Posts Tagged ‘Joe Ashton’

Election 1997 20th anniversary: Britpop in London, Coronation Street in Bassetlaw

02/05/2017, 09:05:54 PM

In a series of pieces, Uncut writers look back at election day 1997. Lucy Ashton is the daughter of Joe Ashton, MP for Bassetlaw 1968-2001 and a political journalist.

While the Millbank machine was thundering through key seats in 1997, it was business as usual in Bassetlaw, my father’s constituency in North Nottinghamshire.

My dad had been the Labour MP for 29 years and had lived through the toughest times ever to face both the party and the country, including the devastating Miners’ Strike. He had won successful elections through the bleakest of periods so the media monitoring, battle bus and key message cards somewhat passed us by as we did business as usual.

My dad was a big supporter of Blair and a fan of Alistair Campbell (mainly through their shared love of football) but he knew his constituency better than anyone. Geographically, it’s huge and diverse so he would spend his days hammering posters into farmers’ fields, then door knocking with a loud speaker on disadvantaged council estates. The London Labour party with its Britpop celebrity endorsements seemed a world away.

One of the main towns in Bassetlaw is Worksop which was lucky enough to have a wonderful old building called the Labour Party Headquarters, ideally positioned opposite a pub. It was a great curiously shaped building, full of character and heritage and was used for everything from storing leaflets to holding important ballot meetings.

My dad was in his 60s and I remember him lying down on a 1960s-style orange and brown settee to have a nap mid-afternoon.

But this time my dad knew that finally, he could celebrate a Labour landslide, so while Blair was in his private plane, we were preparing for a street party.

We used chairs to unofficially close the little back street where the HQ building was, effectively shutting off access to the pub but given the landlord was a long-standing party supporter no one seemed to mind.

I wore a bright red polo shirt – nothing fancy to celebrate such a historic occasion – and spent the whole night playing games with the little kids, drinking and laughing.

I remember dancing to ‘Come On Eileen’ with my mum and a group of the Labour party woman, hugging and stamping our feet. This was our time after years of fighting. I still think of that moment when I hear the song.

While Millbank had create a new era of campaigning which would change the way every election was  fought in future, in Bassetlaw it felt like we had returned to the days of Coronation Street in the 1960s, of Harold Wilson, of simple booze-ups and happy times.

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“The match shouldn’t go ahead” Former MP Joe Ashton recalls the horror of Hillsborough

26/04/2016, 10:00:35 PM

Former Labour MP for Bassetlaw Joe Ashton was at the Hillsborough Disaster and saw the tragedy unfold. He later became a director of Sheffield Wednesday and lives a few miles from the ground. Here, in an interview with his daughter Lucy Ashton, he recounts the horror of the day.

After a historic inquest lasting two years, jurors today returned a number of verdicts on the Hillsborough Disaster. The most damning was that the 96 fans had been unlawfully killed.

The human crush killed 96 people and injured 766 others at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on 15 April 1989.

Bassetlaw Labour MP Joe Ashton, who had campaigned in Parliament for improvements to football stadiums, was a lifelong Sheffield Wednesday supporter. He had been invited to the match by the Football Association and was sitting with England manager Bobby Robson.

He remembers: “Around 15 minutes before kick-off, we started to see the crowd. I said to Bobby ‘there’s going to be trouble’ because part of the stand was empty but the other part was full and you could see the crowd getting pushed.”

“We went downstairs into the changing room where all the players were ready to go and we started telling people that the match shouldn’t go ahead.”

“The referee didn’t know what to do as people were telling him different things so finally he sent the players out.”

The match started but Joe says it quickly became obvious something catastrophic was unfolding in the stand.

“People were getting terribly crushed,” he said. “You could see people jumping on the pitch to save themselves, quite rightly. I told Bobby Robson ‘this is trouble mate’ and the ref stopped the match.”

(more…)

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