Familiar Patten
In an interview conducted 15 years after the handover, Hong Kong's last governor tells Post Magazine he still can't resist a challenge
There's a Dalek standing next to Chris Patten's office at the BBC. Most people who have been exposed to British television know about the Daleks, the implacable ('Exterminate! Exterminate!') cyborg foes of Doctor Who; it's only a black-and-white image, on a floor-to-ceiling pillar, but it's imposing enough to create a significant frisson if you're holding a mug of BBC tea. When this gatekeeper is remarked upon to his lordship, who's appeared to escort his visitor, he gives it the sort of wryly dismissive glance that suggests Daleks have been the least of his professional demons. On his desk is a book by Ahmed Rashid titled Pakistan on the Brink. In the real world, the potential for extermination is much scarier than it is in science fiction.
There's also a pile of uncuddly toys (Deadly Ocean With Great White Shark Mini Playset, Micro-Deadly 5 Pack) from the BBC's Natural History Unit, which Patten, in his capacity as chairman of the BBC Trust, has just visited. These are for his grandchildren, of whom he now has eight by his three daughters Kate, Laura and Alice; the latest addition, Noah, he says, will be christened at the weekend. Faith and family have been the consistent markers in Patten's life.
The entire clan - 16 of them, including husbands and Lavender, Patten's wife of 41 years - was in Hong Kong at Christmas. The two elder girls hadn't returned since the night of June 30, 1997; Alice, the youngest, who'd been educated at Island School, had only been back once, in the late 1990s.
'They all went to see their old bedrooms at Government House,' he says. 'Our grandchildren had some difficulty comprehending that we'd lived there.'
You can understand the confusion: this time around, they were in serviced apartments on Robinson Road.
'We had a fantastic time,' says Patten. 'There were so many things for them to do, from eating dim sum to tearing up and down escalators to Ocean Park. It just reminded me of why and how we'd been so happy there. But I don't go back nearly as often as I'm invited just because I think it would be wrong.'
Why wrong?