Memories of an ex-Launton boy

This month the ex-Launton Boy goes a bit political, what with the 2024 General Election taking place just after this issue hits the streets. First, he encourages readers to vote - it’s important. Then he opens his memory bank from growing up in Launton. The founding of the welfare state and the NHS feature early on, and memories of the Soviet invasion of Hungary and the Suez Crisis (both in 1956). Then he recalls his father’s refusal to have Margaret Thatcher on television in the house, and her much-remembered remark that “there is no such thing as society” that he sees as beginning the downhill slide in politics and public life.

Promises; promises; promises and yet even more promises. You’ve guessed it, another General Election and concentrated efforts to win our votes.

Well, I could get very political in these pages as indeed I do otherwise at election time, although this time I have very much taken a back seat, letting the younger and more energetic ones take over.

I come from a family that always insisted on voting at election times, and rightly so. Nothing annoys me more than opinionated people condemning governments of whatever shade but who cannot be bothered to get off their backsidesto go and vote. There is no excuse, not even for people who may be too physically disabled to get to the polling station; they can elect to vote by Postal Ballot, which is what I do anyway. This goes back to the days when I was very actively involved on Election Day getting the vote out, and almost forgetting to vote myself. I have kept the postal vote option ever since.

Although not a political activist, my dad was staunch Labour on the basis that Labour brought in the Welfare State, which by the way was the creation of the Liberals (Lloyd George and, later, Beveridge), as I would often tell my dad, but it never made any difference to him. As far as he was concerned, Labour introduced it into our lives, added to which they introduced Bevan’s NHS, both of which he from during his early years of very ill health.

I have no idea how the majority of the village voted back then during my childhood, but I do know we always had a Conservative MP.

It was in 1978 I believe, when the Lib-Lab pact was formed to save going for a General Election which the Tories were calling for but which the nation could not afford, having gone to the IMF with cap in-hand with the UK being on the edge of bankruptcy, that I switched from Labour to become a member of the Liberal Party, of which I have been a paid-up member ever since, including it morphing into the LibDems.

I believe my political leanings to the left of centre (not extreme leftwing) became apparent during my school days. As I have stated before, I became aware of national and world affairs at a very young age. I can still vividly remember the Hungarian uprising against Russian occupation in 1956, along with memories of the Suez crisis in the same year, and dad’s petrol coupons as petrol was rationed for a while.

I have a particular memory of dad, after I had left the army, when visiting mum and dad and the TV was on in the background when Margaret Thatcher came on the screen preaching about something or other. My dad was frantically looking for the remote control to change the channel, snapping, “I’ll not have that ‘umman’ in my house”. I think Margaret Thatcher was a bit like Marmite; people either loved her or loathed her.

I think what got a lot of people, myself included, was when she in so many words suggested there was no such thing as ‘society’.

As I have written on other occasions, when I was growing up as a young boy in Launton, there was very much a thing called ‘society’, where everyone looked out for each other. If someone in the village had not been seen out at all during the day, people would come knocking to check that everything was alright.

Sadly, after Thatcher’s politics there seemed to become a noticeable change in that more and more people were effectively taking the stance, “I’m alright Jack and to hell with the rest of you”. So many people adopted the ‘Me! Me! Me!’ attitude. Good manners flew out of the window, although queuing remained part of our national character.

I gather that Launton is now covered by a new constituency of Bicester and Woodstock, including all the villages from Launton and Blackthorn to Stonesfield, and including Kidlington.There was a few years back a proposal to include Launton in the Henley on Thames constituency, which was killed off. And, of course, Launton was in the Henley constituency many years ago. All the polls so far show the new constituency as “too close to predict”. We wait to see the winner on 5 July. Now you don’t need me to tell you how very important it is to get out there and cast your vote. “No vote / No comment”, I say. Even if it is to spoil one’s ballot paper as a sort of protest, one will have made one’s feelings known (secretly of course), through the ballot box, because believe me, a spoiled paper is not simply dismissed out of hand, it is actually scrutinised and shown to candidates or their representatives to agree the reason for rejection. Furthermore, it adds to the very important ‘turn-out’ figures. Well, I don’t know about you, but I have the feeling that things can only get better. They surely cannot get much worse domestically. But keep an eye out on the horizon; a very real threat is coming from the East, and very worryingly, we are as a nation not ready. Never mind twenty-five days a year of National Service (crazy idea), I might have to seriously consider joining a modern-day version of Dad’s Army!

Keep healthy and stay SAFE!

Tony Jeacock, MInstRE | The ex-Launton Boy | July 2024