1991 was a year of change and preparation for change.

In early 1991 it was formally confirmed that I would leave the Spokesman’s Service to become the Head of Unit responsible for Documentation in DG X, the Directorate-General responsible for Education, Communication and Culture. I was appointed to this middle-management post without promotion and without being able to choose any staff.

In effect I was taking a gamble on the support of Niels Thogersen, the Director to whom I would be responsible, and who said I would be closely involved in the politics of reorganising the Directorate-General. He also asked me to back his gamble that a Danish secretary with Cabinet experience would be the ideal person to work with me. In practice I had no option but to take my chance on both counts.

The gamble on the secretarial skills and personality of Eva Pedersen turned out to be a real winner. We quickly established a working partnership and a friendship that I believe was enormously productive for the Commission and satisfying for both of us.

In the six years of peak performance before Eva went on maternity leave we did an extraordinary volume of work, often within the tightest time constraints. We were given an early opportunity to show what we could do when, shortly after my return to DG X, I was asked to take over the running of the Assises de la Presse Européenne, scheduled for July, as a joint venture between the Commission and the Luxembourg Government. It helped greatly that I was working with a Luxembourg Director-General (Colette Flesch) for a Luxembourg Commissioner (Jean Dondelinger) and a Luxembourg Prime Minister (Jacques Santer), who would later become President of the Commission. I gained invaluable experience of coordinating other DGs and working with additional staff and an outside agency. My established contacts with the Delors Cabinet were helpful and the Assises turned out to be a considerable success.

Given the speed at which Justin and Patricia were becoming independent, and given the trouble and expense of maintaining our house and garden, Anne and I agreed to look into the possibility of moving into an apartment and to begin the process of downsizing, which seemed appropriate for a couple coming within sight of retirement.

The most obvious targets for thinning were our book collections and the boxes of papers relating to my political involvement which were stored on shelves in the cave.

Where books were concerned, I decided to give most of my philosophy collection to what had become the Philosophy Department in Trinity, and most of my poetry collection to the Poetry Library in Dublin’s Mount Street. A more difficult choice was the decision to start giving the political papers to the Historic Archive Collection in University College Cork. The key factor in this decision was our liking for Joe Lee and Dermot Keogh of the Modern History Department there. Already that summer we were able to bring the philosophy and poetry books to Dublin. The transfer of all the political papers was to prove a longer haul.

One of our nieces, Ruth Hussey, daughter of Anne’s sister Gemma, had, after graduating in sculpture and photography from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, come to Brussels on a traineeship at the Commission. She did extremely well in her five months with the Audiovisual Production Unit, so was kept on for a time on a temporary contract basis. Inevitably we began to talk about the possibilities of finding some way to bring together our common interest in film production. Nothing came of this, but I still like the ten ideas I thought might be turned into clips for a TV channel targeting young people:

1. My dad is a philosopher.
He thinks that thinking is a good thing.
From time to time you sit down quietly and ask yourself where you are going.

2. My dad is a philosopher.
He says you never know from where the best answers will come.
Young people and artists often know as much as politicians and economists.

3. My dad is a philosopher.
He says that fellow humans should be given equal respect.
That’s why he says we should all spend as much time listening to what people say as giving our own opinions.

4. My dad is a philosopher.
He says that no one can know everything.
He is prepared to give the benefit of the doubt to a lot of people but not to bullies.

5. My dad is a philosopher.
He thinks that most of us know what is right or wrong.
He says that the world would be a better place if we each tried to stick to what we think is right.

6. My dad is a philosopher.
He thinks that what we believe to be true is important.
He is in favour of speaking up for what we believe to be true even if it does not seem to be very important.

7. My dad is a philosopher.
He says that sex shapes our lives.
He says it should not dominate our lives, there are other things that are at least as important – like learning how to live better.

8. My dad is a philosopher.
He does not worry too much about the environment.
He is much more interested in learning how things interconnect and should be managed together.

9. My dad is a philosopher.
He says that clear thinking requires good information.
Opinions should be based on knowledge of the relevant facts.

10. My dad is a philosopher.
He is more interested in the future than in the past.
He wants to continue to be free to be himself.

Read more: 1992 – Moving House and more on Film