Sir Patrick Cormack FSA

Conservative Party | Staffordshire South

Meeting the people - Campaign Diary

Meeting the people

What could be more attractive than having the opportunity to spend almost four weeks in one of the most beautiful parts of England in late May and early June? It is just a pity about the electioneering! As I travel the quiet rural lanes of South Staffordshire in my battle bus, from which I can see high over the hedgerows, I feel incredibly privileged to have had the chance to represent this area for over 30 years - and determined to fight to continue here.

I hate the prospect of elections until I begin campaigning. Of course if you know your patch - and I think I know mine pretty well - this is just another series of visits, only this time wearing a blue rosette. Sometimes, when I remember, I take it off when I go to schools. Not that they seem to mind. “You come often enough, so we expect you to see us now as well,” is the welcome I generally get. Sadly, during this last week of May there are no schools to visit as they are all on half term break.

Not everything is idyllic. We suffered our share of the scourge of foot and mouth. There are very worried, sad people in the farming communities. One farmer's wife said she would never get over having to burn the animals she had nurtured. And it is not just foot and mouth. There is hardly a conversation in any village without a mention of law and order, and the need for a greater police presence. Even in Brewood, one of the national winners in the Village of the Year competition, elderly people are diffident about going out after dusk because of gangs of abusive youths in the village centre. There has been an outbreak of petty crime and vandalism - and a lot more serious crime too. At the church where I am Warden one of our sidesmen's cars was broken into during Evensong at the beginning of May.

But there have been many happy encounters during these weeks. In Brewood we went to a party to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the home for the elderly. It replaced a lovely, but rather ramshackle, country house which had been one of the pioneers of old peoples' homes. There, in a room of nearly 100 residents and friends, were just two of those who had lived there - both over 95. In another home I met a lady of 101 who had first helped at a Conservative Bazaar in 1910.

When you have represented an area for a very long time you see a lot of changes. There is not a single doctor who was practising here when I was first elected - nor a vicar or headmaster still in office. Those who were in the early years of primary school when I first came now proudly introduce me to their own children. And I have met the grandchildren of those who were in secondary school in 1970.

Not all of South Staffordshire is completely rural. The old mining villages of Great Wyrley, Cheslyn Hay and Essington are like small towns, but woe betide anyone who says that. There the community spirit is especially strong. It is in those villages that I probably meet more people I have been able to help with personal problems and difficulties. It is very touching when they come up in the street to say thank you - sometimes to reminisce over a problem I helped with over 20 years ago. Everyone who has ever had a letter seems to come up and thank me for it - and expect me instantly to remember their name, and the subject of the correspondence.

In Great Wyrley one of my local farmers came along to help give the campaign a bit of colour with one of his Shire horses. It was a tremendous attraction - so much so that we took it up to the local primary school where the headmaster brought all the pupils out 10 minutes before their lunch break. It was a particularly happy occasion because three of the classes were having a “Victorian Day” and were dressed in Victorian costume. I have a special affection for that school because I opened it in 1972, and returned 25 years later for the Jubilee celebrations to bury a time capsule.

I have always fought my campaigns on a very personal, and, some would say, old fashioned basis. Every scrap of literature is produced in the constituency - neither pamphlets nor slogans are imported from outside - splendid as Conservative Central Office might be. And every evening I have my meetings. It is true that they are not as well attended as they were in 1970 or 1974 but it is still not unusual to get 40 people along. Having a meeting in a village is the only way I can truly guarantee being available to every constituent who has a query or a problem and wants to listen to what I have to say.

Throughout I feel curiously detached and separate in my own part of England. The national campaign seems on a different planet - though I have been giving some assistance in neighbouring seats we hope to win back, Stafford and South West Wolverhampton.

As I write this, early on a Wednesday morning, looking out over the valley and waiting for my battle bus to arrive, I wish that elections all over the country were more truly local and that there were no opinion polls published, at least in the last fortnight of the campaign. Indeed I would go further. I wish there were no election broadcasts or special election programmes in that last fortnight either, and that people everywhere were urged to go out and meet, listen to and question their candidates, so that they could take an intelligent interest in who was going to represent them in the next Parliament. But then, although I am a non-smoker, I have always enjoyed the odd pipe dream.