A decade after the Belfast Agreement, and three years after his exit from Northern Ireland politics, David Trimble cuts a much cheerier figure as he talks about life in the House of Lords, and the new order in the North.
ON THE afternoon of May 6th, 2005, David Trimble, Ulster Unionist Party leader and winner (with John Hume) of the Nobel peace prize for his contribution to the Belfast Agreement, was coming to terms with losing to the DUP his Westminster seat in the general election.
As a self-confessed "House of Commons man", one of whose principal aims was to put Ulster at the heart of British parliamentary politics, this was a severe blow.
Within an hour or so of the result his phone rang. It was Tony Blair. By that stage he was the first Labour prime minister to win three successive elections with significant working majorities. The victor was calling the vanquished to commiserate.
"The conversation followed the obvious line," Trimble now recalls solemnly. "And in the course of it he says, 'the Lords is there if you want it'. I didn't hesitate very long." He bears no lasting grudge with the former PM - "There were differences . . . ach, I'm not going to fall out with him - even when I think people made mistakes." His overall assessment of how Blair handled the peace process? "It would definitely be on the positive side."
Nowadays, the former Upper Bann MP cuts an altogether cheerier figure. He seems almost reborn. The days of turmoil leading to the restoration of Stormont, brinkmanship with the IRA and Sinn Féin, the party infighting and the all-too-public confrontation with Jeffrey Donaldson are all now firmly behind him.
He loves the current scope of British politics and has thrown himself into the Conservative cause in the upper house and is enjoying close relations with Tory leader David Cameron.
He is just back from an economic and security conference in the Gulf, and has visited Jordan, the Palestinian territories and Israel, where he "bumped into Blair in Jerusalem - where better?". Early in March, it was Brussels. His committee is examining EU regional policy as well as the first decade of the euro.
BACK IN his tiny office across the road from the Palace of Westminster, he is considering a report on the Lisbon treaty.
His book cabinet contains a variety of titles. The likes of Johnson Beharry's Barefoot Soldier: A Story of Extreme Valour sits alongside Richard English's masterly Irish Freedom: A History of Nationalism in Ireland.
Beyond the Westminster "village", there is the opera house. He misses more performances than he attends and he is now willing to buy tickets with that risk in mind rather than let the chances slip. "I have my eye on a performance of [ Richard Strauss's] Ariadne auf Naxos and I'm quite prepared to lose money on that," he laughs.
He likes London, its scale and its opportunities, and revels in the detailed policy scrutiny work the Lords offers. But his new and positive situation has not come about at the expense of denying his roots. Home is still Lisburn, where he returns at weekends, content at the peace and stability.
"As far as Northern Ireland is concerned and as far as the issues that I had spent my political life on are concerned, they are now settled and settled completely." He didn't want to "hang on" in Stormont politics. "As a former leader you've got the problem that almost anything you say will be examined to see where you are - so I thought it quite appropriate to move on. That's why I didn't stand again in the Assembly elections."
Despite the personal cost, there is a quiet pride and satisfaction in the new political dispensation in Belfast and in the endurance of the accord he helped negotiate.
"Criticism of the agreement itself is now quite muted," he notes. "Give or take a bit here or there, I think it's about right. It has taken 10 years to get it settled. But it should not have taken that long. The blame for that has to be spread around."
Had the British government linked prisoner releases with IRA decommissioning, "things could have been concluded within two to three years." He denies that seeing Paisley and McGuinness now top of the pile in Belfast, thanks to the accord he helped negotiate, sticks in this throat.
"I think it's a delicious irony that the two parties who are more responsible than any other for creating and prolonging the Troubles are now having to face up to dealing with the issues - and I don't see them facing up to it very well."
Referring to the sudden closure of the Paisley era, he says "the church dropped him very quickly, his party dropped him not long afterwards and I wonder how he reflects on that".
The backward glances are all very well, but he is keen to look ahead. "Look," he says patiently but firmly, "I'm delighted to see the issue settled and I may have some personal reflections on that, but I'm not going to let those overshadow the fact that it is settled."
CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES are "of the past", he insists. "Regarding the future, there is the need to address the aftermath of the constitutional division and the aftermath of violence. That requires a different standpoint. Whether these parties can develop the right atmosphere for that I really doubt."
He is a tad circumspect on the question of Peter Robinson being the right man to lead the DUP into the challenges that lie ahead: "One ought not to, at this stage, say 'it's impossible, the man can't do that'. If you are going to 'bind up wounds', to quote Abraham Lincoln, then you've got to approach things on the basis of agreeing that what we have now is as good as we can reasonably expect. It may not be ideal but this is the best basis on which to build for the future and we have got to do that together. To be cheerleaders for the agreement - this is something neither Sinn Féin nor the DUP are actually doing wholeheartedly. They are, both of them, still locked in issues of the past and when the times comes to look back on it maybe it's a good thing that they both put their thumbprints on it. It's a good thing that they are both in a situation where they cannot turn around and say 'this is a bad idea'."
Despite this he insists the agreement, like the Union, will endure, because it "reflects the reality on the ground, what people actually want".
As for the future, Trimble is open to whatever comes his way, maybe even a ministerial position. "The next election is more than two years away and a week is a long time in politics . . . If there is a new administration then I expect David Cameron will make a decision on the basis of the circumstances that obtain at the time. Nobody has any claim on him and he should not regard himself as bound by any claim. I've had a good time . . . I will have no complaints, whatever the situation is."
There is no mention of quitting.
"I'm in the Lords - we don't retire."