Election success organising the Liberal Democrats
Election success organising the Liberal Democrats

May 1990 This was a very busy month indeed as I tried to keep working on gloriously hot and sunny days between some warm and stuffy nights with family hay fever being supplemented by bad coughs and colds. Diana was unhappy with our new public lifestyle and marriage but we still managed to get Debbie's 12th Birthday Celebrations organised although we were experiencing problems with her livery with Fiona in Offord after beating her Dad Roland Smith in the election!

This followed my success in organising the Local Government Elections, where Percy and Sally both won to give me two Liberal Democrat colleagues on the District Council and a place on each of the important committees of power. There were many council and private meetings to attend and organise thereafter. As gardener Pete had left me after many years, I had the lawns and beds to tend to, in addition to the conservatory plants, ponds and fish and swimming pool. On the first of two long trips to Norfolk, I was working on The Paxton Princess and taking the chance of being with sister Freda and her husband Alf and family who were staying in Heronshaw whilst we completed negotiations for the purchase of Redgrave Village Post Office and Stores. I took the whole family (except Alf) on a boat trip and a visit to see and help Mum in Stanton with her garden. Alarmingly, Alf regarded the Redgrave venture as being totally down to Freda and wanted to play no part in it.

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This month, I had tested out the seaworthiness of the Paxton Princess and qualified for my RYA Day Skipper ticket under the supervision of Tom Phillips, the RYA instructor from Wroxham. We took a trip around the North Norfolk coast to Kings Lynn via Blakeney and then back to Great Yarmouth via Wells; taking a coupling failure and grounding at Blakeney Pit in our stride! Completing eleven years of happy holidays, we sold The Lady at L.H. Jones marina for £15,000. After taking advice from various builders, I have now decided to rebuild rather than restore Heronshaw and attended a very productive RHDRA meeting which agreed road and dyke maintenance priorities. France unilaterally implemented a complete ban on the import of British Beef due to the "Mad Cow" disease after more schools had withdrawn British beef from meals and government assurances were not being believed which was another Thatcher legacy after deregulation.

The Tories had ridden their Local Election set-back and started coming back at Labour and in the opinion polls and a City bounce took place when Thatcher seemed to have at last been reluctantly persuaded by her colleagues to drop her veto of full entry by Britain into the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Monetary System, which might help lessen UK inflation which had hit an eight-year peak at 9.4%! However, soon mass redundancies for 7,500 miners, 1,125 Welsh steel workers and then 770 jobs job losses at the Ravenscraig steel strip mill, changed the mood and Scottish Tory MP's joined Labours in a call to keep Ravenscraig open. By this time, the Tories were under siege with Poll Tax problems and rebellion was in the air. Receivers had been called in at the big "South Quay Plaza", 210,000 sq ft Docklands office development; due to the depressed commercial property market and DTI’s Nicholas Ridley came under distinct threat for his blunders in his handling of the House of Fraser takeover by the Fayed brothers in 1985. This, as the country was under threat of a continual IRA bombing attacks and now eventually considering direct talks on the fate of the UK hostages in the Lebanon.

 

The major international news was in the Soviet Union with an escalating series of moves that could end up with the disintegration of this superpower with the three Baltic States meeting together as they suffer major unrest and plan their anti-Soviet independence campaign whilst Russian Deputies considered approving a swingeing bread price after £3bn had been spent on importing an additional 27m tonnes of grain. In the meanwhile, Gorbachev's internal rival, Boris Yeltsin, wins a key party ballot and is a growing threat to him on the eve of USA/Soviet arms talks agreeing a new pact that will reduce further the nuclear weapons on both sides. The USA dropped a proposal to base new air-launched nuclear missiles in Germany and other Allied countries and but Gorbachev wanted  the move for German unity delayed and I was trying to extend "Perestroika" but the two Germanies have signed a treaty as the start of the process of financial unification.

In South Africa, there were talks on the ending of Apartheid and the process of reconciliation and political reform began. A riot started in the occupied in the Israeli-occupied West Bank where an Israeli armoured car ran down and killed a 5-year-old girl. Natural disasters included a major earthquake situated in northern Romania, which affected many Eastern European countries and a 145mph cyclone tore through Southern India, killing 50 people and making a million homeless. In both India and Pakistan hundreds died due to the uncertain future, Asia is still a trouble spot but despite a spate of air accidents a French train has broken the rail speed record for a third time, For myself, I have probably been trying to do too much, but it makes for an interesting time  with Election Success, RYA Day Skipper, Gardening, Heronshaw and The Butterfields and I look forward to a more restful and relaxed June but I am not sure that I will get it!

A very dry and warm month which has left the lawns parched and the farmers worried with gloriously hot and sunny days including some warm and stuffy nights, but I could into the swimming pool to clean and cool off after work. I was a lot slimmer and fitter because of being active, but it has been a bad month for our coughs with the family hay fever being supplemented by bad colds. Diana was suffering with a very tight chest with bronchitis and her unhappiness emerged concerning our new public lifestyle and marriage.  We had a heart-to-heart talk about her being tied down looking after me but being even less happy when I was away with my Norfolk project! There was a mad rush to get Debbie's 12th Birthday Celebrations organised but we had great sunny weather for her party trip to The Wickstead Park open-air recreational centre after which the guests came home for a swim in our pool to cool off before enjoying their birthday tea party. We had hosted some girl guests in our borrowed tent and served them breakfast, whilst recovering from the night before, with young bright Teresa Clough being my concern because of her health news.

Debbie had time off school with her cough whilst I was away and could not go riding before getting back and being demanding again but there was poor news from her stable. Fiona was being mean to Sarah Morbey and the other riders at Offord stables over the use of her ponies such that Debbie’s Sundance was the only pony allowed to go to the month’s event. Della still went for a tricky session after Percy had beaten Fiona’s Dad Roland Smith in the election and so, at Fiona’s suggestion, I took the girls to the White Hart children’s' riding school in Great Gidding where Della had a lesson and where we considered that Debbie's pony, Sundance, could get a new livery that is more helpful to our needs.  I had the poor news from home about Daniel skipping school and had to sort him out as well as I found that Diana had been unwell, and the children had been missing me and wanting things. I went to tend my late father’s grave after feeling very guilty at not having gone earlier but I was always dropping in on Mum.

Whilst in Horning, the entire Bloom family dropped by in their Draco and came back to take me by boat to dinner and dropped me back in the pitch black. We collected our renovated Rolls Royce from P & A Wood in Essex on another fine and sunny day and shopped at a garden centre en route. That firm had been given the honour or restoring the original Silver Ghost that underwent the reliability trials that first won the car manufacturer's reputation for reliability all those years ago.  For me, my visits to Norfolk and successful exploits in the Local Elections were interspersed with hectic local activity and gardening exploits. I organised a swimming pool repair and then, after gardener Pete had left me after many years and I was trying to do the work myself. I found that all the gardening equipment left in poor condition as Pete’s legacy which needed repairing,  ordered some new parts for the strimmer and shopped for upright and horizontal edging shears and also some levered pruning shears at Arthur Ibbett’s in Great Paxton. I still hoped to find the right gardener/handyman eventually but was taking an interest in the meantime to see what work there is to do and how it can be done. I planted out a lot of bedding plants as well as managing the lawns and beds in general, with the Games Lawn a particular priority, cutting back the overhanging vegetation. There was always the fish, pond, and conservatory to tend to as well.

The month started with my success organising the Local Government Elections, where Percy and Sally both won to give me two Liberal Democrat colleagues on the District Council and a place on each of the important committees of power. I was organising the local Liberal Democrats for the District Council Polling Day and winning two more seats in a heat wave and narrowly missing a third! This was the culmination of much hard work, scheming and planning and was most gratifying. After colleagues had been too late starting their campaign, I had also helped canvassing in Wistow and Bury with Carole Crompton, erecting another half dozen flagboards and then resting my poor throat and chest by enjoying a steak sandwich in the Wistow pub. I was erecting poster boards with Jack Taylor’s boy and helping on the very sunny and warm Eve of Poll, helping them to complete their Polling Day Organisation and so we still did surprisingly well from a late and standing start but not quite well enough. After our success, I was home late, taking the radio and newspaper journalists phone calls, pasting results slips on poster boards and hosting the volunteers and celebrating the result as we enjoyed our Liberal Democrat Victory Party in Offord. The following day, recovering my voice and myself from the elections on a seemingly even hotter day, I was taking phone calls from Radio stations and local papers and realised, too late, to attend the Scout’s Kite flying that I was supposed to be judging!

Nationally, the Tories were bracing themselves for losses of seats and councils but were hoping to hold on to their "Flagships" where very low Poll Tax levels had been set and supported by central government grants. With 5198 seats being contested in 201 local authorities, the Labour Party won about 300 local government seats and control of 11 councils including Bradford, but the Tories held on to Westminster and Wandsworth and Labour did less well in the left-wing London Boroughs. The Liberal Democrats held on to most of their 1986 seats, winning 144 more and losing 192 to give the clear message that we are back as the third force in British politics. I preparation for our future contribution, I was hosting Sally and Percy to brief them on their new HDC roles. Percy called me and spoke at great length with suggestions for forthcoming meeting agenda and so I convened a meeting of Liberal Democrat Councillors; Percy, Sally and Michael and Percy to discuss our motions and subjects for actioning through the committees of the District Council in the year to come.

On our first HDC Full Council Day as a LibDem group, I drove them in my Rolls Royce convertible to arrive in full view of the Tory majority in style as they stood outside ready for the annual group photograph. We got all of the committee places we that wanted, and I just had to suffer Daisy Seager ‘pinching’ my usual seat! There was no time to waste and I also convened a meeting of the Liberal Democrats in St Neots to discuss our election strategy for next year when we hoped to win even more seats.  Apart from my contributions to the Huntingdonshire District Council, I also attended a meeting of the Little Paxton Village Hall Committee where the officers were re-elected, and I remain the Vice-Chairman and a Trustee. Then to Southoe for a Parish Meeting and to meet a much more receptive Peter Thornhill Esq of Diddington Estate who now had to be respectful to me but I had to inform him of a after the narrow vote in favour of his gravel plans, only secured with the Chairman’s casting vote!. I declined lunch all the same. I had the notorious Mr Peter Frenette of Cock Audley visit to complain of the speeding traffic that plague the road that goes past his house and, by way of contrast, a visit from two young boys from Mr Burgess's class at Little Paxton School who wanted advice with their litter project.

After discharging all these responsibilities, there was the need to catch up with paperwork and financial planning often returning home to a mountain of post and phone messages. I did manage to take my Range Rover to Sawtry for a major service. I managed two long Norfolk trips this month, tussling with a swarm of motor-cyclists in Norwich en route as one coincided with their annual rally. This also coincided with Freda and Alf staying in the Heronshaw with their family whilst we completed negotiations for the purchase of Redgrave Village Post Office and Stores. I stayed at Heronshaw on the Paxton Princess, being welcomed warmly by the Butterfields and enjoying cooked breakfasts courtesy of my sister Freda. I also took Freda and Chris to Norwich to visit the two specialist trophy suppliers to choose Dad’s ambulance memorial trophy and then collected Freda's younger daughter Stacey and her grand-daughter, Sharne, off the train and drove them around Wroxham and Horning to show Stacey the area and shops.

I then took the whole party (apart from Alf who will hardly go anywhere) for an hour's cruise up the river to see Horning from its best vantage. I drove them for a day trip to visit Mum and, in a party atmosphere (on a nice sunny day before showers later) where we trimmed the hedge, cleaned Dad’s car and took it for a trip to see Stanton Windmill. It was sad to see my old Dad’s beautifully kept tools and fishing tackle, never to be used by him again, but I took the latter home. Mum has had her ups and downs and had been experiencing some wheelchair problems but was enjoying the extra company. We stopped off at Redgrave Stores for Freda to agree things with the vendor Mr Whitmarsh and show her family around the property. Freda's daughters went to Great Yarmouth one day and thoroughly enjoyed it with young Sharne enjoying the rides at Joyland which left only Freda and Alf at Heronshaw for a sandwich lunch.

I had a combative chat with Alf, one of life's elderly "angry young men" and somebody who is full of ideas but of no thoughts as to how they could be implemented. Alarmingly, he regarded the Redgrave venture as being totally down to Freda and wanted to play no part in it and so, as she also cooks and house-keeps for him, it will depend upon Chris to help Freda succeed. I was able to catch up with Freda on family memories whilst being fascinated by our old family furniture she had kept. On another occasion, once I was at home in Paxton, Mum arrived at the front door having persuaded some friends (an ambulance driver and her an intensive-care nurse) to bring her over from Stanton to visit Dad's grave. I had to drive Di hurriedly into St Neots to get some ingredients for a sandwich and cake lunch!

My other trip to Norfolk was all about preparing for my first sea trip in the Paxton Princess with Tom Phillips, the Royal Yachting Association instructor from Wroxham on board which culminated in my being awarded the RYA Day Skipper Certificate. Upon arriving in exceptionally low water, I needed help from Alf and Chris to pull the Paxton Princess off of the mud before getting supplies stowing equipment whilst settling in. With Tom, we planned in outline the trip to the Wash and back, stopping off at Blakeney. We then set off down the Bure to Great Yarmouth and then north and round the Norfolk coast to Blakeney, where we anchored in ‘The Pits’ thinking we had enough depth but dried out in the Spring low water. There were no obvious sounds/signs of damage but nothing could be done anyway and it seemed that we escaped without harm from our grounding and then retraced our course to exit Blakeney and then cruised around to The Wash with the tide behind us and with a slight sea and good visibility. We cruised  a little way up the Lynn Channel at Cork Hole and then, within sight of the tide gauge, we anchored and waited for the tide and then cruised up to the Boal Quay at Kings Lynn for the night, doing some servicing. Then, after a successfully safe night moored to one of the GOBA mooring buoys, we set off in good visibility and light and variable winds with the sun breaking through to cruise around The Wash and back round the North Norfolk coast in bright and warm weather taking time until the tides were right to for us to arrive at Wells at high water.

As we turned past the Wells Fairway buoy, the noise and vibration became bad that I put the starboard engine in neutral and so came in using only the Port engine.  We moored up at the quay and then anchored and purposefully dried out on the sand later to diagnose the issue as a parted coupling.  Setting off from Wells on one engine, the next day, we rounded the Norfolk coast and arrived in Great Yarmouth in early evening in the rain before cruising up the Bure and back to Heronshaw in Horning to be greeted by the Butterfields. I had tested out the seaworthiness of the Paxton Princess and qualified for my RYA Day Skipper ticket. Recovering from my sea trip afterwards Tom Phillips arranged for a local firm Marine Power to come and repair my coupling on The Paxton Princess as I undertook a range of other repairs and worked inside on my Logbook. I then successfully completed a day of varnishing and got Chris’s help to measure the boat dimensions for bridging etc. After eleven years of happy holidays, we were selling The Lady, but were pleased to see that she will be well cared for my her new young and enthusiastic owners. Alison Gray from L.H. Jones marina agreed that £15,000 as a reasonable price and I took The Lady for her final cruise to leave her on the St Ives sales pontoon. She was soon sold subject to finance and survey, the buyers got their loan and the sale was finalised.

After taking advice from various builders, I have now decided to rebuild rather than restore Heronshaw. Amis was not keen on a restoration, David Collier examined Heronshaw and provided a very expensive quote for jacking up and restoring it and so that course of action was revealed as being impracticable. There followed a very productive RHDRA meeting next door where we agreed road and dyke priorities; getting a legal opinion on dyke maintenance which evidenced the framework for ensuring residents could decide and enforce the efforts. Nationally, the government’s first worry was about the spread of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as ‘Mad Cow disease’.  There was rising public concerns at the food and hygiene risks which led to more consuming organisations and countries banning British beef which had been fed infected animal products after Thatcherite deregulation and caused the problem. British beef was being withdrawn from more and more schools who were not convinced by the government's assurances and beef sales had fallen 40% as a direct. France unilaterally implemented a complete ban on the import of British Beef due to the "Mad Cow" disease.

The Tories had ridden their Local Election set-back and started coming back at Labour in the opinion polls with the City of London is also making a strong recovery on the same basis. The Bank of England did have to inject £250million of extra liquidity into the City of London after robbers held a city messenger at knifepoint and made off with certificates of deposit worth £292million! Gilt-edged stocks were at a cyclical low with no buy recommendations and Thatcher was unhappy about this and her privatization of the electricity industry encountering difficulties nationally. Other developments went against the British government. A leaked parliamentary report over the Rover sale sparked controversy as the full details of a £38million package of "sweeteners" for new owner British Aerospace emerged against EU rules. Employment Secretary, Michael Howard, has had to call a safety meeting with the contractors after a "stop" notice has been issued by safety inspectors for the Channel Tunnel star project as the sixth workman died in 18 months.

Jobs were to be lost by the closure of the Winfrith prototype nuclear and the Scottish Tory Conference in Aberdeen was carefully orchestrated as the UK inflation hits an eight-year peak at 9.4%! A total of 1,125 job losses followed from a Welsh steel plant that was dependent on the motor trade and receivers were called in at a big 210,000 sq ft Docklands office development; "South Quay Plaza", due to the depressed commercial property market in the area. The British Ministry of Defence had also frozen procurement for six-months whilst emergency cuts of £350m were identified. Thatcher seemed to have at last been reluctantly persuaded by her colleagues to drop her veto of full entry by Britain into the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Monetary System and the UK Stock Exchange had its biggest daily rise today for more than two years, optimistically believing this such that inflation could be controlled without high interest rates even though the unemployment total had risen for the first time for nearly four years to 1,605,600, or 5.6%. By this time, the Tories are under siege with Poll Tax problems and news of 770 jobs job losses at Ravenscraig where the steel strip mill was to be closed was a tipping point.  Scottish Tory MP's joined Labours call to keep the Ravenscraig steel strip mill open which bolstered Scottish Secretary Malcolm Rifkind’s position against hard-right colleagues.

After falling out over Ravenscraig, the Tories suffered their worst byelection defeat ever in Ulster. British Coal warned that 7,500 miners would lose their jobs with more pit closures The future of Nicholas Ridley came under distinct threat as DTI has come in for criticism for its blunders in the  handling of the House of Fraser takeover by the Fayed brothers in 1985. After concerns about global warming, Thatcher called for urgent international action to fight the "greenhouse" effect, but she would not agree to the necessary domestic measures! There was a about a growing rift over the possibility of British football clubs being allowed back into European Club competitions and England lost 2-1 to Uruguay and thus ended an unbeaten run of 17 matches. The country was under threat of a concerted IRA bombing campaign with an attempted bombing of a British military barracks in West Germany foiled but a second took place on the Army education centre in south-east London and another on a van outside an Army Recruitment Centre in Wembley when Army sergeant Charles Chapman was mortally injured and bravely told others not to approach as he died, for fear of another bomb. The IRA kill two Australian lawyers in Germany, "mistaking them for British servicemen" and a further car bomb attack was thwarted today when a Semtex bomb was spotted by a police officer under his car.

Released US hostage, Frank Reed, speaks of having recently seen UK hostages John McCarthy and Brian Keenan; UK government at last considering direct talks on the fate of the UK hostages, whilst the British lorry driver caught up in the Iraqi Supergun shipment is still being held in Greece. The US commission that investigated the Lockerbie bomb attack have suggested action viewed as extreme and impracticable and the inquest jury investigating the Boeing 737-400 M1 Kegworth plane crash have given verdicts of accidental death after the wrong engine was shut down. TheNew Zealand ketch, Steinlager, sailed into Southampton to win the 33,000-mile Round-The-World Yacht Race as England Football Manager, Bobby Robson, was forced to announce his retirement the tabloid press unearthed details of a love affair. The armada of Dunkirk little ships retraced their voyage of fifty years previous.

The major international news is in the Soviet Union over an escalating series of moves that could end up with the disintegration of this superpower with the three Baltic States meeting together to plan their anti-Soviet independence campaign as they suffer their worst violence since the independence declarations. Gorbachev was setting up a 4bn Roubles plan to redeploy up to two million redundant workers due to be shed by the bankrupt and reformed state industries as the confrontation deepened. Gorbachev agreed to hold a nationwide referendum on The Soviet Union becoming a market economy as Soviet Prime Minister Mr Ryzhkov pleads with Deputies to approve a swingeing bread price after £3bn had been spent on importing an additional 27m tonnes of grain. Gorbachev's internal rival, Boris Yeltsin, wins a key party ballot and is talking of a pact with the Conservatives to seize the Presidency itself and then seized the leadership of the Russian Federation.

Gorbachev now had a serous domestic problem on his hands prior to his summit with U.S. President George Bush. USA's James Baker and the Soviet Eduard Shevardnadze had been making progress towards getting an arms treaty ready and the USA/Soviet arms talks agree a new pact that will reduce further the nuclear weapons on both sides after US President Bush first hesitated about the lack of similar agreement on conventional arms reductions. Nato backed a US proposal to abolish the remaining land-based US missiles in Europe as US President George Bush proposed a full NATO review of strategy resulting in the minimum level of US nuclear forces remaining in Europe as a deterrent as the USA dropped a proposal to base new air-launched nuclear missiles in Germany and other Allied countries. George Bush is supporting Gorbachev and giving backing to his reforms, but Gorbachev wants the move for German unity delayed and is trying to extend "Perestroika" to the Red Army and has sharply attacked the war record of Stalin.

After South Africa President F.W. de Klerk arrived in Britain for talks with Thatcher in a failed bid to get sanctions lifted, he and Nelson Mandela start talks on the ending of Apartheid and the process of reconciliation and political reform begins. A riot started in the occupied in the Israeli-occupied West Bank where an Israeli armoured car ran down and killed a 5-year-old girl, leading to further repression with 18 dead and hundreds wounded after protests over previous shootings and West Bank settlement. PLO leader Yasser Arafat calls for the presence of a UN force as trouble continued. The Iraqi "Supergun" row continues as Italian police seize over 90 tonnes of steel components. Lebanon continues to be in turmoil.

A major earthquake situated in northern Romania, affects many Eastern European countries and a 145mph cyclone tore through Southern India, killing 50 people and making a million homeless as between 80 and 100 people died when Indian security forces opened fire on a crowd of 100,000 in Srinagar, Kashmir after their leader was shot. During appalling racial violence in Pakistan, 157 people have lost their lives at ten times the historical rate due to the colony's uncertain future. Capital was flowing out of Hong Kong as 1,000 Hong Kong police raid a Vietnamese Boat People camp and thousands of students are rioting in Seoul in protest at the ruling South Korean Democratic Liberal government. Elsewhere, there was a spate of air accidents but a French train has broken the rail speed record for a third time