We start down at the market at first light laying out the gear from store, than build up the displays as more fresh stuff arrives on my van from the wholesalers. Finally after the early-morning customers have been served, we start putting out the campaign display. Signs, posters, leaflets, all play their part, as does the cheerful repartee with the customers. I always get a big lift from my customers, Northampton people of all races and creeds who are very supportive of what I'm doing.
On the funny side, every now and then I get certain Lib-Dem councillors come down. Full of wind and the other thing they are, with wild hopes of Clegg winning the election and Simpson winning in Northampton North. They've cost me thousands of pounds since they moved me from the bottom of the market, these windy blunderers, yet they swan about as if they've done somebody a good turn. It's good to think they'll be gone in a year's time, kicked out by the Northampton electorate in the local elections. Good riddance to bad rubbish!
We had the BBC down here last week, filming for an hour or more on my stalls. Trying to serve customers with a camera in your face, moving about with you wherever you go, is a strange experience, but I loved every minute of it. Hard on the heels of the BBC - or was it just before? - we had a newspaper photoshoot, with Brian Binley and Michael Ellis dropping by to pay their respects.
On the paperwork side, what a rush it was when my artwork stuff came back from vetting at Royal Mail, to get it to the printers in time for production and boxing to be handed over to Royal Mail for delivery next week. The liaison and paperwork needed at every stage does your head in, and I was glad to pass some of it on to my printers to see it all through to completion. A big thanks to all the staff at Swan Press who really pulled the stops out to meet the deadlines. Congratulations for a fine job, everybody!
Then there's the meetings you get asked to attend, as a candidate. The evening ones aren't so bad, although after 12-14 hours working on the market it's an effort to get off your backside and suit up and sally forth. But the daytime meetings, where you have to change out of your work clothes, do your stuff, then get back and change into your work clobber again, are hard work, a bit like a mountain climb, but I enjoy every minute of it.
I'm trying to get a lot of this election filmed, seen from my own perspective, as it's really a bit of local Northampton history, and would be nice for people to look back on in years to come.
A customer said to me recently ' Don't be a voice in the wilderness, Fitzy', and I must admit that's how it feels at times, and you do begin to wonder. Then a customer comes along and says what a fine job I'm doing, and how her neighbours are voting for me too, and it really buoys me up again. As another customer said, 'It's all about love, ain't it, Fitzy?', and bless her, you know she's right. A love of the market and its wide range of traders and shoppers, many of whom are like personal friends; a love of Northampton itself and its variety of people, including its characters, eccentrics, and lovable dafties; and a love of being here at this time in a democracy which allows even a market trader to have a crack at Parliament.
As we approach the final straight I must say I've loved every minute of it so far, and would like to say a very big thank you to everyone out there who is supporting me, and my respects to those other candidates who have been decent enough to engage me in conversation at meetings, or have stopped by at my 'campaign headquarters' on the market for a chat.
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