I managed to get this published in The Oldie. It's all true, oddly enough.

I Once Met Patrick Moore

In the late 1970s I lived south of Chichester, not far from Selsey where the well known astronomer Patrick Moore had his home. I saw in the local paper that he was forming a new political party, the United Country Party and that a meeting would be held in the local village hall to introduce its candidate for the forthcoming general election, Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Iremonger. As this was just down the road from where we lived, my wife and I decided to attend to see what they had to say, so we rolled up and walked into the hall. We found Patrick Moore and the Colonel who were on the stage area preparing the visual display - an easel with some cards on it. There were rows of benches facing the stage – all unoccupied. Apart from Patrick Moore, Colonel Iremonger and ourselves the hall was deserted.

We sat down on the front row of benches and Patrick chatted with us about the policies his party had adopted. The Winter of Discontent with its public sector strikes had prompted the founding of the party and stricter controls on strikes as well as a more vigorous immigration policy and withdrawal from the European Union were core policies. Jim Callaghan’s Labour Party was roundly excoriated but so were Edward Heath and the Tories. Viewed almost as a traitor for getting us into the E.U., Heath was also condemned for rejecting Enoch Powell whom Patrick admired greatly.

 As the time for the start of the meeting came and went it became obvious that we would be the only members of the audience. Patrick looked at his watch, sighed and said that as it really wasn’t worth going through the whole palaver of their presentation just for us, would we accept his apologies (of course we did) and would we like him to give us a recital on the village hall piano (of course we would). He gave us a vigorous medley of airs and tunes and rounded off with God Save the Queen, for which we stood. Throughout all this, I cannot recall Colonel Iremonger saying a word, but he smiled at us and he seemed to be a friendly sort of chap.

We thought that we would give Patrick and the Colonel a hand with wrapping up the easel and cards and putting them back into their car, after which Patrick asked us if we would be willing to address some envelopes, copying them out of the electoral register. These were for distributing leaflets to voters in the Chichester constituency. Rather rashly we agreed and we soon found ourselves passing the evenings gradually getting writers’ cramp.

I am sorry to say that the United Country Party did not do very well in the election and I understand that it was absorbed into another political party in 1980.

Years later I worked with Patrick regularly when I was on the crew that filmed The Sky at Night at his home. When I reminded him of that time at the village hall he laughed and said that his party’s poor showing in the election didn’t really matter, as Margaret Thatcher soon replaced Edward Heath and she adopted most of the United Country Party’s policies anyway. Colonel Iremonger was remembered at Patrick’s house in a well used phrase. Whenever refreshments were supplied, Patrick would say: “Iremonger rules” which meant that everybody should help themselves.

I will always remember that time we spent in the village hall with the charming Patrick Moore and the shy Colonel Iremonger, witnessing their brief bid for power. Their policies were perhaps not to everybody’s taste but they were both gentlemen and there are few enough of those in politics now.