High jinks in Havering

There's an amusing tale from our by-election campaign in Havering.

Our excellent candidate in the Gooshays Ward there, Mark Logan, recounts what happened.

"We put out this special edition Gooshays Patriot yesterday because we heard that Gerry Gable and his gang from Searchlight had planned to distribute their anti-BNP literature in the ward.

"I decided to treat fire with fire on this occasion and planned to follow Gable around wherever he went. When he put one of his lying leaflets through a letterbox, we would be there to put through one of ours telling the truth.

"We certainly caught Gable by surprise, he looked completely shell-shocked and didn't know what to do next. We eventually engaged in a cat and mouse chase around the Gooshays with the BNP following the Searchlies gang around in several cars - it was like a scene from Starsky and Hutch. There were 15 BNP activists out and they had a similar number.

"Eventually they gave up and went back to the wilderness of Clayhall - the final result BNP-1 Searchlies-0 and I can report it was immensely satisfying to give Gable a taste of his own medicine. Let's hope we can come out on top again on Thursday!"

There are two by-election being held on Thursday and the candidates are as follows:

Havering Borough Council
Gooshays Ward
Thursday 20th March 2008
Yve Cornell (Lab)
David Durant (Lib)
Malcolm Fox (Con)
Mark Logan (BNP)
Ian Sanderson(Lib-Dem)
Lawrence Webb (UKIP)

Arun District Council
Yapton Ward
Thursday 20th March 2008
Albert Bodle (BNP)
David Jones (Lib-Dem)
Ema Neno (Con)

Hearing about the election in Yapton stirred some memories for me because I know the area very well.

It's a lovely picturesque village, or was forty years ago, and not far from Fontwell racecourse. Back in 1968 I spent a year at a "crammers" called West Down Tutors (The Mill), just down the road in Clymping. It was an easy going residential school and I can remember spending most of my time racing around the countryside on my Lambretta or in the betting office when, of course, I should have been studying for those O'Levels I didn't get when I was at Steyning Grammar School.

The Mill must have cost my parents a fortune. There were just 30-odd pupils with a teaching staff of 7 or eight, and I had a room next to Adrian Palmer, whose father owned Huntley & Palmer biscuits. Thankfully I managed to get the extra three O'Levels I needed which made my parents happy if not their bank manager.