It will have come as little surprise to most observers at the annual cricket match played between the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Secretariat when Elspeth Howe, the wife of the foreign secretary, took her place at the crease in the game played in the grounds of Blenheim Palace in 1986 and was not out after batting what was described as a magnificent five overs.
She was privately teased within her family for her public reputation for being formidable, but it was a characteristic she had carried all her life, even before she captained the Wycombe Abbey cricket XI as a schoolgirl.
