This was the Scottish Power Event, chaired by Nick Barley, the Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival and it turned out to be a very special evening indeed. Not only did we have Sarah Brown reflecting on her years in Downing Street but she was joined on stage by her husband, Gordon Brown, who she introduced as "her guest" for the evening.
We were treated to a very honest review of the role of Chancellor's then Prime Minister's wife by Sarah who made great play of the aim she set herself to be there for the family and to try and provide as normal a life as possible for the family while "living above the shop" at No 10. As she mentioned there were some 250 or more people working down below to run the organisation that lies behind the Prime Minister.
Her description of accompanying her husband on the many trips he was required to undertake as the "WPM" - wife of the Prime Minister - made her feel somewhat detached and anonymous but clearly she survived the challenge and was able to concentrate on her charity interests which have blossomed, particularly the extension of the Maggi's Centres across Britain.
She then invited her "guest" for the evening to join her on stage where Gordon Brown quipped that "he had to learn how to turn off the personal microphone he had".
We then had the fascinating reflections of the former Prime Minister on his time in office. He spoke about having learned three things: firstly, to improve the lot for people in the poorer countries of Africa where the mothers say farewell to their friends before giving birth as they are afraid they will die; secondly, the need to instill a sense of national pride in the young people of Britain - as the events of the last week have shown; thirdly, we have so many global problems at the moment - financial, climate change and poverty which all need a global solution, no one country can solve this on their own.
There followed a wide-ranging question and answer session where both gave their answers. Sarah assured one questioner that she had kept away from politics and giving advice, "because there were so many people giving advice anyway".
Sarah said she did not read all the newspapers as this would have been too upsetting but she did feel upset when she saw criticism which she felt was unjustified. We learned that they met through the Labour Party (as you would suspect) and we heard that Sarah had returned his first gift as she suspected (rightly) that it had been picked by someone else!
They both had strong views on phone and computer hacking and were dismayed that those grieving should have been targeted by News International journalists. Gordon Brown suspected that this might have been going on for many years.
Gordon Brown made it clear that he felt the international community was not doing enough for East Africa and the thousands of starving children there.
He was asked why he wanted to be Prime Minister. He replied that although as Chancellor you hold financial power, the real decisions are made by the Prime Minister. He described the feeling that every minute of every day someone was criticising your leadership. He stressed how things had changed with virtually "instant" communications. He contrasted the position today when everything had to be timed to the second, compared to when John F. Kennedy visited No 10 to meet Harold MacMillan, the then PM, and was asked to wait until the PM was woken up and given a seat and a cup of tea!
Well, we all had a cracking hour of total involvement and we were pleased to hear that Sarah thinks she has another book in her to write!
Event: Sunday 14th August, 1830