THIRTY years ago I lived a dozen doors away from a great and admirable man. A politician with a rare, perhaps unique, quality among his breed: lovability.
I was young and newly married, making my way at the Mirror; he was Michael Foot, wild and white-haired and apparently decrepit even in his mid-sixties and poised to take on the challenge of Labour leadership that would end in a terrible election defeat but which saved his party from disintegration.
My £25-a-week flat in Hampstead, then as now home to the capital’s assorted Lefties, writers, actors and intellectuals, bordered his beloved Heath and was probably the width of the Commons away from his rather grander detached house in Pilgrim’s Lane. He and his wife Jill lived a quiet and normal life, protected not so much by police but by the vigilant regard of their unobtrusive neighbours.
I often saw him walking on the Heath with Dizzy, the dog he named after his favourite (ironically Conservative) politician Disraeli and he invariably raised his stick to this tubby fellow journalist, as he did at everyone who hallooed a friendly greeting.
Now, at 96 – an age which looked decades beyond his reach when he was sixty-six – he is dead and I find myself both sad and grateful that I lived briefly alongside possibly the last great Edwardian ‘man of letters’, a politician both of his time and yet one who lived ahead of it.
The greatest orator of his day, Foot was a conundrum: a Socialist who, as Harold Wilson’s secretary of state for employment, restored many rights lost to unions in the 1971 Tory industrial relations act and yet a man who led a determined fight – right down to the vital Commons vote – against UK membership of the European Union.
As for living before his time . . . how else would you describe a man who fought his doomed 1983 election campaign on a manifesto – derided later as “the longest suicide note in history” – which today looks positively visionary as we fight our way out of recession: massive public spending funded by increased borrowing, greater state control of the City and its bonuses and a state takeover of banks which refused to cooperate in establishing a state investment bank.
Sadly, the great man – ever one to wear his feelings not in a fine sleeve but on it – will, instead, be better remembered for unapologetically wearing a posh donkey jacket to the Cenotaph.
Still, to be admired for one’s principles – even Lady Thatcher praised them – despite being oft misunderstood is no bad epitaph.
HARD on the heels of Northumberland’s Great Winter Gritting Scandal comes the county’s latest atrocity: the Great Hole-in-the-Road Rage!
Potholes are an unpleasant aftermath to a winter of hard frosts and savage snows such as we’ve just had (or are now having!) and the only way to make our roads safe is through constant vigilance and the rapid application of shovelfuls of tarmac.
So where are the road menders? I’ve seen holes close to a foot deep up here in north Northumberland. If we’re lucky, some passer-by plants a warning cone; I’ve even seen a sandbag filling one open-cast pit!
Reader Julie Smith of Cornhill on Tweed, driving a car full of children, had a fearful experience on the Berwick road outside East Ord one dark night recently when she drove unseeing into a pothole which blew BOTH nearside tyres and damaged both wheel rims.
A call to County Hall, Morpeth, elicited the following advice (designed, I suspect, to deter claimants): WRITE (no calls) to the Internal Audit and Risk Management Department enclosing (wait for it) exact location, date and time and a brief description of the incident, photos of the damage, copies of invoices paid, a copy of your MoT certificate and a record of your car’s mileage.
So go on, deluge the damned bureaucrats. Potholers of the world unite . . . you have nothing to lose but your claims!
I was young and newly married, making my way at the Mirror; he was Michael Foot, wild and white-haired and apparently decrepit even in his mid-sixties and poised to take on the challenge of Labour leadership that would end in a terrible election defeat but which saved his party from disintegration.
My £25-a-week flat in Hampstead, then as now home to the capital’s assorted Lefties, writers, actors and intellectuals, bordered his beloved Heath and was probably the width of the Commons away from his rather grander detached house in Pilgrim’s Lane. He and his wife Jill lived a quiet and normal life, protected not so much by police but by the vigilant regard of their unobtrusive neighbours.
I often saw him walking on the Heath with Dizzy, the dog he named after his favourite (ironically Conservative) politician Disraeli and he invariably raised his stick to this tubby fellow journalist, as he did at everyone who hallooed a friendly greeting.
Now, at 96 – an age which looked decades beyond his reach when he was sixty-six – he is dead and I find myself both sad and grateful that I lived briefly alongside possibly the last great Edwardian ‘man of letters’, a politician both of his time and yet one who lived ahead of it.
The greatest orator of his day, Foot was a conundrum: a Socialist who, as Harold Wilson’s secretary of state for employment, restored many rights lost to unions in the 1971 Tory industrial relations act and yet a man who led a determined fight – right down to the vital Commons vote – against UK membership of the European Union.
As for living before his time . . . how else would you describe a man who fought his doomed 1983 election campaign on a manifesto – derided later as “the longest suicide note in history” – which today looks positively visionary as we fight our way out of recession: massive public spending funded by increased borrowing, greater state control of the City and its bonuses and a state takeover of banks which refused to cooperate in establishing a state investment bank.
Sadly, the great man – ever one to wear his feelings not in a fine sleeve but on it – will, instead, be better remembered for unapologetically wearing a posh donkey jacket to the Cenotaph.
Still, to be admired for one’s principles – even Lady Thatcher praised them – despite being oft misunderstood is no bad epitaph.
HARD on the heels of Northumberland’s Great Winter Gritting Scandal comes the county’s latest atrocity: the Great Hole-in-the-Road Rage!
Potholes are an unpleasant aftermath to a winter of hard frosts and savage snows such as we’ve just had (or are now having!) and the only way to make our roads safe is through constant vigilance and the rapid application of shovelfuls of tarmac.
So where are the road menders? I’ve seen holes close to a foot deep up here in north Northumberland. If we’re lucky, some passer-by plants a warning cone; I’ve even seen a sandbag filling one open-cast pit!
Reader Julie Smith of Cornhill on Tweed, driving a car full of children, had a fearful experience on the Berwick road outside East Ord one dark night recently when she drove unseeing into a pothole which blew BOTH nearside tyres and damaged both wheel rims.
A call to County Hall, Morpeth, elicited the following advice (designed, I suspect, to deter claimants): WRITE (no calls) to the Internal Audit and Risk Management Department enclosing (wait for it) exact location, date and time and a brief description of the incident, photos of the damage, copies of invoices paid, a copy of your MoT certificate and a record of your car’s mileage.
So go on, deluge the damned bureaucrats. Potholers of the world unite . . . you have nothing to lose but your claims!
First published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne, March 5, 2010
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