The former Labour MP and defence minister Sir Patrick Duffy has died aged 105 after a short illness, a family friend has said.
He died on 2 January and is believed to have been the UK’s longest-living former MP.
According to Kevin Meagher, a writer who helped Duffy publish his memoirs, the politician was “kind of a living historical jukebox” where you could “push the buttons and say, what was it like to meet, you know, [the former prime minister] Clement Attlee?”
Duffy, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and received a papal knighthood from Pope John Paul II, served in the second world war during which he survived a plane crash in the Orkney Islands while serving in the Fleet Air Arm.
Duffy first ran for parliament in 1950 and was elected MP for the first time in 1963 after winning the Colne Valley byelection, before holding a seat in Sheffield Attercliffe from 1970 to his retirement in 1992.
He served as parliamentary under secretary for the Royal Navy for James Callaghan’s Labour government in the late 1970s.
Duffy “took a lot of flak” as the only MP who “berated” the former prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1981 for the death of the Republican hunger striker Bobby Sands, Meagher said. Thatcher and Duffy would later have tea together, particularly when he was president of the Nato Assembly in the 1980s.
A statement written by Meagher and approved by Duffy’s family said: “An extraordinary man with a lifetime of accomplishments, Patrick leaves behind him family and friends – across all age groups – who will miss his kindness, humour and incredible acuity in recalling personalities and events from a century ago.
“Patrick’s was a life well-lived, brimming with achievement, the admiration of colleagues and the love and affection of his many family and friends. He will be greatly missed.”
