Friday, May 11, 2007

Great Welsh Political Anecdotes: No 94

Welsh AM Alun Cairns tells this wonderful anecdote...

On the last evening before polling in 1987, the late, great man, Stefan Terlezki was rather despondent; having calculated that he was unlikely to hold his seat in Cardiff West. By 9:45pm, all his supporters had given up but Stefan still trudged on. He was canvassing a row of terraced houses in Canton, where curtains were twitching, and nosy parkers in the street were keeping an eye on him from afar. He knocked on one door and an Ena Sharples type character answered. Before Stefan had a chance to even introduce himself, the ‘Ena Sharples’ in her dressing gown, slippers and hair-net, launched into him and Conservative policies. She is reported to have gone on and on and on for 5 or 10 minutes or even longer. Stefan; dejected, demoralised and simply fed up, wholly aware of all the on-lookers in the windows opposite, simply responded by saying “Madam, why don’t you F**k Off”. With that, came a “hear, hear” and a cheer from the house opposite! Needless to say, he turned around and walked back to the campaign headquarters.

7 comments:

David Anthony said...

Must this go down as the record number of posts in a day in the history of blogdom?

And should we read anything into this obsession with the number 94 I wonder?

Alwyn ap Huw said...

Wales has been blessed with a number of good MP's from all parties.

Party affiliation apart I can't think of many MPs elected to Welsh constituencies who have been a total disappointment. Sadly Stefan Terlezki, was one of the exceptions. Alun is a good AM and a credit to the Assembly, but if Steffan is one of his heroes he needs to think again about the nature of heroism

David said...

Stefan actually was a great and a very brave man. He once told me that when he arrived in Felixstowe after the end of the war, seeking asylum from the Ukraine, he was processed, given a pound note, and sent off to make his way in his new country.

"And that," said Stefan, "was the only pound I ever received from the British Government. I earned every penny for myself afterwards."

Colin D said...

alwyn ao huw: I think you may have a point there. My reasoning is that the rubbish comes over the Taff, crosses offa's dyke, and bloody well ends up here, and wont bugger off back, despite my pleadings.

To re-write the adage: all taffies may not be twerps but all twerps are Taffies. any offense is purely intentional, and please refer all writs to Anne Robinson c/o BBC London.

Blamerbell said...

Finally, proof that someone other than me reads Alun Cairns' blog:)

. said...

How articulate of you Colin D.

Niles said...

Obsession with 94 - an homage to Private Eye, shurely?