John Thurso remembers his grandfather Sir Archibald Sinclair

The BBC News website has an interview with John Thurso, the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness and Sutherland. In it he recalls his grandfather, Sir Archibald Sinclair, who led the Liberal Party between 1935 and 1945 and served in Churchill's wartime cabinet:

Sir Archibald suffered a stroke in 1952, the year before Mr Thurso was born.

"I remember him getting me to stand on a chair and make a speech after a lunch when I was six or seven. He would sit there in his big armchair and shout 'hear, hear'.

"Then, in '59, he had his second stroke and was largely bedridden after that.

"The tragedy is that, when I left his house he would lean across and hold my arm and try to say something. I remember him listening to the news and quite clearly wanting to say things."

Sir Archibald died in 1970.

An earlier post on Liberal England discussed Sir Archibald's grandfather.