MP John Biffen's battle with depression revealed

We've heard it so many times before, each of us has said it a thousand times about special people.

But John Biffen, son of rural Somerset who went on to adopt and love rural Shropshire, was one of the nicest most modest and genuine people I have ever met.

A new book reveals he had to deal with times of depression and grey days for many years before suffering the renal failure which ended his life. But John Biffen, eventually elevated to the lofty ranks of the peerage, never lost his ideals and never compromised his beliefs.

His wife, Lady Sarah Biffen, she who knew and loved him best of all, remembers him first and foremost as a brave man.

But there is much more than that to her devotion.

John Biffen was a former county MP as well as a Cabinet Minister and Leader of the House of Commons during the time of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

For a man of some power, he was also one of nature's good guys and to know him was to be quite naturally fond of him.

It was Sarah who supported him through the good times and the bad, through those later, darker days and who became so determined to see the publication of the biography her husband had written during many of those times of significant ill health.

Now, six years after he died, Semi-Detached by John Biffen is where it belongs – in the public arena.

As for that title? Well some of us remember the remark from Margaret Thatcher's press secretary Bernard Ingham who once referred to him as a semi-detached member of the Cabinet.

Now Sarah, who still spends much of her time in the Shropshire home on the Welsh border which the couple shared so happily and for so long, is hoping that his stories, his diary extracts and tributes to John will paint the broader picture.

During his political lifetime, John Biffen was underestimated by many and always admired for the way he blended a brilliant academic mind with a real and quiet knack of connecting with his constituents.

She is still involved variously in local life and says enthusiastically: "I am speaking at a St George's Day lunch in Oswestry next April."

As a duo, they were well thought of and the county was well blessed. Even now, admiration will surely grow when we learn from John Biffen's own pen of the depressive illness which first tripped him up when he was a young man in his thirties.

His book records it in a moving way. He states: "I had no warning. I had been a nervous child – highly strung was the meaningless phrase – and had to be coaxed through examinations.

Then in the autumn of 1963, I was struck down with sharp depression and tiredness. It was a shock when I was on the threshold of a career I had longed for."

While he had a doctor who was something of a pioneer in treating stress, it was still not something to be chatted about in selection committees, constituency offices, or indeed, the Members' Bar at the House of Commons.

But Biffen somehow found an inner strength. He became a Member of Parliament and swapped his beloved rural Somerset for the North Shropshire.

Sarah says: "John had these health issues for a long time and felt he had to hide them. But when he resigned from the Shadow Cabinet Margaret Thatcher told him to go away and get himself sorted and then come back.

"That was amazing when you think of the number of other people around and the talents they had.

"But John was so pleased when he was able to return properly and of course eventually became a cabinet minister in the Thatcher government and was also Leader of the House for five years and used to take Prime Minister's questions.

"He was terrified the first few times but then really got into his stride."

Lord Biffen himself recalls in his book: "She was extremely kind to me when I withdrew from the Shadow Cabinet in 1977. I thought my front bench days were finished but she persevered to keep the door half open and I ended up serving eight years in the Cabinet.

"I was often struck between the contrast of the understanding and sympathy she showed in private and the Iron Lady she was happy to project in public."

However, while on the whole John enjoyed an "amiable" relationship with her, at least until his final year in the Cabinet, he could not always give the loyalty she demanded if he felt a passionate difference of opinion.

And when once urged by her to "speak up and not just on Treasury matters" he did – with a mildly dissenting view.

After Cabinet he commented: "Well Prime Minister, I spoke up", winning the telling reply: "I meant speak up for me".

Eventually, this gentle, kind and actually, very loyal, politician was frozen out for quietly voicing views of his own.

Sarah says: "John just loved Shropshire, we both did. He would have been so pleased that his book, his story, has finally been published."

Sarah is a devoted grandmother to four "chasing round after an energetic two-year-old a lot of the time". Her son and daughter and their families live in and around London so Sarah is busy enjoying young family life as well.

The book's warm foreword is by former MP Matthew Parris and Sarah herself has penned a preface.

North Shropshire MP and now Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Owen Paterson paid the kindest and very accurate tribute to John Biffen at his funeral.

He said: "North Shropshire was very lucky to have John as its MP for 35 years. Many people owe a lot to him, none more than me.

"I would never have succeeded him without his help, advice and encouragement."

The book Semi-Detached is very special, standing as a tribute both to Lady Biffen as well as to her much loved husband who quite rightly was eventually honoured by a seat in the House of Lords.

Semi-Detached by John Biffen: Biteback Publishing.