Editing Michael Heseltine (section)

===National service===
Heseltine had transferred his articles to a partner at a smaller firm of accountants located off [[Haymarket, London|Haymarket]], feeling that this would allow him more chance of hands-on involvement in the affairs of the firms whose books he examined, rather than being a cog in a bigger machine. It took him three attempts and special coaching to pass his intermediate exams, and he had little immediate prospect of passing his accountancy finals. He also estimated that he was earning more from his property business than the partner to whom he was articled.<ref name=heseltine43/> With the expiry of his articles in January 1958 he could no longer avoid [[Conscription in the United Kingdom|conscription]] into [[National Service]].<ref name=heseltine39-47>Michael Heseltine, ''Life in the Jungle'', Hodder & Stoughton, 2000, {{ISBN|0-340-73915-0}}, pp. 39–47.</ref>

Heseltine later wrote that he admired the military, for his father had been a [[Lieutenant colonel (United Kingdom)|lieutenant-colonel]] in the [[Royal Engineers]] in the [[Second World War]] and active in the [[Army Reserve (United Kingdom)|Territorial Army]] thereafter, but that he had felt that his business career was too important to be disrupted. He and his father had taken the precaution of arranging interviews to increase his chances of attaining an officer's commission in case he had to serve.<ref name=heseltine39-47/> He had been lucky not to be called up for the [[Korean War]] in the early 1950s or the [[Suez Crisis]] in 1956; and in the final years of National Service, already due for abolition by 1960, an effort was made to call up men who had so far managed to postpone service. Despite having almost reached maximum call-up age, recently reduced from thirty to twenty-six, Heseltine was conscripted into the [[Welsh Guards]] in January 1959.<ref name=heseltine79>[[Michael Crick]], ''Michael Heseltine: A Biography'', [[Hamish Hamilton]], 1997, {{ISBN|0-241-13691-1}}, p. 79.</ref>

Heseltine spent nine weeks in the ranks as a Guardsman{{efn|Army regulations at the time normally required men earmarked for National Service commissions to first serve a period in the ranks. In practice the Guards, like many other regiments, used this to subject its "Potential Officers" to nine weeks of intensive training under Colour Sergeant [[Peter Horsfall]], designed in part to weed out those who were unlikely to make the grade.[Life in the Jungle: pp. 50–3]}} before being sent for three months of officer training at [[Mons Officer Cadet School]], Aldershot, alongside men from other regiments. He was a capable cadet, reaching the rank of Junior Under-Officer and graduating with an A-Grade, but he was not awarded the Sword of Honour or promoted to the rank of Senior Under-Officer, as it was felt his age had given him an unfair advantage over younger cadets.<ref name=heseltine50-53>Michael Heseltine, ''Life in the Jungle'', Hodder & Stoughton, 2000, {{ISBN|0-340-73915-0}}, pp. 50–3.</ref> Throughout his training he had been troubled by an old ankle sprain, but he declined the offer of a medical discharge.<ref>Michael Heseltine, ''Life in the Jungle'', Hodder & Stoughton, 2000, {{ISBN|0-340-73915-0}}, p. 52.</ref> He was commissioned as a [[second lieutenant]] on 11 June 1959.<ref name=heseltine50-53/>

Heseltine was granted leave to contest the general election in October that year; according to Ian Josephs this had been his plan from the start.<ref name=heseltine79/> Afterward he applied on business grounds for exemption from return to the Army, in part because of difficulties caused by an employee's embezzlement,<ref name=heseltine57-58/> and partly including the need to sort out his [[Probate|late father's affairs]], and was exempted from his remaining sixteen months of service.<ref>[[Michael Crick]], ''Michael Heseltine: A Biography'', Hamish Hamilton, 1997, {{ISBN|0-241-13691-1}}, pp. 79, 92–3.</ref> During the 1980s his habit of wearing a Guards [[regimental tie]], sometimes incorrectly knotted with a red stripe on the neck, was the subject of much acerbic comment from military figures and from older MPs with distinguished war records. Crick estimated that he must have worn the tie on more days than he actually served in the Guards.<ref>[[Michael Crick]], ''Michael Heseltine: A Biography'', Hamish Hamilton, 1997, {{ISBN|0-241-13691-1}}, pp. 92–3.</ref>