Hattersley remarries at age of 81
AT AN age when many men are contemplating taking life a little easier, veteran politician Roy Hattersley is, for a second time, taking the plunge into matrimony. His bride is the Labour peer’s long-time companion, literary agent Maggie Pearlstine.
For I can reveal that Maggie, 65, who has s hared 81- year- ol d Hattersley’s life for a number of years, agreed to become the second Lady Hattersley this summer.
They quietly married in a low-key ceremony with just a few close friends present.
The wedding came weeks after Hattersley obtained a quickie divorce from his first wife, noted educationalist Molly, to whom he was married for 57 years.
The decree was granted on the grounds that they had not lived together for five years, and that he would now find it intolerable to live with her.
He was just 24 and Mollie 25 when they wed in 1956, some eight years before he was first elected as Labour MP for Birmingham, Sparkbrook.
Elevated to the Lords after Tony Blair came to power i n 1997, grammar school-educated Hattersley held on to his seat through eight elections, holding various ministerial positions.
A prodigious writer, his books include a lengthy biography of Lloyd George and a tome on dogs. His latest offering, The Devonshires, is about the mighty Duke of Devonshire’s family. It may have been inspired by the new Lady Hattersley, who was once senior master of a pack of hounds based at the duke’s stately pile, Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, not far from where the couple have a country home.
Yesterday, Hattersley was at the Cheltenham Literary Festival, revealing that he has been going to Chatsworth almost every day for the past three years to research it.
In the past he has had to fend off accusations of hypocrisy over Maggie’s position with the pack because he has always been an outspoken opponent of blood sports.
He defends his stance thus: ‘She doesn’t hunt live animals. A man runs and dogs run after him.’
Hattersley is reluctant to talk about his decision to venture down the matrimonial path once more, but a friend of the peer tells me: ‘He is very happy.’