The Brecon and Radnor by-election: Myths and memories from 40 years ago

Peter Black reminds us that the Brecon and Radnor by-election took place on 4 July 1985. I was there, so he is surely wrong when he says that this was 40 years ago.

I went down for the last two or three days of the campaign with the Liberal Party's regional agent for the East Midlands, Chris Rennard. I wonder what happened to him?

So here are a jumble of memories from those days and a couple of myths that I hope are true.

I remember setting off with a couple of other Liberals in a car to deliver blue letters to the area around Pontneddfechan. It turned out to be an intensely rural area with no house numbers. Instead there were house names in Welsh, so every letter we delivered felt like a victory.

Still in a rural area, perhaps doing some clerical work, we were regularly visited by a Labour loudspeaker van. This felt somehow threatening, until someone christened it "the Willey Wagon" after Labour's candidate Richard Willey. After that we were impatient for it to reappear so we could laugh at it. again. Ah, the power of nicknames.

Then I was delivering in the a solid Labour area in the very south of the constituency - I was told we were going to use cars with no Liberal branding there on polling day. Certainly, I remember a cul-de-sac in which every house had a Labour poster, but I still had a gang of small boys practically fighting for the honour of delivering my Liberal leaflets.

I remember sitting in the garden of the Castle Hotel on the eve of polling day - it was thronged with Liberal workers. The sky was still light at 10 in the evening and there was a hot-air balloon above the town.

And on polling day, back in the Labour-leaning south of the constituency, I remember telling at Cwm-twrch Isaf or Cwm-twrch Uchaf. The polling station was in the local community centre, and it was quite the friendliest I have ever encountered - tellers from all parties were kept supplied with tea and Welsh cakes.

I've written about one of the myths before:

I once heard a story about polling day in the Brecon and Radnor by-election of 1985, which saw a gain for the Liberal Alliance candidate Richard Livsey. 

A hirsute Young Liberal was telling on the day at a remote rural polling station when an old farmer arrived and challenged him.

"What are you doing? I always take the numbers for the Liberals."

It turned out that he had for years been coming here on polling day for an hour or two, taking voters' numbers and then going home with them.

This was a folk memory of political organisation. All that remained of it was the notion that taking voters' polling-card numbers somehow helped the Liberals.

The other myth is that at least one of our leaflets in the by-election mentioned David Lloyd George.