COLUMN: Driving a big van in Devon is not a huge amount of fun
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Stone's Throw by Jamie Stone
Blimey, it takes forever to get to sunny Devon from London’s Waterloo Station. And there is no trolley on the train.
Let’s just say that canvassing in rural Devon is rather different to canvassing up here in the far north.
My first issue was trying to hire a car, without which canvassing the muddy lanes of Devon’s many small farms would be nigh on impossible.
The first hire company in Exeter had nothing but a very large automatic Mercedes, silver in colour.
After a brief thought as to the advisability of tipping up at a farm in this sort of luxury conveyance, I quickly decided that it would be entirely the wrong image for someone seeking votes (let alone trying to engage the very up and down countryside with an automatic gear box).
So I went next door to see what another hire company had to offer.
Interestingly they also had no small cars, or big ones either, but they did have a large van. I snapped it up and set out upon my democratic journey.
Uh oh. The van’s cab was completely closed off from its back, so I had no rear-view mirror and had to rely on my two wing mirrors – that is not a huge amount of fun amongst the narrow lanes and high hedge rows that typify that part of England.
Just to give you one example, I think that all the farmers knew I was coming and therefore decided to move their tractors and muck spreaders along the same leafy lanes as me.
Passing one of these leviathans is tricky, to say the least, if you are to avoid losing the selfsame wing mirrors in one of the more woody bits of hedgerow.
It was a relief when I got to my first village and I made a mental note never to attempt to drive a large van like this ever again.
Nevertheless, to the matter at hand, canvassing itself.
Well as you would expect people in Devon are as friendly as you would expect in Sutherland – and they expressed some surprise at my mode of attire.
Canvassing in a dark suit and highly polished shoes isn’t perhaps the best idea when you are knocking the doors on a swelteringly hot day.
When I had reassured them that I was not a missionary of some kind, they very kindly offered me endless drinks or cups of tea.
Of course, as any long-distance bus traveller knows, this is not a good idea. The thought of popping behind a hedgerow was absolutely not on.
I am not going to predict the result of the Tiverton and Honiton by-election on the 23rd of June, but what I will say is I can’t think (van excepted) when I last enjoyed the democratic process so much.
The humorous chatter! The roses in people’s gardens! The sheer beauty of a very special part of England – it’s all a memory that I shall treasure for a long time.
And of course, the icing on the cake was staying with my dear Aunt Jill who lives on another tiny Devon farm, this time at the top of the steepest and narrowest lane you have ever seen.
“A van? What a funny thing to drive about in!”
She gave me the biggest breakfast of my life, the effect of which I am still recovering from as I write. And best of all I got to drive her tractor.
Who says politics isn’t fun?
Jamie Stone is the Liberal-Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross.
