Fourth series, episode 13
All 145 episodes are available here on the HebWeb.
In the latest Lore, there's a Portillo moment and a Lib Lab pact, Freddie and his Dreamers and prefab sprogs, Gary and Gary on Gareth, a missing clock and impious imps, Trump gets shot and Biden takes a hit, there's Mick Jagger's stern tutor, a writer remembered and lionesses forgotten.
Election Night
At 10 o'clock the Exit Poll numbers flashed up. Keir Starmer was the new PM. I stayed up till 4.30, dozed off for a while, but woke in time to see Liz Truss's slow handclapped Portillo moment.
Voters had operated an unofficial LibLab pact. The big picture was that in scores of constituencies across the country many chose the candidate best placed to turf out the sitting Tory MP. Labour's opinion poll rating was around forty percent but plummeted to 33.7 per cent on the day. Many had lent their vote to the Lib Dem. It was tactical voting that got the Tories out.
I accidentally misspoke Keir Starmer's name back in 2020, then realised my Freudian slip was showing. Deep down, I thought Sir Steer Calmer could win.
I'm a dreamer, but Starmer doesn't dream. He hasn't got a favourite poem or novel. Of course he did his homework on how to win, and visited Obama in the States for his advice. Barack told him to use his backstory, as he had done. So he repeated it, the key details, until we all knew it. His father was a toolmaker, his mother was a nurse, he made a success of two important and high profile jobs and was knighted for his efforts. He'd only been an MP for five years, but he wasn't hanging around and became Labour leader.
One more thing: As students, Blair and Starmer were in rock bands. But only Starmer was photographed lying on the floor of his student digs with a girl sat on his back by our man Andrew Smith!
George, don't do that
Surfing the election night channels, I realised motormouth George Osborne was the leading Tory I most despised. On Channel 4 he wouldn't shut up. If he spoke at all he should have apologised.
In 2010, Osborne lied that the banking crash was caused by Labour spending too much on benefits. He said, Brown 'maxed out the nation's credit card,'. And voters believed him. In his first budget, Osborne cut £17 billion from departmental spending and £11 billion from benefits. He froze annual pay rises for public sector employees.
Osborne was surprised that cutting benefit payments was so popular amongst the general public. My younger sister, who had a two bedroom council house, had her 'spare room' benefit cut. Council house tenants were treated as scroungers because of Osborne
Homes for heroes
Here's my older sisters and me in our Ellesmere Port prefab. Successive governments, not just Labour, built millions of council houses after the war, although prefabricated ones like ours were supposed to be temporary. When our mom was pregnant again, the Murphys moved up the housing ladder and got a new three bedroom house a few streets away. Our old prefab, like many others around the country, is still standing.
Freddie Garrity goes to Mecca
When she grew up, my little sister organised a large Bingo Parlour. She was good at it and gave talks at national conferences. Despite which, she was repeatedly rejected for promotion. Instead, Mecca selected young guys just out of college. The young graduates Chris had spent months mentoring, became her boss.
When my three sisters visited us recently, I reminded them of the evening when our mom Dot took us to a variety show at The Tower Ballroom in Blackpool, starring Eve Boswell, Lennie the Lion and Freddie and the Dreamers.
"Don't talk to me about Freddie Garrity," our Chris said.
Long past his glory days, Freddie, turned up at her Bingo parlour one evening, surrounded by his ageing hangers on. Spotting Chris in her shiny uniform, he pointed at her and shouted.
'Hey you! Get me and my mates some drinks!' and cocked his thumb towards the bar.
She pointed back and said, "Hey you!' cocked her thumb and said, 'There's the bar. Get them yourself!"
The Euros
Every day there was wall to wall coverage and I grew sick of hearing what Gary and Gary thought about Gareth. When they played in the final, a nation yawned.
But now, Gareth has gone and the World Cup is just two years away!
Perhaps Guardiola will be available ('Can we have our ball back please?')
… Or Jurgen Klopp! Heavy metal football! Attack! Attack! Attack!
Meanwhile, in the rest of the news …
Trump card
Some witless killer kid managed with lunatic precision to slice the flesh on Trump's ear and transform the tax and draft dodging felon into a bullet dodging Superhero for all true gun toting, bible plugging Republicans.
Still, as I pointed out to Mike Haslam and friends outside the Old Gate, "It's a good job Joe Biden's on top form."
A mini break, a mini break, the first one of the year …
I caught up with Diane Green in Southwold. Around the millennium, librarian Diane set up story telling clubs, first in Marsden library and then at the Red and Green Club in Milnsbridge. She also organised the first Rod and George tour round Kirklees village libraries. These days she's a professional gardener, green activist and storytelling champion in Suffolk, living in a place called Beccles on the Suffolk, Norfolk border. She told me the legend of the Beccles bell tower (1510), which stands on the edge of the cliff above the River Waveney.
"There are only three clocks on the four sided Beccles bell tower. There's no clock on the Norfolk side because Suffolk folk won't give Norfolk folk the time of day."
The Lincoln Imp
We drove north and stopped a night in the Old Palace, close to Lincoln Cathedral. During our brief stay, I fell in love again with the old city, and ate a decent tapas inside the city walls. Next time, we'll look round the Norman Castle (1086), built by the Conqueror himself (with some assistance). And I'll look for an Imp.
When the Normans were subduing the North, they started building cathedrals alongside their castles, to capture people's souls whilst enforcing their serfdom. The Devil retaliated by sending two imps to thwart their building programme. First, they twisted the spire of the new church in Chesterfield. Then at Lincoln they knocked over the Dean, smashed the glass windows and made a bonfire of the pews. So the Bishop prayed to the Blessed Virgin for an Angel to subdue the riotous devils.
A winged creature duly descended. One imp was turned to stone and was cast up on a stone column, where he resides to this day. The other imp escaped to cause further havoc at Grimsby Minster, but the Angel also turned him to stone and made him bear the weight of the Minster's brand new tower on his back.
Walter Stern and Mick
Thank you for the positive responses to my interview with Old Town historian Alan Fowler. During our chat, I reminded him of tales he has shared with me over the years. He has written back …
"Dear George,
"Mick Jagger was at LSE in the early 1960s and was a student on the B Sc Econ degree, his personal tutor was Walter Stern and later I attended one of his lectures. Stern was unusual in that he kept a written record of every interview with his personal students. When he was retiring he read out to colleagues extracts from these interviews. A particular favourite which his colleagues enjoyed was an interview with a Mr Michael Jaguar who told him he was going to leave the LSE to join a skiffle band. Walter Stern advised him against doing so as there was no money in it!
"I always thought that Walter Stern did not have a sense of humour. I was clearly wrong.
Alan Fowler
John Morrison
I've just read of the sad death of my esteemed predecessor, John Morrison. (See John Morrison remembered.) If you haven't read John's books, turn to the archive of his works on HebWeb, or why not buy one of his books from Pennine Pens; books which managed to gain a readership far beyond Calder Valley.
And finally …
Football did come home! The Lionesses won the Euros two years ago at Wembley, as Beth Meade has reminded various pundits during our lads little kick around in Germany.
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