1. Paul Channon's family were well connected: his father's dearest friend was Prince Paul of Yugoslavia; he received a toy panda from King Edward VIII in the run up to the abdication; and he was friends with the Duke of Kent, who was born on the same day, from childhood.
Paul Channon was evacuated to live with the Astor family during the Second World War.
Paul Channon was educated at two private schools: at Lockers Park School in Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire and Eton College in Eton, Berkshire.
Paul Channon completed his national service in the Royal Horse Guards from 1955 to 1956, serving in Cyprus during the 1956 Cyprus emergency.
Paul Channon was president of the Oxford University Conservative Association.
She, in turn, was replaced by her son-in-law, Henry "Chips" Paul Channon, who kept the seat until it was divided in 1950, and who then represented one of the seats that replaced it, Southend West, until his death in October 1958.
Paul Channon won the nomination to his father's seat ahead of 129 other applicants and in spite of a campaign in Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express against the apparent nepotism.
Paul Channon left university to sit in Parliament, and remained the youngest MP until Teddy Taylor was elected in 1964.
Paul Channon was elected to the executive of the 1922 Committee in 1965.
Paul Channon was one of few Conservative MPs to support the 1965 bill that ended capital punishment, and opposed the unilateral declaration of independence by Ian Smith's Rhodesia.
Paul Channon served as a junior minister in the government led by Heath from 1970 to 1974, as Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in 1970, then as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the new Department of the Environment from 1970 to 1972, briefly as Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office for six months in 1972, and then Minister of Housing and Construction from 1972 to 1974.
Paul Channon's services were dispensed with by Margaret Thatcher when she became leader of the Conservative Party in February 1975.
Paul Channon joined the Conservative delegation to the Council of Europe and Western European Union in 1976, and considered standing in the first UK elections to the European Parliament in 1979, but failed to win the nomination for the North-East Essex seat.
Paul Channon became Minister of State at the Civil Service Department when the Conservatives returned to power in 1979, and joined the Privy Council in 1980.
Paul Channon became Minister of State for Trade at the Department of Trade and Industry following the 1983 general election.
Paul Channon took charge of the department for two short periods, after Cecil Parkinson resigned following the Sara Keays affair in 1983, and while his successor, Norman Tebbit, recovered from his injuries sustained in the Brighton bombing in 1984.
Paul Channon became President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on 24 January 1986, after Leon Brittan resigned following the Westland affair.
Paul Channon blocked a proposed merger of Tate and Lyle with British Sugar and a takeover bid for Plessey by GEC.
Paul Channon was later alleged to have been involved in the government's secret supply of weapons of mass destruction to Iraq.
Paul Channon was appointed Secretary of State for Transport on 13 June 1987.
Paul Channon was roughly treated in the House of Commons by Labour's transport spokesman, John Prescott, who pilloried him for underinvestment in the rail network, and for taking a family holiday to Mustique shortly after the Lockerbie disaster.
On what seems to have been the very same day [in March 1989], perhaps a few hours earlier, Thatcher's Secretary of State for Transport, Paul Channon, was the guest of five prominent political correspondents at a lunch at the Garrick Club.
Paul Channon promptly said that he was not the source of the story.
Paul Channon was replaced by Cecil Parkinson on 24 July 1989.
Paul Channon harboured hopes of becoming the fourth member of his family to become Speaker of the House of Commons, but he withdrew from the election to replace Bernard Weatherill in 1992.
Paul Channon later served as chairman of the House of Commons Finance and Services Committee and chairman of the Transport Select Committee.
Paul Channon retired from Parliament at the 1997 general election and was created a life peer as Baron Kelvedon, of Ongar in the County of Essex, on 11 June 1997, named after the family's house at Kelvedon Hall.
In 1963, Paul Channon married Ingrid Guinness, the former wife of his cousin Jonathan Guinness.
Paul Channon inherited three stepchildren, and they had three children: Henry, Georgia, and Olivia Gwendolen.
Paul Channon died at his home in Brentwood, Essex, on 27 January 2007, at the age of 71.