Old lag Rev Jono takes first funeral for Eton pal

FORMER Tory Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken’s life story, already more improbable than any novel, has taken yet another diverting turn.

Aitken, who served a seven- month stretch for perjury and perverting the course of justice in 1999 but who is now an unpaid prison chaplain, has officiated at his first funeral — not of an old lag but of baronet Sir Toby Clarke, who died last month aged 80. ‘It was my first funeral as a priest,’ the Reverend Jonathan Aitken, 77, who was ordained last year, tells me. ‘It was a moving experience — burying an old friend.’ The church — historic St Mary’s in Bibury, Gloucestershire — was packed out with mourners who knew Aitken (left) as well as they knew the deceased.

Among them were Lord Vestey, newly appointed Lordin-Waiting to the Queen, and Aitken’s former Cabinet colleague, Lord Heseltine.

In his address, Aitken recalled how he first encountered Clarke on arrival at Eton 63 years ago. ‘His first words to me were: “Aitken, you’re my fag. Please fill up my coal scuttle”.’

This command was not unusual given that Eton lacked central heating at the time, so rooms were warmed by open fires. Aitken’s extraordinary career has embraced stints as war correspondent and biographer of disgraced U.S. President Richard Nixon.

Known as ‘Jono’ by fellow inmates during his time inside, Aitken’s comparatively brief imprisonment was long enough, he subsequently reflected, to discover that ‘cells can be great places to pray’.

On his release, he returned to Oxford, where he read law decades earlier, to take a degree in theology at Wycliffe Hall.

Aitken celebrated his ordination last year by holding a party in the Grand Hall of the Old Bailey and invited friends from the full spectrum of society — from fellow Old Etonians and parliamentarians to ‘blaggers’ (armed robbers) and ‘blowers’ (safe-crackers).