DOG

[Carruthers]

From the Obituary of Sir John Birch, Ambassador to Hungary.

Political visitors included Margaret Thatcher, six Cabinet Ministers and, in 1994 for a conference, the Prime Minister John Major.

Major arrived in Budapest with a heavy cold and was comforted in the British Residence by the attentions of Birch’s two handsome Hungarian Vizsla dogs, Flora and Daisy.
He was dreading the formalities of the conference, particularly the concluding lunch, and asked Birch to find some pretext on which to extract him from it after an hour.

Birch duly arranged for his Counsellor to bring him a note which he would pass to the Prime Minister, who would then make his apologies.
The note duly arrived and Birch, without reading it, passed it on. Major unfolded it and held it at arm’s length.
In large letters, clearly legible to the heads of state and government around him, it read: “Prime Minister: Time for walkies, Flora and Daisy”.

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