‘The morphine syringe wouldn’t go in his frozen arm, so they had to stab it in’
by Kevin Meagher
Stoicism is often said to be the defining characteristic of the wartime generation. Their lives were enveloped in destruction and uncertainty, with death and privation ever-present. So, they just learned to get on with it.
I was reminded of that yesterday, learning of the sad death of my old friend, Sir Patrick Duffy, after a short illness. Amid the towering achievements of his life was his sheer longevity. At 105 years of age, Patrick was hitherto the oldest living former Member of Parliament.
But he was so much more than a footnote, personifying that very stoicism. He served in Fleet Air Arm during the Second World War, surviving a terrible crash at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. His injuries were so severe that he underwent experimental plastic surgery, with regular follow-up treatments even as a centenarian.
Quite matter-of-factly he recalled medics finding him on the mountainside, unconscious in the wreckage of his plane after a day spent freezing to death. The morphine syringe wouldn’t go in his frozen arm, so they had to stab it in.
At just 23, he received the last rites twice from a priest. With the upmost stoicism he flew again and was perilously close to being sent to Singapore in 1945, mercifully accruing a long-overdue piece of good luck as the war ended. The recipient of a military pension since the 1940s, I joked with him that he was personally responsible for the state of the public finances!
Patrick never complained and stayed focused on what Bill Clinton once referred to as the future business. I assisted him with his second book, which was published in 2024 (incidentally making him the second-oldest published author in the world). His acute observations about the post-war world were accompanied with chapters on Brexit and Boris.
It’s staggering to think that he first stood for Parliament in Tiverton, as far back as 1950, fresh from a degree at the London School of Economics and later a doctorate from Georgetown University. He was whip-smart and blessed into extreme old age with a pin-sharp memory. His earliest recollection, vividly told, was about the hardships his family faced during the 1926 General Strike.
He successfully contested Colne Valley in a by-election in 1963 and later held the Sheffield Attercliffe seat between 1970 and his retirement in 1992. An ally of James Callaghan, he served as a defence minister in his government. Later, he was president of the NATO Assembly in the 1980s, rubbing shoulders with heads of state as the Cold War came to an end, including Pope John Paul II.
In later life, Patrick went on to hold number of academic positions and remained a respected voice in the field of naval warfare. A committed Catholic, he received a papal knighthood in 2017.
Pat was also something of a paradox. A war hero – from a family of war heroes – with a brother in the navy and another in the army, as well as a younger sister who served at Bletchley Park. But he was proudly Irish and the only MP to criticise Margaret Thatcher in the Commons on the day that republican hunger strike leader Bobby Sands died in 1981.
In later life he spent summer months at his home in Roscommon and the launch of his first book a decade ago or so ago was attended by the great and the good of the Irish political class, including the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny.
He remembered visiting family in Ireland for the first time as a 12-year-old schoolboy, travelling alone through train stations and landscapes that have long since disappeared. His recently deceased grandmother in County Mayo, on Ireland’s rugged west coast, had been a girl during the Great Famine of the 1840s. ‘The Duffys are long livers,’ he explained.
His was a busy life until recent months when he began to slow down. Patrick’s immaculately written notes, either in his own careful hand or typed letters on his old typewriter, became less frequent. A truly wonderful conversationalist with a keen interest in contemporary events, his home was piled high with books, periodicals and newspapers. Even at his grand age, he was still invested in the future.
Indeed, Patrick leaves behind him family and friends – across all age groups – who will miss his kindness, humour and incredible acuity in recalling personalities and events from a century ago. His was a life well-lived, brimming with achievement, the admiration of colleagues and the love and affection of so many. He will be greatly missed.
God Rest His Soul.
(Sir Patrick Duffy KCSG, 17 June 1920 – 2 January 2026)
Tags: Callaghan, Kevin Meagher, Labour, Second World War, Sir Patrick Duffy, Tiverton
