While many of his fellow Tory ministers fell from favour either through squalid personal scandals or merely as a result of various forms of megalomania, Douglas Hurd, the man who once almost became prime minister and who served three Tory PMs, will probably best be remembered politically as a safe pair of hands.

His reputation for caution and aversion to theatricality may have won him his stint as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in 1984 - although some still maintain he was sent there more as reprimand than reward. Within a year, however, he was recalled and appointed Home Secretary. After four years in that job, he became Foreign Secretary and held it for six years. Never the most flamboyant of politicians, but certainly one of the more respected, Hurd would be best described as a traditional, old school, liberal Tory. Just over three years have passed since he retired as Foreign Secretary and his personal timing, deciding not to contest the April 1997 general election, at least preserved him from being on the losing side when Blair's New Labour swept into office.

Labour's win owed a great deal to the exasperation of a country weary of Tory rule. Though now in the House of Lords, escape from full-time politics has left Hurd free to concentrate on writing books, a hobby he began as a bored young diplomat, while he is also chairman of the Prison Reform Trust charity.

His latest political thriller is a study of the complex pressures which make up the world of internal party rivalries and the fear of press exposure. Not for the first time, his central character is a prime minister. Is this part of a continuing obsession with the job which eluded him?

"Well I had a try in 1990. But I never lost a night's sleep over not getting it." At present he is in the business of promoting a new book which is getting attention mainly through people matching his characters with real life politicians. "It's to be expected," he replies as if brushing away a fly. Is he frustrated by having his book judged more by guessing games than on its merits as a novel? "It does seem that it is being reviewed or written about by political correspondents. It doesn't bother me. My characters are made up, they're from my imagination. Of course you borrow bits and pieces from people you know or have met. That's inevitable."

Either way, Hurd the novelist can't seem to win. Still this is his 11th book, so he is no novice. Chairman of the judges for this year's Booker Prize, it is safe to assume his book won't be a contender. Of the nominations he has read so far, he says: "There's a strong Irish flavour".

Something of the trappings of politics continue to surround Hurd. The two men who step out of the hotel elevator and carefully scan the lobby may be plain clothes policemen. The television message screen in his room welcomes "Lord Hurd" and invites him to have a nice stay. Hurd's height surprises. Straight-backed and lean, he is a fit-looking 68. His rigid, very English nutcracker face seems suspended in time, while his white hair is not the lopsided scoop of ice-cream atop a cone immortalised in Spit- ting Image. The accent is educated, West Country; the voice lacking music.

Dressed in a grey suit with a pink shirt and tie, he watches the photographer and describes how being a writer sharpens one's power of observations. "I've just had lunch with Garret FitzGerald," he says. Seated at the open window he pulls at the corner of the net curtain wafted by the breeze and peers down the street. His visit to Ireland coincides with a potentially historic moment and he likens the Peace Process to an eternal Grand National of sorts. Realistic rather than hopeful about the latest discussions, he says: "There'll always be this ongoing series of jumps of varying heights. It is a difficult situation." The Anglo-Irish Agreement was constructed during his time as Northern Secretary, now here is another one.

"I came in when the Anglo-Irish Agreement was being discussed and left before it was signed." He seems thoughtful. Did he regard being posted to the North as a poisoned chalice? Or at least a political Siberia? "Certainly not. But I was only there for a short while, too short to make much of it. When the phone call came to go back to London, we - my wife and I - were very disappointed. Yes I was upset. I was enjoying it greatly. I had wanted to stay on."

It was Margaret Thatcher who had sent him to Northern Ireland. Never one of her intimates, how did he feel about going at the time? "She did me well. Sending me to the North was the beginning of my cabinet life. But a year is too brief to establish oneself." His time there may have seemed insignificant but he took a considerable pounding.

In a leader which appeared in this paper on February 5th, 1985, Hurd's approach to the job was seen as rather simplistic. "In one of his good thrillers, Mr Hurd has a character say that the source of trouble in Ireland is the Irish grandmother, specifically the Catholic grandmother. She apparently fills the young with tales of woe and vengeance . . . " The leader continues: "For clever man though he is, and an experienced diplomatist and politican, he acts as if completely unaware that he is dealing with a nation and a culture rather than a parcel of English counties." Ireland must have been more troublesome than he admits. As Home Secretary it was he who had to make a decision on the Guildford and Woolwich appeals; it was he who refused to review the case of the Birmingham Six, though he later backtracked.

If his replies appear measured, this is dictated more by his personality than diplomacy. He has loyalties - but firstly to his own opinions and his understatement is eloquent. His careful smile suggests that while Ted Heath is certainly a civilised man and perfectionist enough to take issue with the speeches which were written for him - "he would never write his own and yet refused to correct the things he didn't like, leaving everything until the very last moment" - his was hardly a towering intellect. Hurd has the confidence of a man who has always been bright, dull perhaps, but certainly bright. He is able but perhaps confidence, even smugness, ultimately defeated his ambition. It would, however, be wrong to underestimate Hurd's survival from the Heath era, through Thatcher's and into Major's.

ALTHOUGH he sits like a gunslinger, his leg thrown over the arm of his chair, his foot entangled in the curtain, Douglas Hurd is unlikely to conduct himself with the reckless abandon of an Alan Clark when it comes to memoirs - and has already published an account of his years with Heath - but he does not allow his diplomacy to completely conceal his opinions. Not for nothing did Margaret Thatcher decide Hurd had "an interesting mind". And he is clever enough not to feel obliged to bludgeon his listener with it.

The son and grandson of politicians, Hurd nevertheless heeded his father's advice and did not go straight into politics. "I think one of the problems with British politics now is that people go into the House of Commons convinced they are going to become prime minister within 10 years." More pulling at the net curtain. "The place is full of people rushing about holding bits of paper and looking terribly busy and important."

His father was a farmer who also happened to be an MP. "I can remember having lunch with him when I was at Cambridge. The waiter came up and said `Mr Churchill's on the phone'. He had got back in and wanted my father in the cabinet," As an aside he says: "I remember having to push him into the phone booth, he was rather a large man . . . anyhow my father refused, he just didn't want it and was content being an authority on farming in the House of Commons." His grandfather was also an MP and two of Hurd's uncles were killed in the first World War.

How did this affect his father? "Don't know, can't say. My father was at school at the time." It is a typical Hurd response. If he has a definite answer, he offers it. Otherwise he moves on. Vagueness and ambiguity appear to repel him.

Born in 1930 Hurd describes his Wiltshire boyhood as "wartime". As a child he lived on the family 500-acre farm. At eight, "I was sent off to boarding school. That was the way. It was `goodbye' at the railway station, `see you at Christmas'. Didn't bother me. We have a 14-year-old boy. He's at boarding school as well. But he comes home most weekends." A father of five, he has three grown sons from his first marriage which lasted for 16 years and ended in 1976. He married his second wife, Judy Smart, his House of Commons secretary, in 1982 and they have a son and a daughter.

A scholarship took Hurd to Eton where he is alleged to have been bossy. It seems too petty to ask him about it. However, when there is a knock at the hotel room door, he leaps up to investigate. "Did you order tea?" he asks accusingly. "No, it was offered. Did you not order any?" "I didn't want any," he says in a bossy tone. Earlier he had been describing the differences between Dublin and London and ventured: "There are no brown faces." Moments earlier he had agreed that Britain has become a racially mixed society and that it is has become increasingly difficult to locate traces of the traditional England which produced him. "You certainly don't have a racial problem here." One could challenge this by referring to the outrageous immigration policies now in operation here - except that the waiter, obviously of African origin, as if on cue, appears. So much for his theories. At least Hurd has the grace to laugh but refrains from wrapping his head in the curtain.

At Cambridge he studied History. He took a first as a matter of course but never felt drawn to an academic career. Although now he says: "I do feel that part of the prize of reaching middle age should be able to go back to university." He joined the Foreign Office in 1952 as a career civil servant and was posted to Peking, New York and Rome. At 36, the bored "young, youngish" diplomat had had enough. "I wrote to Ted Heath to see if there was a job. He replied `come back at once'. It was rather wonderful," he laughs. "For eight years I worked for him as his private secretary, including when he became Prime Minister."

Hurd's father and grandfather were politicians who happened to be Conservative; their concerns were more bound with politics than the party and Hurd accepts this is true of him. How important is party? "If I read in the paper that we have gained 250 seats, I'm pleased and I'd agree that my instincts are Tory." His political career began at a time when Britain was controlled by trade union politics.

"People have forgotten, but it was a poison. I can remember men who lived near me in Oxford and who worked at the Cowley motor plant there, never knowing when they arrived for work would they actually be allowed to work. The unions had a terrible power."

Heath succeeded Harold Wilson in 1970 and remained in power for four years. "He could be maddening," he recalls. During his time with him, Hurd says: "I went up and down England with him. I got to know my country." It was Heath who led a reluctant Britain into the EEC in 1973. In the following year he was to suffer two general election defeats, in February and later in October. Meanwhile, Hurd won a seat and began his parliamentary career.

In 1975, Heath lost the party leadership to Margaret Thatcher. Although she had been in parliament since 1959, her taking over from Heath surprised Hurd. She became prime minister in May 1979. When he says he "liked and likes her" he probably means it, but it sounds lukewarm.

Affable if remote, Hurd gives the impression of hovering on the controlled side of outspoken, and of favouring amused detachment. He does admit to disagreeing with her and stresses that for all her critics, she also has her admirers. "There are those who worship her," he intones like a churchman. As for the Falklands War, he says. "If it were to happen again, I'm sure we would do the same thing. The British are rather good at fighting." According to Hurd, Thatcher had "great respect for academics, she always looked for first principles". It was Hurd who accompanied her on her visit to China in 1977. Her robust directness obviously needed a buffer as she marched her way through a heavily etiquette-bound society.

Her fall in 1990 appears to have surprised him even more than her rise did. "I thought she would survive," he says, his fingers kneading the curtain. "I was puzzled she backed Major." Of her fall, he says: "Politics is so odd there is always just a moment when something looks possible and then like that" - punching the curtain - "it's gone. I also think that Geoffrey Howe had something to do with it, when he resigned and said the country was not being run properly." Looking thoughtful Hurd adds: "She thought there was this great conspiracy, there wasn't. It was just an ebbing away of her support."

What does he think of William Hague? "Don't know, can't decide." Agreeing that Hague's political career appears to have been extraordinarily deliberate, he says: "Very deliberate and he is at least equal to Blair in the House. Yes, he makes rather good speeches. They've got verbs in them. Ideas as well." Assuming an expression of bland good humour he adds: "Yes verbs, the prime minister has rather given up on verbs." The trendy, feel-good image and stagey sincerity of Blair is irritating to some. Hurd limits himself to remarking: "There is a danger in politics in taking the high moral ground, it makes one vulnerable and open to failure".

Class and intellectual prowess are two of the myths which continue to shroud British politics, along of course with the ready staple of sex scandals. Hurd seems to lament the fact that the Conservative scandals are so pathetic. On the subject of class he says: "I think it is not a factor. If it were, neither Heath, Thatcher nor Major would have ever become prime minister." Hurd's father became a life peer on entering the Lords, as did Hurd in April 1997. "It's very polite, rather elderly. A useful rather than powerful platform." He agrees the title means nothing to him. He is not upper class and sounds classless: his use of language is flat, very ordinary. There is none of the fancy, eccentric flourishes of the upper class. So what would an English person make of him? He laughs. "Everyone seems to think I'm very wealthy and that we have all these rolling acres. We have two fields. About 11 acres on a good day."

How much did the power of politics appeal to him? "Power?" he asks, still playing with the curtain which is again draped over his leg: "I don't think power has much to do with it. It's the excitement of having to make decisions, solve problems. I think a political career moves in three phases - there's the first, exciting, active period; the middle which can be dull; and the third which means you do nothing. I was lucky to have the first and avoid the others."

The Shape of Ice by Douglas Hurd is published by Little Brown today, price £15.99 in UK.