"Lloyd George may well have been her father"

...as the old song goes.

An email from the Liberal Democrat History Group brings news of the death of Jennifer Longford at the age of 82. She was the daughter of Frances Stevenson, the lover of David Lloyd George, and most probably of Lloyd George too.

The email says that:

Jennifer Longford formed a close relationship with Lloyd George, which included discussing the political issues of the day. Historians and writers such as A J P Taylor, Roy Hattersley and Ffion Hague made use of her high intelligence and amazing memory to help them with their books.

It also points us to a report of a talk that Jennifer Longford gave to the Lloyd George Society at Llanwyrtd Wells in February 2001:

it should never be forgotten that he has so far been the only British Prime Minister for whom English was not his first language. In all his years in Parliament he always had a Welsh-speaking secretary. During the First World War when he was Prime Minister and visiting the western front in France he could telephone directly to his Welsh-speaking secretary in London and the Germans found this an impenetrable code.