Obituary Lord Stodart of Leaston FINAL Edition

• Published in: Scotsman (Edinburgh, Scotland : Daily)
• Main Author: Watt, Jeremy Bruce
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Edinburgh (UK) Scotsman Publications 12.06.2003
• ISSN: 0307-5850

After his years in the House of Commons as MP for Edinburgh West, and as a minister with Ag and Fish, as he called it, he was obviously pleased by his eventual transfer to The Other Place. He had to ponder long over his choice of a personal place name to go with the title. He settled on Leaston - the second [JAMES Anthony Stodart] family farm, close to Humbie, on the edge of the Lammermuirs. He was an arable farmer, so at Leaston he disposed of the cattle and sheep and turned to grain and roots. When he lived there, he gave his address as Forester's Cottage, which it once had been. One of his oft-recounted tales related to the long-standing dispute with Iceland over fishery restrictions, vulgarly known as the Cod War. The British government sent [Tony] and Lady Tweedsmuir to Reykjavik to try to calm things down, but they found the Icelanders formal and displeased. However, the senior diplomat there was a Scotsman. Negotiations began rather stiffly, but at about midnight someone brought in some glasses and a bottle of Scotch and put them on the table. Tony laughed as he told how, about an hour later, there was general agreement, and the Cod War was nearly over.