I feel a bit of a fraud - an Electoral Fraud. I had this idea that i was going to follow the Election Campaign avidly in media, both TV and print...well, t'internet, anyway, this is t'internet Election.
But you know, I don't know how to. I know this sounds silly, but I never have done.
1974 and prior, I had no access to TV, could (barely) read, and, frankly, had very little interest except that it - whatever it was - was between Mr Wilson and Mr Heath, but, confusingly, in February 1974 (did you know there were two General Elections in 1974), Grainne said - and I can still picture her now in Miss Woodcock's Infant 2 class that we ought to vote Liberal. That was confusing, because neither Mr Wilson nor Mr Heath were Liberal. And, anyway, I wasn't allowed to vote.
1979 was a bit more interesting. But I wasn't exactly reading newspapers at that stage. I certainly didn't want Mrs Thatcher to win. The Blue Peter tortoises got called Maggie and Jim. Mr Callaghan had done a Party Political Broadcast, which was very interesting, because it showed a cake and he explained that under Labour, everyone would get a fair share of the cake, whereas under the Tories, the cake wouldn't be divided fairly. Sarah and I carried out an opinion poll which showed that most people in Juniors 2-4 would vote Labour. We didn't bother with Junior 1 or the Infants - they were too young. (Sarah was in Junior 2, she was the sister of Simon in my class, and we got the bus together). Grainne said we had to vote Liberal.
Our teacher was away and we had another teacher sitting with us. We were supposed to be working on our topics, but Andrea and I were bored with that, so we decided to lie to the teacher and tell her we had left our Topics at home. (Actually, it's suddenly struck me - she probably didn't believe us for a minute, but it was Andrea and me, so she probably guessed we were bored). She said we should write an essay about what we wanted to be when we grew up. Andrea said she wanted to be a brain surgeon. She's now a GP. I said I wanted to be Prime Minister.
On the Friday the school bus driver wore a badge saying "Don't blame me I voted Labour". John Craven's Newsround showed Mrs Thatcher standing outside 10 Downing Street and quoting a prayer which was from a hymn we sang at school "Make Me A Channel of Your Peace." Arsenal beat Manchester United in the FA Cup Final.
In 1983 the election was during school exams. These were extremely important school exams - as all School exams were, taking two weeks to be sat, preceded by a week of in-class revision and followed by a week of in-class going over the papers. Twice a year. Eight weeks of the year wasted on exam hysteria. I digress. These were extremely important, because they were a year before O Level, so we had to revise for them. Except Maths, because we did the O Level that year. I didn't know you were supposed to revise for Maths, so I didn't. Fortunately, I got an A, anyway (as if that was ever in doubt...)
So TV time was limited. Besides, there were actually more important things going on - Part One and Part Two. United beat Brighton 4-0 in the FA Cup Final Replay. On the night of the General Election I was so depressed at what the result was obviously going to be, that I went to bed early and did not even listen to the radio UTBC (Under the Bed Clothes...you had to be there). In the previous four years, I had become highly and extremely politicised, influenced in very large part by the Golden Age of opo music (did anyone notice that I blogged that phrase the other week, and yesterday The Observer stole my phrase. They also stole my coup de theatre phrase for Un ballo in maschera.
Note to Music Editor, The Observer - Giss A Job, I Can Do That...
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