When I had been appointed to the Cabinet in 1967, I had been struck by the amateurism that reigned in the upper echelons of the federal government.

I would say that in terms of the work that I've been doing, I'm very thankful to President William Ruto for returning me by way of this nomination, back to the ministry that I have been for the last 10 months.

The ministry was the profession that suffered most — and still suffers, though there has been great improvement — on account of not only ignorant but in many cases immoral men who claimed that they were “called to preach.” In the earlier days of freedom almost every coloured man who learned to read would receive “a call to preach” within a few days after he began reading. At my home in West Virginia the process of being called to the ministry was a very interesting one. Usually the “call” came when the individual was sitting in church. Without warning the one called would fall upon the floor as if struck by a bullet, and would lie there for hours, speechless and motionless. Then the news would spread all through the neighbourhood that this individual had received a “call.” If he were inclined to resist the summons, he would fall or be made to fall a second or third time. In the end he always yielded to the call. While I wanted an education badly, I confess that in my youth I had a fear that when I had learned to read and write well I would receive one of these “calls”; but, for some reason, my call never came.

Your grace, when God sent you to your inheritance and the right of this realm, found the church in horrible confusion, and in respect of the true worship of God a church of brick, or rather (as Ezechiel saith) daubed up with unseasoned mortar. Your grace hath already redressed the doctrine: now cast your eyes towards the ministry; give courage and countenance unto learning, that God's house may be served; so shall you leave a church of God, and a testimony that the zeal of the Lord's house hath eaten you up.

The ministry was the profession that suffered most — and still suffers, though there has been great improvement — on account of not only ignorant but in many cases immoral men who claimed that they were “called to preach.

Your Excellency well knows how I came into this department. It was by your special request, and you must be sensible there is no other man upon earth would have brought me into the business but you. The distress the department was in, the disgrace that must accompany your operations without a change, and the difficulty of engaging a person capable of conducting the business, together with the hopes of meeting your approbation, and having your full aid and assistance, reconciled me to the undertaking.

Colleagues, when I received news of my appointment as Minister, 20% of the calls I received in the first 12 hours were linked to concerns regarding the management of the Uganda Printing and Publishing Corporation. A lot of stories were being told and people were wondering how I would manage to supervise this company

But I could not believe my ears when I heard all that good news a year ago. I remember pulling out my hearing aid to see if it was working right. I thought finally somebody had acknowledged that the State Department was a topheavy, bloated, inefficient bureaucracy in need of massive reorganization and reductions. No wonder I said, "Glory, glory, hallelujah," because that had been something on my agenda for a long time, at least 21 years or more. But what happens? Mr. President, as we have seen in endless and countless instances over the years, the State Department's rhetoric far exceeded its actions. One year later Secretary Atwood with his good intentions to reorganize the State Department--and I have no doubt about his good intentions. I believe that he meant what he said a year ago. Anyway, Secretary Atwood is gone--promoted, I guess you might call it, to AID, the Agency for International Development, to tackle that behemoth of a mess.

I was appointed Minister of Housing on Saturday, October 17th, 1964. Now it is only the 22nd but, oh dear, it seems a long, long time. It also seems as though I had transferred myself completely to this new life as a Cabinet Minister. In a way it's just the same as I had expected and predicted. The room in which I sit is the same in which I saw Nye Bevan for almost the first time when he was Minister of Health, and already I realize the tremendous effort it requires not to be taken over by the Civil Service. My Minister's room is like a padded cell, and in certain ways I am like a person who is suddenly certified a lunatic and put safely into this great, vast room, cut off from real life and surrounded by male and female trained nurses and attendants. When I am in a good mood they occasionally allow an ordinary human being to come and visit me; but they make sure that I behave right, and that the other person behaves right; and they know how to handle me. Of course, they don't behave quite like nurses because the Civil Service is profoundly deferential – "Yes, Minister! No, Minister! If you wish it, Minister!" and combined with this there is a constant preoccupation to ensure that the Minister does what is correct. The Private Secretary's job is to make sure that when the Minister comes into Whitehall he doesn't let the side or himself down and behaves in accordance with the requirements of the institution.
It's also profoundly true that one has only to do absolutely nothing whatsoever in order to be floated forward on the stream. I have forgotten what day it was – indeed, the whole of my life in the last four days has merged into one, curious, single day – when I turned to my Private Secretary, George Moseley, and said, "Now, you must teach me how to handle all this correspondence." And he sat opposite me with his owlish eyes and said to me, "Well, Minister, you see there are three ways of handling it. A letter can either be answered by you personally, in your own handwriting; or we can draft a personal reply for you to sign; or, if the letter is not worth your answering personally, we can draft an official answer." "What’s an official answer?" I asked. "Well, it says the Minister has received your letter and then the Department replies. Anyway, we'll draft all three variants," said Mr Moseley, "and if you just tell us which you want…" "How do I do that?" I asked. "Well, you put all your in-tray into your out-tray," he said, "and if you put it in without a mark on it then we deal with it and you need never see it again."

I felt as I reviewed all the circumstances of the national situation, and realised beyond a shadow of doubt the supreme and vital importance of a proper supply of munitions for our success in the war, and remembered the insistence with which I had urged this upon the Government, that I was in honour bound to accept if the Prime Minister thought I was the man best fitted for this post. I made my decision; and I never had cause to regret it. As I look back today upon the problems which were then presented to me, the extraordinary difficulties that surrounded the work which I took in hand, my own inexperience in that kind of work, the chaos and tangle with which I was confronted, I feel that in many ways the creation of the Ministry of Munitions was the most formidable task I ever undertook.

When I came into that office, I could see that competition between the ministry and the NYC. Because the ministry is having the money, the NYC is having the idea. It was a battle. It stayed like that for nearly four years and I left it like that. I wonder if it succeeded

In response to the plummeting popularity of the Administration itself, revealed at Newbury and in the shire county elections, we have the Prime Minister's botched reshuffle. If we were to offer that tale of events to the BBC light entertainment department as a script for a programme, I think that the producers of "Yes, Minister" would have turned it down as hopelessly over the top. It might have even been too much for "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'em". The tragedy for us all is that it is really happening—it is fact, not fiction. The man with the non-Midas touch is in charge. It is no wonder that we live in a country where the Grand National does not start and hotels fall into the sea.

This is a terrible work," I said. "Why did you do it?"
"The usual reasons," said the Magister. "I told myself it was piety and duty to the Church, but a thousand years of contemplation will batter down the doors of one's own delusions.

I regret the immaturity with which I approached the problems and tasks of the ministry but I do not regret the years devoted to the parish.