Lord Bonkers 30 years ago: While members of the Women's Liberal Federation beat me with rolled up copies of Pericles' funeral oration

Look, I don't really care what Lord Bonkers was saying 30 years ago either, but the old boy insists. So here is an extract from the diary that appeared in the October 1992 issue of Liberator (no. 208).

We catch him playing truant from the Liberal Democrats' Autumn Conference.

Thursday

Normally, let me say at once, I should walk miles barefoot upon hedgehog skins while members of the Women's Liberal Federation beat me with rolled up copies of Pericles' funeral oration for the pleasure of hearing one of young Ashplant's speeches. You can imagine, then, what a bitter disappointment it is that an apparent clash of dates obliges me to leave Harrogate after morning coffee.

I purchase Sir Desmond Wilson's latest opus to read on the train; his publishers, with laudable candour, describe it as "a unique and frightening book.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10,