I had lived in Hemel Hempstead since the age of 12. I became involved with politics and "the Alliance" for the first time in the Parliamentary elections of 1983, when I helped in their election office and spent a day or so delivering leaflets. The thing that instantly struck me then was the great amount of enterprise that goes into such a campaign. It was a further two years before I was finally persuaded to join the then Liberal Party in 1985.
I worked locally and was encouraged by the campaigning literature of the councillors association of the Liberal Party. I began campaigning almost immediately, and delivered regular copies of FOCUS, the local ward organ of the Liberal Party, which I also edited. After just a few months, a by-election arose in my ward. It had been a very staunchly Conservative ward in the past, so I had no great expectations about winning the seat. But to my surprise, and to the credit of a vast army of willing helpers, I did, but only just.
I was twenty nine when I was elected to the Dacorum Borough Council in that by-election in 1986. In the year that followed I produced another eleven ward-wide editions of FOCUS, and a clutch of street-wide FOCUS. By the time of the Borough elections in 1987 I felt that I had worked so hard, taken up so many issues, and delivered so many newsletters to local people that I could not fail to lose. And if that effort was not good enough for the voters then they probably did not deserve me anyway. In the event it was a close thing. Although my vote rose, it was insufficient. I came third in the race to elect two councillors, just 30 votes behind the second placed Conservative.
Next, the general election of June 1988, where Nick Hollinghurst representing the SDP/Liberal Alliance did his best, but only just managed to take 2nd place to the Conservative, Robert Jones, within our West Hertfordshire constituency.
I became a founder member of the Social and Liberal Democrats in 1988. I had joined an Alliance and to me it made great sense to present the public with a united single centre party voice. The struggle to keep as many former SDP and Liberals members together under the same banner persisted in West Hertfordshire right up until the County Council elections in May 1989. My account of those elections is for the reader to interpret.
At the time of writing, in 1989, I was the membership officer and press secretary for the West Hertfordshire Social and Liberal Democrats, and acting press officer to the Dacorum Borough Council Group of seven Democrat councillors.
I work for BP as a computer operator, employed in Harlow, Essex, doing shift work. I am single, aged 32, and commute by car, daily, to work from my home in Hemel Hempstead.
Next: Preface
© A. D. Winter