“Hello to all you Denton bloggers. I have to admit that I have never done a blog before, but as I intend to stand again for Denton North East in the forthcoming local elections this year I feel it is important that the voters you, the voters, know something about the person who is campaigning for your votes.
Firstly, I’d like to tell you something about myself.
I was born in Levenshulme, Manchester and went to a church school there which was very convenient because we only had to walk a few yards for the occasional school services. Some of you may remember the Harvest Festival service when children brought bread and food to the church for distribution to the needy, and sang songs like We Plough the Fields and Scatter etc., We also attended Christmas, Easter and Whitsun children’s services. At our small school the emphasis was on reading, writing, maths and spelling. We also danced around the maypole once a year, each of us hanging on colourful strips of cotton, winding it round as far as it would go. The head teacher taught us how to do Irish dancing to an old gramophone which one of the teachers had to wind up when it ran down. We learned how to sing together as a choir and sang children’s songs and sea shanties, and held regular concerts in the school for our parents. We had a painting class and I always used to draw beautiful ballerinas dancing because my mother was a dancer and I wanted to show her off! There were no school buses then so we used to walk to Gorton baths once a week from the school for our swimming lessons. But a bus did come every day to take us to Burnage at an Institute where we had lunch with other children from other schools. It never entered my head to ask why we had no school kitchen. On Sundays my friends and I went to Sunday school, as did most other children in Levenshulme, and we all looked forward to the annual Whitsun Walks where we joined up with all the other churches and walked in unison with the adult bands and boys brigade playing up Stockport Road finishing at Erwood Park where the parents joined us for a picnic. Stockport Road was full of crowds watching the parade – it was magnificent.
In our leisure time, either after school or at weekends (we never had homework to do), my brother and I played outside in the streets until it was dark and our parents called us in. We used to play cricket in the street with a lamp post being the bails, and occasionally a few windows got broken so we’d all run away. At weekends we used to cross over the railroad track at the back end of McVities to get to Erwood Park. It was a short cut and saved having to go the long way round to get there, where we played without any interference from grownups. It never occurred to any of us that this was the major railroad track between Manchester and London, but we were always careful to watch and listen out for the trains. Later on I joined the Brownies and the Girl Guides, and my brother joined the cubs, scouts and boys brigade.
My mother didn’t go to work at that time as most women stayed at home doing the housework and making sure their front doorsteps were ‘stoned’ red or white which we got from the rag and bone man who gave us balloons and ‘stones’ in exchange for old clothing. My father rode a bike to work at Fairey Engineering which was very close to McVities, and sometimes he’d let me ride on the cross bar up to the top of the back entry to my school where he dropped me off. My father told me much later on that he used to be racing cyclist and that no-one else could ever catch up with him. He said the newspapers called him ‘Dusty Miller’ because he left a cloud of dust behind him whenever he raced. I thought he was joking at the time but after he died there was an item in a newspaper about him, and he was in fact called ‘Dusty Miller’. He also told me that he was very good at football and Stockport County wanted to take him on professionally, but my grandmother said there was no money in it so he didn’t join them. I could not say whether that was true or not. My father was an ex-serviceman with the Royal Engineers, and during the 2nd World War he went over to France to fight. He told me how he ended up in Dunkirk with many others waiting for a ship to bring him home. He told me how he took off his boots and threw them away to enable him to swim to a boat. He was lucky to get home as one half of the boat was fired upon by German aircraft killing everyone on that side. Fortunately he was lying on the other half which was left intact, so he considered himself very lucky that day to make it home. He told me that on arrival in England the fit ones (which included him) were told to rejoin their units and get on with the war. It was only when I was much older that I realised how much he and other brave soldiers like him had gone through during the war, but he hardly ever spoke about it with any of the family. When I see soldiers today coming home from the conflict in Afghanistan it makes me sad to think they are not defending our country but some other people’s country, far away, that has issues with the Taliban and which is not really our concern. Although Gordon Brown would have us believe that if we don’t fight the Taliban in Afghanistan they will spread their terrorism here! The hard and brutal fact is, they are already here! And what is the Government doing about it? Nothing.
So going back to what I was saying. Later on I attended secondary school in Chorlton cum Hardy and immediately life took on a new meaning in terms of school work, homework and exams. Gone was the freedom I used to enjoy and I had to adapt quickly and work hard because they took our education very seriously at that school. The school hoped to make academic geniuses out of all of us, but for those who really interested or weren’t up to it (including myself) they were graded into the ‘B’ stream. The teachers were tough and the headmaster even tougher. We all knew what would happen to us if we broke the rules – we’d end up in the headmaster’s office where we’d get the strap. Most of the boys lived in fear of the headmaster’s strap so basically we were hard-working, model students. Occasionally, however, we had the odd few who disobeyed the rules and got the strap. They accepted this though because they knew they were in the wrong, so took it all in good humour, rubbing lemon juice on their hands which they said eased the pain before going into the Headmaster’s office for their punishment. I think they believed it gave them some sort of standing with the rest of the class. Mind you, those same boys never had the strap twice, so it must have served its purpose.
Our headmaster was tough despite the fact that he only had one leg which he’d lost during the war. But he also had his nice side and was good and kind to the students as long as they obeyed the rules. The parents never interfered with the running of the school or their children getting the strap because they knew that discipline was important for their children and that it would eventually give them strong values.
We did lots of sporting activities in Longford Park and had annual Sports Days which were great fun. During the winter months we learned how to dance with the boys when we couldn’t go outside to play sports. We learned how to dance the polka, the waltz, quick step and square tango. We also learned the Dashing White Sergeant and square dancing which we all enjoyed and which stood us all in good stead for later on after we’d left school. Why don’t they do that any more? Dancing is good exercise and, who knows, there may be some X-factor children out there waiting to be discovered!
It’s sad to see what’s happening in schools these days as heads and teaching staff can’t lift a finger towards a student without being chastised, sued or fired from their jobs, and made to feel like monsters by the media. I don’t know whether any of your will agree with me, but I feel that the education of our children in many schools has gone down the tube since teachers had their powers of discipline taken away from them. The children know this and some will take it upon themselves to goad the teachers into striking them, then get the parents to sue the teacher and get him or her fired. Why doesn’t the Government just back off and stop meddling in our children’s education. Why don’t they let the local education authority take over like it used to do? One of my ideas would be make every parent sign a document agreeing that their child should obey all the rules and regulations in that school, including disciplinary procedures, without any interference from them In that way, the teachers would be able to get on with the job of teaching and not have to worry about Government or parent interference. And if they didn’t like the rules then they could look for a school without rules or discipline, if they could find one!
Another idea, to combat bullying at school, would be to make all students hand over their mobile phones to the form master/mistress at the start of the day and then have them returned at the end of the day. Does anyone have any other ideas on how to help stopping bullying, apart from capital punishment?
Much later on I got married and we lived in Ashton and Mossley for a number of years and had two boys. Our boys went to a local primary school nearby and got a good education there. The teachers always made it interesting for the children to learn, and the parents were kept informed of their progress. The boys still have happy memories of growing up in Mossley, tramping over the hills gathering blackcurrents, playing in the local park and watching Mossley play football whenever they could. Even then they had plenty of freedom and there was no mention of paedophiles and drug addicts at that time.
In 1978 we moved the family to Malta and that is where I began to realise that people living in other countries were not like the British and had different cultures of their own. This thought had never crossed my mind when I went to live there, nor had I ever thought about politics as I’d always voted for Labour in the past, as had my parents and grandparents, and maybe even my great grandparents. But I came to realise, quickly, that politics were very important to the Maltese people, especially at that time, as you might recall the British military were leaving the bases they’d leased from Malta for years and were pulling out as they said they didn’t need to be there any more. I believe they were using bases in Cyprus instead because the political climate was changing. The island’s president at that time was Dom Mintoff, a socialist, who headed their Labour Government. He had tried to negotiate with the British to keep the bases there because a lot of Maltese jobs depended on their staying. In spite of all his pleadings the British pulled out in 1979 and Mintoff and his supporters were very angry with the British Government. Unfortunately it backfired on me when I was job-hunting and I found it very difficult to get a job there as several companies turned me down for various reasons, the main reason being they preferred to take on a single Maltese woman rather than a married English one. Someone at the Labour Exchange suggested I took a job cleaning in a Ladies Toilet which I refused, and I began to think that I wouldn’t get a job due to anti-British feeling over there .
So as you can see, politics began seeping into my mind and I started to take life and politics a bit more seriously than I had previously done. I did eventually get a job with the Libyan Higher Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering – it was a teaching facility for Libyan students in one of the old British barracks in St Julian’s, and the teaching staff was made up of expatriate personnel from Great Britain and other countries. It appeared that they did not have a university catering for those subjects in Libya, but one was in the process of being built in Hoon, Libya. We were told that when it was completed the whole ensemble would be moved back there, which no-one wanted (even the students as they were having such a nice lifestyle in Malta). I’d never heard of Libya before going to live in Malta (that’s how much I knew about geography) and had no idea it was only half an hour away by plane, but soon got to know all about it from the expatriate staff, the students and the Libyan administrators. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and learned all about the expatriate lifestyle from the British staff, and the Libyan way of life from some of the tutors and students.
Much later on I actually went to work in Libya, in Tripoli and Benghazi, so it was quite fortuitous that I had first-hand knowledge from the Libyans in Malta. My life over there was very interesting and I worked for a Libyan Oil Company. I found out that even people in the Middle East were racist towards each other. Some people from the North of Libya believed themselves to be far superior to those from the South because of their colour. People from the North tended to have lighter skins whereas people from the South had darker to even black skins, and there was much racial prejudice. Therefore, I don’t ever see a time when Colonel Ghadaffi will ever introduce multiculturism into Libya! Life was good for the expatriates working out there, and all women were allowed to drive, unlike Saudi Arabia, and after a while I passed my driving test. There was even a Catholic church in Tripoli which many people attended. There were many ancient Roman sites to visit all along the coast and I managed to see most of them which were dotted along the coast from Tripoli to Tobruk. Libya has such an interesting history and I do believe that the Colonel is opening it up to allow tourists in to visit these sites. They are certainly worth a visit.
I also worked in Saudi Arabia in a hospital for a number of years which was very enlightening. The well off went to the private hospitals where they had the best of everything. Military personnel and their families went to Military hospitals and the remainder of the people ended up in poorly funded and poorly equipped government hospitals. Rather amazing when one thinks about thinks how rich that country is from oil. The wealth was not fairly distributed, in my opinion, and I don’t think things will change in the future unless the King changes his country to a more democratic one. Nevertheless I found the Saudis very nice and friendly to work with and they did their best to make the expatriate staff happy to be there. The shopping was good in Riyadh as there was no VAT, and new buildings were going up all the time whilst I was there. There were many restaurants and hotels and plenty of cheap taxis to take us anywhere we wanted to go as women didn’t get on buses. There were interesting souks to visit where we could barter for everything and we were often invited to drink tea with the proprietor and exchange pleasantries. If it was a carpet shop he would show us every carpet in the place even if we didn’t buy it, and he always asked us to go back any time. One didn’t go to church there because there weren’t any – only mosques. So if a Christian wanted to go to a Sunday service these were often held in people’s villas or the Embassies. We were never encouraged to discuss religion, and no religious relics were allowed in hospitals. Surprisingly, even the children’s wards walls were bare as paintings or pictures were not allowed. The only pictures allowed on walls were the King or previous Kings. Religious police were in most hospitals and went around inspecting wards at any time, especially at Christmas, and staff couldn’t even put Xmas tree up on the wards. On Valentine’s Day no red roses were to be seen in the flower shops because if the religious police found any they were immediately thrown out on the streets and shop owners disciplined. All red flowers were removed from restaurants and hotels where they could be seen, and if any Saudi female staff were found to have red roses in the hospital they would be put in jail. There were several shops which sold paintings but one could never find a painting with people on it as this wasn’t allowed. Don’t ask me why dear blogger for even if I had the answer it would probably be too ridiculous for words.
In my time there I learned many things about the Saudi culture. I also taught some Saudi children English in my spare time. I remember when I was telling one 11 year old boy about my father being a soldier in the Second World War, he asked (this is true) “What was the Second World War?” His parents, who had been listening to me were also intrigued. He told me that they didn’t teach that kind of history at school and I was quite shocked, although I didn’t say anything. I didn’t ask too much about their schooling as I didn’t want to appear to be snooping, but it did concern me that children weren’t being taught world history, although it might have changed by now.
Anyway, I told him who was fighting who but I could tell by his reaction that he truly had no knowledge of any of it. I suppose now that they have the internet and mobile phones they can find out for themselves whatever they need to know, unless the Government is controlling what goes on the internet. I know that China wants to do this and it would be a shame if this ever happened.
Since working away from England for 20 years I saw many changes occurring in the U.K., mostly under Labour but some under the Conservatives. I witnessed events unfolding under the reign of Margaret Thatcher in the 80’s, when she brought in the Poll Tax and people went to jail rather than pay it. I had noticed she was not doing too well in the polls leading up the general election but, hey ho, she had a war in The Falklands and won the next general election. It’s sheer coincidence of course but at this moment in time Gordon Brown is not doing too well in the polls and the election is coming up soon. So all he needs to do now is to start and win a war and get re-elected. Guess what, the Nato forces (meaning Britain, America and the Afghans) have now begun Operation Mushtarak in Afghanistan to kill or clear out the Taliban. Does he think that by doing that he’ll get re-elected? Even now I hear of more trouble looming in The Falklands again. Surely Mr Brown doesn’t believe people would be stupid enough to fall for that one again? But maybe there are. Instead, he should declare war on Israel because they stole British people’s identities. Knowing this Government they’ll probably shake hands with the Israeli foreign minister and say don’t do it again. Alternatively, he could make war on America as it was they who coerced Blair into going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Let him send our best war ships out there and pop a few missiles across the Whitehouse lawns. And while he’s about it, pop a missile round to Tony Blair’s front door with a note on it from the soldiers saying “Have this one on us”.
When I finally hung up my desert boots in 2005 to come home, I decided that the British National Party was the only party that actually gave a damn about this country and its people. I went along to my first meeting and liked what I heard and decided to be a member right away. I thought that with my past experience of life here and overseas I could be of some use to the party. I’ve met Nick Griffin, the Chairman, and can only say how proud I am of what he is trying to achieve. He has vision and wants to bring about many changes to put the honour and integrity back into Great Britain. He’s had some very difficult times with the mainstream parties, the controlled media and the church, not to mention the Unions and left wing trouble makers. He’s worked ceaselessly to help the grass roots of the party all over the country to put the building blocks into place that will make this party something to be proud of once again. He’s also devoted hours of his time to present his views to students in various Universities, where fortunately there is no political interference.
Unfortunately, Trevor Phillips from the Commission for Equality & Human Rights has dug his claws into the party with a view to draining the BNP of funds so that our general election campaign would suffer as a consequence. He has also had a temporary ban put on our membership.
In spite of his efforts, however, last Sunday the paid up members of the party unanimously said YES to membership of ethnic minorities joining the party as long as they shared the same beliefs as the party. I see no problem with that, and in fact know a few people who can’t wait to join once things have been properly finalised with the Court and CEHR In my opinion, things can only get better and we’ll get far more votes.
This year Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, became the first two BNP MEPs for the North East and West which put fear into the mainstream parties as they don’t want us on their turf in case we start digging up a can of worms. I am quite certain that many obstacles will be put in our path before we can get an MP into Parliament, but Nick Griffin has taken up the challenge and will stand as a BNP candidate in the London area. I firmly believe that if he can achieve his goal it will be the start of many more BNP MPs joining him from all over the country.
I wonder if any of the bloggers saw him appear as a guest on Question Time recently when he got a verbal bashing from the audience and panellists. It was quite shameful I thought. However, he finally managed to get the message out to the viewers about the implications of mass immigration, a view shared by a lot of people. If the mainstream parties thought that by having Nick Griffin on the programme would be the demise of the BNP, then they were wrong as their plan completely backfired on them. The party has since received thousands of requests from people to join the party, and as soon as the membership ban is lifted the funds should start rolling in once again. Also, many people who were not supporters of the BNP were very annoyed at the way he was treated and made their thoughts known.
My political career began in 2007 when I was asked if I’d like to stand as a candidate for the British National Party in Hyde Werneth, and I graciously accepted. Now you will all know by now that I am not a career politician like some others and do not possess a degree on How to Build a Duck House, or a City & Guilds on How to be a Councillor and Not Pay Your Bar Bill, or a Diploma on How to Cheat on Expenses When You Become An MP, but I do have a Life Degree in honesty, integrity, sound ideas, common sense and a strong sense of what is right and wrong, which I feel some Councillors and MPs are lacking in.
It was a relatively quiet election and the BNP had never stood a candidate there before. Four parties were standing for election: Conservatives, Labour, BNP and UKIP. John Stuart Bell won for the Conservatives with 1,735 votes, Labour’s Raja Meir came second with 1,285 votes, I came third with 286 votes and UKIP came last with 235 votes. I was quite pleased by the result considering it was the first time the party had challenged that seat. Unfortunately, Mr Bell showed himself up by slagging the BNP off when he made his winners speech, and I was most indignant at hearing this, so in my own speech I gave it him back. Not very ladylike of me really but I was quite incensed at his loutish behaviour when the other two candidates had been quite friendly and chatty.
In 2009 I was again asked if I would like to stand as a candidate in the Hyde Newton By-Election on 6 February 2009.
I expected to have a reasonably quiet campaign like in Hyde Werneth, with the usual leafleting and canvassing. I couldn’t have got it more wrong. It actually turned out to be quite a vicious one and you may have read my letter to the Advertiser a week later. The Labour party under the guise of Searchlight (an extreme left-wing organisation funded by the Labour party) put out a shocking ‘Hope Not Hate’ campaign.
No less than 10 councillors were seen on the streets of Hyde Newton, as well as James Purnell MP, Searchlight, members of the union USDAW and believe it or not, the Church itself, were out there on the streets at all times of the day and night canvassing and distributing sleazy anti-BNP leaflets to the electorate. They called us Nazis, Fascists, unchristian, and any other lies they could dream up, to ensure I was not elected as a Councillor. Can you believe it? All because of me, an unknown, ordinary person from whom they had no reason to fear, was running for election. We, at that time, were fighting a clean campaign, and having to endure this vicious and malicious campaign of lies against us was beyond belief. They threw everything they could at us and went to great lengths to tell the voters what a bad lot we were. We had to organise rebuttal leaflets against all of the parties, including the Church, for their lies and propaganda. I remember seeing James Purnell at the count on the night of the election with a smirk on his face. He kept that smirk on his face all through the count and even outside as he was leaving. He must have known they would win after all they had done to spoil the election for us.
Under normal circumstances I would have had the courtesy to applaud the winner and say some nice things after hearing the winning candidate’s speech, but under these particular circumstances I could not do this as I felt it my duty to speak out while I had the opportunity and say what I thought was wrong with the Labour Party's sleazy campaign as they fully deserved it. So after giving my courtesy speech to the returning officer I said what I thought of the whole campaign and was immediately bombarded with cries of 'boos' and 'shame' as well as another voice saying 'Get back to Ashton'. Indeed I was applauded by my own party for speaking the truth, but this was also never mentioned in the Advertiser who covered the election. You may be surprised to learn that I was interviewed by the BBC and Associated News afterwards, and you can see this interview for yourselves if you type in my name on Google.
However, despite all their efforts to keep us down we still managed to come second with 899 votes and increased our vote from the previous year by approximately 50 votes, which meant that more people than ever were beginning to see the truth for themselves and vote for the British National Party. The votes were as follows: Labour: 1379, BNP 889, Conservatives 485, Lib Dems 172, the Greens 69 and UK Independence Party 69. So I believe that we did very well under the circumstances, and we might possibly have won that seat had it not been for the sleazy campaign of the opposition.
The following week the Advertiser stated I had 'limped home in second place' and yet they mentioned the Tory 'hopeful' had come third. Also, there was nothing derisory written about the Greens, the Liberals and UKIP after we had given them a sound beating! It proved to me that the Advertiser must have been very pro-Labour, don't you agree?
The Church and the clergymen of Hyde, who in their 'wisdom' had decided that they should tell people not to vote for the British National Party, infuriated many people all over Tameside and beyond who were of the opinion that the church should keep out of politics and not get involved. Referring to the clergy in my speech I mentioned that they should be trying to fill their churches and look after the poor people and the homeless, including our homeless soldiers.
The Advertiser also stated in their article that I was a 'bad loser' which was quite untrue. On the contrary, I actually commiserated with the losing candidates and congratulated all of them in conducting a clean campaign (which I later found to be untrue), but they did not mention this. Speaking out was my only way of getting the message across to everyone in that room and it was rather a pity that none of the other candidates had the guts to agree with me. Were they too scared of James Purnell and his Labour cohorts?
In conclusion, I firmly believe that the Advertiser (owned by the anti-BNP Guardian Media Group) was totally biased in the reporting of the Hyde Newton By-Election, and that the gossip surrounding the Advertiser being ‘hand-in-glove with Tameside Council’ had to be true.
On 30th July 2009 I stood as a candidate for Denton North East at the By-election. The other candidates were Labour, Conservative, UKIP and the Greens. No Lib Dems this time. This was the first time a BNP candidate had stood in the Denton North East constituency so I was rather unsure of how our party would make out. On the night of the count I was quite amazed and happy to hear that I had come third, ahead of UKIP and the Greens. Labour had come first with 1258 votes, Conservative second with 660 votes, BNP 3rd with 358 votes, UKIP fourth with 193 votes and the Greens 5th with 164 votes. We were quite proud of our achievement considering it was the first time we’d ever campaigned for a seat in Denton North East, and that is why I will be standing again to see if we can increase our vote. Lots of things have happened since that election, and I am wondering how the people have reacted to all the scandals that have taken place over the months, such as the MP’s expenses row, and Labour’s failure to adequately equip our troops for battle in Afghanistan.
As you well know, the British National Party is not funded by the State, our funding comes from ordinary, working class people like myself. I ask myself if the Lab/Con/Lib parties could afford to fund their own elections without the backing of big businesses, but I doubt it very much. The mainstream parties must be quite shocked that we can afford to fund our own elections through the people alone. How it must worry them to know there are people out there who are so desperate for real change and who know they won’t get this from the mainstream parties that they are prepared to pay for an election out of their own pockets. And how proud Nick Griffin must be to know this.
Therefore, if you elect me to be your BNP Councillor, I assure you that I will use all my experience, ability and drive to help the people of Denton North East and to make Tameside Council more honest and representative.
It now appears that Mr Brown is planning to make electoral reforms after this year’s general elections by having a new voting system put in place. Instead of a first-past-the-post system, which has worked perfectly well for years, he now wants to replace it with proportional representation which he thinks might be more interesting for the voters. A change to the system will probably only favour the Labour Party and be detrimental to the smaller parties. He has seen the British National Party grow at a very past pace and that we now have two MEPs in Europe with hopefully more to follow in the future. We will also be putting forward several candidates to stand at the next General Election which will add to his worries. He will throw everything he can at the British National Party and the forthcoming elections as this year is the BIG one for both Council elections and the General Election.
I trust that you have all enjoyed reading my ‘documentary’ and for those of you who are still awake I hope to receive any questions or comments from you in the near future.
