The day McGuinness came to No 10

The historic first appearance in Downing Street of Martin McGuinness, the former IRA chief of staff, could hardly have been more awkward, according to the first memoirs from Jonathan Powell, who was Tony Blair's chief of staff during his premiership. In his book about the brokering of the Northern Ireland peace accord Great Hatred, Little Room, serialised in the Guardian, Powell recalls the day - December 11, 1997 - when the Sinn Fein contingent finally arrived at Number Ten.

"It was with some trepidation that Tony and I together with Alastair [Campbell], John Holmes and Mo [Mowlam] hovered in the cabinet room in Downing Street waiting for [Gerry] Adams and McGuinness to be shown in with their delegation including Martin Ferris, a leading republican from the south and a convicted gun runner, Michelle Gildernew, Lucilita Bhreatnach, and Adams's two assistants, Siobhan O'Hanlon and Richard McAuley. [O'Hanlon was believed to have been a terrorist leader.]

"A strong sense of the past hovered over the meeting. Before sitting down, McGuinness paused and observed: 'So this is where all the damage was done.'

"We all froze, taken aback by this opening gambit, and I said: 'Yes, the mortars landed in the garden behind you. The Gulf war cabinet on this side of the table, including my brother Charles, the prime minister's foreign affairs adviser, dived under the table, before retreating to the garden rooms below. The windows came in but no one was injured.'

"McGuinness looked hurt. 'No, I meant this was where Michael Collins signed the treaty in 1921.' "

As Powell puts it, "we with our shorter-term perspective, had been thinking of the IRA attack on Downing Street in 1991, while they, with their longer sense of historical grievance, had been thinking about the treaty of Irish independence signed with Lloyd George that had given rise to the Irish civil war."

Powell recalls how some in Number Ten had refused to shake the Irishmen's hands as a matter of principle. Alastair Campbell, as always, had thought of every eventuality. "Alastair had even sent me a memo proposing we put off the erection of the traditional Christmas tree outside the front door of No 10 which was due to happen that day. He did not think we wanted a picture of Adams and McGuinness in front of festive decorations."