Granny Spills the Beans!

GRANNY POLLY TROLLEY DOLLY SHOCK!!

By our Portillo correspondent, "Tia Maria".

In a startling revelation from her summer home at a secret location on the Costa Brava, Granny yesterday poured out her heart exclusively to The Sun. In a wide-ranging, no-holds-barred interview, she spoke frankly about life, about her younger days as a Cambridge-based Air Steward, and about the hurtful, almost shameful way she was treated at the hands of a well-known senior Conservative politician, who for legal reasons we cannot name.

"The crash brought it all home to me like it was just yesterday," she sobbed, as she poured a generous glass of Sangria for us both. Her hands shook visibly, making the ice cubes clink against the sides of the John Lewis dishwasher-friendly jug.

"It was seeing the pictures of that Britannia aircraft at Gerona airport, split into three pieces, just like my heart was ripped apart after Michael left me so cruelly," Granny went on, knocking back a generous draught of the delicious brew. "Left me for a WOMAN!" she screamed, getting increasingly agitated now. We looked around, trying to appear casual, while at the same time locating the door.

Married ex-Cabinet minister Mr Portillo, now 46 and over the hill in gay terms, last week owned up to "some homosexual experiences" in a clear-the-air exercise as he prepared to make his political comeback.

He insisted the flings only took place while he was a young student at Cambridge in the 1970's. But Granny's latest disclosures showed how Mr Portillo pursued gay relationships until he was engaged to Carolyn Eadie, now his wife, in 1981.

"We are not talking about teenage fumblings or childish experiments," Granny insisted. "Portillo was having sex with me in the second half of his 20s. I felt he had had other homosexual affairs. He wasn't experienced but he wasn't nervous. Sex together was fun, but it was nothing remarkable."

Granny said they had gay sex in Cambridge, London and overseas after first meeting at a homosexual party thrown by a don nicknamed Madge the Fladge in 1971. The pair met once more in Cambridge but lost touch until a chance encounter in Paris where Michael was a tour guide, and Granny was a trolley dolly for Britannia airways.

"He was only 19, two years below the age of consent for homosexuals at the time. The Tory darling, tipped as a future leader, was by then dating Carolyn. I never thought that would last five minutes, of course, sweetie," she went on, offering a top-up of my Sangria. "But, well - you know the rest, the bastard went and married the bitch, leaving with nothing - NADA!! I'll get the cunt if it kills me!"

She was red-faced now, her face contorted into a vengeful mask of fury, so I quickly offered a Prozac, which seemed to calm her down a bit. Calmed her so much, that after a couple more glasses, accompanied by some quite exquisite local grass, she dozed off into a fitful sleep, the words Michael.... Si, Senor.... Polly Wolly Doodle all the day.... slipping out of her still firm ruby red lips.

We closed up our laptop and left, as we had a later appointment with Robin X, another of Michael's conquistadors from the dark and vaselined past.

Editor's note: The above only semi-fictitious piece is adapted from an interview with Nigel Hart in The Sun, September 13 1999.