Born 20 June 1931, in Settle, North Yorkshire, to Clara Grice Grisedale and Arthur Graham, a local cinema owner, who was a staunch Liberal, as has been Beth, her older sister; she died on 13 March 2008.

Claire Brooks left an indelible impression on just about everyone with whom she was involved. She was warm-hearted, spirited, emotional, unwavering in her support of individuals and causes once she had decided they were worthy of backing, and quite impossible to cajole into an effective tactical force. She was a one-off, typically loved and indulged by Liberals of like mind whom she often exasperated by her ill discipline. Such was Claire's passion that, in full flow at the conference rostrum, she would ignore amber lights, red lights and all the chair's futile attempts to call her to order. Singlehandedly she eventually achieved the installation of a switch whereby the chair could henceforth turn off the rostrum microphone!

She was from a firm Liberal family in the Yorkshire Dales. She excelled at her local school in Skipton and studied law at University College, London, where she was vice-president of the student union. Speaking in 1958 at a huge Liberal rally in Blackpool she announced that she was looking for a Liberal husband but, instead, she married Herbert Brooks, an American citizen, and moved to the United States. There were no children of the marriage and, following her divorce, she moved back to the UK and fought her home constituency of Skipton in February 1974 after an interval of fifteen years.

Lacking a majority, Prime Minister Harold Wilson went to the country again in October that year and Claire Brooks was one of the few Liberal candidates to improve the party vote, coming within 590 votes of ousting the sitting Conservative MP, despite her vocal espousal of unilateral nuclear disarmament, which hardly endeared her to hard bitten rural Yorkshire men and women. In 1979, a new and more attractive Conservative candidate, plus a swing to the Tories, greatly increased their majority. Then new constituency boundaries in 1983 put paid to her chances of entering parliament for her home seat. Had she nursed the seat after 1959, instead of being away in the USA, she might well have succeeded, but ultimately reliance on her personal drive and commitment waned. Quixotically in the 1987 election she fought the Lancaster constituency which she had no realistic chance of winning.

Claire was a passionate European and she contested the 1979 and 1984 European elections. Also, from 1975, she committed herself to a rural solicitor's practice and the following year won a seat on the Craven District Council, which she held for twenty-three years, becoming Chair of the Council and Mayor of Skipton. In 1986 she was awarded the OBE for her service to political and public life.

Claire was all heart, invariably impulsive, an instinctive supporter of the underdog and in awe of no-one. At one Liberal Party Assembly, learning that male waiters were paid more than their female counterparts, she led a sit down in the middle of the conference hall - in full view of the television cameras. Her belief in the purity of liberalism and in the need for a powerful, independent and clearly focussed Liberal party, led her to oppose the Lib-Lab pact of 1977-78, and to oppose the merger with the Social Democratic Party.

Claire is regarded as one of the stalwarts whose dogged determination, passion and advocacy enthused younger members of the Liberal party and who ensured the survival and subsequent revival of the Liberal cause.

Peter Boizot had four great passions: pizza, jazz, Peterborough and Liberalism! With all four he was liberal in his support, both with finance and in enthusiasm. He had great entrepreneurial acumen so that his delightfully naive belief that what he was enthusiastic about would also create paying customers often proved to be the case, making him a very rich man. He was not at all embarrassed by being rich as he simply regarded wealth as a means of supporting his passions and financing new ideas.

His innate liberalism also showed in ways that others would regard as eccentric. When businesses started up in other parts of the country or abroad copying the Pizza Express style and menu, rather than suing them he regarded it as a tribute to his success and as an encouragement for their customers also to patronise his restaurants. Having introduced a string quartet in Pizza Express on one evening a week, his accountant produced figures to show that the extra cost meant they were losing money, Peter ignored the evidence on the grounds that music and food went well together and that it would encourage repeat visits. Also, rather than give cash to beggars encountered on his way through Soho to his restaurant, he would offer them employment.

Even personally he was a delightful contradiction: he was a bachelor who always had a string of beautiful girl friends, and he was lifelong vegetarian who always had meat dishes on his menus. His love of pizza was sparked by trying it at a specialist restaurant in Italy. Unable to find a decent pizza in London in 1965 he simply bought a pizza oven, knocked down half a wall to get it into a building in Soho, hired specialist staff and insisted on only the best ingredients - even travelling to Italy to source the best tomatoes! He inaugurated the idea of having the cooking done in open view of the customers. Being concerned at the environmental threats to Venice he launched a special vegetarian pizza, the Veneziana. It became a best-seller and, with 25p of each one going to a fund to protect Venice, by 2011 it had raised £2 million.

Loving jazz, in 1969 he opened the basement at Pizza Express in Soho as a jazz club, booking not only internationally famous stars, such as Ella Fitzgerald, but also my very old-fashioned Liberal jazz band. He bought the historic restaurant, Kettners, in Romilly Street, Soho, and made it into an upmarket pizza restaurant without upmarket prices. I recall attending one of Peter's birthday parties there and being impressed by the star jazz men and women present - including Larry Adler, Kenny Baker leading the band and, amazingly, Adelaide Hall being persuaded to sing - an artiste who had recorded with Duke Ellington back in 1927! Inevitably he was one of the key people behind the high profile annual Soho Jazz Festival in 1986.

Peter was born, bred and educated in Peterborough and it was easy to persuade him to be the Liberal candidate there in February 1974. Despite it being the most marginal seat in Britain he managed to squeeze 20% of Liberal support. He fought again in the October election that year but his vote was reduced as there was a tactical vote swing to Labour. He became the President of Peterborough Liberal Democrats despite, as he said, "being a Liberal more than a Liberal Democrat." In 1986 the Liberal party nominated him for an MBE for political and public service."

His final wild scheme was to buy Peterborough's football team with the idea of putting enough money into it to improve the run down ground and to get the team into the top division. This was a challenge way beyond even Peter's entrepreneurial instincts and skills and, putting £1 million annually into the club, it finally almost bankrupted him. He had to sell the Pizza Express business and other assets and he retired to a modest flat in his beloved Peterborough where he died on 5 December 2018.

Peter Boizot, 1929-2018

Viv Bingham, who has died aged 79 after a short illness, was a Liberal stalwart of firm and consistent unilateral views on nuclear defence who retained the affection and support of the whole party. He became the party's national president in 1981, the year of the alliance with SDP which thus gave him the most difficult diplomatic task within the party for many decades. His personal concerns about the dilution of Liberalism were well known but he upheld the responsibilities of the office with typical fairness. He was helped by his instinctive warmth for all individuals of goodwill and his love of debate. He was awarded an OBE in 1994.

Bingham was brought up in Alnwick, Northumberland, and his early adulthood was not without its difficulties, including a first marriage to which he very rarely referred, even amongst close friends. After studying at New College, Oxford, he worked in the personnel departments first of the National Coal Board and then of Imperial Metals Industries and Rubery Owen, both Midlands engineering companies.

His second marriage, to Cecilia Gowan, was a delightful success and a meeting of minds. They established a training consultancy together and it was only the arrival of their two daughters, Katy and Jessica, that pushed Bingham to seek more secure - and pensionable - employment. He joined the Co-operative Wholesale Society (now the Co-operative Group) in 1980 and took on a passionate long term commitment to co-operation and to industrial democracy generally which he badgered the Liberal party and, later, the Liberal Democrats to get into legislation. Cecilia continued the training consultancy on her own.

Viv Bingham joined the Liberal party in 1962 and always regarded it as his "second family." His convivial presence at the annual party conference, usually with Cecilia, and his particular encouragement of young Liberal friends, was much appreciated. Although a keen supporter of municipal candidates, Viv was always a national politician with a national agenda. He was committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament and his support of Liberal CND was particularly important when the party leadership put pressure on the group. He was particularly concerned that the leadership's determination to ally with the SDP would dilute the Liberals' long and consistent sympathy for disarmament, even though it never officially went as far as he would have wished. He served on a number of party policy committees and was a regular and persuasive debater at party conferences. In 1978 he published a pamphlet, "We must conquer unemployment."

Viv Bingham was popular with all sections of the Liberal party and, later, the Liberal Democrats, partly because of his warm personality but also because he was prepared to travel long distances to speak to small groups at unprepossessing venues - and to lead the community singing at the Glee Club on the last night of the annual conference. This latter was a perfect introduction to the choral singing that he took up in recent years! He had a great ability to build friendships that lasted and it was typical that one of his final acts was to take a leading role last April in organising the memorial celebration for his great friend Elizabeth Sidney.

He fought both the1974 general elections in Heywood and Royton, 1979 in his home constituency of Hazel Grove, and Derbyshire West in 1983. He was also the party's European Parliament election candidate for East Cheshire in 1979. Cecilia died in July 2001 and this was a huge blow to Viv who needed time to regroup his forces. Though he referred to it himself in his first and last Christmas letter in 2011, it was not widely known that from time to time he suffered from depression, which seemed so distant from the warm and cheerful individual that colleagues knew and appreciated.

Typically he bounced back and in 2005, at the age of 72, he took on the Liberal Democrat candidature in the Stalybridge and Hyde constituency. He telephoned his friends in great glee to tell them, saying that he had accepted the invitation to stand and was determined to enjoy himself with this last election campaign as candidate.

He became a member of the National Liberal Club in 1995 and in recent years, in between bouts of ill health, he was to be found in the bar from time to time contributing animatedly to the discussion of the current political agenda. His family was central to his life and he spoke often about his two daughters' success and of his two young grandchildren. He had a mild heart attack in September last year but seemed to be in better form in recent months; however he was unable to survive a further heart attack soon after an otherwise successful operation for cancer.

Vivian (Viv) Bingham, born 11 April 1932, died 3 March 2012. Wife, Cecilia Gowan, died July 2001; daughters Katy and Jessica; grandchildren Benjamin and Joseph.

A genuine Liberal individualist has died aged 92. Gordon Bevans had been President of Leeds North East Constituency Liberal Democrats for over twenty years and before that had been a party officer and City Council candidate for the Liberal Party.

He left school at sixteen and went into the post office and then did his war service in India. After the war he went back into the GPO but decided to study for a degree in psychology. This he accomplished over quite a number of years of external study, including via Birkbeck College in the University of London. He then became a civil servant, applying his qualification within the Ministry of Labour. Eventually he was able to switch to clinical practice and he came to St James’s Hospital Leeds in 1964 - and never moved, ending as Principal Psychologist there, retiring in 1985. He was also a statistical expert and contributed to a number of academic papers.

Gordon was a fine musician and played violin and sometimes viola for many years in the Sinfonia of Leeds. He was for a time president of the Leeds Music Club and this facilitated his great love of chamber music. For many years he was a regular attender at the annual Dartington music festivals. Some years ago he and I used to supplement our political discussions by playing oboe and violin duets at his home.

A passionate internationalist Gordon was for many years chair of the Leeds United Nations Association in which position he was a very persistent lobbyist for a range of topical causes.

Gordon adored discussion and debate and latterly would pester colleagues to come to his home to grapple with his latest ideas - some of which were sound but many of which were curious to say the least! He read widely and some of the books and learned journals fed his incipient conspiracy theories. Another aspect of visits to the Bevans’ household was that his wife, Joan, would proclaim herself a Labour supporter and markedly depart for the kitchen whilst Liberal colleagues were around!

Following Joan’s death eighteen months ago Gordon’s demands became more importunate and a voicemail message a few days before his told me I had to respond to his latest proposal within five minutes if we were going to resolve Britain’s current problem. I wasn’t able to call him back, so perhaps it’s all my fault!

All his Liberal colleagues held him in great regard and those who visited him were concerned that in recent months he appeared to be neglecting himself. He died just a few days after being admitted to his former hospital. It was a great relief to everyone who knew that he would have found even the best care home totally impossible.

Leeds doctor, dentist and former Liberal Councillor Maury Benard has died at the age of 87.

Maury Benard was born in Leeds and qualified as a dentist before serving with the army in North Africa from 1940, specialising in facial reconstruction. This gave him the incentive to study medicine at Leeds University after the war. Those who only knew him later as a very languid and relaxed member of the Leeds Jewish and medical communities would be surprised to learn that at university Benard became light heavyweight boxing champion.

Practising in Armley both as a doctor and a dentist he was an ideal Leeds City Council candidate in 1968 for the newly constituted Castleton ward, comprising lower Armley and New Wortley. He had the highest personal vote of any candidate in Leeds and carried his two colleagues, Michael Meadowcroft and Colin Tucker on to the City Council as the first Liberals elected for thirty years.

Campaigning with Dr Benard in Armley was somewhat unusual in that knew a considerable number of local families and rarely needed to knock on a door before entering. One defeated Labour candidate accused him of going "from sickbed to deathbed with his campaign posters." Far from being annoyed by the libel he laughed and admitted that it was true! His trademark Jaguar, with the personalised numberplate MB 400, was unmissable in the ward.

He served only three years, losing his seat in 1971 despite increasing his vote, but left his mark on the city in the establishment of a unit for deaf blind children at the Elmete Lane special school. This came about as a consequence of a local Armley family having a deaf-blind daughter for whom there was no provision in Leeds. The authorities stated that there were too few such children in Leeds to justify special provision. Councillor Benard organised a meeting with the relevant educational officials and, unbeknown to them, arranged for all the Leeds parents of deaf-blind children to be present, together with their children. Faced with a packed room the officials accepted the case and the special unit was inaugurated.

His wife, Asneth, died on 25 September 2004 and Maury Benard survived her by less than a month.

Maurice (Maury) Benard, born , died 20 October 2004. Husband of Asneth. Two daughters, Stephanie and Barbara, and four grandchildren.

Photo credit: National Liberal ClubJohn Baker, who has died aged 90, was a well respected lawyer and Circuit Judge, an instinctive and consistent Liberal and a very convivial clubman. His quiet, courteous manner belied a toughness and determination that he demonstrated in his pursuit of fairness and justice. It was a key characteristic of John that he was never prepared to be a passenger, content simply to hold strong views. Instead he was always prepared to express his opinions and to act upon them, even when to do so might damage his chances of preferment.

John was born in Calcutta in November 1925, his father being a jute broker and a Great War soldier who earned the Military Cross as an officer with the Ghurkas. In the depression in the late 1920s his father went to Canada to find work. Shortly afterwards John's mother received a letter out of the blue from her husband saying that they had never got on and that they should divorce. One consequence of this was that John never knew his father and that his maternal grandfather, in Plymouth, had a great influence on John's childhood and education.

John attended Wellington School and thus missed the bomb which destroyed the family home in Plymouth in May 1941. John's mother was in the house but emerged physically unscathed although she remained thereafter very jumpy at sounds that reminded her of the blitz. John left school in 1943 to join the Royal Navy and was admitted to Wadham College, Oxford, at the same time. An endemic ear problem led to his discharge from the Royal Navy and he never saw active service although he had to join the University's naval division. John already knew that he wanted to be a lawyer and he therefore returned to Wadham College full time in May 1945 to pursue his studies. At the same time John became interested in the Liberal party, being particularly attracted by William Beveridge. Typically he became actively involved straightaway and later he felt that this was partly responsible for his gaining "by no means a bad third" which nonetheless he felt was disappointing. He stayed on at Oxford to retake the exams but with the same result.

John wanted to be a barrister but it was clear that the family finances would not stretch to covering the early years with little or no income. He therefore set about becoming a solicitor, signing articles in July 1948 and being admitted solicitor in 1951 with the firm of Amery Parkes. In 1957, thanks to Glanville Brown, a National Liberal Club member, he moved to Goodman Derrick, specialising in libel, copyright and the franchising of the early ITV companies.

He had continued his activities with the Liberal party and it was at the party headquarters that he met Joy Heward who was the head of the research and information department. Their friendship flourished, helped by their shared commitment to Liberalism and their affection for music, rugby and cricket. They were married in September 1954. John had joined the National Liberal Club on 2nd October 1946 and the clubhouse became a convenient meeting place for meetings of Westminster Liberal Association of which Joy was treasurer, and, of course, for convivial dining.

During his time at Goodman Derrick, John was involved in a number of high profile cases but he still wished to fulfil his ambition and, with the encouragement of Liberal turned Labour MP, Dingle Foot, John read for the Bar and was called in 1960, joining Foot's chambers. He and Joy had set up home in Richmond in 1957 and it is typical of John's lack of ostentation that, until they downsized only recently, he and Joy never moved, even though it would have been quite possible as his legal and judicial career progressed. Following on his heavy involvement in the Young Liberals and in the local association, John stood for the Richmond constituency at the 1959 general election, increasing the Liberal vote substantially but coming third. He stood there again in 1964 and further increased the Liberal share of the vote. John became a national party officer, joining the party executive in 1959, chairing the 1963 party assembly and was the party's vice-president in 1968-69. In 1970 he fought his final election, this time in Dorking, once again coming no better than a respectable third.

John's legal career progressed and he took a number of overseas cases, including appearing in courts-martial in Germany. He was also outspoken when he felt it necessary. On one occasion he told the minister, Virginia Bottomley, that a mentally ill man languishing in prison should instead be in hospital. A bed was found for him. On another occasion he presided over a controversial case in which an international player was accused - and acquitted - of breaking the jaw of an opponent on the rugby field. John told the jury, "The law of our country does not stop at the touchline." In another similar case a club player was convicted of GBH having broken the jaw of an opponent in two places. John gave him nine months and the Court of Appeal upheld conviction and sentence despite the fury of the Rugby Football Union.

He was appointed a judge in 1973 and John's autobiography, Ballot Box to Jury Box, published in 2005, recounts the number of representations he made on court procedure over his twenty-five years on the bench. His appointment sadly put an end to his political activities. He also temporarily resigned from the National Liberal Club, rejoining in 1990. He had previously been a Trustee of the Club and a member of the General Committee. He was Chairman of the Trustees, 2000-2003 and Chairman of the Club, 2006-2007. John's loyalty to the Liberal cause, his commitment to the Club and his dedication to the law was typical of this popular and respected colleague.

John Baker, born 5 November 1925, died 13 June 2016. He is survived by his wife, Joy, and his daughters, Caroline and Jennifer.

Obituary for The Guardian

Photo: NLCLord David Chidgey, who has died at the age of 79, came into parliament via local government. During his eleven years in the House of Commons he was one of only seven chartered engineers. He was committed to his native Hampshire and was elected to his local New Alresford Town Council in 1976 and then to Winchester City Council in 1987. He had wider aspirations than local government and whilst in the middle of fighting the Hampshire Central European Parliament by-election in Autumn 1988 he approached the Liberal Democrats’ regional chair with a view to becoming a parliamentary candidate. He was adopted as the party’s candidate for the Eastleigh constituency, adjacent to his Winchester home, winning it at the second attempt in February 1994 at a by-election caused by Eastleigh’s Conservative MP death in unusual circumstances. He held the seat twice thereafter before retiring at the 2005 general election. He was created a life peer in May 2005.

Chidgey was born in Basingstoke, the son of Cecil, an army officer, and Winifred (née Weston). He attended Brune Park County High School in Gosport and went on to study Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering as a civilian student at the Admiralty College in Portsmouth, qualifying as a Mechanical Engineer. He then studied Civil Engineering at Portsmouth Polytechnic. His initial employment was five years with Hampshire County Council on traffic engineering projects before going into the private sector. During this latter employment he undertook work in West Africa and in Oman which began his involvement in overseas projects which he continued throughout his parliamentary career. Later he managed major projects to provide water, electricity supplies and transport networks in a number of countries including Bangladesh and Brazil as well as in West Africa and the Middle East. His professional expertise was recognised by a number of awards including the Fellowship of the Institution of Civil Engineers. In 1965 he married April Idris -Jones and they had a son, David, and two daughters, Joanna and Caitlin.

In the 1987 Winchester City Council he gained his local ward but did not defend it four years later choosing to concentrate on his parliamentary candidature and career. In parliament he became first the party’s spokesman on transport for which his engineering experience and Eastleigh’s history as a railway town were highly appropriate, particularly at a time when railways privatisation was being fiercely debated. He then developed his long interest in Africa and became a member of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. His expertise, particularly on African matters, was recognised by a number of institutes and think tanks such as the Commonwealth Studies Unit where he became chair of its oversight committee. At various times he was also the party’s spokesman on Employment and on Training, Trade and Industry. He led the successful campaign that blocked plans by major high street banks to increase charges significantly at cash dispensing machines which would have disproportionally affected poorer people. During his last four years in the House of Commons he was a member of the Speaker’s Panel occasionally deputising for the Speaker.

When he moved to the House of Lords he became the party’s specialist front bench spokesman of African development and on human rights issues. In July 2010 he contributed an article to The Guardian on the difficulties of the countries of Africa’s Great Lakes region. He was also active in debates on issues that affected his locality, particularly when he could bring to bear his professional experience. One such were his parliamentary speeches on the protection of chalk streams which flowed through the local rivers in his beloved Hampshire. His last speech towards the end of 2021 was in a debate on the controversial House of Commons amendments on the Environment Bill in which he played a part in the government’s climb down in favour of stronger action by the water companies on sewage control. Chidgey was a diligent caseworker and rather than making a political issue out of individual personal and local issues he preferred to be the thoughtful and thorough problem solver. His unassuming way of walking down from his constituency office each day to buy a lunchtime sandwich provided an informal opportunity for him to be approached by constituents and he was amused rather than annoyed by their regular failure to pronounce his name properly, being often called “Mr Chidley”.

With his internationalism and his attention to environmental issues Chidgey was a natural Liberal and he was much respected by his parliamentary colleagues. He was somewhat reserved in personality but his easy conviviality was evident in his active involvement in the National Liberal Club in which he used his experience and his contacts to assist with meetings on overseas affairs. He was also a long term member of its General Committee and particularly of its Wine Committee.

He is survived by April, David, Joanna and Caitlin, and two grandchildren.

David William George Chidgey, Baron Chidgey of Hamble-le-Rice, engineer and politician, born 9 July 1942, died 15 February 2022.

Obituary for Journal of Liberal History

Photo: NLCDavid Chidgey came into parliament via the time honoured Liberal route of local government and a fortuitous by-election, but although he was a conscientious councillor on his local town council and later on the Winchester City Council, his sights were quite early set on a parliamentary career. His first big contest was a European Parliament by-election for the Hampshire Central seat in Autumn 1988 but thereafter he concentrated on the Eastleigh constituency, winning it at the second attempt in February 1994 at a by-election caused by the death of the Conservative MP in highly unusual circumstances. He held the seat twice thereafter before retiring at the 2005 general election. He was made a Life Peer in May 2005.

David was unusual in being a highly regarded civil engineer, a rare breed in the House of Commons, and, prior to his election, he had managed many major overseas engineering projects mainly in Africa but also in Bangladesh, Brazil and the Middle East. As a natural parliamentary follow up to his practical work he became a member of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. It was also appropriate that he became the party’s spokesperson on Transport, which also helped him in his Eastleigh constituency with its history as a railway town.

He was a conscientious constituency MP and preferred to achieve results by applying expertise and by working constructively with other MPs rather than banging the party drum too loudly. There were also opportunities for David to apply his engineering expertise to local issues as was evidenced by his speeches on the protection of the chalk streams which flowed through the local rivers in his constituency. He was also pleased to have played a significant role in the successful campaign to block plans by major high street banks to increase charges significantly at cash dispensing machines which would have disproportionately affected poorer people. His regular and unassuming habit of walking down from his constituency office to buy a lunchtime sandwich provided an informal opportunity to be approached by constituents and he was amused by their regular mispronouncing of his name as “Mr Chidley.”

When he moved to the House of Lords he became the party’s specialist front bench spokesman on African development and on human rights issues. With his internationalism and his attention to environmental issues David was a natural Liberal. His easy conviviality was evident in his active involvement in the National Liberal Club in which he used his experience and his contacts to assist with meetings on overseas affairs.

David William George Chidgey, engineer and politician, born 9 July 1942, died 15 February 2022.

Michael Meadowcroft, the former West Leeds MP, pays an affectionate tribute here to Armley resident Leslie Chapman who died last month and who will be remembered as one of the community's most active and remarkable figures.

Leslie Chapman, of Aberdeen Grove, Armley, who died on 19th March aged 78, was a remarkable man. Inventor, painter, musician, electronics buff and community activist, he had a lively mind and views on every subject - often very unusual!

I first met Leslie at one of my Councillor’s surgeries at Armley Library. He was beginning a campaign against unscrupulous private landlords who were taking over terraced houses in Armley and elsewhere, converting them without planning permission into bed-sitters and circumventing rent regulations by pretending they were bed and breakfast establishments. His persistence made sure that I was not allowed to let the pressure drop, and between us we eventually had a number of successes. Somehow he always had new information as to the tactics of the landlords, both in Armley and in other parts of Leeds.

On one occasion, Yorkshire Television wanted a film of a typical surgery for an educational programme and Leslie was one of a number of constituents who agreed to take part. When the cameras rolled he proceeded to give me a much harder time than he ever did on a routine visit!

From time to time in connection with this housing campaign I visited Leslie and was amazed to see scores of beautiful landscapes in oils around the house. These had all been painted by him, mainly in the Yorkshire Dales, until in latter years his eyesight prevented him from being able to focus clearly enough for his own high standards. Apparently even the most complicated of river and woodland scenes were completed by him in a matter of hours without any detriment to the care and detail required.

He was passionately interested in music, also a participant rather than as an observer. He had played violin in the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra and, until an accident had damaged his hands, he had been an excellent pianist. A recording of him playing a Faure Ballade demonstrated a real delicacy and fluency of touch. He possessed a large record collection, plus considerable musical knowledge, and until my election to Parliament entailed my being away from Leeds too much it was a regular Sunday lunchtime treat to visit Leslie and listen to some unusual piece of music, perhaps connected to the Faust legend to which he had a particular attachment.

Leslie Chapman had always had an alert interest in scientific developments and had been involved in a number of innovations. He claimed to have been responsible for the idea of automatic traffic signals which were first installed at the junction of Park Row and Bond Street in 1928. He worked with John Logie Baird at Scarborough on the experiments which led to the development of television. He also tried to patent a number of inventions, including a gyroscope which, if installed in tankers, would prevent them from overturning. In recent years he had taken up micro electronics and made automatic light sensitive switches for use in securing premises.

In common with many remarkable individuals he had a difficult side to his personality, and there were areas of his life that he preferred to close off completely to outsiders. Sometimes he could seem very awkward but he would always respond to a request for help from a friend - particularly if it involved demonstrating his practical or technical skills! We have lost a member of the Armley community who had a multitude of skills and was a genuine character.

George Cunningham was an active member of the National Liberal Club taking advantage of the welcome given to members of the SDP following its alliance with the Liberal Party in 1983. George was a member of the General Committee and served as the Club's Honorary Librarian only giving up the task in frustration at not being able to get agreement to clear out the dross from the library's shelves to make way for Liberal reference material.

George had been a Labour MP from 1970 with a safe seat in Islington but became one of the moderate Labour MPs targeted by the Bennite left faction. When he was re-selected for his Islington South and Finsbury seat by just five votes in November 1981 he said that it was time to end the distraction of having to deal with internal disputes. He then resigned from the Labour party and sat as an Independent Labour MP until he joined the SDP in June 1982 as one of its last recruits. He was always a shrewd and effective Member of Parliament with a mastery of parliamentary procedure. This enabled him to persuade a majority of the House of Commons to support an amendment to the 1978 Scotland Act providing that for a majority vote in the 1979 referendum on establishing a devolved assembly for Scotland to be effective it would have to achieve at least 40% of the electorate. Despite the vote being won by 52% to 48% it failed to reach the 40% threshold and therefore failed. It is a pity that a similar clause was not inserted into the 2015 Referendum Act!

He came within 363 votes of holding his seat in 1983 as an SDP candidate and also failed narrowly in 1987, losing by 805 votes. He was a great bibliophile and had what was therefore the highly congenial post of Chief Executive of the Library Association from 1984 to 1992. George was a very convivial member of the Club until his attendances became less frequent following the advance of Alzheimer's Disease.

George Cunningham, 10 June 1931 - 27 July 2018
Hon Librarian NLC, 1999-2004