Saturday 15th March

I was in my early twenties and had joined the Labour Party.  I do have a problem that I cannot seem to say no to people.  At least I did back then in the mid-seventies, I have learnt as I got older how to stand my ground and walk away, slightly embarrassed maybe, but relieved to have escaped.  I started attending monthly meetings, delivering leaflets and helping organize the Christmas Bazaar.  Before long I was full time, and had been cajoled into or elected as Finchley Constituency Secretary.  It must have been ’78 and we decided to have an Action Week, full of events and posters, culminating in two public meetings with speakers.  This was in Callaghan’s years and the constituency was pretty left-wing, only just held together by the Irish descendent Chairman Mick O’Connor whose wise counsel generally prevailed.

Many names were bandied about and in the end I was asked to write and invite both Tony Benn and Michael Foot.  At this time these two giants bestrode the party, Foot within the Cabinet and Benn a troublesome presence outside.  I was sure we would be ignored or politely declined by both.  Amazingly they both agreed to come and talk at our Action Week.

Foot was first, and the hall was packed, and not just by Labour members; many members of the public came along to hear him.  He spoke well, but generally kept to the safe party line; nothing outrageous, nothing too socialist.  Afterwards he shook my hand as he left.

A week later it was Tony Benn, and the hall was even bigger and packed even tighter, many people standing at the sides.  I met Tony before hand and he chatted with this fairly ignorant long-haired youth as if we were equals.  He seemed interested in my own Pilgrim’s Progress; running away from school and parents at seventeen and for a while being a single Dad.  Neither condoning or condemning me – he just listened.  All too soon it was time to start.

He stood up and spoke for two hours without notes, taking us through the Sixties and early Seventies, analyzing the national and international situation with uncanny precision.  He had the whole audience in his hands, no-on heckled, no-one interrupted him.  And he answered questions for nearly an hour too.

I saw him again a couple of years later as the party was tearing itself apart.  He looked sterner and obviously didn’t remember me – he was on a mission to change the Labour Party.  Well, he failed, but only just and in a way did nudge it a bit further to the left.

I saw him last a couple of years ago at a Rally about Pensions in Hyde Park, Miiliband had just been elected and Benn, an old man now, was perched to the side on his shooting stick and smiling at the crowds gathered.  I went up and introduced myself but I could see in his eyes he didn’t know me.  Why should he?  It was nearly 40 years ago.

But I never forgot him and never will.