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Sir Cyril at 80: A plain speaker and not about to change
21/ 6/2008
FOR all of his long life, Sir Cyril Smith has been well known for plain speaking and, as Dave Appleton found out when he interviewed him as he prepares to celebrate his 80th birthday, he’s not about to change a lifetime of telling things as they are ...
YOU’RE guaranteed an exceptionally warm welcome at the home of Sir Cyril as I discovered during a visit to his terraced house in a quiet area of Falinge where he has lived for most of his life.
Sir Cyril had to use his walking frame to get into the hall to open the door. These days Sir Cyril is unsteady on his feet and can’t walk very far.
But that apart, his health is robust and certainly his mind is as sharp now as it ever was.
If proof be needed, one need look no further than the number of letters he receives and writes every week.
Not to mention his interest in a number of organisations and, of course, the local political scene in which he once played a major pivotal role.
Indeed, it might be said he still wields some influence even now, but generally it is to counsel and advise – if asked.
In fact, if truth be known, he rather despairs at the way party politics is woven into every thread of civic life.
As he says, when he was first elected to Rochdale Council in 1950 – he was a member of the Labour Party then – politics had very much had a minor role.
"In my day we were elected politically, but we weren’t political.
"Often you saw parties voting together and there were no three-line whips or party expulsions.
"Today it is party politically motivated and I’m not talking just about Labour.
"I’m talking about all three parties.
"We’ve all been a party to it and we are a party to it now and I think we are poorer for that."
At this point Sir Cyril leans forward from his comfortable armchair and adds rather presciently: "And I mean all parties."
By this comment it is clear he still likes plain speaking.
For as a Liberal Democrat – he joined the Liberals when he left Labour after an internal row with party colleagues in 1966 – he might be expected to absolve his party from any blame, but Sir Cyril is not that kind of man.
He also thinks council leaders have too much power. So, too, do the chairman of the various committees, he says, and he is certainly against the idea of councillors getting paid.
"In my day it was all voluntary," he says. "You did it for your love of the town and its people.
"Nowadays the people in charge, such as committee chairmen, have too much power with a result they are virtually a law to themselves.
"This cannot be a good thing."
Sir Cyril, who was Rochdale’s MP from 1972 until he retired in 1992, still has many good friends from the days when he was in parliament – friends of all political hues, including the former Conservative Prime Minister John Major.
But he’s not got any political heroes as such, although he says he admires men like Jo Grimmond, a former Liberal leader and Jeremy Thorpe, who was leader of the Liberal Party until he fell from grace following a sex scandal.
Despite his prominence as an MP, he became chief whip for the Liberals, and his honours – an MBE in 1966 followed by a knighthood in 1988, plus his appointment as Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester – Sir Cyril says he’s never been an ambitious man.
He was chairman of Rochdale’s education committee for many years, overseeing many pioneering changes to the education system in the town.
He was also the driving force behind the introduction of comprehensive education in Rochdale, which led to the scrapping of the two Grammar Schools at Balderstone and Greenhill.
"Perhaps I may have harboured hopes once that I could have been an education minister, as education has always been part of my life.
"But I never wanted to be Prime Minister. I didn’t have the brains to be.
"But all in all I’ve had a good life, a successful life, and hope to be around for at least a few years yet."
CYRIL ON ... changes he has seen in the last 50 years:
"I’ve seen political changes. I have seen structural changes. A lot of new housing estates were built in my day. Places like Lower Falinge and Smallbridge when I was chairman of the housing committee. In fact, I had a lot do with the building of Smallbridge estate. I had just taken over as chairman of housing and pushed them to build 800 houses there.
"I’ve not seen very much commercial development which I would have liked to have seen. In the shopping areas it’s still virtually the same as it was 30 years ago in terms of occupancy.
"I’ve seen some shopping development, but more on the fringe than in the centre of town.
"The other great thing about Rochdale which I have always been proud of and, if I may say so, in modesty, was involved in, is the growth in voluntary organisations, which I think are the envy of many towns.
"First of all in the musical field. We have a great amateur musical base with things like the youth orchestra, the Debrose Choir, various choirs I think, and so we have got a musical tradition.
"We have a social atmosphere here. I’m not saying we are the only town, but we are certainly one of the leading towns.
"It’s tended to diminish a little bit but we still have many, many voluntary organisations."
CYRIL ON ... increasing incidents of anti-social behaviour:
"There has always been an element of it but it seems worse now than it was.
"There are a couple of reasons for it. One is drugs; that plays a major part.
"The second is a reduction in parental discipline and I think a lot of that is due to the freedom of expression and way of life that we have demanded and created. And we are now feeling the consequences of it. There is some discipline but it’s not like it was, although I agree you have got to allow a child to grow up."
CYRIL ON ... PMQs – a Punch and Judy Show?:
"I think it is. It’s always been confrontational. In fact, there would be no point in having a PMQs if it wasn’t, but it wasn’t unusual for some construction to take place, but it never descended into personal attacks which now has happened.
"I don’t think it is the same standard as it was and I think both main parties are responsible for that."
Click here to see our Sir Cyril Smith picture gallery ...
Click here to leave your birthday message for Sir Cyril
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30/06/2008 at 19:28
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