Diaries: Into Politics - Tapa dura

With more than 300,000 copies of the original Diaries sold since their publishing caused a sensation in 1993, here is the long-awaited and posthumous "prequel". Starting in 1972, when Clark was searching for a parliamentary seat and at the same time was given Saltwood Castle in Kent by his father Kenneth Clark (of Civilisation fame), he chronicles election success in Plymouth, and early days in the Commons where Ted Heath has been deposed as leader of the Tories and replaced by Margaret Thatcher. There is Saltwood itself and the countryside surrounding it, there are birds (both feathered and human) and there is his family. At the same time bankruptcy threatens and he is only saved by a remarkable "find" inside Saltwood itself. The climax is the Falklands War - with revelations from a unique political animal with the inside track. At the same time this second volume has all the ingredients of fine writing and humour that made the first volume such a hardback and paperback bestseller. Clark's editor at Weidenfeld, Ion Trewin, also provides the introduction.