In covering the controversial new Penguin paperback of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, our senior book reviewer found it “very satisfactory in its vivid depiction of hens, butterflies and varied birdlife, though to my mind less exciting in other areas”. In 1957, our theatre critic made it quite clear that he had not enjoyed the premiere of Endgame by a Mr Samuel Beckett, adding that the playwright had made a great mistake in failing to introduce “a mischievous cocker spaniel or almost-human Ginger Tom, either of which would undoubtedly have won over the audience’s heart”.The legendary Sir John Junor, who followed me as editor, wisely developed my emphasis on animal stories still further. “Whatever may be said about Mr Adolf Hitler,” he began one of his most memorable editorials, “let it never be said that he did not have a terrific fondness for dogs, taking great pride in a wet nose, a breezy disposition and a healthy sheen to the coat.”Where Great Britain was concerned, he made it his rule-of-thumb to judge our senior statesmen by the pets they owned – or failed to own, in-the shaming case of Edward Heath. “Mr Heath,” an editorial once thundered, “may well wish to take us further into Europe All well and good. But why should we, the British people, take advice from a man who, where household pets are concerned, cannot boast even so much as a budgerigar to his name?” As a senior adviser to the management of Independent newspapers (We are. Are you? I jest!) it was I myself who insisted that our masthead should be adorned by a “logo” (dread word!) of one of our feathered friends. Others wanted an aerial, a ship, a cathedral or a knight in shining armour, but I knew that a cuddly eagle could be guaranteed to draw in millions of devoted readers.

And so it proved, up to a point.But what of our friends the Tamworth Two? Personally, I am badgering our young (female!!) editor to sign ‘em up for a hard-hitting column, giving us the full benefit of their views on current affairs, EMU, Mrs Gaynor Regan, what’s going on in the world of crackling, etcetera Will I win my case? Watch this space Oink! Oink!. THE PLANE soared to its zenith height, on a summer evening. And suddenly, far below me, I saw an archipelago: not states or nations, but the islands of the Atlantic which at present we call Britain and Ireland. There was the North Sea and the Firth of Forth beneath the port wing. To the west glittered the Clyde estuary, and beyond it the hills of Antrim A few minutes later the Solway gleamed ahead. The mountains of the Lake District caught the setting sun, and the same red light was touching the Mountains of Mourne across the Irish Sea.
The land down in the depths was growing dim Nothing of this millennium showed.

A tiny plume of smoke could have risen from a hill-fort of the Votadini, the Iron Age people who inhabited the Lothians. Somewhere down there, men who knew nothing of an England or a Scotland could be leading the plough-ox home from the field. A High King at Tara was listening to songs about Finn MacCumhal before retiring to his royal bed of straw.The history that would lead to flags and frontiers, empires and partitions, to a bloody moorland outside Inverness and the flames of the Post Office in Dublin, seemed not to have begun. There were only people, and islands huddled together like neighbours.There survives a feeling that the islands must somehow, in spite of that history, belong together It is a dream, but a powerful dream.

It stirred again last week, when the British and Irish governments issued their “Heads of Agreement”, a tentative design to be offered to the all-party talks in Northern Ireland. In that paper was the proposal for an intergovernmental council, a “Council of the Isles”. It would bring together not only the governments in London and Dublin but representatives of the future Scottish and Welsh parliaments and of the planned Northern Irish Assembly.The dream is an old one. It has been put forward in recent years in many forms, and with very different – even mutually contradictory – motives. Last week’s version was, I think, the first time that any government has put forward the notion of a supranational institution to link the British and Irish islands.

But it is a pretty feeble version, all the same.The “Council of the Isles ” would be little more than a counter-weight to other points in the Heads of Agreement. The document follows the outline of the scheme drawn up by David Trimble, leader of the Official Unionists, and published in the London press a few days before. Trimble also suggested a “council of the islands” to include Scottish and Welsh members. The Irish and British governments adopted it in the hope that it would reconcile Unionists to the proposal for a “North-South Ministerial Council”. That would give Dublin a say in “promoting co-operation” between Northern Ireland and the Republic.The Council of the Isles would supposedly strengthen the “east-west” links that matter so desperately to Unionists. Its mere existence would reassure them that Northern Ireland was part of an all-British process of devolution to local parliaments or assemblies. But an institution has to do something more than merely exist.