Enoch Powell’s devoted wife Pamela dies at 91

ENOCH POWELL was so committed to his wife, Pamela, that he composed a poem for her on every wedding anniversary and gave her a rose for each year of their marriage. On Saturday, Pam died at the age of 91.

‘Throughout the problems and difficulties they faced, Pam provided wonderful, down-to-earth support,’ a close friend tells me.

After suffering an illness for some time, she was able to return to her home in London’s Pimlico, where she was cared for by the couple’s two daughters, Susan and Jennifer. She met Powell, who died in 1998 aged 85, while working at Conservative Central Office and they married in 1952.

Pam had turned down his first proposal on the grounds that ‘my father would never allow me to marry a teetotaller’. Powell learnt about drink and, at his second attempt, she accepted him.

After Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech about the effects of immigration cost him his shadow cabinet job in 1968, his visits to universities almost provoked riots. Pam would turn on the television each night he was away to check if he had survived the day.