In a series of pieces, Uncut writers look back at election day 1997. Tristram Brown was a volunteer at the North West regional office.

You could touch the build up to polling day in 1997. Everywhere we went people wanted to talk about labour being in government. Flags, posters, banners everywhere. We were also supremely organised (but probably less so than my imperfect memory will allow me). We had an answer to every question we were going to be asked, we had a leaflet, a pledge card or a manifesto for everyone we met.

To this day, that election taught me that if you want to judge whether the party or our policies are popular you can see the ripples of support in the public. In order to penetrate the quiet reserve of public consciousness then there must be visible signs of it in the towns and villages of the country. There is no such thing as a silent revolution.

I spent the night working, collecting results as they came in and passing them on. There were parties everywhere, but the party staff and volunteers worked through the night, including in NW regional office pulling together results and passing intelligence on. This was before Wikipedia or the internet so it relied on networks of staff calling each other (mobile phones weren’t common then – pagers!). I was one of the first up the next morning opening the office and as an act of indulgence I remember answering the phones with “NW Labour Party, leaders of a new generation, can I help you?”

I went back into university the next week and my professor had filled in the paperwork for an extension on my deadlines on my behalf. Happy days.

Tris Brown was a volunteer in NW regional office between 1995-1997