Eighty years old - and still going strong

I have, from time to time, touched on the wonderfully collegiate feeling amongst the Parliamentary Party in the Lords, and last night was one of those occasions that brings a bit of a lump to the throat.

To mark the eightieth birthdays of four of our Peers, a party was thrown to mark the occasion. Naturally, given the difficulty of pinning everyone down to a date, it evidently took a little while to arrange, but a glittering array of Liberal Democrat Peers and their spouses, partners and family members gathered to celebrate the continuing lives of Lord (Eric) Avebury (born 29 September 1928), Lord (Bill) Rodgers of Quarry Bank (born 28 October 1928), Lord (Dick) Taverne (born 18 October 1928) and Lord (Geoff) Tordoff (born 11 October 1928). A pretty good month, I think you'd agree...

I have to admit to being a bit starstruck, as all four were political celebrities at one time or another, and I am a bit of an 'anorak' in that sense. Ros and I were at a table with Eric and Geoff, plus the noble Lords Dholakia and McNally, and it really was a lovely evening.

Eric is in astonishingly good form, having just got back from Bangladesh, and we had an opportunity to talk about his blog. Amazingly, it has never been part of the Lib Dem Blogs aggregator and I asked him why that was. The answer? He didn't know who to ask, which just goes to show.

After an excellent dinner, the four octogenarians made brief speeches. Eric started by telling the story of how he became our by-election candidate in Orpington - I'm still not sure that if someone had published it as fiction, it would have any credibility at all... Bill then gave a speech which is unreportable, if only because it only really made sense if you were there (and I'm not wholly convinced that being there helped). Let's just say that I can claim to have met the unknown Python, and that Bill might be an undiscovered comic genius.

Dick waxed lyrical about the joys of being in the Lords, and listed the warning signs that you should look for to see if it might be time to retire gracefully, before Geoff told some stories of former Leaders and Chief Whips in the Lords.

As Eric noted, old age begins ten years beyond his current age, so most of us have a while to go before we're old. Except, of course, that Lord (Derek) Ezra celebrated his ninetieth birthday over the weekend, and Lord (George) Mackie of Benshie will reach the same age in July. And they're all still turning up at the Lords, still voting, still speaking, still asking questions, and still doing their bit for a more liberal society. We are very lucky to have them...