When the IRA bombed Brighton’s Grand Hotel during the 1984 Tory party conference, says Simon Heffer in The Daily Telegraph, the floor of Norman and Margaret Tebbit’s room collapsed. Norman, who died this week aged 94, grabbed his wife’s hand as they fell through several storeys, and kept her calm in the hours it took for them to be rescued from the rubble. “I felt I could cope if he was there,” Margaret said. “We talked a lot, about the kids.” The bomb, which killed five people, inexorably changed the couple’s life. Margaret was partially paralysed from the neck down, becoming reliant on a “relay” of carers, and Norman – previously considered a potential successor to Margaret Thatcher – left front-line politics in 1992 to devote more time to her.

The attentiveness with which Norman looked after his wife was in direct contrast to his pugnacious image (Labour’s Michael Foot famously branded him a “semi-housetrained polecat”). He did her make-up for her until she re-mastered the art of applying it herself, and woke twice a night to turn her. When in public or at people’s houses, he remained at her side, “ensuring her every need was met”. Many close friends felt he suffered terrible guilt – she wouldn’t have received her appalling injuries had he not chosen to go into politics – but he never expressed it. He privately said Mrs Thatcher was uneasy in his presence after the bomb for the same reason: “she felt guilty that they had suffered and she hadn’t”. Margaret died in 2020, after 64 years of marriage. “No couple had ever taken the vow ‘for better or for worse’ more seriously.”

THE COUNTRY HOUSE Cookson House in Lanchester, County Durham is the four-bedroom east wing of the Grade II listed Colepike Hall, says The Guardian. On the ground floor is a kitchen, with a pantry and utility, along with a dining room, a large reception room looking out over the gardens, and a study. Upstairs are the bedrooms, one of which is en-suite with its own dressing room, and a family bathroom. In the acre of private grounds, which include woodland, a fenced paddock and a kitchen garden, there is a large outbuilding with a gym and plenty of storage. Durham city centre is a 20-minute drive. £950,000. Click on the image to see the listing.

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