by Green, Linda
None of it really mattered. It wasn’t about me. Had never been about me. And especially not now. Hearing Anna’s result had been all I needed. The Lollipop Party had made history tonight, confounded the critics, ensured that our voice would be heard in the corridors of power, that we had a platform from which to go forward.
I did my interviews, without really being aware of what I’d said, packed my things away, thanked all the people who needed thanking, took Rob’s hand and walked out of the hall, down the steps and across the road to the car park. The dawn already breaking; a new day about to begin.
‘Let’s go home,’ I said. ‘Zach will be waking up soon.’
We drove in silence back to Hebden Bridge. Not an angry silence, a contemplative, peaceful one. The radio was on in the background, confirming what I already knew. That something amazing was happening across the UK. Something which had been started by two little boys who hadn’t wanted a lollipop lady to lose her job.
Anna and Jackie were already there when we got back. As was a whole army of reporters and photographers, thronging the narrow street and towpath beyond and making the whole thing feel decidedly surreal.
‘We’re thrilled,’ I said, when a dozen microphones were thrust in front of my face. ‘Thrilled that so many people have voted for us in such great numbers. That our beliefs and our policies have been vindicated in this way.’
I didn’t sound thrilled, of course. I sounded numb with it all. And, for once, I actually think they understood that.
I was submerged by hugs and kisses as soon as I got in the door. Anna and Jackie were in tears and so was Mum. Dad simply stood there at the end of the hallway, a look of utter pride on his face.
I kissed them all in turn, accepted the platitudes and commiserations which were proffered to me and went through to our tiny lounge where the television was in the corner, the volume turned low so as not to wake Zach.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ said Mum. Dad and Rob went with her. Leaving the three of us staring at a television screen showing a lot of red, some blue, a bit of yellow. And one tiny dot of purple.
‘I’m so proud of you,’ I said, turning to Anna and smiling.
‘Don’t be daft. You’re the one who should be proud.’
‘I am. I’m proud of all of us. I just can’t quite get my head around the fact that you’re going to be an MP.’
‘We’re going to move back to London,’ Anna said. ‘Will reckons it will be good for all of us.’
‘What about David?’ I asked.
‘He might go back himself. If not, we’ll be up some weekends and during the holidays. Whenever you’ll have us, really.’
‘You’ll have to get somewhere as a constituency office,’ Jackie said. ‘Somewhere with a flat above where you could stay. Or a canal boat – that would be very Hebden Bridge.’
Anna smiled and looked back at Jackie. ‘Are you going to tell her now?’ she asked.
‘Tell me what?’
‘That I’m pregnant,’ Jackie said. ‘Only six weeks or so, it’s very early days yet. But I’m pregnant.’
I threw my arms around her, a fresh flood of tears coming, followed by a smile so big you could have seen the rainbow from the other end of town.
‘That’s brilliant,’ I said. ‘That’s the best thing I’ve heard in ages.’
‘See,’ said Anna. ‘I told you she’d be thrilled.’
I looked at Jackie. She looked down at her feet. ‘It felt a bit soon, that’s all.’
‘Do you know what?’ I said. ‘It couldn’t have come soon enough.’
‘Good,’ said Jackie, wiping her eyes, ‘because we want you to be godmother or whatever the non-religious, politically correct version is.’
‘Guardian.’ I smiled. ‘And thank you. ‘I’d be delighted.’
Anna’s phone rang. She slipped into the hallway, speaking in hushed tones. David Dimbleby was still going strong.
‘I don’t know about you,’ said Jackie, letting out a deep sigh, ‘but I’ll have what he’s having.’
Anna came back in. A look of thinly veiled elation on her face.
‘Who was it?’ I asked.
‘Oh, only the next Prime Minister, asking if I’d help form a coalition and offering to fully fund all hospices.’
‘I hope you said yes,’ I told her.
‘No, I asked him for proper dementia care and to introduce a national antibullying strategy. Then, when he agreed to that, I said yes.’
The room was quiet for a second. Only a second, mind, before it exploded in a riot of shrieks and screams and tears.
‘We did it,’ I said. ‘We changed the world, well the country at least. We made a difference, in just a few months as it turned out. Just think what we’ll be able to do in a year.’
It was Zach’s face I saw first when it all calmed down. Leaning down over the top of the banisters. ‘Did you win?’ he called out.
I went to the foot of the stairs and caught him as he flew down them and emptied himself into my arms.
‘Mummy didn’t win. Not quite. But Anna did. And the new Prime Minister wants her to help him run the country. He’s going to fund all the hospices, including Sunbeams.’
Zach grinned at me, the beginning of a tear welling in his eye, and nodded. ‘Oscar would have been really pleased about that, wouldn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ I said, squeezing him tightly. ‘Yes, he would.’
It was another half an hour or so before we got ourselves together enough to go outside and face the press.
I was vaguely aware of how bizarre it was, seeing the nation’s media camped outside our front gate. Caz from next door was already out there, offering everyone coffees. Which meant that some guy from the Daily Mail was about to drink from an ‘Everyone loves a lesbian’ mug. The world had indeed been turned on its head.
We stood side by side in the front yard as they jostled for positon. I glanced up to where Zach was leaning out of his bedroom window with Rob, his telescope trained down on us. And then I started speaking.
‘Last night,’ I said, ‘politics changed. It changed for the better. It changed because people wanted it to.
‘The Lollipop Party has been asked to help form a coalition government. In return, the new Prime Minister has pledged to fully fund all hospices in the UK and to implement national dementia care and antibullying strategies.
‘It is only a start and we will go on campaigning for everything we believe in. And who knows, maybe one day we will have a regional parliament here in Yorkshire and others across the UK, and maybe children’s operations won’t be cancelled five times any more and maybe we’ll even have free public toilets.
‘Because three months ago people thought none of this would ever happen. People thought we were crazy. Because what people in this country had done was to stop believing. Believing that one person could make a difference. And that if they joined with another person, and another, they could make an even bigger difference.
‘So this morning we pay tribute to all those who dared to dream. The candidates across the UK who put their lives on hold to go out and campaign for us, and the people who voted for us, even though they were repeatedly told it would be a wasted vote. Change takes courage, change takes a leap of faith, change doesn’t necessarily take a long time.’
I paused for a moment and looked up at Zach and Rob again. Zach had put Oscar’s pirate hat on the windowledge where I could see it.
‘And the one thing I’ve learnt more than anything during this election campaign is never to stop fighting for what you believe in. Because my son Oscar taught me there is no such word as “can’t”. And he also taught me something else: that there are some things in life far more important than politics.
‘Which is why we are all going to go home now and have breakfast with our families.’
‘Shit,’ cried Anna. I spun around to see a look of sheer terror on her face.
‘The Tooth Fairy,’ she shrieked. ‘I’ve forgotten the b
loody Tooth Fairy.’ And with that she pushed past the crowd of photographers and legged it down the road.
‘Don’t forget the fairy scroll,’ Jackie called out after her. ‘And skip for goodness sake.’
And with that we turned around, hugged each other, and went back inside Number Ten Fountain Street.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Like many people, I watched the leadership debates during the 2010 general election campaign with an increasing sense of disillusionment with mainstream politics and the men in suits who were leading it. Where were the women? Where were the radical ideas? Where were the policies which would really improve the lives of ordinary families?
I bored my husband silly talking about where the major parties were going wrong and how a bunch of mums could make a better job of it. One night, desperate for some sleep, my husband suggested that instead of attempting a one-woman political coup, I should write a novel about someone else doing it. The ploy worked; he got to sleep, I began plotting a fictional revolution.
I started to write a synopsis about three mums who, having led a campaign to save a lollipop lady, are asked by a TV presenter if they fancied standing in the general election. I worked on the backgrounds of my central characters, Sam, Jackie and Anna, friends who had busy, stressful lives trying to juggle work and family commitments, whether it be caring for a child with a disability, dealing with teenage children in crisis, or struggling with an elderly mother who had Alzheimer’s.
They all had a reason to want to make things better and despite all the obstacles in their way, the passion and determination to make it succeed. All they needed was a cause they could believe in – something which would resonate with other mums across the UK. Something which had the potential to change the face of politics forever.
I began putting together a Mummyfesto, allowing each character to devise policies which they felt passionately about. Some were serious; the government to fully fund children’s hospices, a dementia care plan, tough antibullying measures. Others were not quite so serious; privatising the royal family, The House of Lords replaced by Mumsnet, Chequers turned into a spa retreat for carers and the active encouragement of skipping for all.
Some policies never made the final cut; the introduction of a menstrual lottery which most men would be too embarrassed to buy a ticket for, and the monkey translator, which broadcasts unspoken thoughts in the film Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs to be fitted to all men. But eventually my characters had a Mummyfesto which they were ready to go to the country with.
What I needed at that point was a publisher who believed in the book as much as I did and that was where Quercus stepped in and, to use horrible management speak, picked up the ball and ran with it.
I got down to the task of researching. Probably the most difficult week I had was the one spent researching a whole host of awful childhood illnesses and diseases to find the one which Sam’s son Oscar had. I can’t hear Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ now without remembering some of the heartbreaking videos I watched on You Tube.
Eventually, I settled on Spinal Muscular Atrophy, an inherited neuromuscular condition causing weakness of the muscles. It affects approximately 1 in 6,000-10,000 babies born. There are four main types of SMA, babies with type 1 do not usually survive past 2 years old but those with the other types can survive into adulthood or even have a normal lifespan. About 1 in 40-60 of us carries the faulty gene copy which causes it. When both parents carry a faulty copy of the disease gene, there is a 1 in 4 chance in each pregnancy of the baby being affected by SMA. At present there is no known cure.
I also researched Alzheimer’s Disease extensively and spent a lot of time researching children’s hospices (Sam works in a fictional one). I had visited a children’s hospice in my former life as a journalist and was keen to highlight the amazing work they do.
There are approximately 23,500 children who are not expected to reach adulthood in the UK. All children’s hospices provide their services for free to the children and families that use them but on average only fifteen per cent of each hospice’s £2.6million per year running costs are funded by the government.
With my research, the Mummyfesto and character studies complete I was ready to start writing. And so the Lollipop Party was formed around Sam’s kitchen table at number ten Fountain Street in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. The battle for number ten Downing Street was about to begin. It really would be the mother of all battles, both personally and politically for my characters. I laughed and cried in equal measure as I accompanied them on their journey. And at least I can now say that I was instrumental in starting a revolution – even if it was a fictional one.
There are two charities which were an enormous help to me in my research. I will be making a donation from the royalties of this book to each of them but if you have been moved by this story and would also like to make a donation, I know they would be enormously grateful. Thank you in advance.
‘The Jennifer Trust for Spinal Muscular Atrophy is a national charity dedicated to supporting people affected by SMA, and promoting essential research into causes, treatments and eventually a cure for the disease. For more details and to make a donation please go to their website www.jtsma.org.uk or call 01789 267520.
The Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire supports children with life-limiting conditions and their families. It costs £2.5million a year to run and the vast majority of its funding comes from charitable donations. For more information and to make a donation please go to www.forgetmenotchild.co.uk or call 01484 411 040.
Writing this book moved me immensely and I know the characters will stay with me always. Thank you for reading it and please do get in touch via my website www.lindagreen.com or by Facebook (Fans of Author Linda Green) or Twitter (@lindagreenisms).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Warmest thanks to the following people: my editor Jo Dickinson for believing in this book and being everything an author could want in an editor; the fantastic team at Quercus, especially Bethan, Margot, Caroline, Mark, Iain and Kathryn, for their hard work, energy and enthusiasm; my agent Anthony Goff for his expertise and support; Marigold and everyone at David Higham Associates, my Quercus stable-mate Dorothy Koomson, without whom this book might never have seen the light of day; Keris Stainton and her fellow We Should Be Writing group members and Emily Barr for their feedback and enthusiasm, Michael Tatterton for showing me around the Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice in Huddersfield and providing invaluable research information and feedback; Tilly Griffiths, whose wonderful book Tilly Smiles showed me what children with Spinal Muscular Atrophy type 2 CAN do; The Jennifer Trust for Spinal Muscular Atrophy, The SMA Trust, Smash SMA, Together for Short Lives and the Alzheimer’s Society, who all helped with my research; Lance Little for my great website; James for lending his story and for being, like all children, very, very important; my Facebook followers Anna Ruth Yates and Sammy Joe for lending their names; my Twitter friends for providing a welcome (sometimes too welcome!) distraction; my family and friends for their on-going support and encouragement; my wonderful son Rohan for his ideas, coming up with the best lines for the children in the book, caring so much about them and regularly saying ‘haven’t you finished it yet, Mummy?’; my husband Ian for pointing out that it would be easier to write a novel about women who start a political revolution than actually doing it myself, and who, really annoyingly, came up with the title in five seconds flat when I had been trying for weeks. And you, my readers, without whom it wouldn’t be half as much fun and whose comments and feedback on previous novels kept me going through the slog barrier of 30,000 words; Thank you all!
Q&A WITH AUTHOR LINDA GREEN
Do you have a favourite character in the book?
Anna, Sam and Jackie are all very different but I think I love them equally. I love Sam’s idealism and desire to make things better, Jackie’s straight-talking, no-nonsense attitude and sense of fun and Anna’s calmness under pressure and vulnerability. W
hen I finished writing the book the thing I wanted to do most in the world was go out with my three main characters to celebrate – unfortunately not possible!
Which actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Juliette Binoche (with a middle-class North London accent) would play Anna, Nicole Kidman (if she’d agree to have a stud in her nose!) would play Sam and Reneée Zellweger (in a broad Yorkshire accent) would play Jackie. Now that would be worth watching!
Do you have a favourite scene in the book?
It has to be the skipping scene when Jackie leads Sam and Anna on a skipping trip around Hebden Bridge to prove how much fun it is. It seems to sum up the spirit of fun. I did actually try it out for myself – though admittedly I had my seven-year-old son with me to try to lessen the embarrassment factor!
Why did you set it in Hebden Bridge?
The book, like my last three novels, is set in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, where I live. I have the utmost respect for authors who can conjure up magical worlds or who are able to do lots of research and visit prospective locations but for me it makes sense to set my books in the place I know best. And fortunately Hebden Bridge has such enormous character, is so stunningly beautiful and its inhabitants so varied and interesting that it lent itself perfectly to this book. I truly think that if this did happen anywhere in real life, it would happen in Hebden Bridge.
Do you think the scenario in the book of ordinary women launching a new political party and running for government could ever actually happen?
I hope so. Unfortunately I think far too often in this country we are limited by a desire to conform and anybody who dares to be different or suggest huge change is shot down in flames. But it is true that across the UK there are thousands of incredibly strong women running campaigns and fighting for justice for their children or whatever it is they believe in. If they could all join together I think there really is no limit to what they could achieve. And I would love to see a government that had a desire to make things better for children and families at its heart. The Lollipop Party would certainly get my vote!