Huge amusement at Histon - and most encouraging

The heart of old Histon looked especially good today. Here it is, England at its best.

But the village as a whole was hugely amusing and most encouraging, too. I personally delivered 250 leaflets and, where people were in or around, I engaged them in conversation. Aside from one miserable creature who didn't want to know - 'I'll put it straight in the green bin. I've got by without voting all my life' - the responses were very good.

I also struck lucky when the Junior School children were coming out, for I was able to talk to mums and dads and a few of the children, one of whom gave me a sweet, which was good. (I checked this out with his mum first). I had a most interesting conversation with one of the mums on The Green. She told me that her family had recently returned from Germany (where her husband worked for the Ford Motor Company) in order for her sixteen-year-old daughter to be able to attend Impington Village College's International Sixth Form and to take advantage of IVC's provision of the International Baccalaureate. This is further proof of the IB's broad strengths and of the attractions of Cambridgeshire's education in general. I have long believed that the IB represents the future. This was very welcome confirmation.

Finally, just as I was running low on leaflets, I had a splendid gossip with an elderly lady who not only remembered the old days of Mr Francis Pym, M.P. (now sadly deceased), but also the days of the old Histon Conservative Club (now defunct), and the old Cambridgeshire Conservative colours of pink and white (now no longer in use). When I first worked with and for Mr Pym, we had those colours and I was told at that time that they were the racing colours of an earlier member. I have my doubts about this as I can't find mention in my Racing Calendars, of which I have several. The lady, formerly a Conservative, was so pleased that I was standing as an independent, partly because of her friendship with South Cambridgeshire District Councillor Mike Mason, another independent, whom I also know through the Swaffham Internal Drainage Board, of which we are both members. I was promised two more votes.

Not on the basis of these two votes, but on all kinds of other support generally expressed, I can state confidently and unequivocally that, if Histon is anything to go by, this campaign of ours is on its way.