Lady Faulkner, speaking on Radio Ulster's Talkback programme, brought us back to the future yesterday as she reflected on the last bold attempt to establish a Northern Ireland government that earned allegiance from many in both communities.
It was the brief Sunningdale experiment of 26 years ago, when her late husband, unionist leader Brian Faulkner, formed a power-sharing government with Gerry Fitt of the SDLP and the Alliance Party.
Her recollections touched on difficulties similar to those now being experienced by David Trimble, who ironically played a prominent part in destroying Sunningdale. "What Brian said - very sadly - was that it was not possible to lead the country forwards and the party backwards. That really summed up his despair at the time," she recalled.
Lady Faulkner told presenter David Dunseith that a UUP Assembly member recently told her that he burned an effigy of her husband in 1974. She said he had since changed his tune and was now in the pro-Belfast Agreement camp.
She didn't name the politician, but it could have been Mr Trimble. "I believe the most important element in trying to persuade the [Ulster] Unionist Party to support David Trimble is David Trimble himself, because he has been through it. He has got the unionist credentials. He has proved in the past that he is a man who is devoted to the union with Great Britain." She had words of comfort for Mr Trimble as he wrestles with the demons of unionism. "In politics, one accepts that one can't be popular all the time," she said. Stick with it, was her message. Callers George and Trevor slugged it out on Talkback, arguing the merits and demerits of the Hillsborough deal. George was annoyed with the "No" activists. Whenever they lost a vote, he said, they just kept coming back to cause further damage to unionism. If they were democrats, they should accept democratic votes. Trevor was equally annoyed with Gen John de Chastelain and his decommissioning body. "I just simply don't know what Gen de Chastelain has been doing, apart from having coffee and tea and chats with these people [the paramilitary representatives] because he is being paid a huge salary and he is the only one who has been decommissioned," said Trevor.
In this uncertain period, some politicians at least are looking forward to a return to the Executive. Civil servants have been drilling ministers for their possible reinstatement next week, we heard on BBC's Good Morning Ulster. Mark Durkan of the SDLP, who was finance minister in the 72-day Executive, hoped to be back in charge of the purse-strings shortly. It seems he took to the job with a Scrooge-like relish. "I had a very good working relationship with all my ministerial colleagues," he told political correspondent Mark Simpson. "They used to laugh at my jokes, and I laughed at their spending plans."
