Long serving Lancashire MP dies aged 82

Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd, who was Conservative MP for the Morecambe area from 1979 to 1997, has died aged 82.

- by Tony Durkin

He was a junior Foreign Office minister under Lady Thatcher and Sir John Major, and prior to that a Government whip and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mrs Thatcher until four months before her overthrow.

Sir Mark, who was knighted in 1994, was born in London in May 1943, was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford and was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple, practising until 1977 when he went into farming.