a hierarchy with Harold Wilson and Tony Benn.