It wasn't like this in my young day!

I get overwhelmed by info about elections here -from all 3 main parties and especially from my Lib Dem friends! Somehow it all seemed more fun when I first got involved.

I was a founder member of the Young Libs in our city in 1962. Council Elections were held every year with one third being replaced each time. We tried to canvas everyone on the Electoral register and kept a record of those we hoped would vote for us although in practice we were rather too small a team to do this in the early years!
In 1963 the Liberals made their first stand with 4 candidates including 2 young Libs, one of whom was me! I was a District midwife at that time and nurses and midwives had not been encouraged to be political before then! I was standing in a ward where there was rarely an election as the Constituency was firmly Tory. There was a good deal of excitement. I had an agent who had much experience and 'showed me the ropes'. Her husband was very ill and she was glad of a diversion at times.
I went out delivering leaflets on my own. Once I met the Chairman of the Young Conservatives (these held a very popular Saturday hop each week funded by their Party). He stopped to apologise for delivering leaflets for my opponent blaming his mother for volunteering his services and added 'Don't worry, I'll be voting for you'!
My mentor told me that on the Tuesday before the election she was at the women's meeting of my local Church. At the end the leader asked them who they were voting for on Thursday. Why Mrs B they chorused - it was the respectable thing to do! 'Well, I'm not' was the answer 'I'm voting for the Liberal'. They were shocked into silence.
My colleagues and students got involved, some patients put up posters, and on the day we had young tellers at every polling station- teacher students and theological students mainly and they caused consternation among some older Tories who had never had such an experience before! Some friends from further afield came to help me too. One told me he had given a lift to an elderly lady, the mother of one of my patients, who said she had voted for me and to make sure had signed the voting slip!
My opponent, as the voting slips piled up equally in 100s kept asking things like 'how many cars did you have? and I kept saying 'I don't know'. In the end she won by about 100. If I had got more people in the Housing Estate to vote perhaps the story would have had a different ending!
As it was we did get a Liberal in the following year but by that time I was studying for a degree in Sociology!