George Gardiner (politician) - Later Life

Later Life

After William Hague became Conservative party leader in June 1997, Gardiner rejoined the Conservative party. Two years later, in 1999, he published his autobiography covering mainly his years in politics, named A Bastard's Tale, a reference to Major's remark six years earlier to Michael Brunson, although it did touch upon his life before becoming a Conservative MP. Gardiner revealed that he cried himself to sleep on the night of Thatcher's resignation, and described John Major as 'a walking disaster' and a 'Walter Mitty' with no beliefs. In his autobiography later that year, Major claimed that Gardiner was 'so convoluted he could have featured in a book of knots'. Of Gardiner's deselection in 1997, Major wrote that 'the Conservative Party was able to bear his departure with fortitude.'

In July 1982, Gardiner underwent a heart by-pass operation. Although in 1996 he dismissed claims that he was in ill health, Gardiner died on 16 November 2002 of polycystic kidney disease and chronic renal failure, and was buried nine days later, in Brompton Cemetery, London.

Gardiner married twice, in Bristol in 1961 to Gillian D Wells, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. This marriage broke up just before the 1979 General Election, and in London in September 1980 to Helen Hackett. There were no children of his second marriage.