Memorial Service: Peter Jenkins

A Memorial Service to celebrate the life of Peter Jenkins was held yesterday at St Margaret's Church, Westminster Abbey, London SW1. Canon Donald Gray, Rector of St Margaret's, officiated. Readings were by Miss Liz Forgan, Director of Programmes, Channel 4 Television (standing in for Lord Owen: I Corinthians xv,51-57), Mr Michael Heseltine MP, President of the Board of Trade (from 'Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions' by John Donne) and Mr Julian Mitchell ('Do not go gentle into that good night' by Dylan Thomas). Mr Andreas Whittam Smith, Editor of the Independent, gave the Address.

Mr Simon Over was the Director of Music and Margaret Phillips the organist, with the Choir of St Margaret's, who sang the 'Pie Jesu' from Faure's Requiem and the Easter Hymn from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana.

Among those present were:

Polly Toynbee (widow); Amy, Milly and Flora Jenkins (daughters); Nathaniel Jenkins (son); Janet Jenkins (sister); Anne Wollheim (mother-in-law); Bruno Wollheim and Rupert Wollheim (brothers-in-law); John Powys (brother-in-law); Josephine Toynbee (sister-in-law); Gabriel Toynbee.

Jenny Abramsky; Ian Aitken; Mark Amory; Lord and Lady Annan; Lord Ardwick; Hilary Armstrong MP; Neal Ascherson; Julie Aschkenasy; Joan Bakewell; Sarah Barclay; Lady Barnes; Sally Belfrage; Roger Berthoud; John Birt (also representing Jane Birt); Tony Blair MP (also representing Gordon Brown MP); Lord Bonham-Carter; Peter Bottomley MP; Virginia Bottomley MP; John Bourne (also representing Jean Stead); Sir Kenneth Bradshaw; Alan Brien (also representing Jill Tweedie); Allan Brown; Andrew Brown; Nicholas Budgen MP; Andy Bull; Charles Burgess; Norman Butcher (Open University); James Cameron; Will Camp; Alastair Campbell; DM Carter; KE Carter; Stephen Castle; Alexander Chancellor (also representing Susanna Chancellor); Anne Chisholm; Charles Clarke; Beverley Cohen; John Cole; James Cornford; Alexander Cortesi; Charles Courtney (US Embassy); Maurice Cowling; Martin Cox; Steve Crawshaw; Michael Crozier; Simon Cunliffe; Mark and Rosie Damazer; Michael Davie; Howard Davies; Sir Robin Day; Lady de Freitas; Anna Dedhar; Robert Del Maestro; Edmund Dell; Chris Dodd; Kenneth Dodd; Clare and Christopher Dow; Anita Dowbiggin; Professor Ronald Dworkin; Betsy Dworkin; Hugh Dykes MP (also representing Susan Dykes); Eve and Robert Elphick (European Commission); Jack Emery; Patrick Ensor; Stephen Fay; Patrick Ferguson; James Fergusson; Frank Field MP; Bruce Fireman; Grania FitzGerald; Paul Flatner; Sir Paul Fox; Lord Fraser of Kilmorack; Michael Frayn; Janie Frazer; Professor Lawrence Freedman; Tim Gardam; Catali Garel-Jones; Tristan Garel-Jones MP; Tony Garrett; James Gibson (also representing Mary Gibson); Frank Giles; Mary Gillie; Lady Gilmour of Craigmillar (also representing Lord Gilmour); Norma Giornelli (also representing Franco Giornelli); Stephen Glover (also representing Celia Glover); Elinor Goodman; Richard Gott; Francis and Harriet Graham, and Titus Searle; Emily Green; Graham Greene; Gordon Greig (Daily Mail); John Grigg; Friedrich Gronig (representing the German Ambassador).

Tony Hall; Connie Harman; Nicholas Harman (also representing Edmund and Sam Harman); Roy Harry; Dianne Hayter; Isabel Hilton; Juliet Hindell; Lord Holme of Cheltenham; Carol Howard (also representing Anthony Howard); Michael Howard MP; David Hughes; Colin Hughes; Chris and Vicky Huhne; Fay Hunter; Sophie Hutchinson; Sir Bernard Ingham; Jeremy Isaacs; Harold Jackson; Eric Jacobs; Martin Jacques; Michael Jay (Foreign Office); Lord Jenkins of Hillhead; Dame Jennifer Jenkins; Simon and Gayle Jenkins; Michael Jones (Sunday Times, also representing Andrew Neil); David Jordan (BBC, On the Record); Frances and Jeffrey Jowell; Philip and Hannah Kaiser; Robert Kee; William Keegan; Charles Kennedy MP (representing the Liberal Democrats); Heather Kerr; Richard Kershaw; Henry Keswick; The Hon Mrs Keswick; Martin Kettle; Joanna Kilmartin; Neil Kinnock MP; Don Knowler; Therese Krause; Angela Lambert; Richard Lander; Julia Langdon; Anne Lapping; Sir Denys and Lady Lasdun; William Latey; Dr Adam Lawrence; Lady Lever of Manchester (also representing Lord Lever); Mrs Gilian Lewis; David Lipsey; Dr Jenny Lisle; Graham Luff; Donald Macintyre; Christopher McKane; Rosie and Colin Mackay; David McKie; Lesley McNeil; Hamish McRae (also representing Frances Cairncross); John and Brenda Maddox; Rosanne and Eveline Malcolm; Peter Mandelson MP; Andrew Marr (also representing Jackie Ashley); Anthony Marreco; Connie Martin (Anglo-German Foundation, also representing Konigswinter Steering Committee); Masaru Maruyama (Yomiuri Research Institute); Margaret Matheson; Barbara Maxwell; George and Diana Melly; Lord Merlyn-Rees; Walter Merricks; Sir Anthony and Lady Meyer; Jane Miller; Professor Karl Miller; Lord and Lady Milne; The Hon Jessica Mitford; John Moore; Kenneth Morgan; Harvey Morris; William Mostyn-Owen; Ferdinand Mount (Times Literary Supplement); Mo Mowlam MP; Annie Nairn; Bridie Nathanson; Pauline Neville- Jones; Sir Richard O'Brien (also representing Ailsa O'Brien); Gus O'Donnell; Adrian O'Neill; Deborah Owen.

Sir Michael Palliser; Geoffrey Parkhouse; Lord Parkinson; Diana Parry; Jennifer Paterson; Peter Paterson; Norma Percy; MJ Perritt; Sir Peter Petrie; Hayden Phillips; Hella Pick; Veronica and William Plowden; The Hon Mrs Olga Polizzi; Archie Powell (also representing Justin Abbott, Danny Barraclough); Sir Charles and Lady Powell; Peter Preston (Guardian); John Price; Marcia Pytel; Giles and Lisanne Radice; Heather Randall; Patricia Rawlings; Sir Adam Ridley; George Robertson MP; David Robson; Lord and Lady Rodgers of Quarry Bank; Joe Rogaly; Robert Ross; John Rosselli; Hilary Rubinstein; Alan Rusbridger; Anthony Sampson; Sally Sampson; Neville Sandelson; Philippe Sands (Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development); Natalia Schiffrin; The US Ambassador, Raymond Seitz, and Mrs Seitz; Emily Selvadurai; William Shawcross; Robert Sheldon MP; Ned Sherrin; Mary Ann Sieghart; Posy Simmonds; Jennifer Simpson; Michael Sissons (Peters Fraser & Dunlop); Sue Slipman; Anne Sloman (also representing Dennis Sewell); Sir Douglas Smith (ACAS); John Smith MP; Jon Snow; Anne Spackman; Simon Stapely; Sue Stapely; Eugene Stenson (also representing Debbi Renicat); Edward Streator; The Rev Victor Stock; Lady Arabella Stuart; Jeremy, Caroline and Martha Swift; Matthew Symonds; Alison Symonds; Susumu Taniguchi (Yomiuri Europe Limited); Linda Tanner; Jane Taylor; Mike Thomas (also representing Maureen Thomas); Mark Thompson; Nicholas Timmins; Claire Tomalin; Donald Trelford (Observer); Kate Trevelyan; Maurice Trowbridge; Geoffrey Tucker (International Triangle).

Pieter Vlieland (Specialist Conferences Ltd); Maxine Vlieland (British Konigswinter Steering Committee); George and Sarah Walden (also representing Marigold and Paul Johnson); Alan Watkins; Susan Watt; Brian Wenham; Sir John Weston, British Ambassador to Nato; Janet Whitaker (also representing Ben Whitaker); Jim White; Peter Wilby; Lady Williams of Elvel; Kay Wilson; Robert Winder; Alice Woolley; Sir Ian Wrigglesworth; Carl Wright (Commonwealth Secretariat); Karen Wright; Patricia Wynn Davies; Hugo Young.

Liz Forgan, the Director of Programmes at Channel 4, described Peter Jenkins at his memorial service yesterday as the man who 'always got off in South Dakota'.

He was 'a friend and confidant of powerful and famous people - which gave him enormous satisfaction', she said. But she told a story of meeting him in New York, exhausted and in desperate need of champagne. He had climbed off the Reagan presidential campaign's aeroplane in South Dakota, because he felt that he was learning nothing when surrounded by the glamour of a presidential candidate.

'He always got off in South Dakota,' she said. 'We must never forget how furiously the feet were paddling below the water, however stately the progress above became.'

Michael Heseltine, the President of the Board of Trade, who first met Jenkins when both were children in South Wales, said that 'he had the rare but invaluable quality of a great commentator . . . I have missed his advice.' Jenkins had remembered a childhood meeting for years, Mr Heseltine said, until one day, lunching at the Guardian, Jenkins had joked: 'I never liked you, Michael. I think it was because you had a bigger canoe.'

Andreas Whittam Smith, the editor of the Independent, said that 'Competition between newspapers, personal jealousies, the clash of political philosophies: all these can conspire to make one uncertain of one's reputation.

'But the minute hostilities ceased, everyone could see clearly how wonderful and varied were his talents, how solid his achievements, how enduring an influence for the good he is likely to have had on the minds of his readers.'

Julian Mitchell, the novelist and playwright, said: 'Peter was a man of vast appetite for art and music and theatre. Peter was the only man I have ever met who, even when depressed, was depressed with gusto.

'What intensely irritated him was dishonesty.'

(Photographs omitted)