11 February: Harold Macmillan

Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963, was born on this date in 1894. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. His grandfather was the founder of Macmillan Publishing. His great grandfather was a Scottish crofter from the Isle of Arran. His mother was American.
2. Harold Macmillan was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, but never completed his degree because the first world war broke out and he commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the King's Royal Rifle Corps. After the war, he could have returned to Oxford to complete his degree, but chose not to as only he and one other of the 28 students who’d started there with him had survived the war, and because of that, the university would never be the same. In later years he joked that he had been "sent down by the Kaiser".
3. He served on the front line in France and was sent home twice because of injuries. On one occasion, severely wounded, he lay for several hours in a shell hole reading the classical playwright Aeschylus in the original Greek and pretending to be dead if any Germans passed by. His injuries left him with a slight limp, and an injury to his right hand left him with a limp grip, which affected his handwriting.
4. He became Conservative member of parliament for Stockton-on-Tees in 1924, losing his seat in 1929 but regaining it in 1931. After that, he rose through the ranks quickly and served as Minister of Housing, Minister of Defence, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
5. During the Suez Crisis in 1956, he claimed he would pawn every picture in the National Gallery rather than accept humiliation at the hands of Nasser, and pressed for military action without any assurance of American support.
6. He married Lady Dorothy Cavendish, the daughter of the 9th Duke of Devonshire, in 1920. Although they had four children, it wasn’t a happy marriage. In 1929 she started a lifelong affair with Conservative politician Robert Boothby. Macmillan was advised not to divorce her, for even though he was the innocent party, it would have ruined his political career, so they lived separate lives.
7. Towards the end, his time as Prime Minister was beset by scandals, but the one that did for him was the Profumo Affair. He resigned in 1963.
8. As a person, he was shy and retiring, but known for his pragmatism, wit and unflappability. Even after he retired he would sometimes intervene or comment on political affairs. When Harold Wilson made a comment about not having boots to wear to school, Macmillan retorted: 'If Mr Wilson did not have boots to go to school that is because he was too big for them.'
9. Macmillan was the last British prime minister born during the Victorian era, the last to have served in the First World War and the last to receive a hereditary peerage (Earl of Stockton in 1984). At the time of his death, he was the longest-lived prime minister in British history.
10. Macmillan was pro-Europe, but his plans for entry into the new European Economic Community were set back when the French President General Charles de Gaulle said no to Britain’s application in January 1963. Devastated, he wrote in his diary “all our policies at home and abroad are in ruins”. What with that and his courageous war service, keeping a failing marriage going for the sake of his career, and was no doubt unfailingly honest, he’s probably turning in his grave given who is in charge now.

Who's That Girl?

Matt Webster lives in a tower block and attends a failing school. He dreams of being a spy like James Bond. Little does he know that he is being watched by someone who can make him into even more than that – a superhero.

His first solo mission is to attend a ball at the Decembrian Embassy and discover who is planning to steal a priceless diamond. While there, he meets the mysterious Lady Antonia du Cane, and is powerfully drawn to her. It soon becomes clear, however, that Lady du Cane is not what she seems. Matt’s quest to discover who she really is almost costs him his career.

A modern day Guy Fawkes gathers a coterie around him with the aim of blowing up Parliament with a nuclear bomb. To achieve this, they need money. Lots of it. Selling the Heart of Decembria Diamond will provide more than enough. All that stands in their way is the Freedom League – but the League is beset by internal disagreements. Can the heroes put their differences aside in time to save the day?

Prime Minister Richard Miller and his wife Fiona grieve for their daughter, Yasmin, who has been missing for three years, and is presumed to be dead. Viper agent Violet Parker could hold the key to what happened to Yasmin, but Violet is accused of giving away the organisation’s secrets. She is to be executed without trial. Will she take her knowledge of what happened to Yasmin with her to her grave?

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