Keith Joseph was almost the only senior Cabinet minister of the 1980s who did not write a memoir. There were several offers from publishers but he rejected them all. He was an intensely private man, anxious to protect his family from intrusion. If this were not enough to ensure his silence, he was also excessively modest. As Education Secretary during the 1980s, when almost everyone with an interest in British politics regarded him as either a Saint or a Satan, he continued to assume that the people he met – even those with a professional interest in the work of his Department – would not know who he was without a formal introduction. In retirement he was never a candidate for the television chat-show or the after-dinner circuit. Unusually for a politician, he disliked speaking of himself; almost uniquely, he was very uneasy even when his name was mentioned in public. But if he was painfully shy, he appeared to be remarkably candid on those occasions when he allowed himself to reminisce. In particular, he was critical of his ministerial record. As he admitted in a revealing interview at the time of his retirement from the House of Commons, “I know my own capacities. Adequate for some jobs, but not for others”. Instead of regretting that he never became Prime Minister, he thought that “it would have been a disaster for the party, country and me” had he done so.