VINCE: I married my first wife, Olympia, in fairly controversial circumstances. We’d met at York University and then got together again after she’d returned home to Kenya, where I’d moved to work as a Treasury finance officer. My father objected to me marrying someone from a different racial background, and her father didn’t agree to marriage outside the community. For the first five years we weren’t on speaking terms with both sets of parents. So it was important that our marriage and relationships with our children were strong. Paul and Aida, who are only two years apart, had a special bond, and they are both very close to Hugo, who is seven years younger than Aida.

I didn’t want to miss out on things like taking them to school, ferrying Aida to dancing lessons and reading to them. Olympia chose to be home with the children, fitting in her PhD studies and music teaching. She was very much the dominant personality. I tended to be quiet and listen. Aida’s a good listener too. I like to think that she’s inherited the best of both of us.

When Aida was three, my father, having heard good reports about us as a family, got back in touch. Paul and Aida went to stay, and my parents fell for them. Then Olympia’s brother got married in Goa, Aida was a bridesmaid, and being at the wedding mended what had been quite a bitter relationship on that side of the family. Neither set of parents were bad people. My father came from the world of empire — he was stuck in that mindset — but once he got to know Olympia, they formed a strong friendship, sharing many things including a deep love of the arts.

We were fond of the opera Aïda, and when our daughter was born, Olympia wanted it to be her name. I thought she might prefer something more conservative, rather than being named after a beautiful Ethiopian princess. But she took to the name completely naturally. She’s very beautiful and it suits her down to the ground.

Like her mother, Aida is feisty, argumentative, and sticks up for herself. Olympia believed in fairness and had the same expectations for her daughter as for our sons. As a family, though, we were very close, we often disagreed and we spoke our minds. It was an environment of discipline, ambition and expectation, but neither of us pushed the children into particular careers. Aida was highly motivated. She got good grades and was an excellent political organiser of the Young Lib Dems in Twickenham. My daughter sets herself high standards. She doesn’t do anything half-heartedly.

Aida and I share the same values. I’d like to think that when the time is right, she might do something in politics. All three children went to Cambridge, though none of them followed me into economics. Paul is an opera singer; Hugo a scientist. All three are musically gifted, which comes from their mother, and Aida plays the piano to concert level. One of our proudest moments was hearing her play Beethoven’s first piano concerto at Cambridge. She might have gone into music, but Paul was a musician, and my guess is that Aida decided one musician in the family was probably enough. So she studied law and qualified as a barrister.

As a commercial lawyer I’ve no doubt she’s a steely and highly effective presence. She may be slight in stature, but Aida is formidable, cool and extremely poised. She seems to take motherhood and a big career in her stride. Charlie, my grandson, is nearly three years old — a lovely little boy who beams with delight when you meet him — and Aida’s a very good mum who also works hard in her professional life.

Olympia was an outstanding role model, encouraging her daughter to be an independent professional woman as well as a mother. My own upbringing wasn’t so happy, but it made me determined that my children would have a good, stable family environment. I think we were broadly successful — and that makes me much prouder than anything I’ve done in politics.

Having got into parliament late in life, I was able to have a proper family life and to help Olympia when the children were small. It was a real division of labour. We could just about manage with my income and her money from part-time music teaching. Before she died of breast cancer in 2001, Olympia was ill for a very long time. Although she was getting pretty tired by then, she was able to help Aida organise her wedding. But it’s a great source of regret that she didn’t live to see her grandchildren. Paul has a son, too, Ayrton, who’s six.

After Olympia died, I felt it was best to move on. In 2004 I married Rachel [Wenban Smith], and initially that was hard for all three children. She and I spend our weekends together, and during the week I’m in Westminster. Fitting in time with my children and grandchildren isn’t easy, and I wish I saw more of them. But I don’t believe in the word “retirement”.

AIDA: Dad was very hands-on, involved in all our activities and in running the house. He’d take me to nursery school and he’d do the ironing, though it was probably an excuse to watch Match of the Day. My parents were incredibly close and affectionate. Mum had a fiery temper and Dad was mild-mannered, but they counterbalanced each other beautifully. They had a strong work ethic, leading by example, and an assumption that we all could and would do things.

Our home was filled with music. Mum would be playing the piano, Dad listening to the radio, and Paul practising the violin. Among my friends, our family was unusual. We didn’t listen to pop music and there wasn’t much TV, but I had rows with Dad about the pointlessness of watching snooker in black and white. We weren’t affluent — which really came home to me when I went to senior school. Paul won a music scholarship. I didn’t win a scholarship to the girls’ school — Lady Eleanor Holles — but Dad felt the local state schools were of a good enough standard for me. Mum, a fierce feminist, thought it important I had exactly the same benefits as my brother, and I think Dad took on extra work to pay my school fees. That sums him up as a father: a very giving man. Thinking what my parents did so that their children all went to Cambridge and grew up to be balanced adults with normal relationships and very different careers, it must have been to do with discipline and fairness. Dad believes the secret of their success was that, though they often had different views, they agreed never to disagree in front of us.

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