Being There

The radical changes in society over the past eighty years have seen many unusual men take the tide and sail to success. Sir Frank Price is one of them, and by hard graft, good luck, and a certain amount of 'irritable councillor syndrome' he has earned success and approbation in many areas of our national life. From the slums of Hockley in 1920s Birmingham to lunch at Buckingham Palace and familiar terms with Royalty - 'Here comes trouble' is how Prince Philip described him - is not every socialist's lot. But Frank shows he's a fighter. As Mayor, as businessman and as public servant, Frank touched gloves with many of the Ministerial demons of the day - notably Dick Grossman, Labour's intellectual bully boy. Denis Howell, a former friend, lets Frank down and is unforgiven; yet when Harold Wilson gives him a chance to give Denis the drop, and maybe pick up a good job and a peerage by the way, Frank refuses. It's not in the nature of the man to let go of a good thing, or hang on pointlessly to a bad. Without education, a commanding presence, a moneyed family or a union apparatus, Frank Price made it to the top in his own city, was knighted at forty-three, and met many key players on the world's stage. He also stuck it out as Chairman of the British Waterways Board in order to 'put something back'. Here is a record of a great life. It's nuts and bolts, but it's the broad picture too. It'll amuse, it'll provoke and annoy - but it'll certainly give plenty back.