Interviewed by Peter Ruffles (PR)
Date: 31/12/1991
Transcribed by Marilyn Taylor 2016
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no O 1992.2
Talking: Peter Ruffles
Date: 31st Dec 1991
Transcribed by Marilyn Taylor 2016
MEMORIES OF ERIC HEFFER
Peter: I am about to record one or two people remembering Eric Heffer. Eric died last year his Autobiography “Never a yes man” has been published recently and on the last day of the year 1991 I am intending to talk to Sylvia Mear who was a classmate and mentioned in Eric’s book at Longmore school Hertford and possibly later to Jim Osmotherley and to Albert Mead that also knew Eric, a little more distantly than Sylvia. I am going to try and find Albert at home and get him to say one or two things about Eric for us all.
“The life and politics of an adopted Liverpudlian” is the subtitle of the book. From the flyleaf we read that “Eric was one of the great rebels of 20th century British politics and in a moving reflection completed during the final months of his life he sets out the encounters which took him from humble beginnings as a shoe repairers son in Hertford to become one of the fiercest parliamentary firebrands of his generation and Liverpool’s finest tribune”
It is Liverpool that people tend to associate, in their minds, when they hear the name Eric Heffer but the opening paragraph of the book reminds us he was not born or bought up in Liverpool as many believe, but in the county town of Hertford where he was born on 12th January 1922 and towards the end of his life, the end of the flyleaf we read that “Eric found himself in trouble with the new leader Neil Kinnock after having had time in cabinet under Wilson and then Callaghan”. He actually left the party platform notoriously after he’d been chairing the previous year the party conference and it was because of the attitude to the party in Liverpool by the party leader himself which caused Eric’s fury and departure from the top place. The final paragraph says “Whether sharing a whisky with Margaret Thatcher in private discussion of Liverpool’s problems or dining with Shirley Williams in a vain attempt to keep her in the Labour party, Heffer demonstrated patience, open mindedness in searching for agreement with political opponents. But such agreements had to be based on the principle that working people were the creators of wealth and had a right to share in it, and that for Eric was not negotiable. “Never a yes man” is an extraordinary document on the course of post war working class politics by a man who not only observed it from close quarters but through the enduring example of his steadfastness honesty and determination will continue to shape it for many years to come”
A son of Hertford.