Open Writing

There we were, on the platform at Wakefield Station, waiting for the London train, when we spotted a familiar face.

Barry Sheerman, the Member of Parliament for Huddersfield.

Barry and I go back quite a way. Back to 1979, in fact, when he became MP for Huddersfield East, and I was news editing the local daily paper, The Examiner.

We had a policy at The Examiner of allowing local MPs lots of space in which to air comments and opinions. We were driven by the idea that if politics is to work efficiently, we should provide a platform from which politicians could address voters, and vice-versa.

Barry, interested in everything that was going on in his adopted town, ever-eager to be a catalyst for improvement, made the best possible use of that platform.

In 1983, following Parliamentary re-districting, Barry became MP for the newly created seat of Huddersfield. He has now represented the town in Parliament for quarter of a century. With national vision he is also chairman of the Education and Skills Select Committee.

“The Hinchliffes,’’ said Barry when he spotted us on the platform. “Where are you off to?’’

Joyce, my wife, explained we were off to London on a four-day holiday break.

Barry said he was taking his youngest daughter and one of her American friends up the clock tower of Big Ben at the Palace of Westminster. Would we care to join them?

You bet we would!

So at 2 pm last Tuesday we presented ourselves at Portcullis House, the splendid new Parliamentary office block on the other side of the road to the clock tower, there to be subjected to an intensive security check.

Barry was there to greet us. (You won’t get into Portcullis House unless your admission has been approved.) Ten minutes later, guided by an architect charged with the full-time care of the Palace of Westminster, we were toiling up the steps of Big Ben’s tower.

Big Ben is the world’s most famous clock. World time is measured from London. Early seafarers had problems assessing their whereabouts on the world’s oceans. To fix their exact location they needed a reliable clock. That reliability was eventually provided by the great clock-maker, Harrison.

With Harrison’s accurate time-keepers came the need for a fixed reference point, so the zero line of longitude was drawn through Greenwich.

London is the centre-point of world time, and Big Ben is the most famous symbol of time-keeping.

Some symbol!

First we made a quick circuit behind the clock’s four faces. Each of the dials is 23 feet in diameter. Each has a nine-foot long hour hand weighing 0.8 cwt and a 14 foot long minute hand weighing 2.5 cwt.

Then, after climbing 340 steps, the great bell itself - Big Ben - all 13.5 tons of it.

As Big Ben struck 3 pm last Tuesday I was almost within touching distance of it.

My ears are still ringing!

Later, Barry took us into the Commons debating chamber. And there was I, standing at the Despatch Box where Prime Minister Blair and all his senior colleagues face the verbal slings and arrows of an Opposition eager to dismantle their words.

The Chamber is not overwhelming in size - but utterly overwhelming in the richness of its history and significance.

Gloomsters say that we Brits are in danger of giving away our democracy. Fewer of us bother to vote in local and national elections. It’s become fashionable to express disillusionment with politics and politicians.

Fact is that politics, and politicians, now have to compete with so much more that demands our time and attention. More films, more radio programmes, more TV channels, more books, more hobbies, more travel…

Politics is something that we squeeze into a corner of our busy lives.

Perhaps politics needs more of a helping hand in our high schools. Some competition perhaps in which winning school classes in every Parliamentary constituency get to visit the Palace of Westminster - there to see for themselves all that we have to be proud of, all that we would be idiots to give away through lack of interest.

That was some lucky meeting we had with Barry. Joyce and I will never forget the afternoon when Big Ben bonged directly into our ears!