During Margaret Thatcher’s rise to the top, he was one of the backroom figures whose words helped create her reputation as the Iron Lady.
But former speechwriter Trevor Reeves can no longer remember a single word of them — and he will be absent from her funeral tomorrow.
‘The truth is I’m not the man I was after having a terrible skiing accident which affected my powers of recall and nearly killed me,’ says Reeves,73, a creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi, the advertising agency credited with transforming Lady Thatcher’s image. ‘I don’t think I could cope with the funeral.’
It was, he tells me, his job to craft the then-Mrs Thatcher’s speeches which with their wit and precision won her so many admirers.
‘They were great days writing for Maggie, I remained very fond of her,’ he says. ‘She would send round her scribbled notes and I would essentially decipher them and craft it into legible proper speech. I didn’t change the meaning or anything but I was good at collating information — copywriting I suppose.’
Eight years ago, Reeves suffered multiple injuries skiing in Andorra, where he and his wife Tracey have a home. The high-speed crash caused a haematoma — bleeding on the brain. He also broke ribs, a shoulder, pierced a lung and cracked vertebrae.
He was flown back to England for treatment at the Wellington Hospital in St John’s Wood in a coma and nearly died. ‘When I came round, the left side of my brain affecting memory and vocabulary was damaged,’ says Trevor.
‘I had made a miraculous recovery but I wasn’t the same as before the accident.’
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Reeves, who survived the accident thanks to the helmet he was wearing, parted company with Saatchi’s to form his own company.
‘In my opinion they weren’t generous enough. I wanted shares in the firm but they refused, despite me asking several times,’ he tells me at a 30th birthday party for his daughter Dora’s boyfriend Ben Newton, boss of Livemusic, a concert listings service.
‘They paid a big salary and offered to increase it; they even said I could have a Ferrari. But I didn’t want that — I wanted shares, so we fell out.’
But memories of the old days will come flooding back tomorrow. Twice-married Trevor says: ‘I shall watch Margaret Thatcher’s funeral on TV and look out for old pals like (Lord) Tim Bell and shed a tear.’
Apropos Lady Thatcher, I gather ITV’s chairman Archie Norman, who is also a former Tory MP and a big supporter of the Iron Lady, is unhappy at the network’s plans to cover her funeral, which will see Holly Willoughby effectively anchor the event while simultaneously hosting magazine show This Morning.
A source says ex-Asda boss Norman would prefer proper respect to be paid to the former Prime Minister. ‘It’s come down to cash, sadly, but Archie is obviously disappointed at the plans.’
Turning up the heat on Ramsay
No sweat: Tana Ramsay
Famously short-tempered, Gordon Ramsay often gets hot and bothered, and now, bizarrely, he is being asked for a sample of his sweat.
Actor Gary Love, who is a landlord of one of Ramsay’s restaurants, is demanding the chef provide a specimen as part of a High Court action over the Regent’s Park property.
Soldier Soldier star Love has a document signed by Ramsay which personally guarantees the £640,000-a-year rent for his York & Albany bar and restaurant.
Now Ramsay’s lawyers claim that the Kitchen Nightmares host didn’t actually sign the guarantee himself but that a machine had replicated his signature.
Ramsay, who uses the device to sign cookbooks and merchandise, says he had no idea it had been used on a legal document.
The writ claims that at the time, in 2007, his business empire was controlled by his wife Tana’s father, Chris Hutcheson, later sacked for allegedly withdrawing money from the business to fund a secret life.
Says Love’s lawyer Philip Cohen: ‘They have used a handwriting expert as proof but we want Ramsay to take a “ninhydrin” test — it’s a scientific test a bit like a DNA test which would tell us if he had ever handled the document.
‘But for that we need a sample of sweat, and so far he is refusing.’
Why Tom's in a jam with Mum
He may have just landed a role in cult U.S. series Game Of Thrones, but Thomas Brodie-Sangster — best known for playing Liam Neeson’s son in Love Actually — still finds time for his mother.
Thomas, 22, plays bass in his mother Tasha Bertram’s cabaret act, Winnet. And younger sister Ava sings backing vocals.
‘I hope we’re not too much like the Von Trapp family,’ laughs Tasha, at a show of rocker Ronnie Wood’s art at the Castle Gallery in Mayfair.
Cabaret: Actor Thomas Brodie-Sangster and mother Tasha Bertram play together on stage
‘Every so often I have to get someone to cover bass when Tom is filming but I feel really proud that he’s happy to be on stage with his mum. I have friends who sing and their children won’t even come and see them.’
The family have a regular slot at Kennington’s Toulouse Lautrec jazz bar in South London.
Tom, who learned to play left-handed for his role as a young Paul McCartney in Sam Taylor-Wood’s John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy, tells me: ‘I love gigging. I’m not embarrassed to be on stage with Mum at all.’
It's been throwing even the most mild-tempered of people into a rage for years but now, finally, there is proof that the European Parliament brings you out in a rash.
Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies reveals he has had to seek medical treatment. ‘I’ve had these itchy spots on my arms and legs for six weeks or so,’ he says. ‘I told the doctor they started off like insect bites but won’t go away.
‘She looked at them and asked if any new spots had appeared since the Parliament last sat in Strasbourg. I told her no. “The good news is that they are entirely harmless and non-contagious and will go away,” she said.
‘ “The bad news is that they are bed bug bites. Strasbourg is notorious: we get eight cases a week here.
‘ “If it’s any consolation, they are bed-specific. Like everyone else in the Parliament, you will have booked the same hotel 12 months in advance — but so long as you don’t get the same room you may be OK.” ’
James Bond should be more like Sean Connery than the current screen offering of Daniel Craig, says William Boyd, who is writing the latest incarnation.
Speaking at the London Book Fair, Boyd says of his book, Solo: ‘I reverse the myth and image of Bond being an Englishman: he was, after all, created as a Scottish public schoolboy type.’ Boyd also taps into his own teenage years.
‘My story is set in 1969, when I first visited London as a 17-year-old from Africa and I saw the Moon landing on a TV in a Pimlico flat,’ he says.
‘It was an age when there was none of the gadgetry that spoils contemporary spy films.’
PS...
He has two Michelin stars and a worldwide reputation, but Gallic chef Raymond Blanc says the weather is playing havoc with his two-acre garden at his famous Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons in Great Milton, Oxfordshire.
Blanc takes great pride in his vegetable and herb gardens, mushroom valley and orchards, which provide fresh, organic produce for his award-winning restaurant. But the late arrival of spring is not helping.
‘Where are all the blossoms and the bees?’ he wailed yesterday. ‘It’s still cold and grey and my Le Manoir garden is still barren!’
But former speechwriter Trevor Reeves can no longer remember a single word of them — and he will be absent from her funeral tomorrow.
‘The truth is I’m not the man I was after having a terrible skiing accident which affected my powers of recall and nearly killed me,’ says Reeves,73, a creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi, the advertising agency credited with transforming Lady Thatcher’s image. ‘I don’t think I could cope with the funeral.’
It was, he tells me, his job to craft the then-Mrs Thatcher’s speeches which with their wit and precision won her so many admirers.
‘They were great days writing for Maggie, I remained very fond of her,’ he says. ‘She would send round her scribbled notes and I would essentially decipher them and craft it into legible proper speech. I didn’t change the meaning or anything but I was good at collating information — copywriting I suppose.’
Eight years ago, Reeves suffered multiple injuries skiing in Andorra, where he and his wife Tracey have a home. The high-speed crash caused a haematoma — bleeding on the brain. He also broke ribs, a shoulder, pierced a lung and cracked vertebrae.
He was flown back to England for treatment at the Wellington Hospital in St John’s Wood in a coma and nearly died. ‘When I came round, the left side of my brain affecting memory and vocabulary was damaged,’ says Trevor.
‘I had made a miraculous recovery but I wasn’t the same as before the accident.’
More from ...
VIEW FULL ARCHIVE
Reeves, who survived the accident thanks to the helmet he was wearing, parted company with Saatchi’s to form his own company.
‘In my opinion they weren’t generous enough. I wanted shares in the firm but they refused, despite me asking several times,’ he tells me at a 30th birthday party for his daughter Dora’s boyfriend Ben Newton, boss of Livemusic, a concert listings service.
‘They paid a big salary and offered to increase it; they even said I could have a Ferrari. But I didn’t want that — I wanted shares, so we fell out.’
But memories of the old days will come flooding back tomorrow. Twice-married Trevor says: ‘I shall watch Margaret Thatcher’s funeral on TV and look out for old pals like (Lord) Tim Bell and shed a tear.’
Apropos Lady Thatcher, I gather ITV’s chairman Archie Norman, who is also a former Tory MP and a big supporter of the Iron Lady, is unhappy at the network’s plans to cover her funeral, which will see Holly Willoughby effectively anchor the event while simultaneously hosting magazine show This Morning.
A source says ex-Asda boss Norman would prefer proper respect to be paid to the former Prime Minister. ‘It’s come down to cash, sadly, but Archie is obviously disappointed at the plans.’
Turning up the heat on Ramsay
No sweat: Tana Ramsay
Famously short-tempered, Gordon Ramsay often gets hot and bothered, and now, bizarrely, he is being asked for a sample of his sweat.
Actor Gary Love, who is a landlord of one of Ramsay’s restaurants, is demanding the chef provide a specimen as part of a High Court action over the Regent’s Park property.
Soldier Soldier star Love has a document signed by Ramsay which personally guarantees the £640,000-a-year rent for his York & Albany bar and restaurant.
Now Ramsay’s lawyers claim that the Kitchen Nightmares host didn’t actually sign the guarantee himself but that a machine had replicated his signature.
Ramsay, who uses the device to sign cookbooks and merchandise, says he had no idea it had been used on a legal document.
The writ claims that at the time, in 2007, his business empire was controlled by his wife Tana’s father, Chris Hutcheson, later sacked for allegedly withdrawing money from the business to fund a secret life.
Says Love’s lawyer Philip Cohen: ‘They have used a handwriting expert as proof but we want Ramsay to take a “ninhydrin” test — it’s a scientific test a bit like a DNA test which would tell us if he had ever handled the document.
‘But for that we need a sample of sweat, and so far he is refusing.’
Why Tom's in a jam with Mum
He may have just landed a role in cult U.S. series Game Of Thrones, but Thomas Brodie-Sangster — best known for playing Liam Neeson’s son in Love Actually — still finds time for his mother.
Thomas, 22, plays bass in his mother Tasha Bertram’s cabaret act, Winnet. And younger sister Ava sings backing vocals.
‘I hope we’re not too much like the Von Trapp family,’ laughs Tasha, at a show of rocker Ronnie Wood’s art at the Castle Gallery in Mayfair.
Cabaret: Actor Thomas Brodie-Sangster and mother Tasha Bertram play together on stage
‘Every so often I have to get someone to cover bass when Tom is filming but I feel really proud that he’s happy to be on stage with his mum. I have friends who sing and their children won’t even come and see them.’
The family have a regular slot at Kennington’s Toulouse Lautrec jazz bar in South London.
Tom, who learned to play left-handed for his role as a young Paul McCartney in Sam Taylor-Wood’s John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy, tells me: ‘I love gigging. I’m not embarrassed to be on stage with Mum at all.’
It's been throwing even the most mild-tempered of people into a rage for years but now, finally, there is proof that the European Parliament brings you out in a rash.
Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies reveals he has had to seek medical treatment. ‘I’ve had these itchy spots on my arms and legs for six weeks or so,’ he says. ‘I told the doctor they started off like insect bites but won’t go away.
‘She looked at them and asked if any new spots had appeared since the Parliament last sat in Strasbourg. I told her no. “The good news is that they are entirely harmless and non-contagious and will go away,” she said.
‘ “The bad news is that they are bed bug bites. Strasbourg is notorious: we get eight cases a week here.
‘ “If it’s any consolation, they are bed-specific. Like everyone else in the Parliament, you will have booked the same hotel 12 months in advance — but so long as you don’t get the same room you may be OK.” ’
James Bond should be more like Sean Connery than the current screen offering of Daniel Craig, says William Boyd, who is writing the latest incarnation.
Speaking at the London Book Fair, Boyd says of his book, Solo: ‘I reverse the myth and image of Bond being an Englishman: he was, after all, created as a Scottish public schoolboy type.’ Boyd also taps into his own teenage years.
‘My story is set in 1969, when I first visited London as a 17-year-old from Africa and I saw the Moon landing on a TV in a Pimlico flat,’ he says.
‘It was an age when there was none of the gadgetry that spoils contemporary spy films.’
PS...
He has two Michelin stars and a worldwide reputation, but Gallic chef Raymond Blanc says the weather is playing havoc with his two-acre garden at his famous Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons in Great Milton, Oxfordshire.
Blanc takes great pride in his vegetable and herb gardens, mushroom valley and orchards, which provide fresh, organic produce for his award-winning restaurant. But the late arrival of spring is not helping.
‘Where are all the blossoms and the bees?’ he wailed yesterday. ‘It’s still cold and grey and my Le Manoir garden is still barren!’
