He even cancelled a press conference with the Post Office chairman in a fit of pique because I had revealed the news hours before he had planned.A succession of Post Office chairmen became his friends and they all trusted him, giving him prior sight of secret documents and information well in advance of publication because they needed his advice. That special relationship, however, did not prevent his criticising Post Office bosses in public. One example was the splitting up of the Post Office into two separate businesses. He accused the chairman, Sir William Barlow, of rushing ahead with the plans a year in advance of parliamentary approval and he deplored the scrapping of the worker-director experiment as “downright bad business”.In an era of left-wing activism in the union movement he managed to keep his militants well in line, although he and his senior colleagues were continually overturned by the rank and file at conference time. He was aware that his activists were ultra-left while the vast bulk of his membership was placid and moderate Phillip Whitehead said: “He is not an ideologue. He is a party man but not a fanatic.”He once revealed that he had been offered the job of Post Office chairman but had turned it down, preferring to remain on the union side of the fence. He would have been a terrible poacher turned gamekeeper and he obviously made the right decision to stay put.That famous moustache was a cultivated asset.

He claimed he grew it to make him appear older so that fellow trade unionists would listen to him. It became a symbol of his good nature and proved that he did not take himself as seriously as some of the humourless old guard on the TUC General Council.His worst experience was undoubtedly the 1971 strike and a friend remarked: “Few union leaders can have been so publicly humiliated.” His members lodged a claim for 15 per cent but the employers offered only 8 per cent. After the strike collapsed an inquiry awarded just 9 per cent. He had rallied his troops in a manner befitting a leader of the miners, winning sympathy but precious little financial support.

Even the Post Office telephonists let him down and the union was forced into surrender because it had debts of £750,000 and could not continue.At a meeting in Hyde Park in London he was booed and cheered and said: “Last week they were for me Now they are against me. It is part of the job.” Later he admitted it was the saddest moment of his life when his union’s executive realised it could not longer afford to finance the dispute. Other unions had contributed interest-free loans but he made no secret of the fact that their generosity had not lived up to his expectations.A friend observed that he had made two fundamental errors. One was to put too much faith in fraternal solidarity and the second was that he failed to realise that public relations do not win strikes. It was also a period of industrial strife on the British industrial landscape – and most unions won the battles in those days if they had muscle.