My late mother once told me a tale of her own childhood – she must have been about 7 or 8 at the time. Her older sister was ‘in service’ at Bletchley and my mother often, apparently, would spend the summer school holidays staying there, as a guest ‘below stairs’ so as to speak.

For some reason I can no longer remember, she also accompanied her sister, serving her own master, on a trip to 10 Downing Street where they expected to be sat in a kitchen. But instead, as was the mans way, then Prime Minister David Lloyd George insisted that the two young girls take tea with him. This must have been around 1922 towards the very end of his premiership.

They were served tea and cake by the lady of the house and had a small chat with this most important 20th century politician. My mother, always the polite one, thanked Mrs Lloyd George for the refreshment and no doubt performed a dainty curtsey.

It was, of course, only when they had left the Prime Minister’s house that my mother was informed that the lady who served the tea was not Mrs Lloyd George at all but Frances Stevenson, his long term mistress, later to become his second wife just prior to his death in 1945.

Stevenson had become his secretary in 1913, a role, he had made clear, that would include a sexual relationship.

Lloyd George was a charismatic, dynamic and hugely intelligent man unlike a current politician I can think of who also hails originally from across the Welsh borders.