This was Alan Clark’s first volume of diaries and the only one that he recorded. As such, it is a unique and historical record and reminder of the man and his work. To hear Alan Clark reading the book in his marvellously rich voice adds immeasurably to the pleasure of these informative and entertaining diaries.

The recording covers two Parliaments and constitutes the most outspoken and revealing account of British politics ever written. Cabinet colleagues, royalty, ambassadors, civil servants and foreign dignitaries are all subjected to his vivid and acerbic wit. This is a brilliant warts-and-all expose of our political and cultural life.

Clark describes the experience of being drunk after a wine tasting and delivering a statement in the House of Commons - with disastrous consequences; his desire to relieve his bladder from the balcony of his office in Whitehall on the heads of pedestrians walking below; and offers frank descriptions of John Major and Michael Heseltine amongst others.

His personal charm oozes out of these recordings, as does his candour and, on occasions, his bile. But equally the wit and humour are laugh-out-loud funny. He records things which others might only dare think.

Entwined with the politics, though, are revealing glimpses of his private life, which was very colourful, his beloved wife Jane, and also something of the wider culture of Britain in the 1980s.