Lord Tebbit on life in Bury St Edmunds
Once tipped to be Prime Minister, Lord Tebbit took a back seat in politics in order to look after his disabled wife, but conservation groups in Bury St Edmunds now have a strong ally.
Lord and Lady Tebbit have now settled into their new home in the town and have already joined the ranks of the Churchgate Area Association and Bury Society.
The couple moved into Churchgate Street in mid-July and are coming to terms with the problem of noisy weekend revellers.
"The noise on Friday and Saturday nights can be excessive," said Lord Tebbit.
"One longs for a touch of old-fashioned policing, where people who are drunk and disorderly are rounded up and spend a night in the cells or taken to hospital to have their stomachs pumped.
"That said, if you live in the town it is going to get noisy just as if you live in the country you may get a deer jump your fence and eat your roses – there are hazards everywhere. If anyone thinks after 10pm people walk around in slippers whispering to each other, then don't live in a town centre."
The 78-year-old former Conservative MP is perhaps best remembered as the man who took on the striking trade unions in the early 1980s – and won.
"It was not a job for anybody shy or retiring," he said. "We went from having the worst industrial relations in Europe to the best – all in a period of five years.
"You couldn't accomplish anything like that without a punch up. I think it was the most important thing I did."
It was during this time as Employment Secretary that he told of how his father cycled to find work in the 1930s – and was famously misquoted as saying 'On Yer Bike' to the unemployed.
But Lord Tebbit feels it is not that easy and that the current benefits system penalises couples for living together and mothers for going back out to work.
"It's absolute madness. We put large barriers in the way of people going back to work," he said.
He added that he backed Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg's idea to double the tax threshold and raise taxes on the rich, helping to get more people into work and off welfare.
It was during the 1984 Conservative Party conference in Brighton that Lord Tebbit was seriously injured and his wife Margaret left disabled by an IRA bomb.
"I do get cross sometimes," said Lord Tebbit. "I have got a lot of sympathy for the Lockerbie bereaved."
But he said Libya had been providing Semtex explosives to the IRA in the 1970s and 1980s – paid for by American sympathisers.
"I do think it's a bit rich of the American politicians to be squawking about terrorism now. Some of us have got long memories," he said.
The couple moved to Bury from West Sussex so that Lady Tebbit can have more independence, rather than being taken everywhere by car – and they have been warmly welcomed.
"People are usually pretty polite. If people don't like us or disagree with what we have done, they normally just walk by. Here in Bury, we find that people are extraordinarily friendly, not just to me but to my wife, who also gets recognised."
One of his loves is the theatre and Lord Tebbit once performed 'An evening with' at Bury's Theatre Royal – and has been asked to appear again. "Ask a politician whether he is willing to spend an evening talking about himself to an audience and there is only one answer. It is what politicians do, like a dog barks and a cat meows," he said.
Now he is writing his first novel, a story about a paraplegic boy and a dog.
"Other than an election manifesto, it is the first fiction I have ever written," said Lord Tebbit, who has previously published his memoirs, a book about politics and a cook book of his favourite game recipes.
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Weather for Bury St Edmunds
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 13 C to 25 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 22 mph
Wind direction: East
