The Mummyfesto (50 page)

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 anti-bullying 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 anti-bullying 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 bloody 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.

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.