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Monsta you need to study a little of the modern political history of our area. Fact is they have been locked up! And the odd political agent too, though some might say that he took the wrap! When you look back at who we've had representing us over the last 50 years you wonder what the people of this area have been thinking about! There's the infamous ones like Andrew Cunningham and T. Dan Smith of course, but did you know that our smooth-talking barrister Labour MP got two and a half years in clink in 1992 for pretending to be a director of a swiss bank and defrauding two women out of their life savings? The first of our Labour MP's I can remember was Alfred Robens. Now nobody is saying he was a crook, but it's a strange kind of socialist that ends up owning a castle in the South East and sitting on the boards of numerous companies. Alf has the distinction of closing far more pits and sacking far more miners than anyone in history. This is one of the many things that local Labour would rather not talk about. In fact they'd rather not talk about anything at all because they no longer have any ideology or coherent set of ideas. People like Ronnie Campbell and Denis Murphy have not the slightest thing in common with the educated big wigs of the Labour party who are as elitist and self-serving as they come! Ron & Den were put there as a sponge to soak up dumb vote-as-your-parents-did votes for the articulate solicitors and barristers of Nu Labour. I suspect that Denis has probably woken up to this by now; that he's been thrown the very last crust, and that's just about as far as he's going to be allowed to go. Ronnie... well, it might take a while longer to soak in. The reality gap between what is and what people can be made to believe - especially the young and those with short memories - is responsible for the mess this area (and now the entire country) is in today. But rejecting the whole thing like you are doing is putting yourself in the same place as those who have been (and continue to be) duped. You need to turn your brain on and choose the least of the evils & bullsh*t on offer, and get out there and vote.

Brian - did you get into your Granny's house through the back. The reason I ask is that you'll remember at the rear of East Riggs were allotments juxtaposed with the back gardens of the houses and through the allotments ran a couple of 'clarty' paths - called The Cut (for our younger viewers all this was where Windsor Court is now ... ah, what would we poor exiles do without Google maps). The Cut linked Front Street to Acorn Avenue. You maybe picked-up The Cut around the back of the Old Hall. There were a number of buildings that had archways leading to courtyards; Dowson's Buildings on Hartford Rd (between Catholic Row and Hartford Cres ... next door to the Sally Army and the Masonic Hall [i think]) had a number of dwellings around the cobbled courtyard with the arch access to Hartford Rd. There was another one on Front St (opposite the 60s Council Offices and next door the Eddie Millne's house) but I can't remember the name; the courtyard backed onto Eddie Millne's walled orchard ... yep, we used to shinny over his wall to nick the apples. I've forgotten what we used to call this activity ... I'm sure it wasn't scrumping - anybody know the correct local term?