John Gouriet

I worry sometimes that I don't really keep up with current events. I spend so much time trying to think myself back into the period I'm writing about - the 1990s, at the moment - that things come and go without my ever noticing them.

Even so, it's pushing it even by my standards that it's taken until this evening for me to notice the sad passing of John Gouriet nearly two years ago.

I interviewed Mr Gouriet when I was researching my book about the 1970s, Crisis? What Crisis?, because he was the last surviving of the four founder members of the Freedom Association. We got on rather well, once I told him that my father had been the bandmaster of the 15th/19th King's Royal Hussars back in the days when Mr Gouriet was an officer in the regiment.

He was honest, courteous and completely bonkers. Undoubtedly the most right-wing man I've ever met, he explained with absolute certainty that not only was Edward Heath an enthusiastic cottager, but that he was also a KGB sleeper agent.

I'm fairly sure they don't make them like that any more.