My Tony Benn story

News of Tony Benn’s serious illness prompts me to recall my one connection with him, a tangential, passing moment. Twitter is all a-flutter this morning, squabbling over whether he was a great man or not. Irrelevant to me. I think he was a good man, which is much more important. He had empathy in spades and tirelessly challenged people’s views with gentle, searching comments. Depressingly, his habit in debate of getting straight to the heart of the matter is very much the exception. He was not much given to posturing and stood up for his beliefs. I’m sure that when the tributes come in from all sides they will agree on that single point.

Maybe 7 or 8 years ago I was cycling home from work along Southampton Row and noticed a small, colourful object in the gutter, hidden between two refuse skips. I stopped to pick it up. It was an address book crammed full of contact details. Many entries had been modified over the years as people had moved or changed their names or jobs, the phone numbers and addresses crossed out and new ones written in. It was clear that this was a cherished book, an old and useful friend. I couldn’t find the owner’s name or number but, leafing through in the hope of finding ‘Mum’ or ‘Work’ I came across various names I recognised. Journalists, politicians, writers, all from the Left. Tony Benn’s name was among them. Soon I found a page with lots of entries sharing the same family name and reasoned that they might be relatives of the owner, so I made a couple of phone calls and my hunch paid off. I tracked down the owner and let her know I had her address book.

A couple of days later the owner came to the Berners Street office to pick it up. She was a busy, lively woman, very grateful to be reunited with her book. It had fallen from her basket as she cycled the same route. My recollection is that she worked for a trades union organising events, but I might have that wrong. I mentioned that I had seen Tony Benn’s name among her contacts and that I was a fan of his. I said he appeared to be a good man and she agreed that he was. The following day, a jiffy bag addressed to me appeared in Reception. It contained a copy of Dare to be a Daniel, Tony Benn’s memoir of his early life. Inside, in clear black ink was a message: ‘To David, with thanks and best wishes, Tony Benn’.