Westminster, Wine, Wit and Wisdom

From the looks on the faces of some of the well-heeled residents I encountered yesterday morning while out delivering leaflets in the Abbey Road ward Westminster Council by-election, the good burghers of St John’s Wood don’t quite know what’s hit them. One of the greatest assets the Liberal Democrats have is being able to count on help from out-of-area volunteers who remain resolutely cheerful, whatever the odds. As I pushed a Focus through the Loudoun Road letter box of the late Sir Stephen Spender, poet and intellectual campaigner, my mind was transported back to the mid-1970s, when the Auden-Isherwood-Spender group was paramount in my literary research activities and I was interviewing many of the people concerned, in Europe and the United States. Later I got to know Spender better in the context of PEN, the writers’ organisation, of which he remained a steadfast supporter. Occasionally he would appear at English PEN’s Christmas parties at the Sketch Club off Tite Street in Chelsea, tall but stooping, with the quizzical air of a stork interrupted in mid-thought.

Always a believer that footsoldiers function better on a contented stomach, I was happy to take a break from my Postman Pat impersonation to savour a Havana Club and coke with Southwark lead councillor Caroline Pidgeon (well, only I had the rum), who had also been hitting the streets, before I caught up with the newspapers over a mini-mezze on the terrace of Sofra, then back to my delivery round.

Unexpectedly, Southwark cropped up again in the evening, down at the Orpington Liberal Club (of which I am a honorary Life Member). The Club puts on occasional ‘Wine, Wit and Wisdom’ evenings, at which the brewer, Greene King, provides four selected wines to taste, while a guest speaker entertains, followed by a buffet. This time the speaker was Biggin Hill LibDem member Ken Addis, who grew up on the Old Kent Road and had a fund of anecdotes about life in Southwark between the two World Wars, as well as his experiences as a social worker, particularly dealing with what used to be termed juvenile delinquents. I loved his story of a Jewish woman called Nan, who had a bevvy of four female helpers armed with rolling pins, who would go round to belabour any local man who had been beating up his wife. Apparently, the local bobby approved, though these days the feisty ladies would doubtless have been charged with assault. Ken is 77, but as active now as when in employment, notably with the Biggin Hill Community Care Association and Bromley Mind. I am struck by the fact that the voluntary sector relies heavily on the dedication of people well above retirement age, particularly in areas such as Bromley. And as the government makes it increasingly difficult for people to get adequate community support until their condition is dire, the burden on such groups gets ever heavier.

Link: http://www.geocities/orplibclub