Richard Baum

The weekend has been a very busy one. I must have shipped four-figures worth of leaflets myself, and of course I am just one small cog in the local election machine across Bury which has been whirring away spewing leaflets and letters out into doorsteps across the Borough. I was out in Holyrood and Besses wards as well as lots in St Mary’s, and if you saw a bedraggled person swimming across Prestwich at high tide during the downpour yesterday lunchtime, grimly holding onto some mulch that resembled a Focus leaflet, that would’ve been me. But I’m dry now. Just.

Being out so often does mean I get to meet lots of local people, to whom I must speak whilst encased in a whole body leaflet-suit. Today I sorted out an election day lift to the polls for somebody, and also took on some casework about the shoddy state of Sherbourne Court in the ward. I was out and about with Mary D’Albert, our candidate for St Mary’s, earlier on, and lots of people seemed delighted to meet the “lady from the leaflet” in person, which was nice too. There are only so many people you can meet in community meetings and on the doorstep, but at this time of year when lots more time than usual is spent out on the streets of the ward, there’s plenty of opportunity to say hello to lots more people.

Monday is my 27th birthday. This last year has been pretty good, and has seen a lot of changes - new house, new car, new job, and of course my election as a local Councillor. Hopefully year number 28 will be just as good. But, like all recent years, and maybe like lots more to come, I am cursed by accident of birth to spend the auspicious day campaigning. I never liked being born in April, because I was one of the younger ones at school. I had to watch friends get their BMXs or Super Nintendos or driving licenses many long and interminable months before I did. And now I like my April birthday even less, because it’s right in the middle of the busiest time of the year. I share my birthday with Sedgley Councillor Andrew Garner though, so I know he shares my pain. And Mary D’Albert has an April birthday too, so we’re all in this mire together, and we can moan in unison whilst we shove things in letterboxes rather than blow out candles and eat jelly and ice cream.

I await the present-and-card-fest tomorrow. Tam let me go mad in HMV, but then stole the CDs off me as soon as we left the shop, so now I have half a dozen waiting for me to unwrap in the morning. I don’t know what else is coming my way. So long as it isn’t 500 leaflets, I don’t care.

Rick