He says there was nothing in particular that triggered last Thursday night’s announcement.

“It was more a feeling than anything else that it was the right time,” he added.

This year, 2010, marks 50 years since he entered the cut and thrust of politics as a member of the old Downpatrick Urban Council.
This year has also seen the election of his friend and colleague Margaret Ritchie to the SDLP leadership.

“Politically speaking I thought the party was in a good way and then, of course, we have new leadership, a new dynamic, both centrally and particularly in South Down and new young Councillors. So there was a feeling for me of renewal.

“I had been there, done that and it was now for other people to carry on the baton.”

Was his decision to step down influenced by a confidence within the SDLP that now was a good time to cash in on the new party leader’s rising political capital?

“Not directly, except to know there are people like Margaret there within the constituency who are very able and very dedicated, very principled, to carry on the SDLP flag within South Down.”

He is “very carefully not articulating” who he thinks his successor should be, but tellingly he is “very, very happy” with Ms Ritchie’s decision to seek her party’s nomination to stand in the forthcoming Westminster poll in the constituency.

And he is “not in the slightest” worried that his decision to retire could signal an end to the SDLP’s stranglehold on the seat.

One thing he won’t miss when Parliament shortly rises for the last time in its current lifetime is the travelling back and forward to London.

But what will he miss?

“Over the years you get to know a lot of people and you get to know a great variety of people.

“And you get to know people who at one point possibly couldn’t stick the ground you walk on and hopefully you have changed that,” he said.

“And I just feel comfortable with everybody in South Down, whatever their religious or political aspirations may be. I just feel comfortable with them, and I hope they feel comfortable with me.

“They are great people to work for. I do think I have the best constituency in these islands and the best of people. They have been extremely kind to me always.”

The new hospital in Downpatrick will stand out as one of the most memorable victories for the local community during his time in politics.

“The hospital only took 40 years,” he said wryly. He had just been made chair of the Urban Council when he attended the first meeting to discuss the need for a new hospital, held in the town hall in Downpatrick in 1964.

Much of his work, helping constituents resolve personal problems, didn’t make the headlines at all. But they were no less satisfying for that.

“A personal problem you know is a big problem full stop. You get great satisfaction when somebody shakes your hand down the street and says ‘Thanks very much’.

“What used to annoy me about it was they shouldn’t have had to come to me,” he said. “The system should have been able to help them without intervention.”

There were many terrible lows, particularly during the Troubles, some affecting friends and colleagues.

Celebrating his victory at the count centre in Dromore that same year.

“It was very hard to take but everybody had that to take,” he said.

There were also “periods of political despair.”

When he embarked on his Westminster career violence was raging and unionists were vehemently opposed to the Anglo-Irish Agreement. The prospects for a settlement were bleak.

Now there is a power-sharing administration at Stormont and the level of political violence has dropped dramatically.

“The changes have been quite incredible but they are changes we were working for,” he said.

As he prepares to bow out of the Commons, The MP regrets the way Westminster politics has become “totally adversarial.”

“Parliament used to be a debating house, now it has become more and more point scoring for the sake of point scoring,” he said.

He considers that much of the work MPs do, slogging away on bills in committee, goes unnoticed.

With retirement beckoning, what sort of South Down does he believe his successor will inherit?

“I would like to think if I had any legacy at all, and we all leave some sort of legacy, good or bad, it is that people in South Down and I put it no stronger, are now more comfortable with one another than they were in the past. That is not just me, that is a whole lot of people working together.”

His plans for retirement are vague. Indeed he admits he hasn’t “a clue” what he will do.

“All I know is I feel reasonably healthy, in body anyway, I will let other people judge my mental health,” he joked.

“I will still be a member of the SDLP slogging it out somewhere at a backbench level and I’m sure I will find other interests that will engage my energies.

“Going to the cinema or taking in a play. Taking holidays. People think you have great holidays but we genuinely have less holidays than most people, real genuine holidays.

“The community sector is very short of volunteers and maybe I will be able to get involved in something there.”

He is also planning to brush up on his Irish and his French, “to study a bit” and spend more time with his grandchildren.

“But it is whether they want to spend time with their oul grandfather,” he smiled.