I am old enough to remember just how rough politics was in Northern Ireland and how tough it was to hold the middle ground against loyalist extremists and militant republicans.
These days we may shrug it off, laugh and reminisce but back then it was no laughing matter. It was threatening, abusive and sinister.
So I had more than some sympathy for the Tory MP, Anna Soubry, who was abused by right wing thugs on her way to Parliament. While her abuse may have been startling for British viewers, it wasn’t for us.
Politics throughout the Troubles required an ability to give as good as you got. I was lucky, I learned my new trade from Seamus Mallon, a man not afraid to brace the shoulder, if required.
Some quirky events still stick out in my mind.
A now deceased SDLP councillor was taking John Hume around south Armagh during a European election, when a group of agitated republicans set up a road block near Mullaghbawn. The notion that republicans revered Hume as they claim to do now was a myth. As the protesters banged on the car, the councillor, a mountain of a man, got out and asked them to stand back. They refused and one protester spat at him. Without a second glance, the normally genial councillor landed a right hook, felling his opponent, who keeled over like a sack of spuds. Hume looked on aghast. The protesters collected their wounded, stood back and we drove through.
Another time, when working with the newly elected Seamus Mallon, we came up with an idea about a seminar to tackle youth unemployment which was a crippling double digit figure.
Newry’s only hotel was the Mourne Country and that was chosen for the venue. As we approached the hotel, we noticed loyalists protesting against the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Having just returned from America where I had witnessed the KKK protest against an unfazed black mayor, I naively thought protest is just another essential part of democracy - which it is.
Within minutes I was disabused of my naïveté when the crowd dropped a breeze block onto the back of Mallon’s car. Reversing to let him out, I became the focus of the attack. My pride and joy, my battered but beloved silver Nissan Sunny had its wing mirrors ripped off and there was an attempt to haul me from the car. The leader of the protest was the late former DUP councillor George Graham. To make matters worse all of this was conducted in full view of an RUC tender, parked in front of the hotel.
Mallon was never afraid of a hard canvass and once when we went to West Belfast in the 1987 Westminster election to help Joe Hendron, we were leaflet dropping a street near St Mary’s Training College, when trouble started and the canvassers were attacked. Mallon took over the loud hailer and like General Patton rallied his troops telling them to hold their ground and that no-one would be run out of this street. By the time we got to the end of the road, local residents were out shaking Mallon’s hand. Sometimes even lambs like me had to find the heart of a lion.
There are countless other stories, such as the SDLP councillor being shot at near a polling station, taxis couriering attackers to beat SDLP canvassers with hurling sticks; SDLP polling agents finding their tyres slashed and excrement being posted through the letter boxes of SDLP representatives.
These occurred in the days before the vileness of social media and emergence of the cowardly keyboard warriors. Some people from other political parties who have experienced the rambunctious nature of northern politics will have similar stories. But there is no doubt in my mind that certain parties excelled in political intimidation. They even had propagandists to justify it.
Perhaps one of the most unedifying events in northern politics was the obscene haranguing and harassment of David and Daphne Trimble by the DUP after Trimble lost his seat. It was pitiful to watch and is a shameful stain on those who took part in it.
Brexit, and not the backstop, has poisoned and embittered political discourse in Britain and Ireland. And the depths of its depravity has cost one MP her life.
Fascism, whether from the left or right, needs to be faced down.
