{"product_id":"shadow-of-my-hand-book-alun-chalfont-9780297813323","title":"The Shadow of My Hand","description":"As appropriate for a Welshman, Lord Chalfont takes his title from a Dylan Thomas poem, 'Fern Hill'.  His memoirs are the account of how a Welsh grammar schoolboy, whose ambition was to join the army, ended up, to his astonishment, in Harold Wilson's Labour government as a Peer and as Minister for Disarmament, and how, in a further unlikely twist, he found himself working for the Sultan of Brunei. On the morning after Labour won the 1964 General Election in a landslide, and Harold Wilson became Prime Minister, the Defence Correspondent of The Times, Alun Gwynne-Jones, received a call to go forthwith to No 10 Downing Street. To his astonishment he was offered by Harold Wilson a Peerage, a seat on the Privy Councillor, and the position of 'Minister for Disarmament'. For Gwynne-Jones, who took the title Lord Chalfont, life would never be the same again.  Three of his six years as a FO minister coincided with George Brown as Foreign Secretary. His boorishness, his love of drink, led t o some hair-raising stories, which Chalfont relates. The second side of his public life, as a businessmen, allows him the opportunity to write about the Gummer family - he was a director of Shandwick, Peter Gummer's PR company; and he adds revelations about the life of Lonrho's controversial Chairman, 'Tiny' Rowland, whose path he crossed.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49595897118993,"sku":"GOR004089625","price":23.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53374931304721,"sku":"GOR003829946","price":15.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0297813323.jpg?v=1750812636","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/shadow-of-my-hand-book-alun-chalfont-9780297813323","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}