Why we should remember Harold Wilson and his Government’s vision

The picture has almost a ghost like quality which is hardly surprising as it was taken with my Kodak Brownie 126 purchased from Boot’s the chemist and it shows Harold Wilson on his way to Prime Minister’s Questions probably on Wednesday 27^th July 1966, just days before England won the World Cup.

Hours before the remains of our family history were to be unceremoniously dumped in the skip, a mad scramble finally unearthed this treasure. That unmistakeable outline of Wilson’s had been etched in my memory for nearly half a century.

The events of that exciting July may have been forged by the white heat of a nation celebrating World Cup success but for me this grainy image of Harold Wilson is a reminder of a family holiday, two weeks in a Sussex Gardens Bed & Breakfast when London was in the midst of a cultural explosion, although we were more Petticoat Lane than Carnaby Street.

Downing Street in those days was a stroll, open to everyone without any hindrance or iron gates, a regular kind of place with two houses and the permanent friendly London bobby.

It was a case of hang around from this unobstructed vantage point across the street and wait for our hero of the day to emerge from the door of Number 10. The pose is classic Wilson, the wave but no evidence of the pipe and I often wondered if he had just stubbed out a cigar which was reportedly his smoke of choice when out of the public gaze. This was a time when the pound in your pocket was just that, a full twenty shillings worth and the Labour government had just been returned at the May General Election with a thumping majority and a great sense of optimism. We as a family had played a part in the campaign at grassroots level, endless leafleting, canvassing, standing at polling stations on polling day, running up and down tenements offering transport to voters, ensuring every last Labour vote was accounted for.

Our stay in London had also included an invite to the Houses of Parliament where we had a splendid afternoon tea on the terrace by the Thames, with George Thompson, our MP for Dundee East who then saw us seated comfortably in the spectators’ gallery of the House of Lords. Earlier, Mrs. Thompson, Grace, had given us a tour of the Commons where we emerged from behind the Speaker’s chair and onto the floor of the chamber with its striking vivid green leather benches; I tested them out only to be told that this wasn’t allowed! The Government frontbenches are quite comfortable, as I recall.

I look back fondly at those times, back through the decades but not with rose tinted spectacles. What would the Labour Party give today for a politician of the guile and skill of Wilson? In a mirror of today’s rough and tumble he was thoroughly disliked by the press and the reason often given was because he wasn’t a public school old boy.

The photograph is more than a faded print. Within that hazy past Wilson and his Governments had a vision. They provided free university education for thousands of working class families and this should never be forgotten. Wilson’s most cherished and proudest achievement was the Open University; a dream which set out a pathway towards social justice and fairness through education, for which I am eternally grateful.

Today he would still command that debating chamber with his rapier wit and razor intellect making mincemeat of the opposition. The forthcoming general election would be met face on with the strike of a match, a puff of the pipe and the clarion call to Vote Labour, you know it makes sense.