up to Blackburn on the train to present my nominations papers

Wilson and I travelled up to Blackburn on the train  to present my nominations papers and to pay the £500 deposit. 

The end destination of the train we were travelling on was to Glasgow Central station.  I haven’t been to Glasgow since my mum died in 1980 but it was as though a bolt of lightning had hit me. A well of tears suddenly flooded from somewhere deep inside me when I saw the destination of the train.  I had no idea that this was even in me but I suddenly remembered arriving in London with Gary when he was little, just six years old at the time and I wanted to be able to somehow go back in time to change everything that’s happened. I also had a desperate urge to grab Gary and to take him back to Glasgow to safety.

Suddenly I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing as something had opened up a part deep inside of me  that had unleashed a depth of emotion that took me aback  and totally overwhelmed me.  

Logically I know that Gary would be no more safe in Glasgow than in London and I love London, it’s my home now but it was an instinctive thing of somehow getting my son to safety and Glasgow my birth town instinctively and illogically seemed like safety to me.  Even writing this is making the tears flow again.

Isn’t it odd that we often don’t even know ourselves just what’s locked up inside of us and  the depth of emotion suppressed but living in the very heart of you.

I’m still shaken by this

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Because of a volcanic dust cloud from Iceland all U.K flights were cancelled. The train was jam packed with no available seats. When the train was about to leave we sat in someone elses reserved seats but Virgin decided to delay the train departure  by fifteen minutes, so the holder of the reserved tickets apologetically and rightly claimed his seats back.  

I thought we’d have to stand all the way to Blackburn but the lady serving tea told us we could go into the first class dining carriage as there were empty seats there that we could use. I was so glad we didn’t have to stand all the way. All the corridors were packed with people and bags and several others who were standing were also directed to first class seats so it was a good journey after all with tea and sandwiches.

 On the train we got a call from Mike West, a presenter for BBC Radio Lancashire asking me to do an interview when we were there. We arrived in Blackburn and went straight to the Town Hall, handed in my papers and paid the £500 deposit.

 When we came out I talked to some people in Blackburn and asked what changes really mattered to them in their lives that they believed a good politician could help them to achieve.

The first man said that holes in the road is what bothered him most.

The next person I spoke to was a young female student that said being free from student loans and debt is what mattered to her most. When I asked her about civil liberties she said that she wasn’t really political and never thought about that. Her inclination was to vote Conservative.

A young man I spoke to said that training or work opportunity was closest to his heart as he’d worked with young unemployed people and saw how the lack of work and money had affected them.  He was an undecided voter who was waiting to listen to the leaders debates before deciding.

 I spoke to a woman who was a Carer for a Down’s Syndrome child and her priority was to get more help for people with mental health issues and their Carers. This lady did care about civil liberties and felt they weren’t being addressed by politicians. 

Many people I spoke to didn’t vote and had no intention of doing so as they no longer had faith in any politicians.

 We then headed off for radio Lancashire and did a short interview with Mike West. He basically asked me only one question several times and wanted me to say that I was standing only to gain more publicity for Gary in order to stop him being extradited. He also said that I wasn’t really interested in civil liberties was I?  

Everyone that knows me knows that I’ve always cared deeply about civil liberties and that I’m greatly concerned with the erosion of them and believe that we all have to stand up and speak out in order to fight for and retain our civil liberties that are being eroded by Labour faster than we could ever have thought possible.

 It reminds me of Orwell’s 1984 and how the majority of people are compliant until it’s too late.

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 We then headed back to the Railway station to go home. We changed at Preston and found that our train was over one hour late. There were a lot of photographers and newsmen on the platform and one of them recognised me and started chatting. It turned out that they were permanently travelling around with Gordon Brown during his election campaign.

He said that as Gordon Brown had been rehearsing for tonight’s leaders debate, to prevent the press from becoming bored the Labour party had arranged for them to  spend the day with Peter Mandelson. Apparently Peter Mandelson put on a dance/show for them in Blackpool  and was by all accounts a pretty good dancer.

 The journalist was as concerned as us about the erosion of civil liberties and we spent almost an hour talking and before we knew it the train arrived. We got into London’s Euston station well over an hour late but got back just in time to see the first ever televised leaders debate.

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