I think it was the first (and probably the last) order he had ever written out. He ran a business where his word was as good as any written contract and suppliers delivered stuff and he paid for it. That's how it worked. His word was his bond and you knew where you stood with him. I don't believe this was that abnormal at the time (about 1970).
He had an incentive to keep his word, too. Because, had he broken it once, his whole business model would have changed. Nobody would ever be able to rely on him again.
I begin with this story because I'm not sure what we've now come to in this country. There was a time when I assumed an assurance from a prime minister meant something - I'm sure I'm right on this. A man who sends out letters with a title which begins The Right Honourable, must have been trusted to keep his word. But now apparently not.
We learned this week the military is to be cut by 10,000 men, which is in direct contradiction to firm assurances from the PM and the Tory manifesto. The figures are not quite as bad as the headline suggests because the 'cut' is to the establishment figure of 82,000 down to 72,000 by 2025 but we have only got 76,500 anyway. Nonetheless it is a cut, something Boris Johnson said wouldn't happen.
The BBC report:
"The size of the Army will be at its smallest since 1714 - with just 72,500 regular soldiers.
"The number of tanks will be cut from 227 to 148 upgraded ones. The RAF will lose 24 of its older Typhoon jets and its fleet of Hercules transport aircraft. And the Royal Navy will be retiring two of its older frigates early before new ones come into service."
I'm not an expert on defence matters (or anything else) and it may be the right thing to do, but Johnson never leaves himself any wriggle room when he makes these grand pledges and he never apologise later. The result is a constant corroding of the old values.
The defence pledge is only the latest in a long line of 'assurances' or 'pledges' or 'commitments' made by Johnson, not least to the people of Northern Ireland about the Irish sea border - 'no British prime minister could or should accept one' until they do. All have turned out like junk bonds, totally worthless.
So, none of this will come as a surprise - and this is the problem. We have become inured to dishonesty and lies, to devious and untrustworthy politicians. Nobody bothers any more. The newspapers barely touch on it and the BBC don't mention it at all.
This may not matter to many people but in the House of Commons, they still keep up the pretence that all MPs are honourable (or right honourable if you're a member of the privy council) and none of them tell lies. But we can see for ourselves from official government statements that the PM regularly gives us dishonest answers or says things which are clearly and provably wrong.
This is as far as I can see, is the last convention and you can understand why they want to maintain the fiction that nobody ever knowingly misleads. Once that is gone (and it can't last much longer) the whole of our parliamentary democracy is at risk.
Johnson has no incentive to be truthful. Everybody knows he's a congenital liar and serially dishonest. His reputation was trashed decades ago and the public seem to like him, so he has nothing to lose.
But if the PM tells lies and accepts them from his own ministers, it poisons the whole of government. Civil servants struggle to clean up afterwards. They have a legal duty to be honest and impartial and it seems to me they are having difficulty keeping up and must spend a disproportionate amount of time bending a lie back into the shape of the truth as best they can.
There seems to be a general acceptance that if you speak like an aristocrat and pronounce 'Brown' as Brine and torture your vowels in that peculiar upper class way, you must be born to lead. But Boris Johnson is I'm afraid, bringing the office he holds and the entire nation into disrepute. If we are not careful, his legacy will be the wholesale devaluing of public life in this country.
