Coming Up Trumps: A Memoir by Jean Trumpington

Coming Up Trumps: A Memoir by Jean Trumpington lands on the shelves of my shop.

London: Macmillan, 2014, Hardback in dust wrapper.

Illustrated by way of: Black and White Photographs;

From the cover: In this witty and characteristically trenchant memoir, the indomitable Jean Trumpington looks back on her long and remarkable life. The daughter of an officer in the Bengal Lancers and an American heiress, Jean Campbell-Harris was born into a world of considerable privilege, but the Wall Street Crash entirely wiped out her mothers fortune.

Leaving school at fifteen, without ever taking an exam, the young Jean was sent to Paris to study art and both French and German, but two years later, with the outbreak of the Second World War, she became a land girl on a farm owned by Lloyd George, a family friend however, she soon changed direction, joining naval intelligence at Bletchley Park, where she stayed for the rest of the war. After the war she worked first in Paris and then in New York, on Madison Avenue, with advertisings mad men. It was in New York that she met her husband, the historian Alan Barker, and their marriage, in 1954, ushered in the happiest period of her life -bringing up her only son, Adam, and becoming a not entirely conventional headmasters wife, before embarking on her distinguished political career, as a Cambridge City councillor, Mayor of Cambridge and, since 1980, a life peer.

Vivid, forthright and often very funny, Coming Up Trumps is a wonderfully readable account of a life very well lived.

Very Good+ in Very Good+ Dust Wrapper.

Black boards with Gilt titling to the Spine. [XIII] 236 pages. 8¾” x 5½”.

Of course, if you don’t like this one there are plenty more available here!

Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician by Bernard Donoughue & G. W. Jones

Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician by Bernard Donoughue & G. W. Jones lands on the shelves of my shop.

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973, Hardback in dust wrapper.

Illustrated by way of: Black and White Photographs; Tables;

From the cover: Herbert Morrison, who started his working life as an errand boy, was for over forty years at the centre of British political life, and almost became Prime Minister.

This book tells the story of how the young socialist agitator from Lambeth rose to rule London as Britains most famous city boss and then, nationally, shaped the Labour Partys policies and directed its successful electoral strategies. His constant objective, and achievement, was to make Labour a party of Government, rather than of negative opposition, and to keep it firmly within the democratic socialist tradition.

In a succession of Important Cabinet posts, he shared the catastrophe of Ramsay MacDonalds 1931 Government, was Churchills inspired choice to fight the German blitz throughout the war, managed Labours great post-1945 reconstruction programme and ended his career overwhelmed by problems and seemingly inexplicable failures as Foreign Secretary. Out of office in the 1950*8 he suffered the humiliations of political decline and the bitterness of failing in his last bid to win the party leadership.

Although publicly the chirpy cockney sparrow, Herbert Morrison was a deeply complex personality, secretive, vulnerable and inhibited. Obsessed with politics, he neglected his first wife and daughter and warped his private personality. Perpetually surrounded by an entourage of political acquaintances, he was inwardly lonely and sought affection in a network of discreet female friendships, until the Indian Summer of his second marriage.

This book is about Morrison the man and his work rather than the wider history of the times through which he passed. The authors show how Morrison mastered the craft of politics until at his peak he could truly claim to be the most professional politician so far produced by the Labour Party. His relations with many other politicians are described, from the host of rank and file socialists encouraged by him to take a more active role in public life, to such major political figures as Attlee, Bevin, Cripps and Bevan.

In order to obtain this deep focus on Morrison the politician in action, an unusually wide range of official, press and private sources have been used. Most important are over three hundred interviews conducted with Morrisons friends and working associates which add flesh to the central portrait.

Herbert Morrison was a major figure not only in guiding the Labour Party to its great power in the mid-twentieth century, but also in shaping the wider operation of British social democracy. This book permanently establishes his political contribution and stature as well as portraying a truly English character.

Very Good in Good+ Dust Wrapper. Upper panel slightly loose, with the crease not meeting the leading edge of the board.

Red boards with Gilt titling to the Spine. [XVI] 696 pages. Index. 9½” x 6¼”.

Of course, if you don’t like this one there are plenty more available here!