One of my favourite blogs, Municipal Dreams, has a post today about Harlow New Town in Essex, where I spent many of my school holidays throughout the 1950s staying with my Uncle Dave and Auntie Nannie. Uncle Dave was active in the Plumbers' Trade Union and Secretary of its Harlow branch.
I became a Labour Party Birmingham city councillor in 1971 and my Uncle Dave was elected to Harlow Council in 1972. It was one of the proudest days of my life. My Auntie Nannie also became a Labour councillor.
My aunt and uncle never bought their new town corporation/council house and lived in it until they died, my Auntie Nannie a couple of years ago. They were a living, shining example of what being socialists is all about.
I took the above photograph of Uncle Dave in 1955, when I was eleven with my first (second-hand) camera. We are standing on a roof overlooking Harlow town centre.
The reason I went to Harlow was to give my maternal grandmother a break from looking after me. I never lived with my mother.
If you have not yet visited Municipal Dreams, do it now! You will not be disappointed.
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