In 1970 I was approached by Ron Greenwood and asked if I would be willing to let my name to go forward for Rushden Urban District Council. It was the last day of nominations and we raced around to get the ten signatures needed to nominate me. Mr. Bill Crowdy was the electoral officer and he wasn’t a very helpful person for anyone who wanted to be a councillor. I did no canvassing and had no agent. Cyril Faulkner was a senior politician in Rushden and after two recounts, the first count Mrs. Anker, who was the Conservative candidate, had ten votes more than me and at the second count I had five votes more than her and so I was duly elected. The result for Rushden Urban District was 10 Labour and 10 Conservative which was great I thought. It was the first time that Labour had won as many seats. I was soon invited to be a chairman of the Leisure and Parks. That was the beginning. The reason that I got the job for a councillor was because I had worked to get development of Hayden Road outside the Rushden Town Football ground. It was a private road the local authority wouldn’t even consider doing anything about it. So that’s why I became involved in Local Government. I worked with everyone in the council and I did quite a few things. Local Government reorganisation was coming in1972 and so it became important to discuss who was going to become partners with Rushden, forming up district councils in those days. After much discussion it was decided to go with the rural area of Irthlingborough, Raunds, Thrapston and Oundle.

Rushden was the biggest authority and so they had twelve seats in East Northants and I became elected to East Northants in 1973. East Northants and the Rural Urban District Councils were in tandem for twelve months. I stood down in 1976 from East Northants Council. In the meantime I had been elected to Northamptonshire County Council until 1977. I was vice chairman of Leisure and Libraries at that time. I got involved in many projects, the book launches by Jane Probin a TV presenter. In 1977 I lost the election by 17 votes. In 1981 Northamptonshire County Council I won and Labour was in control and I was in control in 1981. I had written the manifesto for the highways and I became elected chairman for the Planning and Transportation Committee. It is always important to note that in 1973 when the Labour Party was elected to the Northampton County Council with a big majority; the chief executive in those days was the Clerk, and he decided that it wasn’t going to work with a labour controlled council. It’s very important to remember that he left in 1973 as soon as we got in.

In the meantime I was invited to join the Co-op, Rushden Co-op Society. I was involved in Toc H and in many other things in the town. But I still managed to do the County Council work.

In the meantime the reason I could do that was that I worked for myself. The reason I worked for myself was that I wasn’t going to be made redundant by anyone else any more. It went on like that. 1973 right through to the next election in 1977. We lost election control but I was still elected in that particular time. I served on the County Council until 1977. I had to stand down then. I was re-elected in 1981 and I became a chairman again of Planning and Transportation. I also was elected to serve on many Authorities. Most of Northamptonshire roads were in a terrible state. I created 14 plans for different bypasses in Northamptonshire.

There were many roads that weren’t made up .There was no dual carriageway on the A45. The A45 was a county road but from the M1 to Daventry it was a national responsibility. So I changed all that, made pleas with the government and transport secretary, and went on to do all the things I wanted to do. I won many battles with the government getting supplementary grants towards the roads network. That’s why we have a by pass at Wollaston and Oundle. The only failure I had was Isham and even now in 2015 it’s still a problem at Isham but the people in Isham were responsible for not having a bypass at Isham because they couldn’t agree among themselves on where they would like it. There are many stories about Isham that I got involved with.

The County Council at that time, I was putting forward so many proposals to the County Surveyor at that time but the County Surveyor decided he couldn’t do that and he left; the County Surveyor of the Highways and Planning. It is worth noting that the planning department at 1981 was considered to be redundant and the Conservative Party were actually going to make everyone in the planning department redundant. I wouldn’t let that happen because I needed a plan for waste collection, a plan for mineral extraction, because we were destroying the countryside by just willy nilly digging up holes for sand and gravel and there was a whole range of things that I thought up a structured plan for the development of the whole of Northamptonshire to 2015/16 which is where we are now.

All the things were happening in my life and in 1982 I was seriously ill and I was off for six months with a duodenal ulcer. This happened to me in a conference in Edinburgh and I was taken to and looked after in Edinburgh Western General Hospital. Being in the Toc H movement, the people of Toc H movement took care of Megan and I was helped by the St. John’s Ambulance, ( I was president of the St. John’s Ambulance), to get back to Rushden on the train and picked up at Peterborough Station by St. John’s Ambulance.

I’d been out for sometime. But the most important thing, the officers came and met me here. This room’s done a lot of work in the development of Northamptonshire. And the most important date when I decided to return to the council was 26th October 1982. There were two big issues. The A14 was called the A1-M1 link in those days. They had been discussing this particular road structure since 1973 and it was now 1982 and the Conservatives were opposing the A14 from day one. I went to the meeting of the sub committee dealing with Abington Street pedestrianisation and the A1-M1 link. Two major issues to develop Northampton itself and a transport link from the European countries to the west and the centre of the country linking up the A1 to the M1.

We had a hung council and as I went in the leader of the Conservatives said “We are going to vote against all of this today” and I told him I’d use my casting vote. Remember I’d just come back from six months with an illness. And I just decided that I would use my casting vote. After the meeting it was discussed and every one of the Conservatives and Labour voted for the A1-M1 link. And Linda Chalker, who was the minister, when I met her in Leicester a few months later couldn’t understand how I’d won over the Conservatives. Remember it was a Conservative Government at the time. The fact that I’d fought Linda Chalker who wanted a single carriageway for the A14. She wanted just a single carriageway. “That would be adequate” she said. But I challenged her and it was dual carriageway all the way from the A1 to the M1. There’s still difficulties with the Catworth junction. I argued about the Catworth junction. 2015 it’s now become a reality a grade separated junction.

That was my work in those times. I went to many of places. I went to the Transport Roads Research Laboratory. I learned quite an awful lot. I went to Cornwall to learn how to transport wet materials in half-mile long trains and so the whole range of study went on to make Northants a better place, and we have done that. In 1985 I was still elected. The Conservatives won the County Council Elections but we still had a fairly good time and I was shadow chairman for that time. So we got on with the bypasses and we really got on providing the Brackley bypass, the Towcester bypass, and the Stanwick and Raunds bypass took place in 1985. The A45, I was in trouble with the authority because I invited by wife to open the A45. We got the road made and Megan was very proud and without Megan I would not have ever been able to do any of the things I’ve done. She was the backbone of me.

In the meantime I was still a governor in nearly every school in the town and as a Governor I was chairman at Alfred Street School, chairman at other schools and I worked behind at the schools. The reason for working at the schools was I was a Governor at the girls’ school and there were ten, eleven year old girls arrived there who couldn’t read or write and I went to the County Council to get me back into the Infant Schools to make sure that no child left being unable to read and write. That was one of the achievements I had in doing that. I was still treasurer at Toc H, I was on the Co-op Board and all these things as well as being a councillor. There are many things about being a councillor especially if you are a chairman. You are invited to so many places especially the villages and there are 276 villages in Northamptonshire. And I had difficulties with nearly every one of them. 1992 was quite an eventful time. There was a 37 percent poll and I won with a majority of 240 in the West Ward, Maye Dicks won the East Ward and Paul Wix won the South Ward and so we had three representatives from Rushden and that was quite a thing for Rushden to have all the seats for Rushden Town on the County Council. We all travelled together to Northampton. 1992. For years you think you can do everything possible. But you have to deal with opposition, you have to deal with people, you have to deal with all things. Everything is a challenge and every planning application was a challenge and the application for extracting minerals, the waste system in Northamptonshire was in a poor state and I spent an awful lot of time creating the waste collection service because I’ve always wanted the County Council not only to provide the collection service but also the delivery service. The County Council is responsible for getting rid of your waste but the district council is only responsible for collecting it. And there comes the difficulty as they didn’t want to work closely. I arranged many meetings with all district councils, to put forward their views. The biggest problem after the re-organisation was Highway Management Agencies. Each Authority in 1972 was given the power to carry on with their Highway Agency. I persuaded the County not to have the East Northants Agency. Corby was difficult. They didn’t want to hand over their Highway Agency responsibility. I ended up with Northampton being the only authority that wanted to carry on with Highway Agencies.

1972 we created the re-organisation. 1982 I had to try and create a better system. The borough council wanted to increase their administration fee quite considerably and I wouldn’t accept that and so we had a long meeting but they were given another ten years in Highway Agency at the same fees that they had before.

So I was always able from my budget to provide surplus whatever happened. There’s so many things. I went right through to 1997. The General Elections was in 1997. As we all know there was a landslide and Labour won 418 seat in the government and the County Elections. I won by 612 votes which is the highest number of votes that I had ever had and it was the first time I had never had a recount. So I was elected as vice-chairman of the Environment and Chairman of the Lands and Buildings. Also keeping my Euro-interest. So I went to Brussels during that four year period as a representative for East Northants and Northamptonshire County Council. In the meantime I arranged to do a project for Toc H at Brixworth Country Park.

It’s a big story. It started in 1995. Many people don’t realise how Northamptonshire is. There is so much private land that the public can’t access. It was my chance to have Country Parks.

The first one was at Irchester and we gradually built up country parks the number of country parks all over Northamptonshire. Brixworth was undeveloped. The land had been given to the County Council by a developer after the Brixworth bypass. I thought it would be a good idea to have a district country park with access for all, whatever their disability, whatever their condition. It took me five years. It developed into the Millennium project for Northamptonshire.

This will be the only country park within the Millennium Project and so we were second and we were awarded £700,000. The actual cost of the project was 1.6 million pounds. We had a unique organisation of the private and the voluntary sector working together. Toc H, County Council and Anglian Water, who had the reservoir, working closely together. We’d been awarded a lot of money £736,000 towards the £1.6 million. I had to start thinking how I would raise £200,000 from the voluntary sector. That would be interesting but the Landfill Tax had come in and people didn’t know how to access it. I went to put in my bid and the County Council agreed when I put my bid in for Toc H. I was awarded £200,000 pounds from landfill. That was the beginning of getting money from the landfill tax. Quite an important thing. I was still working at that time full time in all those areas and I used to work my time wherever it was needed.

I’ve done almost everything in the County Council. The failure that I could see was not getting the Isham bypass, because I was determined to do that in the beginning. Before the English Regions were created there was a voluntary English Regions Association and I was a member of East Midlands Region.

There eight regions in the country and I objected with London being part of the south-East. Because that meant the region was the best. The GDP was more because of London. So I suggested London as a region so that’s why we have nine regions. The most important part for me was 2000. I decided after being chairman for one year that I would stand down from local politics.

I’d finished all the chairmanships and I had three commissions to do in my last year but I was offered chairman of the County Council my last year so I could develop in certain areas. The Chief Executive of Northamptonshire said “I want Harry to be a delegate..... for older people in Northamptonshire. I was given that job when I was retired. I organised the whole thing in Northampton and it took me a year to do that and I was also elected to be part of the East Midlands. I had a meeting in Nottingham and I was elected from the East Midlands to be on the UK Older Peoples Advisory Group. I did that from 2001 until 2008. I was secretary of the UK Older Peoples Advisory Group right up unto 2008. The biggest achievement there was to create the National Bus Pass. It took me from 2002 – 2004 to prepare the papers required by the government and I presented them to the department of transport in 2004 and in 2008 the bus pass was launched and that was considered my biggest achievement. That’s how that came about; because of travelling all over the country as Older People’s Advisory Group.

We had people from all regions England Northern Ireland, Scotland Wales and we had three delegates from each group. I was secretary. Every meeting it was the same thing highlighted. Public transport. Older people wanted public transport. They didn’t want to be isolated. I did a paper on rural transport 1973. That was for Age UK, Age Concern as it was then. I was allowed thirty minutes in the House of Commons on my paper.

Harry with his MBE

Rural transport has been the key thing. That’s how we got the Rushden Rider. 1981 the Rushden Rider was created, a community bus service in all the villages and all the two had buses. The whole thing about it was that the main bus companies wouldn’t entertain them. Public transport was the main thing. There are a lot of stories about Rushden Rider. There was some support from East Northants and some support from Rushden Council. The whole region of getting transport for me is the big thing in my life. Wollaston bypass, Bozeat bypass. Rushden bypass I took to Ken Clarke in 1992. A Cambridge meeting with all the Authorities. I put to him that we needed a bypass to Rushden either East or West. He said choose where you want it. And I said we’ll have it East and he created the bypass which wasn’t constructed until 2002. It takes a long while. The A45 should have been duelled all the way right through to Thrapston. The land was bought up. I created the width for a dual carriageway by taking all the meetings on my side of East Northants.

The difficulties with the landowners were that it was going straight through the middle of their properties and they all have different boundaries. All roadworks are difficult, all highways developments are difficult, all extractions are difficult, all housing planning is difficult. Abington Street; I asked all the traders to have meetings and tell me what they wanted. I had meetings with the Chamber of Trade in Northampton every month. I had meetings with everybody in the businesses every month, to discuss their problems and how we could solve them.

I enjoyed my time. And in 2004 I was awarded the MBE for my services.

Harry Graham MBE