Anthony Berry

Sir Anthony George Berry (12 February 1925 – 12 October 1984) was a British politician, Conservative MP for Enfield Southgate, and a Whip in Margaret Thatcher's government. He was killed in the Brighton hotel bombing.

Born in Eton, Berkshire, Berry was the sixth and youngest son of the newspaper magnate the 1st Viscount Kemsley, and his wife Mary (née Holmes). His aristocratic connections may have played a part in his becoming Treasurer of the Household, but this is a political appointment of a senior Government whip in the Commons.

He married firstly, at Westminster in 1954, Mary Burke Roche (born 1934), a daughter of the 4th Baron Fermoy. Mary was the elder sister of Frances Burke Roche, later Viscountess Althorp and then Frances Shand Kydd, the mother of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Sir Anthony and his wife Mary had four children: Alexandra Mary (born 1955), Antonia Ruth and Joanna Cynthia (twins, born 1957), and Edward Anthony Morys (born 1960). They divorced in 1966.

He then married Sarah Clifford-Turner at Chelsea in 1966 and had two more children: George (born 1967), and Sasha Jane (born 1969).

On 12 October 1984, Berry was killed in the Brighton hotel bombing, when a bomb was planted in the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Conservative Party's conference. He was 59.

In September 1986, Patrick Magee who carried out the bombing, received eight life sentences, but was released from prison in 1999 under the terms of the Good Friday agreement.

Since Magee's release, Berry's daughter, Jo Tufnell (nee Berry) (a mother of three living in North West England) has received attention for her series of controversial meetings with the Brighton bomber, as part of her quest to come to terms with the bombing and, in her own words, "to bring something positive out of it". Some of their discussions were filmed for an "Everyman" programme, shown on BBC2 on Thursday 13 December 2001. She has received some criticism from other families of IRA victims for these meetings.

References

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/301223.stm] "Patrick Magee: The IRA Brighton bomber", BBC News, Tue 22 June 1999
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/375092.stm] "Outrage as Brighton bomber freed", BBC News, Tue 22 June 1999
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/1704600.stm "Brighton bomb: Filming forgiveness"] , BBC News, 13 December 2001
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1706358.stm] "Looking the Brighton bomber in the eye", BBC News, 13 December 2001