Managing some very difficult arrangements on the Eve of Poll, struggling to set up the Ears computer data in Eaton Socon but then finding John Davidson, the Priory computer co-ordinator, had been very remiss with his system until I had to intervene forcefully to sort it out. Very late setting up Poll Station ‘telling rotas’ and delivering ‘Please vote today’ leaflets for circulating by our helpers
The election was now really upon us today and, with four wards to fight and not a great deal of people to do it with, there had to be some urgent last-minute planning to get the show on the road. I ended up getting Percy Meyer and John Brown to come round to The Hayling View and then, with Sally joining us later, we completed the manning schedules as best we could. These still left us short of people for Paxton and so I got Percy and John to put their heads together and then telephone several supporters of which a couple agreed to help with telling tomorrow. Sally and I worked on the election day manuals with instructions and master forms for copying and using on the day. Instructions and confirmations had to be copied and circulated with rotas to the volunteers so that each would know their place in proceedings.
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These prepared and despatched, and the last-minute canvas returns keyed in to the computer, the next job was to print out the lists of "ours" and "probable" supporters for delivery of the "Please Vote Today" leaflets and put them into satisfactory rounds capable of delivery before 7.00am in the morning; not to mention counting out the leaflets and putting them into bundles of the right number. John was sent off to carry all these missives to the right people and then, just time for tea, before the next jobs had to be done! Lunch, by the way, had been sandwiches courtesy of Diana, who was not very happy about the invasion of people tromping through the house all this time! By now, the setting-up of the polling day EARS computers as the priority and, after trying my own out earlier in the day and setting it up for Paxton, I then went off to Eaton Socon and both got Derek Giles's system ready and showed him and a helper how to use it on the day. This training had to be fairly rudimentary, but I concentrated on how to get the polling numbers in and print out the statistics, with the more complicated job of preparing knock-up lists being left until tomorrow.
In the meantime, I printed out lists of "our pensioner supporters" that could be used for gentle knock-ups in the morning and the offering of lifts. Then on to Priory and Sally Guinee's house. John Davidson, the Priory computer co-ordinator had absented himself for most of the day and now we were desperate for his help. The last canvass results had yet to be input, the other lists for deliveries etc were awaited and it was all getting very late for the Guinnee family to have to stay up. With John eventually back, I went to camp in his lounge and wanted to go up and help get the work done but there seemed to be a strange reluctance for his wife to have people in the house and I was left with some strange impressions of what was going on. Brian and Sally were equally mystified and frustrated over the delays and then John said that there was now a total corruption of the data and that he had to go over to Hinchingbrooke to collect his son at 10.00pm and was proposing to wait until then!
In the end, he agreed to bring his computer down and we took it to Sally's house where I investigated the problems and managed to get them under control. The picture was one of very little canvassing having been done and of the supposed 40-50% lead for us being very unreliable on the basis of such a small statistical sample. Additionally, one of the two polling districts had the numbers starting several thousand later on the computer than on the electoral role so that telling in the morning and keying in would have been a nightmare. He was suggesting that we deduct the offset from the numbers each time they were keyed in! We changed this latter arrangement and I could only wonder at John's stupidity in tolerating such an anomaly for so long. By after midnight, I had got the machine as ready as it was going to be and Sally had taken round her leaflets in delivery list form to the helpers for delivering the next morning. Therefore home and to bed after another stressful day.