Brian Pelleroe was selected to fight
the Party’s corner in Gridchester North at the 1987 General
Election. Sixty seven people turned up to a dingy Little Theatre
auditorium on a wet Saturday afternoon in February to question the
candidates and cast their votes.
The venue had seen better days but was
never short of custom. When an indifferent travelling repertory
company was not using it as the base for a summer comedy (The
Importance of Being Earnest or Absurd Person Singular) it
was an automatic choice for school Speech Days.
At General Elections, it became a
whistle-stop in Week Three of the Tory Prime Minister’s nationwide
tour when its pillars, seats and balconies were festooned with Union
Jack paraphernalia.
Now it presented au naturel;
save for a Party banner, hastily rigged up and draped over a podium
on the stage.
The programme of events offered little
to startle and amaze.
Austin Cox, perhaps surmising that he
was unlikely to get a second chance to redeem his unfortunate 1983
result, had withdrawn from the contest and Party members voted on a
ratio of roughly two to one, for their Chairman.
The two candidates were underwhelming;
their relative strengths and weaknesses finely balanced.
Brian was blessed with an intimate
knowledge of Gridchester (perhaps too intimate for the squeamish)
but his knowledge of wider policy was limited.
Leonora knew nothing about Gridchester
and everything about the radical feminist politics of London
boroughs.
She had some support.
Chantelle and Lester Chase imagined
that she might encourage her society connections to befriend
their wastrel son Darren – but they were fighting a lost cause.
It was always going to be Brian,
observed number one fan, Sylvia Mills when her hero triumphed.
And it was.
She had attended the Selection
Conference because of her role as Applications Secretary, but spoiled
her ballot paper and went straight home, spurning Sylvia’s offer of
a celebratory drink.
.
The house was empty. Paul had taken
children and dog to the park and she fussed around in the kitchen,
mincing lamb in the Kenwood and dicing carrots for a
shepherd’s pie. She had nobody to talk to about the performance in
the Little Theatre and her husband’s jaunty comment on his return:
So who won – the Duchess or the
Rat Catcher?
was not intended to start a
conversation.
Rat Catcher, she replied,
dishing up the dinner.
She did not add that she had voted
for Clare Butcher.
Over the next few months, her
enthusiasm for Party activity waned, and
encounters with the girls became
tense.
Evenings at The Malmsey Head or
watching a video chez Sweet were not the acme of social
entertainment, but they were fun and she looked forward to them. Now,
the atmosphere was soured because Hazel, Gail and Sylvia were on one
side of the Butcher divide and she was on the other.
I just don’t get it! Hazel had
said, voicing the collective view.
You KNOW how awful the Butchers are
– Ron’s a criminal; we’ve had week after week of bad publicity
and it’s not as if you owe Clare any favours!
If Ron hadn’t made off with the
Deposit Account, she’d have hung you out to dry over Laceybrook!
There was more of the same from Sylvia,
overlain with added barbs about disloyalty to Brian. Gail as
usual, was quiet, but her nods and sniffs were eloquent.
She had tried.
It was not that she liked Clare
– in fact she remained extremely critical about the way that the
Butchers had trampled over what passed for democracy to preserve a
vice-like grip on the Party.
But Clare, unlike Ron, had been
convicted of nothing and to keep her off a shortlist because
of the crimes and misdemeanours of her errant husband was unfair and
despicable.
Clare Butcher had suffered
discrimination in her professional ambition because she had the
misfortune to have married the wrong man and if this was to set a
precedent for ALL women who had picked a less than perfect husband….
She was unwilling to pursue that train
of thought to its logical conclusion, but the gulf was
insurmountable. It was best to leave it.
Life minus the intrigues and
distractions of the Grichester Party continued as normal – at least
for the rest of her family.
Vanessa was now a firmly established
member of the Reception Class at school; the proud owner of a My
Little Pony lunch box and best friend to a burgeoning
number of small girls. Richard’s name was on a waiting list for
playgroup, and terry training pants rather than disposable nappies
were now the predominant fixture in his wardrobe.
Paul had a full social diary. If he was
not carousing in The Duke with Fatty’s gang he was attending
Schoolmasters’ Convention representing Independent Day
Schools. John Nuttall was openly acknowledged as his closest
colleague and she had to endure many evenings en famille; either
slaving in her own kitchen, or eating burnt offerings from Kathryn’s.
In May, The Family Court’s decision
to award Nicola an increase in maintenance, sounded the death knell
to holiday plans, but Lynne’s postcard was the clincher.
Lynne had been seconded on a year’s
contract to Toronto as a senior advisor on city-wide climate change
measures. A spacious bay and gable house in Little Italy
was part of the package and the nightlife was incredible.
The General Election was set for June.
She was back on board.
Initial indicators were promising.
Lester Beech had offered to manage campaign finances (as a small
businessman) but she was delighted that his itchy palm was firmly
rejected in preference to Gail Pitt’s safe pair of hands.
After all, she said, stacking
election leaflets into piles of fifty
the only difference between him and
Ron Butcher is that Butcher got caught.
She was sitting with the girls at
Sylvia’s kitchen table, surrounded by leaflets, A4 boxes and the
Tornadoes, Sylvia’s less than placid offspring. Christine
was babysitting which was fortunate because when she had taken Sylvia
at her word:
Bring the kids – they can play
with mine
it ended in tears and a dash to
Accident and Emergency after Ida had poked Richard’s eye with a
pencil.
Paul was vicious; accusing her of child
neglect if not outright abuse and it was easier not to retort
that all and any accidents would have been avoided if just for once,
he had shared the burden of childcare.
The campaign in Gridchester was a
haphazard affair, unlike the machine politics powering Derek
Kingsmill’s battle in Lowerbridge. Shadow Cabinet Ministers
visiting factories, nurseries and council estates with Derek in their
wake were constantly popping up in The Gridchester Post and
she had stopped watching the regional television news because the
constant presence of Derek in her lounge was distasteful.
Her enjoyment of national programmes
was soured for the same reason.
If it was not Derek, musing on the
responsibility of defending a little red island in a sea of blue
it was Robbie Nantwich treating the great and good to his ironic
delivery and lip curls and sometimes Robbie Nantwich interviewing
Derek.
For once she was happy to acquiesce
when Paul assaulted her ears with the latest Bartok album.
Anything was preferable to Derek.
As expected, Norris Farmer and his
Sectional Team colleagues left Gridchester well alone. Honour had
been satisfied by the selection of a candidate and they neither knew
nor cared about the fate of that candidate.
The various stages of the campaign
proceeded in their accustomed fashion.
Leaflet delivery was better than
expected, but, as usual, there was a shortage of canvassers. Party
members were unwilling to risk life and limb by knocking on the doors
of strangers in such a hopeless cause.
And I do think, said Sylvia
waspishly, opening a litre bottle of supermarket chardonnay,
that Lisbet should set an example.
People WANT to know that the candidate is a nice rounded person with
a family, just like theirs. She’s never there. Poor Brian has to go
round all on his own.
Gail coughed, the unspoken sign between
the rest of them that Sylvia was yet again indulging in her
favourite pursuit; obsessing about Brian and bad-mouthing his wife.
It was as unfair as blaming Clare
Butcher for the crimes of the Peacock Heating Thief – and where
were these ideal families to be found except in a Laura Ingalls
Wilder novel?
She became part of Brian’s select
(small) canvassing team and found the experience intensely
depressing.
Hazel and Martin had been shocked when
(as The Cagoules) they had turned up on her doorstep in 1983,
because she had arraigned them, when all she was supposed to do was
to speak one of two words when asked which way she would vote.
The same weakness bedevilled her as a
canvasser.
She wanted to talk to people and
it felt unspeakably rude to throw metaphorical cold water in the
friendly faces of the few who were pleased to see them.
We don’t care what they think; we
need to know how they’ll vote, instructed Martin, in
long-suffering tones – but she was a lost cause and in the absence
of others, would have to do.
From time to time, they met the Tory
team (or squadron) headed by their captain, candidate
Borthwick Prosser.
Prosser was what her father would have
termed an oik; all slicked back hair and Aramis aftershave;
loud striped shirts, patterned braces and gold plated cufflinks.
He and his glossy posse swept, in
Hermes, down the streets like a plague of marauding locusts,
armed to the hilt with clipboards, badges and leaflets taunting I
SPY REDS UNDER THE BEDS whenever they happened to collide with
Brian’s team.
Hazel was right; he was detestable –
but she could also see that he was effective in a way that
Brian was not.
Starting with matters sartorial…
Unlike retiring MP, Hedley Mount,
Prosser was not a client of Saville Row and in comparison with the
elegant MP (whose wardrobe channelled that of HRH the Prince of
Wales); his style might be deemed vulgar.
But Brian had no style at all.
Come rain or shine, he sported his
lucky canvassing coat; an unfortunate cross between a donkey
jacket and quilted Gannex in a depressing sludge colour.
Similarly, his speciality fisherman’s
jerseys, trousers best known as slacks with sag at the seat
and knee and footwear akin to hiking boots were not designed to
inspire confidence.
Worst of all, in place of Aramis
was the ever present and overpowering odour arising from the
chemicals he worked with as a Rodent Officer.
Requiring a 46-year-old man to ditch
the habits of a lifetime and invest in a total makeover was obviously
a step too far – but she did think he could do something
about the smell.
It isn’t as if it’s that
antiseptic carbolic smell, she whispered to the girls when
Sylvia was out of the room
It’s got a hint of raw sewage and
every time I’m on a doorstep with Brian, I’m wondering if people
have noticed --- it’s downright anti social turning up and STINKING
at the voters like that….
Hazel and Gail agreed; but as the
prospect of broaching matters of personal hygiene with the candidate
was out of the question, suggested addressing the matter by wearing
extra strong perfume.
It was a solution – of sorts.
Of equal concern was Brian’s
canvassing strategy.
He had won the selection on the grounds
of
Knowing every inch of Gridchester
like the back of my hand
but he knew some areas better than
others; including a large run-down estate on the edge of the city.
The Nye Estate, built cheaply and hastily at the beginning of
the 60s, was home to petty criminals, one-parent families, the
jobless and work-shy – and was fertile ground for social workers
police officers and, as Brian had discovered in a professional
capacity, rats.
The run-down houses and junk-filled
gardens bestrewn with refuse were unlikely to contain Borthwick
voters; Brian was right about that.
But she felt that he was wrong to
assume that such an estate might be packed to the gills with Pelleroe
fans – after all, why would people who had been visited by Brian
as Chief Rodent Officer to eliminate the vermin that their
lifestyle had encouraged wish to elect him as their MP?
The majority of people on the Nye
Estate were unlikely to vote at all, and it would be more worthwhile
to visit the professional households in the Fleetwood Triangle who
were worried about the cost of living and the decline of the NHS.
Brian, however, backed by Sylvia and
the Vince O’Reilly trade union gang, knew better and the candidate
spent his entire campaign revisiting the sites of previous
infestations and setting up work for the future, although not of a
parliamentary kind..
The last week of the campaign kicked
off with a live candidate question and answer session in St
Francis and All Saints church hall.
Paul, who had watched her efforts from
the sidelines, decided to accompany her and Christine was engaged to
babysit.
His presence was something of a relief.
There had been knowing looks and
whispers in some quarters about the fact that her husband did
not join her at Party events and she fancied that she had caught the
name Dickon Cleave on the lips of enemies such as the Beeches
after she had dared to stand up for Clare Butcher.
It was satisfying to sit in the front
row next to Lisbet Pelleroe and her own well- dressed husband. Paul
had not changed out of his work suit and she was wearing a new red
dress from Benetton.
They were a smart couple.
The hall was packed; largely by
supporters of the candidates. Members of the public had submitted
questions in advance and debate then widened, with impromptu
supplementary queries from the floor, fielded by Vicar
Bottomley.
Radio Gridchester was recording the
session with links to national broadcasts and Philip Twill from The
Gridchester Post was the duty reporter. It was all rather
exciting.
Brian versus Prosser was not such a
one-sided contest as she had expected. Any Pelleroe weaknesses on
national issues paled into insignificance beside the gross ignorance
of Hayley Jones the Liberal candidate who began every answer
with
As a wife and mother…
Also, Borthwick Prosser, to the
unbiased eye, could be described as overly cocky.
Brian stood no chance of winning, but
he might pick up a few more votes than Austin Cox in ’83 – which
would be a good return for all the thankless work.
She looked at her watch. Time for one
or at the most two, more questions.
Could I ask, offered a pompous
voice coming from behind her
the candidates to say a little about
nature and nurture?
From an environmental point of view?
Is it only possible to promote
recycling, composting and bottle banks, for example in affluent
areas? How can we ensure that the green message is universal and
universally observed?
She looked over her shoulder at the
speaker; the unmistakeable and seasoned Ernest Cummings, Tory
Agent for the region, who had been present at the count for the
Laceybrook by-election.
It was a trick question – and Prosser
was well-prepared, judging by the ease in which he launched into a
spiel about all things environmental and nothing of specific
relevance.
Brian cleared his throat and paused.
I’m not quite sure, he
faltered, what is the point of Mr Cummings’ question?
It’s simple! shouted Paul
merrily.
He means, are poor people more
likely to have their homes infested with rats?!
Well, yes, if you…. began
Brian, but his words were drowned by the riot and in the interests of
safety, he was removed by the police.
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