Harold Wilson confessed to secret ‘love match’ while PM, former aide reveals | Harold Wilson

Harold Wilson confessed to an affair throughout his last yr in Downing Avenue, considered one of his closest surviving aides has revealed for the primary time.

The previous Labour prime minister had a secret affair with Janet Hewlett-Davies, his former deputy press secretary who was 22 years his junior, in direction of the top of his time in No 10.

Joe Haines, Wilson’s former press secretary, revealed the affair in an interview with the Occasions on Thursday.

Haines stated he was instructed of the “love match” between Wilson and Hewlett-Davies, who have been each married on the time, earlier than the prime minister’s resignation in 1976.

“Greater than anybody might know, she was of significance to the final Wilson administration: she was Harold Wilson’s mistress,” Haines instructed the Occasions. “She died nursing a secret which by no means leaked from Downing Avenue, essentially the most infamous leaky constructing in Britain.

“It was actually a love match on her aspect, and the enjoyment which Wilson flaunted to me advised that it was for him too.”

One other of Wilson’s closest advisers, Bernard Donoughue, who was additionally made conscious of the affair, instructed the BBC Radio 4 Immediately programme that revealing it now was essential for the “historic document”.

Lord Donoughue stated he and Haines had determined to make the half-century-old secret public after Hewlett-Davies’ loss of life in October.

“We saved it secret as a result of we thought it might be used damagingly towards him at the moment,” Donoughue stated.

“There’s no cause for that now, and we waited till they’d each died, Wilson a while in the past and Janet just some months in the past, and so I felt as a someday historian this was essential to go within the historic document of Harold Wilson.”

Wilson, who was prime minister first between 1964 and 1970 after which once more between 1974 and 1976, died in 1995 on the age of 79. Wilson’s spouse of 55 years, Mary, died in 2018, aged 102.

Throughout his time in workplace, there have been persistent rumours that he was having an affair along with his political secretary Marcia Williams, with whom he had a tumultuous relationship. He ennobled Williams as Woman Falkender in 1974.

Donoughue stated Wilson had cryptically confessed the affair to him throughout a stroll round No 10 in direction of the top of his premiership.

“He, in a really Wilsonian method, as a result of he wasn’t a really direct particular person, he stated he was very happy I used to be a buddy of Janet,” Donoughue stated.

“So I, understanding him, know that he wouldn’t have raised that except he had obtained some curiosity or concern, so I knew that he was asking me: did I find out about him and Janet?

“And I replied by saying I believed Janet was a stunning and terrific particular person and I then added, in a Wilsonian method, which I had discovered from him ‘and I’m very happy your relationship is so shut and so good’.”

“And that method I let him know that I knew, after which he stated that she was a stunning particular person and he had by no means been happier.”

Donoughue stated the affair had supplied “a bit of sunshine at sundown” for the prime minister, who was turning into more and more paranoid in regards to the safety companies and coping with a really slim majority, financial difficulties and, it has been advised, the early levels of dementia.

Haines instructed the Occasions that Wilson’s affair “elevated his morale within the final two years or so earlier than he retired”.

He stated he came upon in regards to the affair “by pure probability” when he noticed Hewlett-Davies climb the staircase to Wilson’s room in Downing Avenue one night in 1974, lengthy after the press workplace had completed work.

“I stated nothing to her that evening, however subsequent morning requested what she was doing there,” he stated. “She instructed me she was ready for Wilson, after which instructed me why. I, too, saved the story secret in all that I’ve written about my time at Downing Avenue.”