During Grey Gowrie‘s time as deputy to Jim Prior in Northern Ireland, for which he had much affection, I served as his private secretary. Some Unionists viewed him with suspicion: Ian Paisley hailed him as “the little green Lord”, only partly referring to his green overcoat. The first of the two enduring marks he left on the region concerned the long overdue decriminalisation of male homosexual acts in 1982. During the consultation period, Paisley led various delegations. At the end of one meeting, Gowrie said wearily: “You don’t understand, Dr Paisley. We’re not proposing to make it compulsory.” When Prior prepared a white paper in 1983 setting out a way to restore devolution on terms acceptable across Northern Ireland’s political spectrum, Gowrie wrote a distinctive chapter proposing something along the lines of an explicit deal between the two main communities, an idea that came to underlie the Good Friday agreement of 15 years later. Efforts to persuade him to get rid of a cardboard box in his London office from his previous department, topped by a teddy bear, were rebuffed with the comment that it was a valuable reminder of the transience of ministerial life.