We are all in this together

One bright sunny morning I was standing on the station at Chesterfield waiting to catch a train to Nottingham. The train was a Sheffield-London express. The train was approaching the station rather faster than usual I thought.  Indeed it was, it shot through the station at full speed and we saw the rear carriage disappear round the curve beyond the station.

Consternation.  The next train to London, or Nottingham for that matter,  was not for a couple of hours. The following train from Sheffield did not stop at Chesterfield. Its next stop was Derby and thence to  Birmingham. This particular morning it was brought to a stop by the signals at Chesterfield and we boarded the train.

At Derby we transferred to a train for Trent and Nottingham.  Passengers for London changed at Trent.  On the journey from Derby to Trent I had sat across from me the MP for Chesterfield, Eric Varley who was a member of Harold Wilson's  Cabinet, Roy Mason, MP for  Barnsley, also a member of the Cabinet and the Labour MP for Derby South.

The three of them were trying to work out if Labour had retained control of Derbyshire County Council. In those days elections were every three years but matters were complicated by the existence of aldermen who  were elected by councillors for six years.  Half the aldermen came up for re-election every three years.  The party in control of the council would pack the aldermanic bench with its cronies.

I did wonder if it was Eric Varley's presence on the platform at Chesterfield that led to the Derby train being stopped and had he not been we would have had to kick our heels for a couple of hours.