When Wilson became prime minister

Recently BBC4 featured a documentary on the long rivalry between Harold Wilson and Edward Heath.   One of the points made was that Harold Wilson used his visits to the Scillies to reinforce his image of ‘ordinariness’, being photographed in sandals and shorts with a shopping bag outside the Co-op.   

But it wasn’t  just a subterfuge: in many ways, despite his intellectual brilliance, Wilson was an ordinary man from a lower middle class background who liked unpretentious food and the simple pleasures that the islands offered.

However, once he became prime minister issues of security assumed a new importance.  When Wilson visited the islands in the summer of 1964 he realised that when he returned at Christmas it would be as prime minister.    As Ernest Kay recalls, ‘He even considered where his “hot” telephone line should be installed; where his personal bodyguard would live when he was asleep in his bungalow (there was obviously no room for them there); where he would set up his telecommunicatons system between St. Mary’s and No.10 Downing Street.’   Later on one issue that had to be resolved was the installation of secure communications to speak to the US president.

Everywhere he went he had to be accompanied by his armed Special Branch detectives.  If he gave them an evening off, he had to stay at home.   This was not because people on the island bothered him.  As Philip Ziegler notes in his biography, ‘By the time he became Prime Minister he was an accepted feature of the island, boasted of as an additional tourist attraction but otherwise left in peace.’

There were occasional security scares.  Lord Moynihan arrived, carrying a gun and vowing vengeance for some affront the origins of which are obscure.   Giles Wilson obligingly helped him to park his private plane at the airport and gave him directions.   However, the local police had been forewarned and intercepted him before sending him back to the mainland.   The Russians stationed a trawler nearby with surveillance equipment when he was on the islands and Wilson would amuse himself by sending fake messages such as ‘The fox has a black cloak.’

Wilson’s later years were blighted by illness but Ziegler notes that for Mary Wilson ‘her greatest relief came when they could retreat to the Isles of Scilly, where everyone knew them and they were taken for granted.’   Harold Wilson died in 1995 and was buried at Old Town on June 6^th.