Encounter: Jeremy Thorpe

Jeremy was another friend from University days, who achieved the rare success of being elected as an MP, as a representative of the smallest of the three parties, for Liberals. He became notorious because of a sex scandal. He unsuccessfully sued a newspaper over allegations of sexual impropriety and was forced to resign his leadership position. We were never very close friends, but in the early seventies he came to San Francisco, where Barbara and I entertained him. He had great energy and charm, and I always felt that it was a tragedy that a man of his ability and ambition chosen at an early age to lead his parliamentary party to become the countries first Liberal Prime Minister in many years.