May Day

With a nod to Betty - 10 years ago I was on a course in Bristol, it was residential and all the attendees were accommodated in an expensivish hotel near UWE, We were a motley group of Civil Servants most of us fairly young. The majority of the group were fairly disinterested in politics but 3 of us were prepared to say that we wanted Labour to win, loudly and proudly. I had had enough prior knowledge of the course dates and together enough to organise a postal vote and had already put my X against the Labour candidate a pointless action as I lived in a constituency where you could put an idiot up as Conservative and he would still get in but it made me feel better.

Anyways that Thursday was the last evening of the course and we were in a fairly celebratory mood, the booze was flowing freely as someone had a contact who worked behind the bar and he told us that we could convert the money that work had given to the hotel to feed us into money we could drink. We labour 3 commandeered the telly in the hotel bar and turned on the Election Special, I remember Norman Lamont failing to get Harrogate and me dancing round like a mad thing much to the disgust of the gitzoid businessmen who were dotted around, not that I gave a shit, but to my eternal shame although I was up and cheering for Portillo I don't actually remember this and had to be reminded the next day.

On Friday, after the course I had to get to London to meet up with my then boyfriend, I had to wait for him at Paddington Railway Station everyone round me was smiling, friends were greeting each other by waving copies of the Evening Standard, Indie, Guardian, Mirror, then laughing with the pure pleasure of it all, I've never seen a place look happier, ever.