Joe Haines: "It was 2.13 in the morning, I remember it well. The phone rang. It was Bernard. Wilson had told Mary that he was feeling unwell. He had been acting oddly all day, speaking slowly during PMQ's and getting rattled when Selwyn Lloyd allowed time to run over.
I raced over to Downing Street to find Bernard, Mary and Marcia in the living quarters. You could hear a pin drop. The door opened and in walked Joe Stone, Wilson's personal doctor.
'He's had a heart flutter'.
Mary took a deep breath and started to sob quietly.
'He wants to see you' said Stone. Mary followed Stone out of the room.
The three of us stood there. Marcia turned to me and started instructing me to write a statement explaining what had happened.
'The hell I will, we say nothing to anyone yet'
If looks could have killed....
Bernard and I retreated to our office. Marcia tried to follow us but I slammed the door in her face
Michael Cockerell "You lied"
JH"Yes, yes I lied and I was right to lie"
MC: "You were the Prime Minister's press agent and you told a pack of lies to the media with the statement you made that morning. You said that Wilson had the flu when the truth was he had had a heart flutter, why?
JH: "We were in a bloody mess, the coalition was fractured, the pound was not just on the floor but through the floor, Benn and his cronies were howling like banshees. If the news had got out that Wilson had had heart problems then everything would have gone to pieces and there was no way that Thorpe was going to swan in to Downing Street and take over"
MC: "Even though Thorpe was Deputy Prime Minister"
JH:" It was just a title, it didn't mean what it means now."
The Downing Street Patient 2004
I raced over to Downing Street to find Bernard, Mary and Marcia in the living quarters. You could hear a pin drop. The door opened and in walked Joe Stone, Wilson's personal doctor.
'He's had a heart flutter'.
Mary took a deep breath and started to sob quietly.
'He wants to see you' said Stone. Mary followed Stone out of the room.
The three of us stood there. Marcia turned to me and started instructing me to write a statement explaining what had happened.
'The hell I will, we say nothing to anyone yet'
If looks could have killed....
Bernard and I retreated to our office. Marcia tried to follow us but I slammed the door in her face
Michael Cockerell "You lied"
JH"Yes, yes I lied and I was right to lie"
MC: "You were the Prime Minister's press agent and you told a pack of lies to the media with the statement you made that morning. You said that Wilson had the flu when the truth was he had had a heart flutter, why?
JH: "We were in a bloody mess, the coalition was fractured, the pound was not just on the floor but through the floor, Benn and his cronies were howling like banshees. If the news had got out that Wilson had had heart problems then everything would have gone to pieces and there was no way that Thorpe was going to swan in to Downing Street and take over"
MC: "Even though Thorpe was Deputy Prime Minister"
JH:" It was just a title, it didn't mean what it means now."
The Downing Street Patient 2004
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