History: A look back at the news in Harlow back in 1997.

By Ian Beckett

LAST month we looked at events in Harlow in January 1977. This month we leap forward twenty years and explore February 1997. 1997 was the 50th Anniversary of Harlow New Town, it was a General Election year, it was the year that Princess Diana died, and on the same day I got married. All but one of these events was covered by one of the town’s local newspapers, the Harlow Star. The Harlow Star began covering the town’s news and events in June 1980 and by 1997 it was well established and popular. 

Harlow Star – No. 869 – Thursday, February 6, 1997 “Porters Thwart Hospital Raiders. 

Harlow’s Princess Alexandra must have featured on the front page of Harlow’s newspapers, and as lead stories online, on countless occasions since it first opened its doors to patients in 1958, but to the best of my knowledge this is the only occasion that the hospital porters hit the headlines. 

In the early hours of the morning of Friday 31st January, a gang of young thieves from London, broke into the radiology department at PAH, intent on making off with £14,000 worth of computer equipment. The damage they caused to the departments nuclear medicine scanner left the unit out of action for four days, but their plans were ultimately thwarted thanks to the diligence of two night porters who alerted the police.

Department Manager Martin Baghurst said, “If it wasn’t for the quick-thinking of the portering staff it would have left the radiology department in absolute chaos.”

One of the porters, who did not wish to be named said “I’ve worked here for eight years, and I’ve never been involved in anything like this before. Security is not part of my job but if I see anything you have to start the ball rolling.”

Battle of the Bands

“A gang of young thieves” – the youth of today, or yesterday, and tomorrow. Commentary upon the behaviour and activities of young people has always been stable fodder for journalists, and there was plenty of evidence of this in the Harlow Star in February 1997. In fact, alongside the main front page story is a photo and feature entitled: Boys square up for band battle…with a little help from a friend. “Pint-sized pop stars Whirlpool” with an average age of 11, were invited to play a special Sunday afternoon set of covers of Oasis, Nivana and Paul Weller. The youngsters also were lucky enough to meet and char to cult “punkster” John Otway, renowned for his surreal sense of humour and self-depreciating underdog persona. Whirlpool were brothers Henry and Thomas Offord, Joe Galvin, Gary Dring and Jonathan Humphrey, and we ask where are they now?

Yobs rampaging on Harlow’s streets

A major contrast is found on letters page that week with one screaming out “Little terrors are causing big problems.” The letter begins “SIR – This is a message to all parents living in southern Harlow. Do you know where your children are at night? You don’t? Well I do! They are vandalising on my estate, damaging my property and not only using foul language but also coming up with information about sexual deviation that I have never heard of!” The letter explains that this reign of terror, this “nightly siege” was being conducted by children between the ages of 7 and 15, “none of whom live on this estate”. “A nine-year-old girl recently tried to hit me with a plank!” elaborates the writer, “So parents, if your kids are out after dark do come and collect them.” Name and address supplied – Ed.

These “estate” children had clearly not heard of the Woodcraft Folk, a “Youth movement with roots in age old traditions.” In 1997 this youth group was the focus of a full-page feature and a photograph of the group setting off for a hike around Hatfield Forest. The Woodcraft Folk, a movement for children and young people, offered a place where children will grow in confidence, learn about the world, and start to understand how to value our planet and each other.

Founded in south London in 1925 by Dr Leslie Paul, at a time when the country was still feeling the impact and costs of the Great War, and the unemployment and depression of the early 1920’s, rooted in the values of the co-operative movement, The Woodcraft Folk was set up in Harlow in the late 1950’s by Geoff and Shelia Parker. Geoff and Shelia lived in The Fortunes; Geoff worked at Key Glass and Shelia was a school playground assistant.

At the height of its popularity there were thirteen different Woodcraft Folk groups spread across Harlow; indeed, I belonged to the Tye Green Group that used to meet every Tuesday in the hall of Purford Green Junior School. In the 1997, the feature in the Harlow Star focused upon Roger Pickering, the local leader at the time, who was celebrating his 50th year as a Woodcraft Folk member, in both Loughton and Harlow. By that time there were only two groups remaining our town; today there are none, and the closest group is eleven miles away in Waltham Abbey. Roger attributed the decline in numbers to the lack of suitable volunteer leaders. He said “It’s not that we can’t attract the children, it’s finding the right type of leaders. You have to be a certain kind of person to be able to cope with excitable youngsters. If we had more people with the right qualities helping at just one or two sessions a month we could do so much more.”

================

The youth of the day, in February 1997, were not a significant focus of Harlow’s local politicians, perhaps that’s worthy of note. To what degree are the needs and aspirations of future electorates ever given the consideration they warrant? Answers on a postcard, in the comments section, or on a Facebook post! 

However, with the General Election only three months away it was clear that the gloves were off, and election fever had set in. 

In the blue corner, for the Conservatives, was Jerry Hayes, a barrister who had grown up in Epping, and who had held the parliamentary seat of Harlow since 1983 when he had ousted longstanding Labour MP Stan Newens. 

In the red corner, for Labour, was Bill Rammell, a well-established and popular Councillor since 1985 and chair of Harlow Council’s ruling Labour group.

At the bottom of the front page of the first February 1997 edition of the Harlow Star, the battleground is laid bare with a short but nonetheless punchy and pointed story entitled “Gummer brands council ‘one of the worst in country’”. 

“Environmental supremo” (as the Star describes him) John Selwyn Gummer, in seeking to support Mr Hayes campaign, lambasts Harlow’s Labour run administration, who had, apparently “spent £28,000 on a flower bed outside the town hall and had blown its financial reserves before the last General Election in the hope of a change of government. Quick to retort “Council leader Mike Danvers told the Star ‘Harlow residents must be completely sick of hearing their MP perpetuate misinformation and untruths about their council.” He said the flower bed had cost only £6,700, dismissing the figure of £28,000 as ‘the wildest exaggeration we’ve come across yet’”.

The footer to the story tells the readers: “Labour blasts MP over grant rules” – see page 5. The ping-pong of politics is as old as the hills!

The report by the Star’s News Editor, Paul Newman (real name!) informed readers that “The national Labour Party is to target Harlow MP Jerry Hayes and other Tories in marginal seats in a new campaign against the Government’s local authority grants system.” Labour environment spokesperson Frank Dobson complained that “residents in Westminster contributed 10 per cent towards the Council Tax while those in Harlow paid more than four times as much – a whopping forty-five per cent!” Council leader Mike Danvers (again) demanded an apology from Mr Hayes, claiming “he failed to back Harlow’s bid to secure reasonable funding and was promoting myths about the cost and efficiency of the authority’s services.” 

Most people, or at least those of a certain age, know the outcome of the May 1997 General Election. It was kind of momentous.

========

We finish our second edition of “All Our Yesterdays” on the calm and tranquillity of the River Stort and a good news story with a happy conclusion.

Beverley Rouse, a well-known and personable member of the Harlow Star team, reported on the efforts of a band of volunteers to give disabled people the chance to enjoy the water-borne holidays. The catchy headline “Boat project launched on a wave of opportunity” is slightly misleading, insofar as The Canal Boat Project referred to was born six years earlier in 1991, when several local community education workers noticed that disabled young people were missing out on the opportunity to experience water holidays. 

One of the Canal Boat Project’s trustees Tony Moore (pictured alongside fellow trustees Derek Wilmot and Derek Fenny) said “A number of us had used canal boats, taking along young people, and we noticed it was difficult to get wheelchairs on and off the boats.” The project aimed to build a specially adapted canal boat with a strong emphasis upon accessibility.

Jill West, the project secretary said “The able-bodied people will have to adapt, which will be a reversal of roles. It will be a good experience.” At the time, the 65-foot-long vessel, was merely a shell being built in Peterborough. When completed it would hold, for holidays, up to ten passengers, with space for six wheelchairs, although it was hoped there would be space for more people on day trips. The project was dependent on, as is often the case, its volunteers, and supporters. People like 70-year-old Alfie Langdale who had completed a 4,319-mile sponsored coastal walk around Britain, donating all the proceeds to the project. Jill West said “We need fresh input” in terms of fundraising ideas and initiatives to keep the project afloat.

Keep afloat it did and in on the 30 September 2004, the Canal Boat Project was incorporated as a Private Limited Company by guarantee. In October 2019 the project changed its name to CanalAbility and today, if you stand towards the front of Platform 2 at Harlow Town Station, facing north across platform 3 and 4 and across the river, you will see not one, but two specially adapted boats, that have been used by all abilities from Harlow and from visitors far and wide for over a decade.

This good news story is a fitting note to end on. It is indicative of what pioneers of Harlow New Town and successive generations have often done, successfully – identify a problem or challenge, identify a solution, and come together and work together, to remove barriers and create opportunities for everyone.

Next month “All Our Yesterday” goes back in time to March 1967. 

Ian Beckett