Patrick Jenkin entered Parliament as the MP for Winston Churchill’s former Essex constituency in 1964; he left it 2015 on retiring (under a newly introduced scheme) from the House of Lords where he had sat as Lord Jenkin of Roding since 1987. His death was announced on December 21. Alistair Lexden paid tribute to his remarkable work in the Lords in The Times on December 23, following the publication of his obituary the previous day.
Patrick Jenkin (obituary, Dec. 22) was one of the best advertisements for the Lords that the House has had. In his late eighties he was regularly in his place amidst a sea of paper, making detailed criticisms of subordinate clauses of government legislation on a host of subjects. I remember him calmly explaining how a particular housing association in London would be damaged by one of the provisions of a housing bill; it was promptly withdrawn. He was also an assiduous reader of The Times letters page. “Another letter from you this morning”, he said to me, as he left the Lords for the last time. It would have amused him that a letter of mine should have appeared on the same day as his obituary.