IT is good to have Sir Teddy Taylor back again, even if only in the shape of a book, his autobiography.

He is the most celebrated parliamentarian to stand for a south Essex constituency in our lifetime, a presence who invigorated the constituency scene as much as he did Westminster.

Something unfamiliar descended on local politics when Sir Teddy retired as MP for Rochford and Southend East in 2005. Those who knew him miss that fervent presence, the passion he brought to even the most mundane issue in politics. The unfamiliar thing that arrived after his departure was quietness.

But there was something missing, though, during Sir Teddy’s tenure by the Thames. He was a man of the moment who lived by the issues of the day. There was never much sense of a back story.

We all knew the basics, of course – Glasgow upbringing, committed teetotaller who had signed the pledge at the age of eight, the youngest MP at 26 in the 1964 election, shadow Scotland secretary in Margaret Thatcher’s team.

Then the lost Glasgow Cathcart seat, the parachuting into the safe southern England Tory seat of Southend the following year, the transformation of the Glasgow street politician into Mr Southend and an enduring love affair, begun the moment Sir Teddy first set eyes on the town, which continues to this day.

And then, the sacrifice of the glittering career, as Teddy Taylor took up an almost lone crusade against Brussels, the EC, and the power-crazed European juggernaut that seemed hellbent on eroding the very basics of Britishness.

It’s a long, eventful, battle-scarred tale, but Sir Teddy has been too busy creating the next chapter to spend time reminiscing in any detail.

Now, after three years of retirement, we finally have that back story – Sir Teddy’s autobiography Teddy Boy Blue.

Or do we? This is the Teddy Taylor story all right, but it remains quite light on autobiographical details and self-analysis. Most of the space is devoted to politics. His entire childhood, by contrast, is passed over in a few lines.

He was part of a relatively poor but warm and tight-knit family, but pen portraits of his mother and father are lacking. We do not even learn their names. By contrast, we learn quite a lot about little Teddy’s idolisation of Sir Winston Churchill.

True to form, the book heats up as soon as politics and controversy enter his life. The activism which has defined his career began at school when he organised a petition to get rugby replaced by soccer. In a throwaway line, he mentions that when he took over the debating society, membership soared. His ability to draw crowds, generate controversy and inject fizz into politics and social issues began at an early age.

The fervour for debate was developed at Glasgow University, and on the streets of that raw city of genius and graft. Glasgow was a hotbed of factional politics, in which Teddy’s debating skills allowed him to flourish like a fish in water.

Sir Teddy provides an intricate account of his rise through the complexities of Glasgow politics, first as a councillor, then as MP. It is so detailed, in fact, that it is easy to miss the main feature of this part of his career, the speed with which the young politician hurtled up the ladder.

The pattern of Sir Teddy’s career continues throughout the book. By contrast, there is limited background about his family life. He does give a glimpse, however, of the moment he met his devoted wife, Sheila. He had collapsed from exhaustion after several all-night sessions in the Commons, and met Sheila in Westminster Hospital, where she was a social worker. Sir Teddy freely admits that, but for that enforced absence from politics, he would still be a bachelor.

Pages are devoted to the routines of being a junior minister, but expression of Sir Teddy’s emotional sentiment at climbing so far up the greasy pole is confined to the bland comment: “There is something very exciting about first becoming a minister in a Government.”

The book catches fire, however, when Sir Teddy talks about his beliefs and convictions, and once again you hear that fervent voice.

His religious faith touches every page. This is a man who believes to be a delegate to the Mother of Parliaments is a valid way to serve God and fellow man, provided an MP puts his principles before all else. For anyone considering standing for parliament, be they Christian, Buddhist or atheist, Sir Teddy’s book should be a required textbook.

What this testimony lacks is some of the more lowly detail of Sir Teddy’s life – in other words, trivia. We know this dedicated teetotaller’s favourite tipple is water, but what about his favourite TV programmes?

As a young man did he favour redheads or blondes? How would he describe his personality in three adjectives? What eight discs would he take to a desert island, and for that matter, has he ever been invited on to Desert Island Discs?

Yet, you wonder whether Sir Teddy could even answer these questions. Perhaps the truth is there just isn’t anything lowly about this man, and he doesn’t have any trivial DNA.

It would, though, have been nice to enjoy a few more anecdotes about the many giant personalities who have treated Sir Teddy as a fellow giant, ranging from Margaret Thatcher to his fellow maverick anti-European and south Essex MP, Teresa Gorman.

Sir Teddy is not inclined to pass judgement, good or bad, on individuals, but he must have gathered a few choice personal anecdotes along the way. He chooses, though, only to describe his fellow politicians in terms of what they did, not who they were.

His reluctance to engage in gossip, or “reduce” politics to a game of personalities, is part of his high seriousness. Such old world nobility does put the brakes on a good story, however, and seems surprising in a one-time journalist.

In the end, Teddy Boy Blue is more testimony than autobiography. This may be frustrating for those in search of tittle-tattle or old scores being settled, the lines that juice up so many political autobiographies. Yet for Sir Teddy Taylor, this book, as Graham Norton might once have said, is just soooh right.

With a force like Sir Teddy, where the man and the gut belief are synonymous, where the man outside is the man inside, then life story and principles are one and the same thing.

l Teddy Boy Blue by Sir Teddy Taylor is published by Kennedy and Boyd @ £14.95 ISBN 9781904999836. It will be available in Essex bookshops next week