Finding the Gladstone family home presented a very 21st century, metropolitan problem. I'd packed the recording kit and cameras in the hire car and typed 'Hawarden' into the satnav only to be confronted by a blank screen. The satnav couldn't locate it and no amount of coaxing or, eventually, desperate begging would make it change its mind.
It turned out that the device only recognised places in England. Hawarden is just inside Wales, in Flintshire to be precise and despite being the home of one of the greatest British political figures of all time, a Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister no less than four times between 1868 and 1894, Hawarden was on a different database.
I spent over two hours driving around in the dark trying to find this little village and was really chuffed when I finally got there, frozen but alive. And while the village may be hard to find, the legacy of William Ewart Gladstone was everywhere.
There's his picture looming out at you as you pop into the Fox and Grapes, next to a sign offering two meals for the price of one. There he is again in the newsagent's window, advertising a Victorian Weekend and there, towering over the main road is a statue of the man, on a grand plinth, standing proudly in front of St Deiniol's Library - an equivalent to the US Presidential libraries that they take for granted over there, but don't really exist over here.
St Deiniol's is the only residential library in Britain and I went there because Gladstone himself founded it, and apparently hand delivered 33,000 books by wheelbarrow himself from his home half a mile away. I couldn't believe that, espeically as he was 82 at the time, but the head librarian Peter Francis swore it was true
So then came the problem of making part of my programme there. It's difficult to record a radio interview in a place that requires total silence. A couple of early efforts resulted in hard stares from the regular readers sitting in the comfy chairs dotted around the shelves.
So we counted readers out and counted them back in until the coast was nearly clear, held our breath and made, I'm sure, a great deal of noise, our tactic being never to stay put in one place for more than a few moments.
There were no such problems at Hawarden castle - still the family home of the Gladstones. Meeting Sir William Gladstone in his great grandfather's study was quite a moment. He looked uncannily like him, was generous with his time and could talk for hours about the house and Gladstone's life, surrounded by his private papers and family photographs.
Gladstone the Prime Minister was infamous for being able to talk endlessly around a subject: when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he once delivered a five hour long budget speech.
I couldn't help feeling that if the need arose, Sir William would be able to take his great grandfather's place without any difficulty. It took me 6 hours to get away but it was an absolute delight to be there and to meet him.
