Ted Heath’s Ulster outpost

Don’t ever have Ted Heath to stay – unless you’ve got at least two pianos in the house.

That’s the lesson of On to the Next, the autobiography Jane Goddard has written, aged 91.

She has composed the book in a novel way, describing and drawing 14 houses she’s lived in, from Bedfordshire to New Zealand, Washington and Chelsea.

From 1953 to 1972, Goddard was married to Sir Robert Chichester-clark (1928-2016), the Londonderry MP who was the last MP representing a seat in Northern Ireland to be a British government minister.

His brother, James Chichester-clark, was the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1971.

Thanks to this connection, the then Leader of the Opposition, Edward Heath, stayed at the ChichesterClarks’ house, Ross House in Kells, Country Antrim (pictured), in the late 1960s.

Heath was not an easy guest, not least when he saw Harold Wilson, then Prime Minister, on telly – Heath, to his horror, hadn’t been asked to respond.

‘When Viola [another guest] attempted to charm him with questions as to his childhood, he responded with gruff monosyllables,’ Goddard writes.

Poor Viola then asked Heath if he’d like to play some music on the two pianos in the house. ‘He quite tersely asked me if they had both been tuned together,’ Goddard remembers.

Heath only finally cheered up after playing the Brahms Haydn Variations. ‘Later that afternoon, he decided he would like Viola and me to sing duets while he accompanied us, and we sang Wesley’s anthem Blessed Be the God and Father, and that made him happy.’

Has there ever been a trickier guest in history than the Incredible Grump?

When the Old Un is reincarnated, he doesn’t want to come back as a cow. Science has, it seems, taken all the romance out of life on the farm.

That’s what he thought on reading a new poem by Oldie contributor Rachel Billington. She composed it on seeing the local bull inseminator arrive at her Dorset village.

The Bull Inseminator The bull inseminator came to our village today. Oh, the shrieks and wails of protest or delight!

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