Dorothy Caroline Dore (1895 - 1968) was born at 22 Moreton Terrace, Pimlico, London. At that time, the property was owned by her father Edward's employers, the Watney Comb Reid brewery of Pimlico, where Edward was employed as a merchant clerk. Many years later, in the mid 80's, the property came into the possession of Cecil Parkinson, a member of Margaret Thatcher's cabinet and former chairman of the Conservative Party. Parkinson joined Margaret Thatcher government after the 1979 election victory and remained a member of the cabinet as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Energy and Transport until he resigned in 1990. The transcript of the article below from the Londoner's Diary was written at a particularly low point in his political career.
Londoner's Diary in the London Evening Standard
20 December 1985
Pop psychology says that the three worst things for inducing stress are losing your job, wrecking your marriage and moving house. Cecil Parkinson must have nerves of steel. He lost his job, his marriage hit a rocky patch - and now I hear he's coming up to the third hurdle by looking for a new London home.
His family base is the Old Vicarage at Northaw, near Potters Bar in his Hertsmere constituency (that's yet another damn fool renaming by the Boundary Commission: it was Herts South till the last election). But the former Tory party chairman has also long owned a house at 22 Moreton Terrace, Pimlico.
Recently Parkinson has pleaded for a rest from the limelight. 'All I want is a period of peace', he said last month to rumours that he wouldn't stand again at the next election.
That's the major consideration, I hear, in his decision to move from his £200,000 house to a flat still within walking distance of Westminster but offering more security and privacy.
Only a few weeks ago it looked as if he and his wife Ann had found the perfect place - a flat in Marsham Court, where Francis Pymm lives. It is a large block with security officers and well protected privacy just a walk down the road to the House of Commons.
Every effort was made - in vain I fear - to keep the Parkinsons' interest secret. In the end the sale fell through. One snag may have been that animals aren't allowed in the block and the Parkinson labrador would have been left out in the cold.
