Like Sir Rhodes Boyson, Dame Jill Knight has never been one of my favourite people - and I've a feeling I may owe her an apology. I'd always thought of her as being one of those Tory ladies in funny hats, a censorious coffee morning gossip who wouldn't be out of place in a soap. However, this book, an autobiography consisting more of her personal recollections than of a straightforward account of her career, has somewhat changed my opinion. We have opposite views on abortion and the so-called permissive society and probably always will have; furthermore, she's too pro-Europe and pro-Major for my liking, aside from her voting for Michael Heseltine on the second ballot in 1990. But she reveals herself in this book to possess a great sense of humour - I laughed out loud more than once - and a likable, down to earth, personality. And at least she didn't think much of Edward Heath!

She faces one handicap as a memorialist - her life wouldn't have attracted a biographer. It's been too "straightforward" - young Conservative with political ambitions inspired by a socialist schoolmistress who victimised her for writing critical essays about William Morris' News from Nowhere; housewife, mother, Councillor, backbencher. However, she at least makes it sound interesting - and at least backbenchers don't have to behave themselves and toe the party line as much as frontbenchers!

She writes of her time as a Councillor that "It is doubtful whether paying allowances to Councillors has improved the quality of those offering themselves for service [nice to see an MP with a gift for understatement!]...number of meetings have increased greatly...more meetings the Councillors attend, the more money they get". It seems that she was farsighted in warning about subversives in the trade unions when the pink socialist in Tory clothing Macmillan government was dedicated to turning a blind eye. Dame Jill also passes on some useful advice - "never trust so-called experts" (p.27) and the truth about the NHS - it can never satisfy everybody's needs. According to her, an aspiring MP needs "the tact of a diplomat, the hide of an elephant, the energy of a break-dancer, the persistence of a debt-collector, and the patience of a saint" - not to mention the successful candidate who told the committee his beliefs and added that "if any of you disagree with any of this, I am quite happy to change it!" She includes many interesting, not to say hilarious, anecdotes. I instance the time a constituent tried to bribe her with a stuffed cobra, the sex change man/woman who wanted to know if he/she/it would get the pension at 60 or 65, the Indian model of the four wise monkeys (see page 85!), and the trip to Russia in 1967, when she noticed "enormous differences between people's status in a country when I had been led to believe all were equal"- surely a trifle disingenuous?

In fact, I've only one real criticism of this book - there's no index!

Mark Taha