There was sad news yesterday. We learnt that Tony Greaves - Baron Greaves of Pendle - had died suddenly at his home in Trawden.
Besides his service as a councillor and peer, Tony played two important roles in the development of the Liberal politics of his era.
As a Young Liberal he helped develop the ideas behind community politics - it was he who moved the motion at the 1970 Liberal Assembly that saw the party vote to adopt the approach. Our huge advances in local government over the next 40 years owed much to this approach.
Then Tony became the first staff member of the Association of Liberal Councillors. This was the group you joined if you were serious about getting elected in the late Seventies and early Eighties.
Like Tony, the ALC was deeply independent and relations between it and the Liberal Party leadership were often less than collegiate.
As I recall it, my first Liberal Assembly (Bournemouth in 1984) saw a rapprochement between the two organisations. The ALC (which became the ALDC after merger with the SDP) was to lose its whiff of brimstone while remaining indispensable to ambitious Liberal Democrat campaigners.
Tony himself was the original curmudgeon with a heart of gold and I have happy memories of him coming to my house in Market Harborough. He was also a dealer in political books and had come to buy some from me.
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You may also remember that he had a sense of humour. When you and I were dining in Bournemouth at one conference, Tony was at the next table. The manager approached him and announced, "We have been told that you are a lord so we are going to look after you well". Tony pointed to you and without telling the manager your title as Lord Bonkers replied, "Well, look after him. He's a lord."
Thanks, David. I remember that evening and can picture the restaurant, but had forgotten which town it was in.
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